A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár évkönyve 26. 1999 (Debrecen, 1999)

Tanulmányok - Szűcs Ernő: Bihar megyei malmok történetéből

dés, a háborúk, gazdasági válságok adta nehézségekről és az 1949 utáni sorsukról.

Hajdű-Bihar Megyei Levéltár Évkönyve XXVI 271

Ernő Szűcs

From the history of mills in Bihar county

On this occasion the author chose a theme, which is a gap-filling one. In fact, a number of monographs have been published recently which, however, make no mention, contain only a small number of data or give erroneous ones on mills, in spite of the fact that up to the end of the 19th century, and even later, milling industry belonged among the leading industrial sectors of the country and there were mills in nearly all settlements.

On the grounds of earlier publications and primarily of archival documents the author gives descriptions of the foundation, equipment and products of the mills in the four settlements under study, together with the development of their machinery and changes in their capacity of production. The material of the study is selected in such a way that they represent industrial units of four different types of ownership (private-ownership, joint stock company, limited company, cooperative)

While reading the study, the reader can become convinced that in every case the mills were able to cope with their tasks (through improvements) and, in addition to the services they rendered, they played socially important roles. They gave colour to the industrial and social “palette” of the settlement, there appeared in the villages mechanics, engine fitters, boiler mechanics and qualified millers. On the other hand, they were important forerunners of civic development since the mechanics could have promoted themselves to owners of thrashing machines and grist-mills, tenants of mills or mill owners.

All this structural diversity was put an end to by the collectivisation carried out mainly in 1949, when most of the mills were closed down, the machinery was disassembled, broken up and melted down. In this way the farmers of the settlement became more controllable by the central authorities, in addition, they had to travel 15-20 km when they wanted their crops ground, which meant considerable loss of time. All this forced them to sell their products,