Századok – 1992

Tanulmányok - Puskás Julianna: Zsidó haszonbérlők a magyarországi mezőgazdaság fejlődési folyamatában (Az 1850-es évektől 1935-ig) I/35

ZSIDÓ HASZONBÉRLÓK A MEZŐGAZDASÁGBAN (1850-1935) 57 The article analyzes the role of the Jews in land tenure in Hungarian agriculture from the 1850"$ to the 1930's and the role of Hungarian society and the Hungarian natural environment in their rapid social mobility as one of the most interesting problems of Jewish social history in the country. The sources are the censuses of 1900, 1910 and 1930, the data of the directories of landholders and tenants for 1887, 1911 and 1935, as well as the views of contemporaries. The characteristics of Hungarian agriculture (i.e. the large domestic economies based on outside markets) presented the basis for the tenancy of the Jews right from the end of the 18th century. The first wave of similar enterprises came after the 1850's, i.e. with the end of serfdom. It was primarily the Jews who had capital and initiative for entering into land tenure and became acceptable partners for the big landowners not willing or unable to manage their large estates. In the period of transition from feudalism to capitalism the most fequent type of land tenure was the so-called „General Pachtung". It meant that the contractors took by lease farmlands of several thousand acres and subleased them to a network of sub-tenants. The problem of land tenure started to consolidate from the 1870's when the emancipation of the Jews and the total freedom of land-owning favoured long-term capital investment. The statistics of 1859 already reveal the advantages of capitalist farming based on land tenure. On plots bigger than 100 holdi the structure of cultivation was more favorable and the means of production were more modern in the 1890's than those of the private farms. (There are no statistics of wage-labour and productivity, however.) In 1895 18 per cent of the farmland of the country was fully or partially leased (36 per cent of farms above 100 holds and 25 per cent of the ones above 1000). 49.5 per cent of all lease-holders were Jews at the turn of the century. As the list of farmers and landowners for that year suggests, the rate among those farming 1000 holds or more was at least 70 to 75 per cent. Most of the tenants of farms above 100 holds lived in the north-eastern region of the country, mostly in the counties Szabolcs and Zemplén. The role and spread of tenure was a product of the transition to capitalism. At that time, Hungarian agriculture was characterized by latifundia and at the same time by huge land tenures of several thousand holds. After 1900, however, agricultural enterprise tended to own the land and not merely to lease it. The census of 1910 shows a great number of Jewish big landowners beside the lease-holders. Their rate among the landowners with more than 1000 holds is 20,6 per cent. From the 1920"s, however, this direction of development was broken. By 1930 the rate of both the Jewish lease-holders and landowners was on the decrease. The reasons are the subject of further research. The Jewish lease-holders represented both modernization and the adjustment of traditional elements. While modernizing agricultural production, they contributed also to the conservation of the system of the large estates. It was presumably the enterprise based on a traditional social and agricultural pattern and the advantages of Hungarian agriculture (i. e. the rich farmland and the proximity of western markets) that contributed to the remarkably rapid integration and high social mobility of the Jews in Hungary. Julianna Puskás PRENEURS À FERME JUIFS DANS LE PROCESSUS DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DE L'AGRICULTURE HONGROISE (Résumé) Le sujet de l'étude est la présentation du rôle du des Juifs dans l'économie du bail à ferme de la Hongrie des années 1850 jusqu'aux années 1930. Dans ce contexte l'étude veut donner quelques aspects pour l'une des questions les plus émouvantes de l'historié sociale des juifs hongrois: quel rôle avait le