A Balaton-felvidék népi építészete. A Balatonfüreden, 1997. május 21-23-án megrendezett konferencia anyaga (Szentendre-Veszprém, 1997)

Simonffy Emil: Társadalmi és gazdasági viszonyok a 18–20. században a Balaton-felvidéken

Social and economic circumstances in the Balaton-Uplands in the 18th-20th centuries EMILSIMONFFY The northern shore of the Balaton, westwards from Káptalanfüred belonged to the historic county of Zala till 1946. The stung-out county lays in northeastern-southwestern direction. It did not develop a center which would have attracted strongly the society of the county. There was no royal free town and the market towns were no more than centers of small regions. A part of the county of Zala turned to centers outside the county (Várasd, Veszprém, Regede-Radkersburg). Zalaegerszeg, around 1720 nominated to county capital, was not able to attract the higher land-owner nobility in the feudal Hungary. It is characteristic for the county of Zala that no real center of the high nobility or clergy has developed with the only exception of the center of the Counts Festetics in Keszthely. The county remained in the periphery during the feudal age as well as at the beginning of the development of the bourgeois period. This position of the county was less perceivable at the eastern part, in the Balaton-Uplands. The existence of numerous small villages is typical for the county. The population in the BalatonUplands increased between the end of the 18th century and the last third of the 19th century to a lesser extent than the average population of Transdanubia, the reason for which is that the county was saturated already in the 18th century. The conditions were not advantageous for the development of agriculture, the three-field system was not generally applicable due to the lack of free land. Viniculture played a major role in the whole county of Zala and the surface of land with wine culture increased steadily until the last third of the 19th century. The percentage of wine culture against arable land was in the districts of Füred and Tapolca the highest (13,1 %, resp. 8,2 % against 2,8 % in Transdanubia). During the feudal period the vineyard was a legal concept: viniculture - probably because it was highly work-intensive - was a relative free form of propriety unlike other lands in villein tenure such as arable land, meadow and grazing land. While performing serf labor, the vineyard could be sold and inherited. This was however not so in case of a vineyard cultured on a land in villein tenure. The vineyard hills, where also outsiders could own a vineyard, had their own self-administration. The essay treats the social strata of the population in the districts near the Balaton, the division of their land, the changes of the lands in villein tenure during the time between the regulation of socage by Maria Theresa and the emancipation of serfs, the proprietary situation of the numerous noblemen (mostly of the lower nobility) comparing the data of the three districts on the shore of the Balaton with those of the whole county of Zala, resp. of Transdanubia. The author is analyzing the local peculiarities of the process of emancipation of serfs and evaluates the registration of land property in 1935, which allows a more exact definition of the division of land, separating the estates smaller than 100 acres, the middle-sized estates between 100-500 acres and the big estates over 500 acres, adding at last the entailed properties. In two Balaton districts (Füred and Tapolca), the highest percentage of arable land was owned by small estates, over 70,3 %, resp. 57,8 % and it was only in the district Keszthely where the proportion of percentage between small and big estates was almost the same (46,4 %, resp. 47,4 %). The small estates had the highest participation in viniculture: in the district of Balatonfüred 93,5 %, in the district of Keszthely 91,1 % and in the district of Tapolca 88,4 %. Amongst the small estates in the examined region, those have the highest rate in viniculture, which are smaller than 50 acres and are cultivated by family members without engaging outside help. Villages, in which more than 90 % of the cultivated land was the property of small estates, were densely populated villages surrounded by small agricultural land of the community. In these villages the quality of the soil was not as good as in the villages with big estates. The reason is that the big estates developed only on fertile soil and did not establish estate farms on poor quality soil. Owners of small estates, however, cultivated also land of lesser quality. 24