Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Upper Tisza region (Regional Units of Open Air Museum. Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1980)
1. LAND AND MAN
The history of the land Though geographically belonging to the Great Plain, or rather on the edge of it, swamps-land and forests cut the Erdőhát off from the central parts of the country. For purposes of public administration, the region belonged for a long time to the Partium coming under strong influence from Transylvania for centuries, and thus its history is bound up with that of Transylvania. Swamps and forests, together with fortifications built within the swamp-land, kept the Osmanian Turks from occupying the country as they had done in the area of the Great Plain. In 1562 when the stronghold of Szatmárnémeti succeeded in throwing back the Turkish troops, some twenty thousand men under the leadership of Ibrahim, the Pasha of Buda, and Malkoch, the Pasha of Temesvár. Szatmár County was rescued from devastation. Yet the fate of County Szatmár was not easy during those centuries of warfare. The people ?"ffered when the troops of the Kingdom and those of the Transylvanian Prince clashed; and they had to endure the fresh attacks of the Tatars against Transylvania each century, the rule of the terrifying Básta, the wars of religion commencing with the Reformation, the revenge of Poland in 1658 on account of the pretence of George Rákóczi II, the cruelty of General Caraffa, and plunderings by troops coming from Szatmárnémeti. During the War of Liberation, led by Ferenc Rákóczi, even the Erdőhát region became a field of battle and was devastated. The memory of the victorious battle of the „Kuruc" forces led by Ocskay in 1703 and their crossing of the river Tisza still lives on in tradition and continues to be recounted. The district was so destroyed after the battles of the War of Liberation that only empty churches and cottages were left at the time of the last Tatar invasion in 1717. Ever since the Reformation, both the landlords and their serfs adhered to the Calvinist faith, the princely families of Báthory, Bethlen and Rákóczi, the owners of the villages along the Erdőhát the Kölcseys, the inheritors of the Csaholy estate, and the many petty nobles living in the villages. And though during the many trials and tribulation the inhabitants often had to flee villages which became depopulated, yet, after the enemy had left, the indigenous inhabitants always returned. If today here and there a Catholic or an Evangelical Protestant church tower can be seen in the region, one may be sure that there are newcomers in that village. The small villages which were settled on cleared land between the forests and swamps where life was relatively stagnant aside from the above-mentioned Kuruc war, had a population which 7
