Fügedi Márta szerk.: B.-A.-Z. megye népművészete (Miskolc, 1997)

ANGOL NYELVŰ ÖSSZEFOGLALÁS Fügedi Márta

industry were thriving in the Sajó valley, while some of the miners and workers were still involved in agricultural production at home and went to harvest in the plain in summer. This period coincided with the early period of the peasantry achieving middle class status, which on the one hand resulted in a new 'peasant' mentality and taste for the layer of the serfs who got some land with their emancipation, but degraded the lower layers of the former serfs to a cotter status. It was at this time that huge crowds went to work in the industry and in the mines and moved to the towns. During the 19th and 20th centuries the network of settlements, the distances, the proximity and remoteness of the centres also remained decisive in the period of the slow development of middle class status and influenced its rate, too. The southern part of the county, especially the areas along the Tisza, remained the territory of grain production and stock breeding with grazing, the hilly country representing a secondary agricultural force compared to it. By the middle of the 19th century the weak site resources and the lack of industry led to relative over-population in Abaúj and Zemplén counties, which was enchanced by the unhealthy land property structure. One of its consequences was the great number of seasonal workers in agriculture and the other was the considerable emigration. These migrations also contributed to the formation of the cultural image. The restructuring of the population after the Turkish rule had the very important consequence that in the eis - Tisza region, which formerly had had a Protestant majority, the Catholics became the majority during the 18th century: the dominant Roman Catholics were followed by the numerous Greek Catholics: in the middle of the 19th century these two groups together represented almost 3/4 of the population. In the period of the abolition of serfdom the remaining 1/4 was divided between the Presbyterians and Lutherans with a small number of people belonging to the Greek Orthodox church and others, who were in absolute minority. The migration of the foreign ethnic groups played a very important role in the formation of the cultural image of the region. Several settlement factors were at work for centuries. Primarily, the agricultural sites of the flat regions presented a challenge for groups from the highlands. Besides the periodical settling campaigns, their resettlement may have been guided by the experience gained in seasonal agricultural work for which the members of the Hungarian, Slovak and Ruthenian ethnic groups of the highlands were coming to the Great Plain in great numbers from the 16th and 17th centuries. Another urge for settling was presented by mining and the highland industries, which attracted groups from different parts of Germany to this country, as well as the wood industries, which attracted different but mainly Slavic groups. The Tokaj-Hegyalj a region was unique in this respect, too, as during the centuries it accumulated the manpower and settlers of several ethnic groups from the Walloons who came here in the 11th and 12th centuries to the ethnically mixed population of the 18th and 19th century market towns.