REAL-PhD

Roman, Ioan Laurențiu

Tanítványság János evangéliumában a μένω ige alapján

Novotnik, Ádám

Pázmány Péter Catholic University 
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 
 
 
 
Ádám Novotnik 
Symbolic Burials in Roman Imperial Times 
with Special Regard to the Danubian 
Provinces 
Thesis of PhD dissertation 
Supervisor: Dr. Péter Kovács, DSc 
Doctoral School of Historical Sciences 
Head of the Doctoral School: Dr. Sándor Őze, DSc 
Doctoral Program in Intellectual History 
Head of Doctoral Program: Dr. Ida Fröhlich, DSc 
Budapest 
2019 
1 
 
I. Previous research and aims of the dissertation 
 
In the history of civilizations, like in our modern world, cemeteries 
almost always appear alongside settlements as death is a natural part 
of human life, even if it is often considered a taboo even today. We 
encounter relics with symbolic content that remind us of the death of 
someone, including the cross of Christ or the tomb of ‘the unknown 
soldier’. Owing to their symbolism, roadside memorials of casualty 
scenes also belong to this phenomenon and relatives usually return to 
them to remember the deceased with a bouquet, a wreath or a candle. 
Symbolic tombstones or entries of names in the local cemetery or the 
family tomb of relatives who died and were interred off site may also 
be mentioned in this connection. 
Symbolic burials or cenotaphs are exemplified by empty graves 
or tombs, in which no remains of the deceased can be found. These 
symbolic graves are usually made at the request of relatives for those 
individuals who died abroad (e.g. as soldiers or merchants) and were 
buried there, or whose bodies had been lost (e.g. at sea or in battles). 
This custom is not new. It can be found in every historical period in 
some form or another as attested by historical sources. The present 
dissertation deals with such an abundantly documented phenomenon, 
the symbolic burials in Roman Imperial times. 
Previous studies usually dealt only indirectly with this relatively 
frequent and complex phenomenon and it was only in the past two 
decades that greater attention has been given to it. Three outstanding 
monographs, published almost simultaneously 15 years ago, were the 
2 
 
starting point for this dissertation. The first is an oft-quoted paper by 
Marcus Reuter,1 which does not focus on cenotaphs but examines the 
epitaphs of Roman soldiers killed in battle as well as the attitudes of 
the imperial authorities to them. 
The written sources were first collected and catalogued by Gabriele 
Mietke in her lexicon entry ‘Kenotaph’ in the Reallexikon für Antike 
und Christentum.2 
Cecilia Ricci has collected the written and epigraphical sources 
of cenotaphs and catalogued them according to their religious 
character as determined by Roman law (type A: real cenotaphs made 
out of necessity, e.g. because of the absence of bodies; type B1 and 
B2: tombs of common men or rulers, persons exalted in their honour 
and remembrance). Her monograph,3 a systematic catalogue of 130 
excerpts from Greek and Latin textual sources and epitaphs collected 
from the entire territory of the Roman Empire, may well be regarded 
as the standard work on cenotaphs. 
Since the publication of these works many previously unknown 
inscriptions have been found enabling us to expand the extent of our 
investigations. Whereas earlier research focused on the tombstones 
of soldiers, now it is possible to incorporate the epitaphs of civilians 
into our investigations. A comprehensive archaeological examination 
                                                 
1 Reuter, M.: Gefallen für Rom. Beobachtungen an den Grabinschriten im Kampf 
getöteter römischer Soldaten. In: Visy Zs. (ed.): Limes XIX. Proceedings of the XIXth 
International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies Held in Pécs, Hungary, September 
2003. Pécs 2005, 255–263. 
2 Mietke, G.: s. v. Kenotaph. In: Schöllgen, G. et al. (hrsg.): Reallexikon für Antike 
und Christentum. Band XX. Stuttgart 2004, col. 709–734. 
3 Ricci, C.: Qui non riposa. Cenotafi antichi e moderni fra memoria e 
rappresentazione. Roma 2006. 
3 
 
and analysis of all currently known symbolic burials is yet to be done 
and the scope of this dissertation is limited to Pannonia Superior and 
Inferior, as they are copiously documented in recent publications on 
cemeteries, which contain precise observational data on excavations. 
Therefore, the main purpose of this dissertation is to assemble all 
the sources of Roman imperial symbolic burials in the Danubian 
provinces and Dalmatia, to assess them from an interdisciplinary 
point of view, and to propose a thorough historical analysis of this 
cultural and religious ritual that can still be observed even today. 
 
