Novák László Ferenc: Fejfa monográfia - Az Arany János Múzeum közleményei 16. (Nagykőrös, 2005)

III. Angol nyelvű összegezés

like their Hungarian neighbours. However, wooden grave posts area not found in other religions swith Lutheran populations.

It is important to note that aristocrats and noble families were usually buried in buried vaults in churches during the Middle Ages. Citizens as in Kolozsvár (Transylvania), for example, set up tombstones in graveyards, which were also called „stone gardens”. Funeral pomp (ceremony) was of great importance. In these funerals, the grave markers were not as important as the ceremony itself and its manifestations. Flags, courts of arms, ornamental swords, golden spurs, clubs, and an epitaph glorifying the decased person were carried in the procession. The black flag of mourning and the sword of the deceased were broken and thrown into the grave, though more decorative ones were placed on the church wall above the grave.473 An important aspect of the military funeral were the raising of flags further on the carrying of the spear, and the thrusting of the spear into the burialmound above the vaulted grave. These rituals can be read ceremonial instructions for funerals for the followers of the Helvetian religion in 1636. We have no information about the practices of the commoners from this „time of the heroes”. Historical sources refer to wooden grave posts only from the 17th century.

Hungary’s territory extended throughout the Carpathian Basin and was bordered by the Carpathian Mountains. Considering that it is the most significant geographical and historicalcultural unit in Central Europe, this smaller part of the European continent, with its natural boundaries, can deservedly be called Carpatian Europe.474 The majority of Hungarians in this region were Roman Catholics followed by Calvinists. Romanian and Serbian, minorities belonged to the Greak Orthodox religion. The cirle of the Greek Catholics was made up of Hungarians, Romanians and Ruthenians. The Lutheran religion was practised by Hungarians, Slovakians and Germans, the Unitarian religion by Hungarians. The presence of wooden grave posts indicate the distribution of the various denominations: the Great Hungarian Plain (the northerns part of the region between the rivers Danube and Tisza, territory East of the river Tisza), the bordering areas (Bihar, Szatmár,

473 At the time of the Turkish oppressio i.e. between the middle of the 16th century, and the end of the 17th century burial places in major power centres, in royal, aristocratic, ecclesiastical seats, burial places of aristocrats, member of the lower nobility and of landed gentty were destiyed (the towns of Buda, Esztergom, Székesfehérvár, Eger, Nagyvárad and the market town of Csanád, etc.). Alsó Transylvania suffered devastation resulting in destruction of major burial places. Destruction of peculiar cultic places of national history meant an irreplacable loss. Analogies of burial places can be experienced even these days in westem-European countries where there have not been wars for a long time just like in the UK. In London e.g. the St. Paul’s Cathedral is a storehouse of requisites of tire British Empoire were buried.

474 Legitimacy of this nem is accounted for by the fact that tire dictated peace of Trianon in 1920 after World War I. split up tire Hungarian state which had been natural unit and had had an ancient historical past. It had defended Europe like a bastion against the Tatars in 1240 and 1241 and the Turks between 1541 and 1686. However, the dictated peace of Trianon estabilished successor states on its territory arteficially (Czechoslovakia, great Romania, Serbian-Croation Kingdom and the so called „Burgenland” from the lowland counties and from Sopron and Vas counties with their partly lowland and partly hilly but fertile parts). The Austrian-Habsburg successor state Austria, which had supressed the Hungarian War of Independence, got hold of the latter one inspite of tire fact that World War I. broke out as a result of te irresponsible politics of both the Habsburg nronarc Franz Joseph and tire Prussian-German Emperor Villianr II. The major loser was blameless Hungaiy which was languishing under Habsburg mle. Hungaiy that used to live together in peace with Slovaks, the Romanians, tire Ruthenians, the Serbians, the Croatians, tire Slovenians, the Austrians, the Poles, tire Bulgarians, the Jews and tire Gipsies and the Hungarian nation were labelled ’gulty’ and was surrendered to vicious retorsions. The most striking event was the existence of Slovakia as an independent state which was created from tire northern counties of Hungary (tire country of Pozsony, Trencsén, Árva, Szepes, Sáros, Nyitra, Túróc, Zólyom, Bars) supplemented with some southern territories with mainly Hungarian inhabitants. The confines of tire state divided the historical counties Komárom, Esztergom, Hont, Nógrád, Gönrör and Kishont, Abaúj-Toma, Tenrplén and Ung in two. With the desitegration of Czechoslovakia at the beginning 1990ies tire existence of Slovakia is no longer established from the point of view of international rights as tire ’peace treaty’ of Trianon in 1920 guaranteed 70 years for the punishment of Hungary'. Neither did tire second Trianon dictated peace in 1947 pass a different resolution in this respect. Independently of borders, Carpatlrian-Europe comprises tire thousand-year-old Hungarian history which keeps guarding its integrity and a higher level of the European culture.

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