Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 4. (Győr; 1962)

P. Balázs: Peasant movements in Győr county in 1848

army and militia against the peasants devastating manorial forests. In the centre of the local peasant movements, at öttevénysziget the inhabitants of the Hédervár waging a war on the landlord for several months. Nine villages of the Hédervár estate ot the Viczay family deny to fulfil their obligation of labour at the same time, just at harvest. The publication of a decree of the Minister of the Interior, introducing martial law, does not mark the end of the peasant movements either. Referring to the decision passed in their assembly, the inhabitants of Győrság prevent the landlord's official, nay even the district magistrate from a conscription of their vineyards for the assessment of the tithe. The peasants of Ladomér and Újfalu refuse to do the obligatory work for their parsons. Here and then the peasants are taking steps against the village elders who deserved their censure. The people of öttevénysziget thrash their judge, those of Zámoly demand the deposition of theirs, because he has canvassed for the conservative candidate in the elections and he has tried to persuade the peasants to carry the landlord's wheat to his barns. The paper also deals with the propaganda used by the local nobility in order to keep the peasants quiet. County authorities, nay single nobles ordered thousands of the leaflet by Gereben Vas with the title „Ancient ABC for the Use of Old People", in order to distribute the copies among the poor of the villages. Gereben Vas became later the editor of a national newspaper called The Friend of the People. The leaflet by István Lakner, a retired schoolmaster, published at Magyaróvár with the title „The Conservation of Old Uncle Adam ... With His Nephew Steve", served the same purpose. The nobility took great pains to distribute The Friend of the People and the mentioned pamphlets among he peasants, as these were written according to its taste; on the other hand, it used all means to hinder the village inhabitants in reading the unswerving partisan of peasant interests, the Workers' Journal edited by Mihály Táncsics. The autumn brought an ebb in the peasant movements. This was due to the invasion on Hungarian soil of Jellasics, a hireling of the Habsburgs. The peasants are laying their dissensions with the landlords aside, they follow the call of Kossuth and join the rows of the freedom fighters, defending national independence and the achievements of March in many a glorious battle. At the beginning of 1849, the imperial armies having entered Győr, the peasants continue to lodge petitions and complaints with the authorities, nay to use force against the landlords in some cases. These initiatives were, however, stifled by the unmistakable severity of the imperial authorities in no time. P. Balázs 191