 
II. The sources of research and applied methodology 
 
This dissertation is built on three source groups as mentioned above: 
1) written historical and literary sources, 2) imperial inscriptions, and 
3) archaeological sources. 
The collection and study of the ancient Greek and Roman textual 
material about cenotaphs has been accomplished only in part (see the 
works of G. Mietke and C. Ricci). The present dissertation wishes to 
supplement and revise the earlier surveys by paying special attention 
to the analysis of attitudes to and beliefs about the unburied dead as 
determined by the aspects and details of the custom. According to a 
widely held belief, the souls of the unburied not only remain restless, 
roaming about in the underworld but also haunt the living as hostile 
spirits. Ancient Jewish and early Christian sources, previously used 
unsystematically, are also investigated. Legal texts (e.g. the Digesta) 
4 
 
are our most important written sources. They not only determine the 
religious character of symbolic burials and graves, but also seem to 
suggest that cenotaphs are a more widespread phenomenon than they 
are thought to have been. Legal texts will be used to propose a global 
(ancient Mediterranean, primarily Hellenic and Italian) assessment of 
symbolic burials. Since ancient literary or historical sources on the 
Danubian provinces and Dalmatia are unknown, observations made 
about the territories investigated here are bound to be imprecise as 
the general customs of classical Greek and Roman culture do not 
always correspond to the customs of a specific provincial population, 
particularly to those of the lower classes, according to their degree of 
Romanization. 
The backbone and the most important source base of the present 
dissertation consists of imperial epitaphs which can be interpreted as 
symbolic graves. The epitaphs are examined here according to three 
criteria: 1) philological considerations, 2) Roman law classification, 
and 3) the probability of interpreting them as cenotaphs. This part of 
my work uses epigraphical methods. The catalogue of 81 epitaphs is 
based on electronic databases (LUPA, Epigraphische Datenbank 
Heidelberg, Epigraphische Datenbank Clauss–Slaby) and on recently 
published material not included in established corpora of inscriptions 
(e.g. CIL, RIU). The provenience of each gravestone has been taken 
into consideration because it cannot be ruled out that some epitaphs 
were relocated from the place of death indicated on them to another 
spot (which in some cases was close to their original location). 
5 
 
The third group comprises the archaeological source material of 
the two Pannonian provinces, which had many uncertainties due to 
their interpretation, therefore, it is the most complicated category. 
There are features in usually smaller amounts in the cemeteries 
which fit in the order of burials. In most cases they are undisturbed, 
additionally, according to the local practices shaped features could 
be interpreted as grave pits which did not contain human remains or 
their traces but certain types of objects (e.g. pottery) can appear in 
them. These empty tombs are inseparable from observations made at 
the excavations and the context in which they were found. It must be 
mentioned that some epitaphs (CIL III 15159; TitAq II, 682.; ILJug 
I, 271–274) were found presumably in situ, i.e. at the place of their 
setting up, but the methodology of excavation and the incomplete 
observations made were insufficient to recognize further coherences 
at that time. From the point of view of source criticism I call these 
features ‘cenotaph-like’ because their emptiness could be related to 
several, not always obvious, causes and using archaeological 
methods it can only be assumed that they were genuine cenotaphs. 
Relying on an overview of the effects (primary and secondary 
human factors, e.g. shape of the grave, tillage, grave plundering, and 
other biological factors, e.g. unfavourable property of the soil) I have 
intended to describe the features which could be studied. In my work 
I have used earlier publications, also data of unpublished grave pits, 
which were submitted to me, and I also collected the archaeological 
features of 21 cemeteries or details of cemeteries, which did not 
contain mortuary remains and can be interpreted as symbolic graves. 
6 
 
All these were included into two catalogues according to the extent 
of disturbance, furthermore, the classification of these features have 
been supplemented by short analyses (e.g. shape, orientation, place 
in cemetery, types of grave goods occasionally interred in the grave 
pit and their position in it). 
 
