Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 10. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1995)

DÁM LÁSZLÓ: A magyar paraszti állattartás építményei

THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF ANIMAL HUSBANDRY ON PEASANT FARMS IN HUNGARY The paper presents closed structures with walls and roof, used in intensive animal farming in Hungary. These can be divided into three groups according to function. (1) Stables for horses and cattle; (2) Pigsties and poultry-houses; (3) Sheep-cotes. The majority of these structures are of eastern origin and had been known to the Hungarians by the time they came to live in the Carpathian Basin. Hungarian research workers trace these buildings back to two types, the ( 1 ) shed, consisting of four posts and a roof, and the (2) pit-sty, dug into the ground. Both of these archaic forms can still be come across in certain areas. The open shed becomes a stable so that the manure of the animals kept in it is mixed with earth and vegetal materials then laid with pitchfork to form a wall, in the way mud walls are made. By autumn the shed has been turned into a manure-walled stable (III. 1). Pigsties survive mainly in the Great Hungarian Plain, especially in the Nyírség and the Kiskunság for reasons of natural geography and social conditions. Soils are sandy in both areas, easy to make a pit into, and such sunken structures were mainly used for keeping animals by the poorest peasants, as this was the cheapest way to house them (Ills. 2-3). A peculiar and archaic construction was the stable with an open fireplace (Ills. 4-7). These buildings were characteristic of distant pastures, detached animal farms and the outsteadings of settlements with two nuclei. The fireplace was necessary because the men who took care of the animals also lived and slept there. Stables with fireplace could only be found in the Great Hungarian Plain at the heyday of cattle-breeding for sale in the 16th-17th centuries. In other Hungarian language areas of the Carpathian Basin the stable usually joins the farmhouse or another outbuilding. A characteristic version is the barn-cumstable (Ills. 10-11) where part of the barn is partitioned off for the animals. This type is characteristic mainly of Transylvania, although a few can also be found in Upper Northern Hungary, Southern- and Western Transdanubia. While in the architecture of the Great Hungarian Plain the stable always stands alone (Ills. 8-10). in Upper Northern Hungary and Transdanubia it generally shares the roof of the dwelling house. The structures of pig- and poultry-keeping appeared on the farmsteads in Hungary as intensive agriculture was gaining ground, and began to spread considerably in the 19th century. These buildings had many similarities in respect of material, construction technique, structure and appearance. Often they only differed in function. The most archaic forms are the sunken pitsty, and the various huts, square or conical, with or without a wall (Ills. 12-14). In the Eastern Carpathians, North-Eastern Hungary and Transylvania pigsties and poultry houses erected with plain techniques on a round, oval or square ground plan, are widespread. Most of them are built of wattle, reed, or dry stalks (Ills. 15-16). Characteristic structures of round ground plan are set up in the Central and Southern Trans-Tisza region as well as in the Vajdaság (Ills. 17-19). They are used for keeping pigs and poultry alike, sometimes even both. These constructions of double function are usually two-storey. The ground floor houses pigs and the upper part is occupied by chickens. Morphologically the buildings of intensive pig keeping can be grouped into three types. (1) Pigsties of straight walls on a square ground plan, with or without a run; (2) pigsties of round ground plan; and (3) hewn wooden pigsties set up on piles (Ills. 20-25). Other characteristic structures, used by Hungarian peasants, are the dovecotes on high posts (Ills. 26-28). They are usually multi-story structures of wood, most often boards, covered with shingles or tiles, with oval or round holes proportioning the front. In Transsylvania, where dovecotes topping a post are also widely used, pigeon houses are often included in the roofed ensemble of gates known as „székelykapu" (Székely gate) (111. 29). Parallel with the varieties of sheep, requiring intensive keeping, closed sheep-cotes, with roof and walls, became widespread in Hungary in the 18th century. Sheep-sheds on peasant farms were modelled on their counterparts in the manorial sheep-farm, or on stables built for other animals (III. 30).