Juhász Antal: A Duna-Tisza közi migráció és hatása a népi műveltségre (Szeged, Móra Ferenc Múzeum, Csongrád Megyei Levéltár, 2005)
Summary
IV. The main factors in migration movements directed to the puszta areas in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve are the overpopulation of settlements where migration started from and the breaking up of landed estates. Settling families arrived from 40-50, sometimes from more setdements or towns, but the majority (70-90%) arrived from the nearby setdements of the Great Plain. Setdements where migration started from are mainly the following: Kecskemét, Kiskunfélegyháza, Szeged together with their overpopulated farmsteads, Csongrád, Mindszent, Kiskunmajsa and Kiskundorozsma, to a lesser extent also Soltvadkert and Kiskőrös. People migrated also from the region of Jászság and from the southern part of Trans-Tisza region. A Hungarian historian, Lajos Für called the settling process in the Sandy Soil Region (Homokhátság) as a "surging-expanding" moving of population. His statements were verified by the revealed data sources of registers. This special character may be explained by two factors: on the one hand the process of settling happened in several phases and it took decades to sell and buy puszta areas, on the other hand there were setders who could not afford a certain piece of land, thus being forced to look for another plot in another region. V. Those buying landed property on puszta areas were of four social groups: 1) They were landless or very poor peasants owning small pieces of land: agricultural workers, small tenants, hired gardeners who could not see a future for their families in their home village. As a farmer living on the puszta so appropriately states: "Poor people came, since only those migrate who are not satisfied with their lives." They intended to get possession of a piece of land, where they could be their "own landlords". In 1937 a Hungarian sociologist, Ferenc Erdei wrote: "The personality of a peasant involves the possession of land; their life is complete only if it may rely on their own landed property." Several hundred poor peasants' dream became real on the puszta. Those who were unable to stay for longer, went further or went into service as farmservants. 2) At the beginning of the 20 t h century an author who knew the life of peasants very well stated: the smallest landed property is of six acres, which was enough for a family to live on in the sandy region. Where the family property was broken up into smaller pieces, many dwarf holders sold out their estate and bought four-five times bigger landed property on sandy soil. These smallholders had sufficient farming experience, as well as economic device to cultivate sandy soil. 3) Landowners who possessed considerable capital purchased plots on the puszta so as to enlarge the territory of their landed property on farms, or to provide their children with a larger inherited estate. Wealthy farmers owned several hundreds of acres of puszta land during the 1880-90s. In most cases these large estates were made productive by raising cattle and sheep. 390