 
III. Results 
 
As it was settled before, the majority of Greek and Roman sources 
mainly mentions cenotaphs established for mythological actors, 
rulers and their family members, generals and illustrious persons. 
However, the outlook of the cenotaphs can be deduced from literary 
sources (e.g. the Aeneid) together with a three-step ritual when in the 
end the name of the deceased was acclaimed thrice at the symbolic 
grave. Nonetheless, it can be concluded that more sources, especially 
legal texts, refer to the wide-spread practice of symbolic burials,4 the 
replacement of the body of the deceased with a (wax) effigy,5 as well 
as the transference of the corpse (translatio cadaveris). The latter 
could have determined the religious character of a tomb, namely its 
locus religiosus. A tomb can also be symbolical if the dead body was 
buried somewhere else or if it was relocated to some other place; in 
these cases the monument was not under religious protection. The 
gravestones of disappeared persons could have been exceptions in 
                                                 
4 Cf. Appian. Mithr. 443.; Dig. 3, 2, 25, 1.; Dig. 11, 7, 42. A special group composed 
the source places and epitaphs linked with persons who were lost in the sea. 
5 Cf. Liv. VIII, 10, 12.; CIL XIV 2112=ILS 7212. as well as Hérod. IV. 1–2. 
7 
 
the last case. Contrary to Greek and Roman beliefs in an afterlife and 
according to the early Christian belief (e.g. Tertullian, Athenagoras, 
Minucius Felix, Augustine) the resurrection of the body is not 
influenced negatively by its unburiedness because God can recreate 
anything; therefore, the establishment of empty tombs was not even 
mentioned although the cult of saints is an exception because the 
point was the presence of the mortal remains of the revered dead. 
In the area researched the inscriptions are regarded as the most 
obvious sources of cenotaphs where definable and typical phrases 
were used. Examining the inscriptions, I have separated those cases 
which refer unambiguously to the fact that the deceased was either 
buried somewhere else or simply disappeared. Moreover, I have 
made a classification according to the use of verbs and participles in 
order to investigate groups by circumstances of death: in group one 
inscriptions refer to violent deaths and group two contains 
inscriptions which simply declare the death. As a result, it can be 
determined that six tombs can be considered cenotaphs and only one 
deceased was a soldier. The majority of the inscriptions (62 items) 
mainly stet the fact of death (possibly the circumstances and place of 
it) and nothing indicates whether the remains were buried on the spot 
or were relocated to another place (translatio cadaveris). Regarding 
the precariousness of the interpretation, these epitaphs are classified 
as ‘cenotaph-like’ tombstones. Considering the controversial nature 
of the interpretation of 3rd-century military inscriptions containing 
the desideratus participle (12 items), which is mostly current in 
Danubian provinces, they were classified as an intermediate category 
8 
 
since instead of the formerly accepted interpretation as ‘missing’ in a 
military context it was probably used in the meaning of ‘killed/fallen 
in battle/campaign’. In sum, cenotaph-related epigraphs usually 
occur in a military environment: approximately 62% of the 81 
inscriptions fall indisputably in this group on the area investigated. 
As the transportation of human remains seems to be connected 
with the cenotaph-like inscriptions, it is reasonable to consider the 
phenomenon of translatio cadaveris a special type of spatial 
mobility. The transportation of the remains was regulated in detail by 
Roman law, which reinforces the view that it was an everyday act. 
Nevertheless, greater distances could increase the costs and practical 
difficulties which could have been an obstacle to the relatives; for 
this reason, symbolic graves were made in the homeland of the 
deceased. Based on the known distances between the two ends (the 
place of death and that of burial) recorded in Hellenistic and Roman 
epitaphs (70 items), I calculate with a 2500 km radius of action, 
which in turn defines the maximum distance of the phenomenon. 
The calculation of the distances can be made by cenotaph-like graves 
– in these cases the places of deaths and the places of the tombstones 
are known – hence the probability can be more precise whether these 
gravestones were cenotaphs. This radius of action is exceeded only 
in 8 epitaphs, characteristically inscriptions of private soldiers 
serving in a legion. Similarly to the case of translatio, the decrease 
of distance caused an increase in the number of inscriptions and the 
focus is on the distance which was less than 1000 km (60,5%) – this 
fact reinforces the theory that the transportation of the remains could 
9 
 
