Viga Gyula: Tevékenységi formák és javak cseréje a Bükk-vidék népi kultúrájában (Borsodi Kismonográfiák 23. Miskolc, 1986)
different regional challenges and how their co-activity ensures to "outlive" the natural regional environment. The more thoroughly studied two small units have significantly different regional potentialities and historical and educational traditions: the different ways of life have given them different roles in the system of the regional division of labour. The habitations with narrow border high up inside the mountain come from a later development and settlement. They formed in the 18th century mainly due to Slovak and German settlements and colonized areas that had fallen beyond the activity and interest of the Hungarians living here. The Germans and the Slovaks were settled in the forests of the former Treasury domain : their activity served the demands of the new domain farming in the second half of the 18th century and during the 19th century. They introduced new industries here (lime and charcoal burning, pearl ash production, glass work) and supplied the rising manufactural industry (forges and glass-works) with their goods. Their small fields around the settlements were actually unsuitable for farming: they bought their food always from the peasantry of the Hungarian Plain in return their own forestry goods, mineral raw materials and craft products. The second small regional unit examined in detail is (Bükkalja) the pre-hills of Bükk mountain which is a transitional area — both in geographical and cultural aspects — from the North Hungarian Mountains to the Hungarian Plain. Its populations lived mostly on farming, however this occupation - due first of all to the disproportional structure of domains - could not provide the population. Thus, the villages — adapting regional potentialities - specialized in various forms of activity the products of which would be changed for the surplus corn of the peasantry of the Plain. The study records those kinds of activity, their participation in goods exchange, referring always to the cultural aspects of the economic relationships, too. The first chapter of this work shows what different production zones were formed by the different geographical zones of Bükk mountain. The mountain divides into three main structural zones associated with different ways of life. The high inner part covered with limestone is thinly populated and late settled: its population used to live purely on forestry industries and hauling. The South foot of the mountain expanding to the Plain is covered with flakes due to rock decay which gave excellent possibilities for agriculture, especially wine and fruit growing. Coming from the South in the valleys stretching into the mountain, the forest becomes dominant over farming in living. At the same time, the North-North East part of the mountain has been a part of Borsod industrial region, especially that of brown coal mining; its 176
