Gyökerek • A Dráva Múzeum tanulmánykötete, 2005

Mészáros Ádám: Németek betelepülése Barcsra 1770 és 1828 között

Mészáros Ádám: Németek betelepülése Barcsra 1770 és 1828 között ÁDÁM MÉSZÁROS THE IMMIGRATION OF GERMAN SETTLERS INTO BARCS BETWEEN 1770 AND 1828 SUMMARY Bares which was populated by Croatians and Hungarians till the 1770's underwent a considerable change. Not only the number of the inhabitants increased but the ethnic composition changed radically too. The proportion of the German group towered over 50% at the turn of the century. This essay allows the kind readers to inspect into the early history of the German community of Bares. The first German families moved to the landed property of Széchényi family in Csokonya in the year of 1750. The abandoned Szulok belonged to the administration area of Darány and the settling contract of it was bound in 1750 and it gave orders about filling with Catholic Germans of the inhabitant village. Formerly German villeins were settled in the different parts of the country because the density of population of the South and Middle part of Hungary was very low due to the previous and constantly wars and ruinous epidemics. The Germans who immigrated into Somogy didn't form a uniform ethnic block because their communities were only German dialectal islands amongst the Hungarian villages. Szulok was just like one of these "islands" and from 1770 onwards more and more families removed to Bares. Thanks to these constant movings the number of Germans in Bares increased constantly. The cause of the intense removal from Szulok was twofold: firstly the overpopulation and secondly that Bares obtained the market-town rank in 1797. For the newcomers the arising advantages from this, the flourishing commerce and the proximity of the Dráva crossing-point was a very drawing condition. After the turn of the 18-19th century the landlord, Ferenc Széchényi, arranged the settling of further 50 families from the area of Northern Bohemia more specifically from the environments of Libérée (Reichenberg) which was populated by Germans. After this settling from the Sudetenland the German population in Bares turned into outnumber as opposed to the Croatian and Hungarian inhabitants but these newcomers detached themselves from the other Germans too. The population of "Német utca = German street" and "Új-Barcs = New Bares" were entirely isolated. Despite their identical language and religion they got married with Hungarians or Croatians rather than with themselves. 35