Agria 37. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2001)

Horváth László: A XX. századi Heves megyei kivándorlás alapvetése 1910-ig

beginning of the last century. This is what we attempted to do in the research we did in Heves County. The emigration of soldiers, adventurers, artisans and intellectuals from Heves County during the second half of the 19

lh century didn't really have an effect on the emigration movements occurring in the villages. The Hungarian villages had to go and discover America for themselves. The successes, or otherwise, of these rural Hungarian Columbuses often sealed the fate of a particular village's emigrational aspirations. The role of these earlier adventurers was therefore crucial in the emigrations which took place in Heves County as a whole. In contrast to early studies, we suggest that the pioneers were not from the very lowest strata of society, the day-labourers and the agricultural labourers, for very simple reasons. In the early years of the emigration movement at least 300 korona was necessary to undertake the journey. For a day-labourer this amounted to one and a half or two years' wages. Investing so much capital in such a risky venture would not have been an option for the poorest elements in society. Indeed, those requiring capital for such ventures would have had to be able to convince a creditor that he was going to get a return on his investment. It was only with the arrival of the first dollar payments and the return of the emigrees that the phenomenon would turn into a mass movement. It is for this reason that with the pioneers and those who were forced into emigration, we also find the sons of prospering farmers, small landowners, semi-artisans and semi-peasants amongst the legions of the first emigrants. It is with justification that one can refer to the period between 1905 and 1909 as "The Age of Mass Emigration". It was in those five years that 60-70% of all those emigrated, left their municipalities. (There are some villages where this figure is much higher.) This period also marked the peak of the emigration period in the country as a whole. In 1909, a new emigration law was passed, which forms a very convenient date in which to end the period on both a national and a local level. 1910 marks the beginning of a new period in the history of emigration in Heves County. 336