Cohabitation in ethnically and denominationally mixed settlements in Hungary during the transition from a society of orders to modern age

Abstract

After the Ottoman rule, ethnically and denominationally mixed towns (oppida) emerged in large parts of Hungary as a predominant type of settlement. Till 1848 their inhabitants usually had the status of serfs. They developed specific forms of coexistence: below the formal community level, there were in fact separate villages, that hardly interacted beyond their economic concerns. The dividing lines between them disappeared only towards the end of 19. century, sometimes only after World War I. Associations were founded in these towns, too, but usually they had a specification according to language and denomination. Mezőberény (Békés county), inhabited by Hungarian speaking Calvinists as well as German and Slovak speaking Lutherans, and Szekszárd (Tolna county), re-settled in the 18th century by German und Hungarian speaking Catholics beside a pre-Ottoman population of Hungarian speaking Calvinists, serve as examples. They allow to demonstrate that differences in denominational dogmatics or decisions of the church hierarchy were not the reason for this phenomenon. Based especially on an in-depth historical-sociological analysis of the market town of Szekszárd by Z. Tóth, it is demonstrated that instead, different socioeconomic characteristics, conducts of life, subsistence and accumulation strategies, and patterns of intergenerational mobility of the respective members were in the background of these separate associations of people, who at the surface seam to share first of all the same denomination. Finally, it is discussed whether the reproduction of this distinction in a socially new form (the association) can be interpreted as an indication of the existence of denominationally delimited ethnic groups.