Erdős Ferenc - Fülöp Gyula - Szakály Ferenc: Polgárdi története - Fejér Megyei Levéltár közleményei 22. (Székesfehérvár, 1997)

The history of Polgárdi

1704 the kuruc troops occupied Székesfehérvár. The population of the villages around the county seat proved to be Rákóczi 's followers. The kuruc soldiers' success was not long-lasting, Heister imperial fieldmarshal reoccupied the town on 9th April. The people of kuruc emotions in the villages could expect retribution. Polgárdi proved to be a basis of the kuruc troops besieging Székesfehérvár on the Mezőföld. The settlement became the target of the Austrian foces' repeated attacks. Rabutin's army raided the village. His soldiers terrorized the population for five days. The Austrian military units' punitive actions did not break the population. Polgárdi offered sure background for the kuruc county organized on the territories lying to the west of the Sárvíz. The following trial - which besides financial goods demanded human lives as well - hit the settlement in 1709. Schelling, Austrian general attacked the kuruc troops stationing around Polgárdi in the dead of night. He had the village burnt down, 65 houses „burnt to the ground" and 25 „chosen good smallholders were killed, some of them by fire, some of them by armed soldiers. It is a wonder that any rags rested on our body." In the last period of Rákóczi 's war of independence the inhabitants were not able to replace by self-effort the severe effect of the attack against the settlement. What is more, they had to face another fear: the epidemic of the plague. According to a census made after the suppression of the war of independence during the kuruc war mainly in the period of plague 514 inhabitants were killed. 25 years after the chasing out of the Turks, the basic task was again to repeople Polgárdi and to stabilize the economic force of the population. The decades following Rákóczi 's war of independence resulted again in a period of economic growth. During three generations the population quintupled. In the first half of the 19th century the population of Polgárdi approached 3000. The artisans' and merchants' layer strengthened, the number of the artisan and merchant householders exceeded 60. Significant changes took place in lower level education, too, both Calvinist and Catholic school-