The
18th & 19th Century
Thanks to the regulation of the lord lease
(1767-1768) by Maria Theresia, archduchess of Austria
and queen of Hungary and Bohemia, information
about the bond-slaves in the Slovene villages within the Raba Region are accessible.
The law of the lord lease regularised the rights and tributes of these
bond-slaves. Furthermore, this law kept an account on the size of the estates
on which the bond-slaves paid the taxes to their squires and the state. Until
the middle of the 19th century, the Slovenes from the Raba Region were
bond-slaves of three squire families, the Battyányi family, the
Nádasdy family and the Széchy family and the Cistercian monks. Six
of the ten Slovene settlements that existed at that time were subordinate to
the Cistercians. A day per week the bond-slaves of the Cistercian monks were
obliged to execute socage with the aid of two, three or four oxen. During the
time of the regulation of the lord lease the bond-slaves complained that the
monks sold them spoilt wine and that they were not allowed to keep wine for
sale over three to six months. Within the six settlements that belonged to the
Cistercians agriculturally used area was acutely rare. Simultaneously to the
inauguration of the church of the Cistercian abbey in Szentgotthárd a
Catholic chapel was built in Alsószölnök (1764). Together with
Felsõszölnök, Ritkaháza and Neuhaus (Austria)
Alsószölnök belonged to the manor of the Battyányi
family. In 1728, the widow of Earl Battyányi possessed 24 bond-slaves in
Alsószölnök, among them there were two shoemakers and a
potter. What is more, their possessions included grassland but not vineyards. Towards
the end of the 18th century this estate augmented due to the added local brick
buildings and the appendant land, due to barns and a mill. In 1777, Maria
Theresia founded a new church district domiciled in Szombathely. Within this new church district
all the Catholic Slovenes in Hungary were united. During this time the term
"vendvidék/Wends- and Windish-land respectively" (Slovenska
krajina) was created, which integrated the Catholic Slovenes in Vas County and
Zala County within one church district. The first bishop of Szombathely
János Szily was a major promoter of the Slovene believers. In
Apátistvánfalva he had had a church built from 1776 to 1780,
since the inhabitants of Apátistvánfalva and its surroundings
belonged to a parish within the Szentgotthárd outskirts Kethely. Priest
Miklós Küzmics was appointed provost of the Slovenes and he
published his books that were written in Slovene and were set books in the
Catholic schools within the whole church district. The books written and
printed by Evangelic and Catholic priests did not reach every Slovene
household. Many Slovene teachers did not acquire these books either. The
so-called cantor teachers who did not only tutor at schools entered the songs
treated in these books in notebooks. Most of these songs were translations of
Catholic and Evangelic songs from the Hungarian language. In 1883 half of
Rábatótfalu was destroyed by a major burning, by reason of this
disaster the chapel of Saint Florian was built.
The
Slovenes and the Hungarian revolution of 1848
During the Hungarian revolution against Habsburg in March 1848 Illyrism, which
tried to reach the local Croatian and Slovene inhabitants, circulated in Vas County.
Illyrism was a linguistic, cultural and political movement. The key-note was
mainly a common state, which is inhabited by south Slavs and descendants of the
Illyrians, runs from the Black Sea to the Adria and which is being controlled
by Croatian leadership. On May 22, 1848 the sub-major of Vas County,
József Széll, wrote a letter to the Hungarian minister of the
interior. In this letter he informed him that he, in order to keep the Slovenes
away from Illyrian propaganda, set up border patrol at the southern border
whereby he prevented a possible mislead of the Slovenes in the Raba Region. On
September 24 1848 the Catholic Church called a people's council, in which after
separate church districts councils were organised. The church district of
Szentgotthárd held its assembly on August 23 1848 in the neighboring
locality Jennersdorf (Austria). Parishes belonging to the church district of
Szentgotthárd were all of German oder Slovene mother tongue. In these
assemblies it was a major concern of the priests from the Raba Region that they
could give lessons in schools and churches and pray in their own mother tongue.
Unfortunately, the people's council did not result in a regulation. The
revolution against Habsburg ended in Vas County already towards the end of
1848. Coming from Steiermark general Nugent crossed the border to the Slovene
Raba Region in December 1848, and it came under his military administrations. In
1849 the command to collect all the weapons in every Slovene village and to fly
the flag of the Austrian emperor was issued. During the Hungarian revolution
against Habsburg (1848-1849) the Catholic Slovenes of the Raba Region sided
with the Catholic Habsburgs. The Evangelic Slovenes, however supported the
freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth, sided with Hungary and they pleaded for the
separation of Hungary from Habsburg which with its anti-Protestant policy. At
that time, the reasoning that the inhabitants of the Raba Region were not
Slovenes but Wends and Winds/Windish Slovenes respectively and that as a
consequence their ancestral Slavic/ancestral Slovene/Vindish language was not
to be equated with the other Slovenes living in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy
was established. In the opinion of the Evangelic-Slovene priest of Hodoš (Slovenia) the
only possibility for the Evangelic Slovenes emerging from the Catholic-Slovene
population group to continue was to support Lajos Kossuth and his Hungarian
culture. Hereafter the Evangelic Slovenes used their language in churches and
schools in the most traditional way in order to distinguish themselves from the
Catholic Slovenes and the Slovene literature language. The Evangelic priests
and believers remained of the conviction that they could only adhere to their Evangelic
faith when following the wish of the Hungarians and considering themselves
“Vendek/Wends/Winds/Windish Slovenes”. If they did not conform to
this, then they were in danger of being assimilated into Hungarian culture.
