Tanulmányok
„My loved one had a vineyard…"
In 722 BC, Samaria was captured by the Assyrian forces, which brought an end to the statehood of ancient Israel. The population had already begun to flee before the conquest, and many had found refuge in the Southern Jewish state of Judah. The resettlement of the refugees meant a serious economical challenge for Judah, which was both smaller and poorer than Israel.
Historical research may find the description of two solutions for coping with these problems in the prophetic song of Isaiah 5 about the vineyard as well as the woe oracles immediately following it. The poem is about an unsuccessful attempt to plant a vineyard while the woe oracles scourge the phenomena of social injustice and corruption.
Both written in the last third of the 8th century BC, the poem and the woe oracles are tightly bound together. Recent archeological research has shown that the Kingdom of Judah had tried to get revenue relatively quickly from vineyard plantation campaigns so that it could finance the settlement of the refugees. On the other hand, they had tried to grant land, big enough to sustain them, to the newcomers among the natives.
According to Isaiah 5 both actions were accompanied by wide-ranging corruption and social injustice, because of which these attempts, going against God.s will, could not succeed.
The Framework for Corn Trade in Hungary in the First Half of the 19th century. A Territorial Balance of Shortages and Oversupply. Settlements.
Corn trade had a great influence on economic and, indirectly, social development in the 19th century, but only certain elements of it, primarily export and the fluctuation of prices, have been discussed in Hungarian literature, which has not yet explored, for want of adequate sources, the volume and direction of domestic trade or the relationship between the borders of market districts and retail and wholesale sales. Drawing on his previous papers, the author makes an attempt to estimate, on the basis of the territorial distribution of production and population, the excess or shortage of corn in each region, which is the basic requirement for the exchange of goods. He aims to compare his previous deficit estimate of 8,6 million pozsonyi mérő (a contemporary unit of measurement equaling 62,53 litres) for all the counties to the needs of the royal and market towns and the villages, and thus explore that latent opportunity which was present in the relations between the various regions of the counties as well as in the balancing trade between the countries. With the addition of these items, the required quantity of corn not covered by domestic production doubled and amounted to four times the export in 1840.
The „Socrealist" Contexts of the Collectivization Campaign (1948–1953)
The most radical social operation in Soviet-type dictatorships was the partial "collection", "collectivization" of land and persons. As a result of compulsory delivery, the consolidation of land, taxation and the collectivization campaign, accompanied by terror, as well as the dissolution of former ecclesiastical and social milieus the society became extremely active. The offerings of the "Socialist project", aligned with industrialization and utopian goals, as well as the advantages it provided for certain groups meant a unique participation in political dictatorship. The continuity of the campaigns, permeating everyday life, and their theatricality made several elements of the apparently well-designed program self-propelled and dynamic. The author lays special emphasis on the description of contemporary interpretations and the everyday practice of adaptive resistance. The news and experiences of "Sovietization", traumatization and tabooization, all these together created those double communications and pretended forms of behavior, which were present even in the decades of "living Socialism". Despite the seismic changes, Socreal factory models, existing mostly on paper only, were in apparent minority in the analyzed period. The "kolkhoz model" is primarily the history of importing a failure into Hungary, which was a mere waste of resources. The social practice of the first waves of collectivization can almost always be described along the village segregation process of the previous era. In summary, we can claim that it was only the post-1958 frontal collectivization campaign – carried out in coordination with other Soviet regimes – that sealed the fate of the peasantry in the long run.
Disciplinary Cases of Army Chaplains in the Era of Reforms
The paper focuses on the disciplinary cases of the chaplains of the imperial and royal army bishopric during the era of reforms. The selection of the subject is justified by the fact that literature has so far dealt with the regulations for and the heroic deeds of the army chaplains only. The most common offenses among the soldiers were suicide and illegal affairs with concubines. A series of regulations were introduced to stamp out the latter, but as officers. marriage was restrained by the army leadership due to economic and military reasons, these did hardly have the desired effect. Most armies tried to keep suicide cases in secret. Suicide was attributed to inadequate religious training, and accordingly prevention primarily meant religious instruction and the conscientious activity of the army chaplains.
