Bíró Szilvia - Székely Zoltán: Arrabona - Múzeumi Közlemények 49/2. (Győr, 2011)
Tanulmányok - Horváth József: Három győri "rác" végrendelet a XVIII. századból
ARRABONA 2011.49/2. TANULMÁNYOK THREE “RÁC” (SERBIAN) TESTAMENTS OF GYŐR FROM THE 18TM CENTURY While from the 17th century about 400 testaments of Győr have already been printed, only some examples of the 18th century have been published to day. This paper presents three such testaments accompanied by a brief study. The significance of these sources lies in the origin, nationality and religion of the testators: all the three belonged to the “Rác” (Serbian) community of Győr that has been in the margin of the historical researches. The study reviews the works that touched upon the topic of the “Rác” of Győr from the middle of the 19th century to the present day and highlights the main features of the testaments with special regard to the testators’ pious donations and relationship system that overreached the boundaries of Győr. It also discusses the name giving tradition of the „Rác” men - namely, the frequent occurrence of the Demeter, Anasztázius, Konstantin and Illés names - and the characteristics of their mentality reflected also in the language of the testaments that differed considerably from that of the contemporary inhabitants of Győr. The three sources - the testament of Rácz György’s widow dated from 1737, the testament of Simon György dated from 1748 and the testament of Burza Konstantin dated from 1781 - are published literary together with the Latin comments referring to their promulgation that can be found before or after their text in the copy book of the testaments. The study finally refers to the fact that by the middle of the 18th century in the “Rác” community, which in the 17th century included mainly soldiers, the so called “Greeks” also appeared that first of all pursued trade. Simon György’s testament is a characteristic example of this development. József Horváth 76
