Ewa Krasinska - Ryszard Kantor: Derenk és Istvánmajor (Borsodi Kismonográfiák 31. Miskolc, 1988)
"cimborstwo" (cimborship) , that is a kinde of ties between the people of the same age, consisting in cultivating the friendship from the childhood till the end of life. The cimborships' obliged the people of the same age to give help to one another and in this way it had economic value, but, first of all, it made an opportunity for an individual to demonstrate friendship and gave him a moral support, etc. The book presented also the norms of behaviour and morality prevailing in Derenk and the changes in this respect which took place after the displacement to Istvánmajor. On the basis of numerous examples it was shown in what way and according to what criteria the people and their behaviour used to be judged, how the normative system worked, what the sanctions were and how they were applied when the system was infringed on. Similarly to other communities , also in Derenk were observable numerous discrepancies between the norms of behaviour and the actual practice. The next part of the work presented a description of family and annual rituals and customs in Derenk. It appeared that nowadays the family customs prove to be more durable than the annual ones. Information about the beliefs, the knowledge, witchcraft, demonology and the folk medicine was the next part of the work. The collected material is not void of contradictions and vagueness and proves that these field of culture were reduced and that the knowledge of once obvious facts is at present only fragmentary. It may be connected with the progress of the scientific views of the world, with the development of medicine, etc, but some other causes schould be also stressed. Namely, the displaced former inhabitants of Derenk found themselves in new environmental condition in Istvánmajor and the knowledge they had possessed hitherto was in many cases not applicable. For example, the popular folk medicine declined because of the lack of many plants which had been used in the past for phytotherapy but could not be found in the new place of living at all. Of course the deterioration of folk knowledge and beliefs was growing slowly and became especially intense in the last years because of the development of urbanization which caused the depopulation of Istvánmajor. Now the village Istvánmajor is inhabited by old people, living on the memories of the past. Tnose people, however, were relatively young 40 years ago at the moment of displacement and the "cultural luggage" they carried was at that time rather scanty. Tne carriers of the folk 142
