Lukács László (szerk.): Märkte und Warenaustausch im Pannonischen Raum - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 28. (Székesfehérvár, 1988)

Imre Dankó: The Ethnocultural Role of the Transdanubian Fairs

Fifthly, therefore, I shall leave aside in my lecture a great many very important things. For example I shall not discuss the many-sided, functions of the fairs, and the circumstances and situation of the problems of fairs and settlements, and so on, but shall try to group Transdanubian fairs and markets mainly along cultural and economical lines.(2)

Finally, this contribution is based on my three former articles on the subject. The first concerned the national aspects of Transdanubian popular exchange of goods at the turn of the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries; (3) the second was entitled, International tradition in the life our fairs, particularly the Hungarian-South Slav connections; (4) and the third dealt with the movement and exchange of goods.(5) These articles include extensive bibliographical data, with a literary survey of the subject mainly from Hungarian sources.

I shall now outline the ethnocultural role of the Transdanubian fairs. The Transdanubian part of Hungary is an area which is easy to circumscribe geographically. The fairs here have been closely associated with the local history of the region and with the structural distribution of the settlements, some being towns (civitas) and others being boroughs (oppidum). In general we can say that at all the Transdanubian market-places, in 'line with the characteristic production relations of the market-place and its surroundings, fairs have been at one and the same time agricultural, i.e. offering foodstuffs, and handicraft-industrial, i.e. offering clothing, household- and farming tools or materials. As in the case of other fairs, a considerable layer of merchants as well as attendants - such as drovers, carters, shipmen, innkeepers, etc. - helping the exchange of goods, has. come into being around the Transdanubian market-places. Most of the fairs in the Transdanubian area have a long history. Their formation was significantly promoted by the stabilization of public and clerical administration in Hungary. Most Transdanubian fairs are of early medieval origin, and they came into being around fortresses. The importance of the Transdanubian fairs did not diminish under the Turkish rule even tough their number did decrease. Nevertheless, it was during this period and in the following years that the spheres of attraction of the fairs became established and there developed those ethnocultural relations which linked the Transdanubian fairs - in spite of all their individual characteristics - with an area geographically larger than Transdanubia called the Pannonian region.

The Transdanubian fairs have become the scenes of the formation, development, and preservation of important interethnic relations. Owing to the wide ethnic distribution of Transdanubia, these interethnic relations can be strongly felt throughout the whole area; but also within the sphere of attraction of some fairs, and as a consequence of the ethnic diversity of the areas bordering on Transdanubia, they reach even beyond it. The most important function of these interethnic relations is a kind of integrating of the culture of the Pannonian region. This cultural integration based on the exchange of goods has been realized in such processes as transmission, adoption, and modification at the fairs.

1 have been concerned mostly with the nationality aspects of the Transdanubian fairs around the turn of the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. The results of my research can be read in the bulletin of the Pécs and Veszprém branches of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and several papers concerning this question are being presented at this conference. Here, I propose to give you general picture of the Transdanubian fairs, divided into 3 groups or zones

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