Bereczki Ibolya - Cseri Miklós (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 22. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2010)
Tóthné Pásztor Ágota: A társadalmi csere színterei – Egyesületi székházak Balmazújvároson a 20. század első felében
Ágota Tóthné Pásztor SCENES OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE. ASSOCIATION HALLS IN BALMAZÚJVÁROS IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20™ CENTURY Mária MOLNÁR writes that in peasant society formal institutions provided the scenes for obtaining and exchanging information. The social character of the exchanges gave a symbolic value to the scenes of exchange too, which were normally scenes of different exchange relations. I focus on the interpretation of the process through the treatment of the sources about the association halls of Balmazújváros. The sources of research consist of documents referring to the association life and to the authorisation of the associations, of the associations' sources kept in the Museum Andor Semsey of Balmazújváros, of the works of Péter Veres and of my own collection. I have learnt in my research in Balmazújváros that only those organisations were allowed to have a hall, which had a sufficient number of members and sufficient resources. The halls of the studied organisations stood normally in the central area of their scope of activities or in the centre of the community. The organisations found the means for the purchasing or building of their halls, composed of member fees, donations of well-to-do members and of other organisations or they issued shares. The members and the family members kept record of their contributions. The individual organisations could also support the building of the hall of other similar organisations. The construction work offered several times opportunities (laying the foundation, topping-out ceremony, opening) for the symbolic declaration of belonging together. The quality of the operation of the organisation was closely linked to the quality of the halls. Therefore the organisations made an effort to take care of, to maintain and to develop their buildings even after they were completed, because the halls used to represent an outstanding point of the architectural image of their environment. The inner division of the halls developed parallel with the extending functions of the organisations and as a consequence, due to the permanent extensions of the buildings and to the construction of halls designed specially for the requirements of associations, the halls became to community scenes with at least 6-8 rooms for social life and service needs by the middle of the 20 t h century. The association halls were not only the places of the association's events. Other groups of the town could hire them occasionally for weddings, balls, etc. A bigger organisation with a better infrastructure had thus functionally a wider orbit than the composition of their members would justify it. In my research in Balmazújváros it became clear that the association halls, which had been built from the community's resources (the building was a serious burden for the constructing community), were indeed buildings built by the community, remaining in the community's property with communal functions. As a consequence of intertwining of the processes great importance was attached to the halls in the life of the communities. The halls became to landmarks in the town: points of orientation in the construction, in the permanent (for example infrastructural) development, in the culture and in the gradual transformation of the tradition of social contacts. 269
