Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

M Péró'ó Demise

for the wrongs suffered at his hands in 1725, Tolnay's peasants set fire to their masters’ barns twice in 1734. The following year they joined forces with the surrounding villages and, under the leadership of Péró Szegedinác, went to war to protect their rights from their landlords. The rebels, who regarded themselves as true followers of Rákóczi and pledged allegiance to their prince, rallied their forces for the last time at Békésszentandrás on 27 April 1735, and a few days later marched under Gyula and Arad to take the fortresses there. What gives a tragicomic touch to the events is that Ferenc Rákóczi II, "his princely highness,” whom the rebels summoned to return home from Rodostó, Turkey, "had, sometime earlier, on Good Friday, passed away,” according to the annals of Békéscsaba. The uprising lasted for a mere 13 days. Subprefect Mátyás Klósz gathered the county's Heyducks, the able-bodied, armed population of the neighbouring estates and, as witnessed by his report of the events submitted to the Chancellor, "...the Rác of Arad also joined forces with [Klósz] on that night of May 8.” Thus strengthened, Klósz’s forces vanquished Péró and his rebels at the Körös valley village of Erdőhegy on 9th May, killing five hundred people. The prisoners were escorted to Buda.

It is to their memory that the anonymous versifier's work "Song of the Rebels” is devoted: "Long was their time spent in Buda / Heavy the iron on their

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