Forrai Ibolya szerk.: Néprajzi Közlemények 24. évfolyam (Budapest, 1981)

Tájékoztató

INFORMATION In this volume we publish some manuscripts on farmer' s smallholdings which are of source value regarding the content. This publication-as it was before-has been chosen from the material of the Manuscript Collection of Ethnological Archives. In our series on this field until now we have published autobiographies, farmer's records, recollections and agricultural diaries. These records are rather important because the agricultural statistics furnish particulars only of small villages. Facts on single or small farmers have not been recorded economically. This way exact data and information about the farmer' s life and work are available only from these records. The first part is the agricultural diary of Joseph Esze (collected by Maria Molnár in 1967, inventory N°: EA 8296). The diary is a small, printed book, size of 16,5x11,5x1,3 cm, containing 242 pages (some pages has been torn out). The owner - Joseph Esze (Tarpa, Bereg county) - recorded his work diary in 1940-41. This period he was a student of an agricultural school in Munkács and it was his task to keep a diary on his own work. The schoolmaster' s two signatures show that the diary has been subject of control. The officially outlined content is: date, weather, the work (or the names of works) done, the place (name of field or section) starting and finishing time of work, the name of workers (by coach or on foot) with family help or paid servant) and there is some free space left for adding details and notices. Between the period of 10th of March - 14th November 1940 there are detailed records of the work done in a farm of 85 acres. This record was made by the that time 16 year's young man. The notice part was empty, so this place was used for the further data of the works of 1941. It is interesting to compare the data of these two years. It is clear by the first sight that the data recorded by the young man in his own interest (1941) are in need of exact economic parameters and were considered of slight or of no interest. This work diary has been elaborated by the collector.