Fatuska János – Fülöp Éva Mária – ifj. Gyüszi László (szerk.): Annales Tataienses V. Környezetváltozás, termelés, fogyasztás: a történeti ökológia kérdései. Tata, 2006.

Bevezető

Forward The basis of the present volume of the series Annales Tataienses were the presentations on historical ecology given at a scientific conference organised on request of the Víz, Zene, Virág Fesztivál Association in 2004. When Imre Kálovics, the chairman of the Association requested the editors of this urban historical series to organise the event, which fitted well into their programme, a valuable material, entitled „The questions of environmental change, production and consumption in the 16th-18th century ", was already complete. It contained the talks given in 1998 by Judit Knézy, ethnographist-museologist, PhD, at the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture, honouring the Day of Hungarian Science. The publication of the talks could not be realised at that time, therefore the manuscripts were partly handed over to the Documentation Department of the aforementioned museum, and partly released by the participants in a condensed, privately edited form, honouring the 60th birthday of Judit Knézy in November 2000. The talks of the conference - given by representatives of archaeology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, historiography and ethnography - debated issues concerning historical ecology, here mainly devoted to the problems of the relationship between human production and consumption both affected by and affecting environmental change. During the organisation of the Tata event, the lecturers expanded their talks for the conference with details referring to our region, and were accompanied by researchers from Tata, also experts of this field. Judit Knézy also participated in the volume, as she has a link to Tata as well: as a well-known expert of peasant heating devices, she gave a specialist opinion on the possible heating appliances of the Esterházy summer cottage in the English Park. The organisers and participants of the 2004 conference wish to congratulate her with this volume, as an outstanding representative of ethnography, the expert of peasant farming of the Transdanubia and especially Somogy County, and of economic regions and landscape groups - we would especially like to mention her achievements in the research of nutrition, environmental change and the relationship betwen humans and water (fishing, fish consumption and other utilisation of water). The editors would like to thank the leadership of the Víz, Zene, Virág Fesztivál Association for their support of the organisation of the 2004 conference and the publication of the present volume, which made it possible to enrich our series with studies devoted to the ecological problems of the Tata region; especially those concerning the relationship of man and water. We would also like to thank the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture for the access to the manuscripts in its documentation. The editors of this volume of Annales Tataienses send their greetings to the readers and those who are interested in the town's past in hopes that further volumes containing thematic treatments of the region's history, in connection with the publication of conference material, will follow. The editors 10