A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 24-25. (Békéscsaba, 2003)

Csobai Lászlóné: Data to the history of the population speaking Romanian native language in Szabolcs, Szatmár and Bihar Counties

Adatok a történelmi Szabolcs, Szatmár és Bihar vármegyék... Data to the history of the population speaking Romanian native language in Szabolcs, Szatmár and Bihar Counties - Mrs. László Csobai Resume The author undertakes on the basis of the few studies published so far and her own researches to summarise those important data that in our hope partly will be included in the future years' textbooks for peoples' and nationalities' learning. The study shortly presents the settlements and their historical specialities in Szabolcs, Szatmár and Bihar Counties, which were at one time inhabited partly or in some cases exclusively by Romanians, but presently have got almost in total or in large part an assimilated population. The author addresses the course of and the parallels in the history of the settlements located in the two counties, in the mirror of historical sources and historical statistics. The study includes new outcomes, being a summary of a twenty-year long historical-ethnographical research conducted in ten days annually. The research work was carried out on the spot, in the settlements of Szabolcs, Szatmár and Bihar Counties in question. The author had to cope with the lack or neglect of archive sources regarding Romanian population, in many cases she had to carry out primary source-disclosure in ecclesiastical archives of various settlements. Regrettably in general experience files of small settlements' church communities were not retained during the centuries. In the author's opinion permanent researches continue to be indispensable, because with on-the-spot historical, ethnographical and sociological researches we can get to know more on these settlements shrunk dramatically in their population up to now. Csobai Lászlóné Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum 5600 Békéscsaba, Széchenyi u. 9. csobai@bmmi. hu 151