Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum Közleményei 4. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1987)

Tanulmányok - GRÁFIK IMRE: A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum „alföldi mezőváros" tájegysége (A 18—19. századi alföldi mezővárosi fejlődés kérdéséhez)

THE REGIONAL UNIT REPRESENTING A MARKET TOWN IN THE GREAT HUNGARIAN PLAIN IN THE HUNGARIAN OPEN AIR MUSEUM (To the question of civic development in the Great Hungarian Plain in the 18th-19th centuries) The largest regional unit of the Open Air Ethnographic Museum encompasses two big areas of the Plain: the one between the rivers Danube and Tisza and the southern part of the territory east of the latter. The aim of the exhibition is to give a picture of the historic, social and economic development of the territory in the age of transition from feudalism to capitalism, of the variety of settlements and architecture as well as of the nationalities and ethnic groups of the region. The most complete and most characteristic features in the above respect of the two large territories are represented by the market towns which evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries. These are characteristically Central-Eastern-European types of settlement and it is this formation which is represented by this regional unit which will consist, according to plans, of 33 crofts with altogether 53 of the most important buildings on them. It will represent the following major forms of settlement structures: an aggregate quarter, a quarter of streets running parallel with each other and at right angles with the main road, a square in a market town, and outfarm buildings. By the idea of a market town in the Great Hungarian Plain in modem times, the author does not only mean the concept of a town from a strict point of view of legal history and demography but also of settlements which have formed and taken a special way of development as regards geography, history, society, economics, culture and sociology, too. The determinative marks of these market towns are specialized agricultural production for the market, absolute and relative overpopulation and finally, extensive formations of settlement (especially isolated farmsteads). Modern time market towns in the Great Hungarian Plain are historic formations. Their rootes go back to the Middle Ages in several respects. The beginning of the history of their formation date from the period when the Turkish conquerors had been forced out from the territories belonging to the Great Plain (17th century). The trends which were decisive on their development had their effects on the different areas, sometimes settlements, in the course of the 18th and 19th centuries in different phases. The dominant period was the second half or rather the last third of the 19th century. It is this stretch of time which is first of all represented by the regional unit. In the development of modem market towns the features also typical of such peasant cities in the Middle Ages, like the increase of population and of the territory of the settlements themselves, broadening of the possiblities of production and marketing, the strengthening handicrafts and the formation of a so-called peasant-civis layer of peasant origin. New characterisitics, too, appeared, like orientation to agriculture, extreme monoculture, divided structure of settlement, an increase in the number of isolated farmsteads, long-distance freight-traffic, growth of purchasing power, autonomy of the communities, and the increase of their cultural and social roles and finally, settlement morphological changes, changes in landscape and innovations in architecture. It is outstandingly important from the point of view of the Open Air Ethnographic Museum to reveal and document the architectural consequences of the development of market towns in the Great Hungarian Plain in recent centuries. On basis of research we feel that surpassing mediaeval norms ensued very slowly in respect of both material, structure and form and only concerned a narrow stratum of society. It cannot be ignored at the same time that the peasants who got rich at the times of economic booms, built houses of larger sizes in the villages and market towns in the Plain in so big numbers that it had a formative influence on these settlements. Surveys and investigations however seem to show that the strength of peasant mentality, its essentially unchaning quality in respect of the way of life manifested itself in the fact that the builders and owner-occupiers respectively of these buildings did not deviate significantly either in the utilization of space or in furnishing their dwelliings from earlier, century old norms. The constructions chosen recall as regards both architecture and furniture, the characteristic features of those historic styles (classicism and the Renaissance respectively) which had the greatest effect on the culture of these peasant cities.