As far as army chaplains were concerned, the abuses related to keeping inaccurate registers had a long history. These were sanctioned very severely because back then the state had not yet taken upon itself the duty of issuing legal certificates. From the 1830s onwards, the number of church disciplinary cases started to rise rapidly. Even though celibacy was generally practiced among army chaplains, there were cases of infringement in this field as well.
It is surprising that even higher rank ministers and members of the army bishopric had disciplinary cases. It was a radically new phenomenon that certain army chaplains became followers of Enlightenment and liberal ideas. One of the first of such cases (that of a certain József Cziny) shocked the superiors. Yet no measures were taken and the liberal adherents of the Hungarian national movement were not removed from the ranks of army chaplains. This cost the Austrian Empire dear during the revolutions of 1848. In spite of that, discipline among army ministers in the 1830s and 1840s cannot be regarded as worse than among other military groups.
Kossuth, the Devil
The paper examines how the leaders of the imperial and royal army saw Kossuth during the months of the Revolution of 1848. The first chapter describes the picture of Kossuth as drawn and implied in imperial as well as imperial and royal proclamations and announcements. The paper claims that, paradoxically, these documents actively contributed to the emergence of Kossuth.s cult because, by overemphasizing his role, they substantiated the public image about his importance. In the second chapter, the operations of the Hungarian and Austrian intelligence in 1848 and 1849 are discussed. It is claimed that the intelligence services had notable failures on both sides, while successes were rare as agents could usually only follow the events rather than forecast them. This is interesting especially because the imperial and royal army as well the imperial government had already had an extensive network of intelligence before 1848 but this collapsed after the revolution. The Hungarian side had to build an intelligence service from scratch, and in this respect it only had the advantage of playing on the home filed.
Using documents related to the military campaigns of 1848-1849 held in the Old Field Documents collection (Alte Feldakten) of the Austrian Military Archives (Kriegsarchiv), the third chapter analyzes how the imperial and royal army leaders saw Kossuth. In the vast collection of documents Kossuth is mentioned rather often, but the imperial and royal military were more interested in his field visits than in his political activity. It was so because they believed that if Kossuth was with the army the Hungarian troops would launch an attack at the given battlefield. The imperial and royal intelligence had relatively accurate data on Kossuth.s sojourns near the Leitha and in Pozsony in October-November 1848, his activity in Debrecen in January 1849, as well as his visits to the field in March and April. It noteworthy that it was such an intelligence report that recorded Kossuth.s speech at Eger on March 30, 1849. During the spring of 1849, however, the imperial and royal military were given more misinformation, for example, about Kossuth.s visit at Pancsova or about his appearance at Komarom in August 1849. This flow of false reports ended only when the news of Kossuth.s leaving the country at Orsova began to spread.
Transylvaian Főispáns after the Compromise of 1867
The paper makes an attempt to answer the following questions. Did the Transylvanian Hungarian elite succeed in surviving the changes that came about after 1848? To what extent could they adapt to the new system after the Compromise? From what ranks were főispans elected after 1867? Can we still observe the dominance of aristocracy in their ranks? How a typical főispán career did look like? And last but not least: to what extent were főispáns locals, i.e. connected to the municipality?
It is concluded that 1867 was not a watershed in the history of the Hungarian administrative elite as the pre-1848 elite did manage to preserve itself, with the liberal camp gaining more ground. In 1861, the majority of officers were members of the latter who rose to power again in 1867. Qualification was not a requirement for promotion, but those who dreamed of an administrative or political career (even though the two was practically inseparable) usually enrolled to some respected religious grammar school and after vocational training at the Royal Court at Marosvásárhely they got hold of a lawyer.s degree.
The officers can be divided into two main groups: the members of the first one (the less wealthy all belong here) gradually rose in the hierarchy and became officers after a longer administrative training. As this is how they made their living, they also tended to have a longer career and they needed to better adapt to political changes.
The 1867 gang had strong local bonds, the majority of officers being embedded in the given municipalities through their estates and family ties. Or if not that, they came usually from the neighboring municipalities or had family ties there as well. All the officers were, without exception, Transylvanians. The role of family connections cannot be overemphasized when it came to career at the time.
Műhely
múltidéző
Határainkon túl
Figyelő