Industrial
settlement in Szentgotthárd
During the turn of the century several factories, which enabled also the
Slovenes in the Raba Region to work, were founded in Szentgotthárd. Including,
amongst others, a tobacco factory and a brickyard (1894). Within the Slovene
villages the cultivation of tobacco had a long a tradition, and for the newly
founded tobacco factory a great deal of workers were available at that time. This
tobacco factory, which employed mainly women, produced cigars and after 1945
also cigarettes. However, on March 1 1948 it was closed. The brickyard, which
was nationalized in 1949, specialized particularly in tiles made in manual work
and only in 1960 it changed from manual to mechanical production. In 1896
Fülöp Kohn founded a watch factory with the aid of Swiss and
Hungarian shareholders. In 1904 the factory burnt down but it could be rebuilt
three years later thanks to subsidy. The clock factory, in which the majority
of the employees were Swiss, moved to Vienna in 1929. The production of a
weaving mill, which had been founded in 1899, began in 1901. Only since the
1960s until the 1980s it provided a secure job for the Slovene women living in
the Raba Region. After the political change the weaving mill was privatized and
as a consequence a lot of Slovene employees lost their jobs. In 1902 the
Austrian baron József Wiesner founded a blacksmith's store in
Szentgotthárd, which conduced to the war industry until the Second World
War. The owner József Wiesner and his foreign workers left the
enterprise in March 1945. The Free Hungarian Iron- and Metal Union seized the
blacksmith's store, which became Soviet, but later on Hungarian public
ownership. On December 31 2001 the blacksmith's store was closed.
Seasonal
work
Due to the bad farmland, the overpopulation and the tight job market a part of
the Slovene population of the Raba Region depended on seasonal work from
spring-time to autumn. In the 18th and 19th century they also went to the
neighboring counties in order to mow, to harvest and to flail. Until the First World
War the Slovenes from the Raba Region were laboring as construction workers in
Austria or as seasonal workers in the agricultural sector in other parts of
Hungary. Between the two world wars, above all in the 1930s, they were working
on the estates of squires in Somogy County, Baranya County and Fejér
County. By this means the Slovene families earned the necessary funds for
wintertime. Between the two world wars their salary consisted of crop and some
money. Also after the Second World War, before job opportunities improved in
Szentgotthárd, seasonal work, particularly in the
Mosonmagyaróvár region, was the main source of income. In the
late 1960s new employment opportunities opened up for the Slovenes from the
Raba Region. At first, only contracts for separate seasonal workings were
negotiated within the Mosonmagyaróvár Lajta-Hanság State
Industries, later on however, also permanent working contracts. Some Slovene
families also settled down in the Mosonmagyaróvár region, where
there was established a Slovene self-administration in 1998. In the 1970s and
1980s the economic situation of the Slovenes from the Raba Region improved, and
they only laboured as seasonal workers in Dombóvár, Cspreg and
Söpte in order to supplement their income. Since the political change in
Hungary nowadays mainly seasonal work in Austria and to some extent also in
Slovenia is done in order to supplement one's income.
The
endeavour to assimilate into Hungarian culture
In 1792 Hungarian was introduced as language of instruction in all the schools
on Hungarian soil. Within the Vas County a foundation was created in 1820 and
in 1826 a permanent commission responsible for the spread of the Hungarian
language was founded. Bishop András Bõle demanded that the
register books, which had been written in Latin until 1842, should be continued
using the Hungarian language. Evangelic teacher István Lülik and
priest József Kossics wrote a Hungarian linguistic book for Slovene
children. The textbook by Lülik remained in its handwritten version,
whereas the one written by Kossics was printed in Graz at the expense of Vas
County. The goal of these two authors was not the promotion of Hungarian
assimilation but rather enable the Slovenes from the Raba Region to advance
more easily within Hungarian society and not to be disadvantaged due to the
lack of language ability. After an agreement in 1867 Hungarian became the
official language.
Translated from German into English: Joël Gerber
The German text is based on: Mukics Mária,
„A Magyarországi Szlovének“; Press Publica,
(2003)