Németh Györgyi szerk.: Manufaktúrák Magyarországon 1. Manufaktúratörténeti Konferencia Miskolc, 1989. október 16-17. (Kiegészítő kötet. Miskolc, 1991)

Heckenast Gusztáv: FINAL SPEECH OF THE PRESIDENT

Béla Pálmány and Ferenc Szvircsek summarized the regional tasks of industrial history. We wish they could explore this period of the industrial history of Nógrád county by 1995. The problem of present boundaries that is the problem of historical Hungary was raised partly in connection with Nógrád county partly in general during the conference. It is beyond doubt and it must not be called into question that we Hungarian historians investigate the territory of the historical Hungarian state. It is only natural that we have nothing to do with Slovakia after 1920 but it is just as natural that everything that happened there before 1918 is our field of research. And the same refers to each territory which belonged to Hungary once. Finally two lectures of today, those of Klára Dóka, Péter Takács and István-Udvari presented those forms of industrial production which cannot be connected with guilds any more but they cannot be regarded manufactures either. The whole volume and the whole course of the conference had the same characteristics. No theoretical constructions but concrete researches were recited. Consequently I have to deal with theoretical questions as we have neglected them up to this time. The natural starting-point for us is the Marxian model as in the past decades the researches of manufactures - if they existed at all -set out from the Marxian model. Of course we have to set out from something. But in nry opinion the Marxian model has been somewhat vulgarized in historical researches as practised. And one became less keenly interested in the non-classical forms of manufactures. Finally we have to decide whether we think of manufacture from the historical point of view or we consider it an evolutional abstraction of political economics. If it is an evolutional abstraction it is only evident that the correct order is as follows: guild, manufacture, factory. But if Hungarian economic history is based on the sequence of guild, manufacture and factory it means the worst vulgarization. So let us go back to the historical aspect, it this point I refer to Walter Endrei's lœture of yesterday on the ancient and medieval nanufactures and to his universal statement that manufacture as such cannot be connected to any of the social systems. It is generally connected to the feudal social system. In my opinion it cannot be connected to the feudal social system either. It can be found there but in other systems, too. Having