Szirácsik Éva (szerk.): Uradalmak kora - Discussiones Neogradienses 10. (Salgótarján, 2010)
Rémiás Tibor: A szádvári uradalom lengyel (górál) telepesei a herceg Esterházyak és a gróf Andrássyak földesurasága alatt
DISCUSSIONES NEOGRADIENSES 10. - URADALMAK KORA nichtung des Dorfes nicht gleichzeitig das Verschwinden der jahrhunderte langen Geschichte der Derenker Polen bedeutet. The Polish (Gorái) Settlers of the Szádvár Estate at the time of the Landlords Esterházy and Andrássy Counts By Tibor Rémiás Eva Krasinska and Ryszard Kantor, Polish ethnographers prepared the ethnographical synthesis of Derenk and Istvánmajor (where people from Derenk resettled in largest number in 1943) published in Hungarian by the Ottó Herman Museum in Miskolc in 1988. But their basic research in a more detailed 2-volume form in Polish was published earlier in Krakow in 1981. Almost 30 years have passed and the systematic summary of the history of Derenk can be published. What makes the history writing of the Polish settlers’ village in Hungary important? The population of Derenk, a small village in North-eastern Hungary the one time Torna County settlement, died out because of the plague sweeping through the country in 1711. Until then the population was Hungarian. After the plague, in 1715 Derenk as a curial village was abandoned. The Esterházy counts (the village was at that time the property of the Esterházy Counts’ Szádvár estate) re-populated the yillage with people from Podhale and Gorals from the Spisski Region but they also came themselves because of the announced tax allowances. So between 1717 and 1720 the families - either due to organized settling, or settling on own decision - were definitely of Polish descent. Besides cultivating the lean and poor soil the settled and industrious people worked in the neighbouring forests making charcoal and logging. About Derenk we can read the following passage in the Toma County minutes: „Anno 1717 per Polonos advenas inpopulatum”. About the appearance of Polish settlers Mátyás Bél wrote similarly in the 1730s: „Polonis noviter impopulata”. The Polish people of Derenk of the 18th century were one of the oldest national minorities in Hungary, which for almost 300 years has preserved the culture, the 18th century archaic language and ethnic consciousness. In the routine, everyday life of the closed community of this Polish ethnic group another radical change took place. Regent Miklós Horthy exactly there, in the forest near Derenk wished to have a hunting area, knowing and often experiencing that the area was extremely rich in games, a fact not overlooked by the Derenk people who had been known as poachers. Though for the Polish of Derenk their scattering between 1936 and 1943 provided better financial conditions thanks to better yielding lands, at the same time leaving their home village also meant losing the feeling of belonging together. The ancient Derenk population got scattered, the houses were pulled down, the 217
