Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 7. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1991)

ZENTAI TÜNDE: Ajtók és ablakok a dél-dunántúli parasztházakban

THE DOORS AND WINDOWS OF PEASANT HOUSES IN SOUTHERN-TRANSDANUBIA We only have data, sufficient for a concrete and detailed analysis of the doors and windows of peasant houses in Southern-Transdanubia, as of the 18th century. Although from archival and areheological sources a fragmentary picture can only be gained as much seems to be certain that, together with certain late mediaeval architectural solutions, the doors and windows of the Middle Ages survived especially in the southern and western territories where timber-framed houses with smoky kitchens erected on ground sills prevailed. The hardwood doors with wooden corners (fasarkos keményfa ajtó), made with carpenter's techniques, were characteristic even in the latter half of the 19th century of the timber-framed houses underlain by ground-sills in the villages of Zala and Somogy counties and in the southwestern part of Baranya county, which had difficulties in joining the flow of development. In the same places the small simple windows of carpenter-made (beam), and thick plank window-cases also remained. From the 18th century on however felezett (horizontally halved) doors were applied on the entrances of the kitchens with open chimney of increasingly frequent occurrence in the eastern half of the region. (The earliest proof of this is the door of a German house showing 1757 as the year of erection in Kisnyárád.) This type of door only disappeared in the 1950s when kitchens of open chimney could not be found any more. From the beginning of the 19th century sturdy panelled hardwood entrance doors (betétes, bontott keményfa bejárati ajtó) in careful finish could be found in the houses of rich peasants. These were followed from the 1840s by joinermade panelled deal doors opening to the room (fenyőfa szobaajtó) which were often decorated with ornamental carvings, applications or painted motifs. On the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the double entrance doors (dupla bejárati ajtó), made of deal, began to gain ground. The upper part of the inner door was glazed and the outer one was usually double-winged. The primitive technical formation of the window, too, conjured up for a long time to come the original Slavic meaning of the word, i. e. opening. During the late Middle Ages glazing spread slowly even in forts and castles. The impoverishment during the Turkish occupation of Hungary then made the process even slower. The windows of peasant houses were in general "blind" at this time, i.e. unglazed, protected by wattle, a mat of rye straw, a wooden board or cow's bladder stretched over a frame. Inventories taken up in the 18th and 19th centuries however inform us that glass windows (üvegablak) were more and more freguently found in serfs' dwellings, too. The 18th century is characterized by small and few windows. Kitchens and larders had tiny unglazed openings only. It was during the 19th century that the glass window became universal. From the middle of the century it grew bigger and became fitted out with ornamental frames, iron rails and wooden boards enhancing the appearance of the houses of wellto-do farmers. It, too. was at that time that the gradual spreading of a more advanced window-case, complete with reveal ("gerébtok"), and shutters began. From the 1870s on double-glazed windows (kétrétegű ablak) appeared but only became widespread among pensantes in the 20th century. The house of the 20th century "peasant burgher" is already light, and not infrequently four windows demonstrate in the "clean room" (the best one for receiving guests) the owner's standing in the village community. The shaping of doors and windows had an important role in the ornamentation of the house, too. The doors and windows of the surviving houses that used to belong to affluent peasants on the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries reflect the influence of contemporary folk art, peasant taste, and of the great styles of the fine arts.