Kemecsi Lajos: A felföldi mezőváros (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2009)
Summary
came along the cultures of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Jewish denominations. The Upland market towns differed from their neighbouring environment not only in their economics but also in their culture and spiritual life. The protestant clerical and educational centres as well as the domanial centres - first of all those of the Rákóczi family in the region of Hegyalja - played a major role in this process. The survival of certain archaic cultural elements can be explained by the centuries old SlovakianHungarian interrelationship. The analysis of the flourishing of the Upland market towns in olden times and the knowledge of the features of their culture lead to the conclusion that only those towns were and remained viable, where several town development forces were simultaneously active. A chain of events in the 19 t h century triggered the ruin of the solely wine-growing market towns: export opportunities collapsed, levy on wine (tithe) was implemented and at last the devastating Phylloxera broke out. Out of the former 70-80 Upland market towns, hardly 7-8 were capable to develop into modern towns. The Phylloxera brutally completed a process of decline, which had begun by losing the traditional Russian and Polish markets to be continued by the spreading factory industry and the impoverishment of the vinegrowers. The Upland market towns show a historic development and can be studied only by simultaneously implementing the methods borrowed from several scientific disciplines. We highlight the farming and industrial activities of the owner families in the object's furnishing in the permanent exhibitions. We preserve and present the relics of architecture, economy, society and industry all together in the complexity of different ways of life and lifestyles. The permanent exhibitions arranged in the typical buildings confirm the bourgeois consciousness and fastidiousness of the people living in the towns of the region. They illustrate furthermore their household fittings and utensils so different from the fittings and utensils in the villages. With the help of above - maybe sometimes seemingly arbitrary - aspects and topics, and by referring to the museum exhibitions as collection of examples, we wanted to display the complexity of the exciting, rich culture of the Upland market towns, as well as to focus attention to the characteristic and may-be most important feature of the towns in this regional unit: their intermediary role and function. 138