mostly occur in these cases. The majority of the latter – especially 
when the distance is under 500 km – belonged to civilians. 
I have examined the cenotaph-related archaeological source material 
applied to Pannonia Superior and Inferior. It can be claimed that 
cenotaph-like graves are present throughout the Roman Imperial 
period and the majority of the features can be related to the 
inhumation burial rite which are mostly simple rectangle shaped 
graves. The features which occurred in the cremation details of 
cemeteries usually contain grave goods which are mostly artefacts 
for daily use. Only one-third of the inhumation grave pits comprised 
funerary equipments, furthermore articles of wear also occurred. 
Five categories can be defined according to the position of the grave 
goods in the grave pit. The symbolism has been suggested in the 
following cases: the grave goods are in the middle of the grave pit 
(2nd group), they are placed in a pile (3rd group), they are placed 
according to the imaginary position of the deceased person (4th 
group), and undisturbed grave pits with a sidewall niche and pots in 
it (5th group). No single type of funerary equipment could have been 
identified to clearly signal whether the grave is a cenotaph. Although 
in extreme soil conditions the disappearance of bones (especially in 
the case of infants) cannot be excluded, due to the sources mentioned 
above the use of an effigy is likely. However, whether these 
phenomena are real cenotaphs or not is impossible to decide using 
archaeological methodology only, therefore research might be 
carried ahead by applying scientific methods. 
10 
 
The last chapter of the dissertation deals primarily with the 
general question of why people created cenotaphs for relatives who 
died and were buried in distant places, why this was important, and 
to who. The answers to these questions span several disciplines and 
these complex correlations (religious beliefs, pietas, spatial identity, 
social psychological factors, making possible the work of mourning, 
thanato-psychological factors, ensuring the memory of the deceased, 
religious festivals for the dead) are discussed in the summary. In this 
chapter the need for grief or a grieving process has been particularly 
emphasized in the case of a failed burial, when establishing a spatial 
object can help those left behind to cope with their sorrow. 
11 
 
IV. Publications in the subject of the thesis 
 
Ein besonderer Bestattungsbrauch: „Leere” Gräber in der 
Awarenzeit. Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 51 
(2011) 99–113. 
Kincs, ami nincs. Egy különleges temetkezési szokás: üres sírok az 
avar korban. [A Special Burial Custom: ’Empty’ Graves in the Avar 
period] In: László G. – Toronyi A. (hrsg.): Helytállás. A XII. Eötvös 
Konferencia történeti ülésének válogatott tanulmányai. Budapest, 
Eötvös Collegium Történész Műhely, 2012, 47–91. (Acta Historica 
Collegii de Iosepho Eötvös Nominati. Series I. Nr. 3.) 
Megjegyzések Senio Comatonis f(ilius) dunapentelei sírkövéhez. 
Studia Epigraphica Pannonica VII (2015) 109–115. 
A jelképes temetkezések helye és szerepe a kulturális emlékezetben. 
In: Bojtos A. – Novotnik Á. (szerk.): Eszmetörténeti tanulmányok. 
Dolgozatok a 2012. november 10-én, Piliscsabán rendezett 
konferencia előadásaiból. Budapest, Pázmány Péter Katolikus 
Egyetem Bölcsészet- és Társadalomtudományi Kar, 2016, 75–84. 
(Doktoriskolai konferenciák 1.) 
Kenotáfiumok a sírfeliratok tükrében. Studia Epigraphica Pannonica 
IX (2017) 96–105. 


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Csikós, Gábor

 Pázmány Péter Catholic University 
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 
 
 
 
 
 
Autonomies on individual and small community level (1850 – 1970)  
by the socio-historical example of Jászdózsa and Páty 
 
