A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 34. (Békéscsaba, 2011)
Novák László Ferenc: Adatok az Alföldre, Békésbe, a XVIII. században végbement migrációhoz Kis-HOntból
Novák László Ferenc Data concerning the Migration to Békés, the Hungarian Great Plain in the 18th Century from Kis-Hont- László Ferenc Novák - Resume At the time of the Turkish occupation of Hungary (16th to 17th centuries), the area of the South Great Plain and that between the Tisza and the Maros rivers were seriously devastated. The number of human settlements and inhabitants fell back drastically. Following the expulsion of the Turks (1686) and the oppression of Rákóczi’s insurrection (1711), a revitalization of the landscape was started. The area of Békés was taken possession of by György Harruckern, a Vienna court supplier who had attained to the baron’s rank and it was him who resettled the waste land in the first decades of the 18th century. Slovakian settlers in large numbers from Upper Hungary were called in. They settled down, among other things, in Békéscsaba, Mezőberény, Szarvas and Tótkomlós. German settlers arrived in Gyula, Elek and Mezőberény. The settlers were entitled to come by land and to freely organize their communities’ lives and to practice their Lutheran religion. Significant settling took place from the 1720s to the 1730s. Living conditions were poor in the moun- taineous area: Hont, Zólyom, Nógrád, Kishont and Gömör. For those living in the mountains, acquiring good quality land in the distant Great Plain and establishing husbandry providing secure living were very attractive. In Kis-Hont, based on the Act of the year 1767 on Manumission of Maria Theresa, manumission conditions were surveyed in 1769 and provided for in 1770. It can be stated that even in the settlements with the best quality land, less land than defined in the Act on Manumission was bestowed per one socage (sessio). Less land than was given to those settling in the Békés area. In the course of the manumission survey, the number of grounds with houses devastated or the number of socages deserted were also registered. As a result of the survey, it became evident that, in several cases, the socager owner of the deserted grounds had migrated to the Great Plain some decades before, e.g. some people from Felső-Pokorágy, Rimóca, Szelce, Szussány and Tóth-Hegymeg had moved to Békéscsaba. Novák László Ferenc E-mail: novaklf@freemail.hu 250
