Gecse Annabella et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 18. (Szolnok, 2009)

Néprajz - Kotics József: Az arzén mint a női emancipáció eszköze? A tiszazugi arzénes gyilkosságok történeti-antropológiai elemzése

Tisicum XVIII.

József Kotics

Arsenic as a tool of female emancipation? A historical-anthropological analysis of the arsenic murders of the Tiszazug region

Between 1911 and 1929, an unprecedented series of murders took place in the villages of the Tiszazug region, in the middle of the Great Plain not too far from Szolnok. The number ofarsenic murders were especially significant in Nagyrév. The victims of these poisonings were those who were considered as “needless”: the old, the infants, the disabled, those who needed extended attendance, and boring husbands. The public was shocked to find out that villages existed in Hungary where it was possible to put people out of the way in a methodical manner unpunished for 20 years. Estimates put the number of victims between 100 and 300, almost all of whom were males, and the principals in the first degree were their wives or daughters-in-law.

Social scientist have not paid sufficient attention to the analysis of the question. According to Péter Gunst, the series of murders could be explained from a socio-historical point of view by the fact that Hungarian agrarian development came to a dead-end and offered a proper living for a decreasing number of peasantry. It was always those to become victims who had to be kept, who meant a burden for the local community. The author of this paper refuses this strongly malthusian concept.

Based upon the analysis of registry data, the author believes that the appearance of both micro- and macro structural factors could provide an explanation for this unprecedented series of homicides. The framework where these deviant deeds could come to existence was provided by modernization, secularisation, the impact of World War I, the changes of the hereditary system, the fundamental changes in the role of women in society and the splitting of the ethos. The serious derangement of the local society: power vacuum, the collapse of the social control mechanism and the erosion of ethic values resulted in the creation of a state without norms, where murder is not a sin any more.

336