Fatuska János – Fülöp Éva Mária – ifj. Gyuszi László (szerk.): Annales Tataienses II. A mezőváros, mint uradalmi központ. Mecénás Közalapítvány. Tata, 2001.
Gyáni Gábor: A biografikus és az antropológiai várostörténet-írás
The biographical and the anthropological historiography of a town Gábor Gyáni The town as the topic of historical research used to be connected traditionally with town-biography. The golden age of our town-biographical works was at the end of the last and at the beginning of this century as almost every respectable town was given a one- or two-volume monograph written by excellent historians of local studies. The town-historiography, which had been studied as a local history, could hardly get into the perspective of the countrywide or national history, and it was there, especially far from interest, where the town and its citizens didn't dictate the direction and speed of development either in the Middle Ages or in the early Modern Times or, in fact, in the Modern Times. Urbanization, as a concept getting into the centre, brought a radical change into the judgement of towns and at the same time into the scientific status of town-biography in the 1960s in the international (anglosaxon and French) historiography. The urban that is to say local phenomenon was supposed to be brought in harmony with macrohistory by changing of concepts. This new town history, enquiring definitely about social history (like the American New Urban History), approached to its topic with sociological concepts and means. In our national historiography the kind of town and, on the whole, local history appeared between the two world wars that, so to say, was ahead of the future international historiographical turn. The question in point is ElemérMályusz 's private ventures that have not been properly appreciated up to now and the benefits of which the town could have enjoyed as well. Turning towards social history, the town history , which has been studied not only as mere local history, has recently become one of the popular fields of our microhistoriography abroad and also in our country. That kind of town-historiography gives the locality back its unique, peculiar quality, adapts cultural anthropology instead of sociology, uses the conceptional means and the research techniques of psychology during the historical investigation. Individual biographies, ways of life in family and at home or the varied techniques of making use of town areas have been the topics of the published, definitely microhistorical monographs on town history in our country so far {Vera Bácskai, Zoltán Tóth, Gábor Gyáni). 25