Theses of PhD dissertation 
 
 
by: Gábor Csikós 
 
Consultant: József Ö. Kovács, DSc 
 
 
Doctoral School of History 
Head of Dept.: Sándor Őze, DSc 
 
Budapest 2018 
 I. Problem statement, background of the research 
 
 
Analyses often show that the tragic events of Hungarian history are explained by the characteristics of the 
Eastern European social development. Many notable scholars (including István Bibó and Barrington Moore) 
indicated that while Western societies became more capitalistic and democratic under the leadership of the 
bourgeoisie after the Middle Ages, Eastern Europe turned into a backwater with the excessive influence of the 
nobility, preserved serfdom and modernization belated. All these factors led these countries into dictatorships 
and social cataclysms. Peasantry and village people were blamed by many for the birth of both communism and 
fascism.  
However Thomas Jefferson represented a different view on farmers, describing the yeoman as a pivotal 
condition to democracy. The land property of the yeoman not only grants economical autonomy but makes 
strong bounds to the land, making him involved in the fate of his homeland. Sándor Karácsony also believed in 
the power of autonomies but not the autonomy represented by the county but rather the so called small 
autonomies found in presbyteries or village magistracy.        
The current dissertation seeks the traces and manifestations of these two opposite views in the Hungarian 
countryside milieu. Hungary was an agrarian county until the end of the Second World War: censuses show that 
more than 80% of the population (including family members) made a living from farming in 1848. Although this 
ratio decreased to two third by 1910 and to 48% by 1945, they still formed the largest group in society. Between 
1848 and 1945 they owned half of total arable land in Hungary.  
First, autonomy can be defined as economic independence based on land property cultivated by the family. On 
the other hand autonomy was also expressed on the level of small communities including local churches, 
organizations between the state and individual (e.g. guilds or clubs) or even on the level of village 
administration.   
Historical changes between 1848 and 1970 were complex. Legal approaches describe these years as a 
transformation from feudal society into a modern one that separated the church and the state and made people 
more involved in political movements. However, economic analysis highlights the changes from feudalism to 
capitalism and finally to socialism. These compound processes did not leave intact the villages either. 
The village was not independent in a legal but in an anthropological way. The village magistracy embodied this 
independence. After feudalism faded away village had to redefine its relationship with the state. This meant the 
uprise of political movements, ideals about freedoms and benefits that this new type of government should 
guarantee. And those in power – dominantly after the Second World War – viewed the foundations of the village 
independence as a tool for their plans to create a new kind of freedom, one which rooted in the idea of the 
“greater good” instead of people and neighborhoods. The main question is how these local autonomies and from-
below actions influenced the history of Hungary. 
 II. Applied methods 
 
The dissertation combines three types of methods: from-below perspective, structuralism and comparison.   
Instead of following comprehensive historical models the from-below perspective helps comprehending the 
mentality of villagers in their own cultural frame and analyzing the interaction between their tradition and the 
urban originated economic, cultural and political movements. This approach focuses on the effects of historical 
events in the often timeless everyday life. 
This dissertation follows the principles of structuralism because it views the villages as wholes and aims to 
examine their inner and outer relations. As a matter of fact the villages serve as a frame to reveal the forms of 
autonomy on a micro-level.   
This thesis also uses the comparative method. It attempts to unfold social processes by comparing two villages, 
Catholic free-peasant Jászdózsa and mostly Reformed serf village Páty. Comparing them to each other instead of 
conceptual ideals the similarities and differences might serve as a force-field analysis that shows feasible 
solutions to historical challenges for the Hungarian society. 
Comparison innately requires quantitative sources like descriptive statistical data. But this is not sufficient: 
Modern Age proved that material indicators alone simply cannot anticipate future events. So, the investigation of 
mentalities, representations and identities is inevitable in order to understand historical processes. Therefore we 
cannot neglect qualitative methods.  
Relatively big geographical distance excludes interactions between the villages therefore it makes generalizing 
possible. Choosing the villages happened to be nearly random, instead of the aforementioned ones others could 
have also been examined. Nearly random, because historical research could carry out only on well – documented 
settlements. Furthermore there is a theoretical limitation, too. In the spirit of Bloch’s methodological suggestions 
comparison needs some basic differences and similarities. Differences are represented by religion and feudal past 
in the case of Jászdózsa and Páty, but similarities are also visible in the 1780s including population (around 1700 
people) or occupational structure (farming is dominant). Archival research revealed another similarity, too: most 
of the peasants in both villages owned land property, so they had brighter prospects than those former serfs who 
worked on the large estates’ of landlords.  
The research is based on archival sources, but because of the large extent of the time span (1850 – 1970) 
historical sources become superabundant. Complete exploration is not possible even on the level of villages: the 
pre-1950 documentation of Páty is 5.31 linear meters; and the archive of Jászdózsa contains 1.25 linear meters of 
documents between 1848 and 1870. (And we did not even mention the communist era which often functioned as 
a kind of document factory.) So, the history of the one hundred and twenty years is presented only by segments. 
The land consolidation in the 1850’s and 1860’s; the First World War and the following years, the Second World 
War, the social and economic transformations in 1945 and finally the period of collectivization are those periods 
that are discussed deeply. These years determined the development of autonomies.   
 
