Tóth Arnold: Vőfélykönyvek és vőfélyversek a 19. században - Officina Musei 22. (Miskolc, 2015)
Summary
The period studied herein ends with 1914, marked by the outbreak of World War I, which is generally recognised by ethnographers to be a dividing line between two periods. And it is very much so in terms of research into traditional customs, and more specifically, wedding customs, with mass conscription of young and middle- aged men in villages bringing a sudden end to the, until then, continuous practice of customs. As far as the subject of this treatise is concerned, mention should be made of two phenomena, one being an incipient effacement of the use of vőfély verses and, more generally, the role of wedding ushers in several regions, the other being a significant decrease, starting from the 1920s, in the number of chapbooks printed for wedding ushers. Also, new publications were edited according to different principles and contained texts differing from earlier versions. The beginning and end of the period defined in line with the nature of the subject almost precisely correspond to those of the era labelled by historians as ‘the long 19th century’. Beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with start of World War I in 1914 and the years of post-war peace treaties (1918-1921), this era encompasses uniform and interrelated processes of social, economic and cultural history, naturally subdivisible into shorter periods marked by political and military events. Hungary’s social, economic and cultural history organically integrated into pan-European processes (i.e. development of capitalism, embourgeoisement and spread of literacy) that provided a framework for the development of folk writings and wedding customs. Sources and Methodology Handwritten vőfély books and chapbooks survive in relatively high numbers from ‘the long 19rh century’, mostly accessible in various public archives. However, primary sources have not yet been explored on a national level. This means that no collection catalogues or directories are available to help make at least a rough estimate of the number of researchable wedding usher books, either manuscript or printed. Owing to the limitations of this book, the considerable quantity of available source material was reduced to a volume capable of being reviewed and worked over by an individual researcher. This reduction was done on a regional basis. The primary source material for this book comprises nine manuscript vőfély books from between 1839 and 1913. All but one come from north-eastern Hungary (today’s Borsod-Abaúj- Zemplén County), and all are considered to be initial sources. For the purpose of a comparative analysis of texts, another three groups of secondary sources were included. The first group consisted of period wedding usher books from northern Hungary whose handwritten originals were not available for research, but had been recorded or published by others (i.e. one folk manuscript from Gömör, three from Mezőcsát and one from Bánfalva). The second group was that of sources from major regions of the Carpathian Basin that had already been 531
