Bereczki Ibolya - Sári Zsolt: Ház és Ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 28-29. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2017)
BERECZKI IBOLYA: Menekülés Székelyföldről - 1916 tragikus erdélyi eseményeiről a frontról küldött levelek és tudósítások tükrében
Ibolya Bereczki ESCAPE FROM SZEKLERLAND - THE TRAGIC EVENTS IN 1916 REFLECTED IN A ZABALA (ZABOLA) ARTILLERYMAN’S LETTERS SENT FROM THE FRONT LINE The 27th August 1916 was a tragic day of the Great War in Hungary and in Transylvania. Romania’s declaration of war, then the break in of its army into Transylvania resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees setting off on the road in an extremely short time. The aspects of military history of the events are well known. The circumstances of the escape, how the refugees were received, the details of solidarity of the local communities and their coming back are more or less known from contemporary sources and mainly from studies and communication appearing after the change of regime in 1989. Besides press coverage - in some cases serving propaganda purposes - contemporary diaries, reports written for church and state bodies, notes, História Domuses and minute-books are a wealth of information about the local aspects of the events. Artilleryman from Zabola Ferenc Pozsony’s (1893-1978) letters for his mother and sister Vilma have become a source of specific aspect concerning the events in the Orbaiszék village between August and December in 1916. By this time the writer of the letters had been a squad leader having fought in Volhinia in the eastern battle-ground as the soldier of the 4th battery of the 37throyal defence howitzer regiment, then from here he was called back home together with his army-corps. The letters written to him did not survive, but the ones he wrote home and to his sister escaped to Szarvas also reflect the information his family members might have shared with him in the lost letters. Artilleryman Ferenc was a subscriber and regular reader of the Pesti Hírlap (newspaper published in Budapest), therefore he could respond to the events in Transylvania with an additional knowledge of the newspaper coverage or could ask questions from those at home. The full presentation of the topic was undertaken in the form of a temporary exhibition in 2016 titled Message from the front line - The letters of artilleryman Ferenc 1914-1918 (curators: Ibolya BERECZKI and Ferenc POZSONY). A booklet was also published (Ferenc POZSONY 2016) and the broader context regarding the events took place in Transylvania is elaborated in this paper. 197
