Balázs György (szerk.): The abolition of serfdom and its impact on rural culture, Guide to the Exhibition Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Revolution and War if Independence of 1848-49 (Budapest-Szentendre, Museum of Hungarian Agriculture-Hungarian Open-Air Museum, 1998.)

Hungary. Several mansions and halls were buill or enlarged in those days, and the living conditions of the peasantry also improved in certain parts of the country. THE TRADITIONAL WAY OF LIFE AND ITS CHANGES IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES The dwelling houses, rooms, and kitchens reconstructed in the exhibition, and their original furniture and utensils, reflect the changes that took place from the early nineteenth century to the late 1880s; namely the process of the disintegration of the traditional way of life of the preasantry. In the decades following the abolition of serfdom, new building materials, modern and more lavishly decorated furniDwelling house of a nobleman ture, new methods of farming, and modern machines were introduced in rural Hungary, leading to a special type of bourgeois development in the countryside. „Until the great transformation that took place in the nineteenth century, the history of the Hungarian society was prim13