Cseri Miklós - Sári Zsolt (szerk.): Vidéki életmódváltozások a 20. században (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2009)

Tamáska Máté: A puszták népének telepes községei 1945 után

Máté Tamáska The villages of settlers after 1945 The National Council for Land Régularisation established in 1945 with Péter Veres in its forefront created its own settlement office with the main task to organise closed farmer communities on the place of the scattered villages of manors and vineyards. The communities designed by engineers are mainly in today's Fejér county, therefore I focussed my attention to this county. I treat following villages: Besnyő, Mátyásdomb, Hantos, Kislók, Nagylók, Nagykarácsony and Nagyvenvim. My work based on archive and local research gives an overview of the development of the villages of settlers by treating three subjects: building of society, building of village and building of houses. With regards to the building of society it has been established that the purpose of the creation of villages of settlers was - further to the hostility towards big land estates — to organise the poor peasantry and servantry of the period between the two world wars into small family farms. Within this movement not only land was allotted, but courses were organised and settlement inspectors were employed to check on the farming of the families. The chapter treating village building deals with the problem of designation of the boundaries of the villages and the characteristics of the groundplan. The settlement office intended to abolish not only the building stock and the settlement heritage of the big estates but the folk traditions of the vineyards too. The centre of the regular street network replacing the plough-land was a plot reserved for the community purposes of a big crowd. Several functions like nursery school, flats for intellectuals, town hall and sport field were constructed here. The basic principles of settlement organisation of modern architecture prevail in the plans: the free- standing buildings are put up in large parks. It is another question that the new villages intended to represent exemplary investments have never been achieved completely. Its positive consequence is that many castles, halls and estate buildings deemed to be destructed could be saved. Although new functions were allocated to them, they became part of the new villages. The third unit treats the house building, providing an overview of the basic characteristics of the standard houses reflecting a vernacular and at the same time modern concept. These designs made in the first half of the forties wished to rationalize the peasant lifestyle by architectural means. After having checked today's villagescapes, I can say that Mátyásdomb has preserved most of the original settlement among the visited places. In other villages the building history of the last 60 years spiced up with local characteristics is strongly perceivable. The closing statement of the study is following: the extremely regulated program of the villages of settlers is linked to the ONCSA action in time but created stronger and more radical changes. The villages of settlers cannot be considered as socialist communities because the basic purpose of their construction was not the collectivization but the creation of small farms. 116