Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 6. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1990)

SZENTI TIBOR: Egy hódmezővásárhelyi tanya építésének, bővítésének és karbantartásának paraszti dokumentumai

Tibor Szenti WRITTEN RECORDS KEPT BY THE PEASANT OWNER OF THE ERECTION EXTENSION AND MAINTENANCE OF A DETACHED FARMSTEAD IN THE PERIPHERAL AREA OF HÓDMEZŐVÁSÁRHELY The written records kept by peasants are one of the important sources of ethnography, increasingly utilized in recent decades by research workers. The diaries and notes made of agricultural activities furnish us with the data of, and faithfully document the most important events of rural life. These notes show the peasant way of thinking and give us a picture of their way of life. It has been a practice in and around the market town of Hódmezővásárhely to make such notes from the last third of the 18th century up to these days. The majority of diaries supply information of the constructions executed by the members of the family. Hódmezővásárhely had a peripheral area of 132 thousand cadastral yokes , the size of a district. Up to 1852 detached farmsteads were set up in the lands available for this purpose then, with the division of the pastures beyond them into fields, in the „Puszta", too. While in the town buildings were erected in compliance with the bylaws adopted by the council, construction techniques used on the detached farmsteads remained untouched for centuries. The methods applied in town, appeared with a delay of decades in the world of these isolated farms, and the material used also differed. In Hódmezővásárhely only the squire had the right to burn bricks, so up to 1848 the houses of even those peasants who lived in the town were made of adobe or rammed earth. From the 2nd half of the 19th century, especially after 1880, the gap became almost absolute: ambitious peasant-burghers erected brick houses in the downtown, whereas buildings on the detached farmsteads were continued to be constructed of traditional materials with age-old methods. The buildings on detached farmsteads were erected by the members of the peasant family. External help, or the help of a craftsman, was seldom employed, and only for a short and important phase of the work. Farm buildings were made of natural materials: mud, wood, reed, etc. The author presents, with all accuracy, from the diary of Pál NAGY Senior, a smallholder, the notes relating to the construction of his farmhouse. In the document we find the description of the various phases of construction, the materials used, item by item, and their purchase price. The farmer also thought of describing the important substructures of the croft. Another valuable feature of the diary is that is follows the fate of the detached farmstead for decades. We learn of the methods of making extensions and modifications as well as of repairs. The buildings of a detached farmstead were more exposed to any harm made by animals and the adversities of weather than those in a town so they decayed more rapidly and required more care. The data of the diary show that a significant part of the farmer's life was spent on ceaseless renovation and construction, and there were few days when he did not spend at least a few hours on repairing his home or some outbuilding. 1 cadastral yoke = 1. 42 acres