THE SHIFT OF THE MANORS CONDITIONS: THE EXAMPLE OF BÁBOLNA AND MEZŐHEGYES
Abstract
In my essay I examine the historical development of two settlements with a common origin, but located in different parts of Hungary. I investigate primarily the manors located in the peripheries of the townships. The manors spread throughout Hungary in the second half of the 19th century, and they had a special function, societies and morphology. They were built and ran by the large estate owners, whose aim was to make high profit by intensive agriculture: both animal husbandry and cultivation. The social class of agricultural workers (“cselédség”) was the labour force of the estates until the second half of the 20th century.
Bábolna and Mezőhegyes were established in the second half of the 18th century as military studs. After 1875, beside the raise and training of horses, they also had to be the places of high-standard agriculture, hence they also built manors. Since their owner was the state itself, they provided slightly different conditions for their workers, compared to the others, working for private estates. The estates were more closed, the workers had some kind of “pension” when they become old, they worked for fix wage for example. At the first decades of the 20th century Mezőhegyes had a population at about 8400, while Bábolna had at about 1500 inhabitants.
In 1945 the half of the former estate in Mezőhegyes was affected in the land distribution, what caused a functional, social and morphological differentiation among the manors. Most of them were demolished, but the ones remained state-owned kept former features. In the beginning of the 1960’s the Bábolna-estate started a reform, namely the intensification (“industrialization”) of cultivation. The model became exemplary that time, and Bábolna became the richest of the state farms. Because of the state farms, most of the manors provided workplace, social services and a perspective to live to the inhabitants.
After the privatization, these features changed: most of the workers became unemployed, the shops closed, the local bus service stopped. Nowadays both towns have manors with high proportion of the poor and elderly people. The case of Bábolna and Mezőhegyes is a special one compared to the shift of the manors elsewhere: generally the manors lost they economical function after the land distribution in 1945, while in Bábolna and Mezőhegyes it totally happened only at the end of the 1990’s.