III. Main findings 
 
Although geographic features of the villages differed, agriculture was characterized by the dominance of crops in 
both. There was a period in the history of Páty when winery gained importance, but this ended after the  
phylloxera epidemic destroyed most of the vineyard. The closeness to Budapest and its citizens’ growing 
demands on fruit made pomiculture profitable. Even though Jászdózsa’s vineyard had a larger extent, it was less 
profitable because of the economic geographical conditions that made big market hardly accessible to farmers. 
As the examples of the 1920’s show most of the farmer entrepreneurs could run their business for only a year. 
Variant patterns in demography could be explained by differences in religion that played an important role in the 
villages’ until the mid-1900.  While population in Reformed Páty stagnated, it showed rapid growth in Catholic 
Jászdózsa making different mobility patterns or life strategies favorable. Local churches shaped mentalities and 
played important roles in village life. Reformed Church stood by the peasantry’s side through the land trials in 
the 1850s, the priest behaved as a leader not only in religion questions.  Catholic Church acted the same way in 
the 20th century: cases in Jászdózsa show that most important actor of countryside modernization was the priest 
who supported the improvement of railways and school system, too.  
Distinct feudal past had a robust effect on village life only in the first decades after 1848. People of Jászdózsa 
shared a free-peasant past that made local conditions more capitalistic than in serf villages. Also, the purchase of 
land was more liberal, the culture was more homogenous and society was more integrated.  However, it was not 
an egalitarian society. Although the so called “redemptors” (whose antecedents redeemed land in 1745) and 
“irredemptors” did not detach as much as nobility and serfdom, free peasant development polarized society. As 
the dissertation shows Jászdózsa was characterized by greater wealth difference than Páty where restriction on 
(former) serf lands limited land fragmentation. It preserved the poor from total financial collapse but also limited 
the expansion of well-to-do farmers. The existence of large estates allowed farmers to possess less out of total 
area in Páty than in Jászdózsa where smallholders owned more than 90% of lands. This made Jászdózsa possible 
to hold back proletarianization until the beginning of the 20th century when this strategy reached its end due the 
lack of free lands. Therefore Jászdózsa could not allocate “Vitéz lands” or participate in “land reform” during the 
Horthy era. 
There was a „land reform” in Páty in the interwar period, but its execution was contradictory. Fresh made land 
owners were not able to pay taxes and loan. Improving travel conditions made easier access to Budapest and 
opened many job opportunities so a slow change started in occupational structure.  Compared to Jászdózsa, Páty 
showed a more active industrial activity (e.g. founding brick factories) but the dominance of farming remained.  
The „land reform” in 1945 was the first major intervention in countryside life under in the 20 th century. In both 
places we find small groups that seize power with the support of the Soviet army. They formed land-claimant 
committees in order to carry out “land reform”, but most of their decisions were cancelled on county or national 
level by the reorganized state in the following years. However, their operation caused uncertainty and severely 
damaged the traditional ethos on private property.   
Both villages opposed collectivization that started in 1948. Agitators could hardly succeed in organizing 
collective farms even with the frequent usage of force and violence. The collective farms’ membership was 
insignificant in Jászdózsa; and not so successive in Páty either: after a rapid consolidation it started to decline 
soon. These stories demonstrates how private ownership defeated the big enterprises and how farmers confuted 
communist propaganda. Local communists were not engaged to socialist modernization project eiter, but they 
tried to make comprises between the central party expectations and local will.     
Both Jászdózsa and Páty had been collectivized in 1959. This was meant not only the abolition of private 
property but the end of small-community autonomy, too.  
On small – community level the era of Monarchy and Horthy shared similar attitudes toward countryside. The 
state appeared in everyday life by taxes but it did not aim to transform society. Although minor improvements 
can be detected, but state neglected villages in general.  This attitude limited the development of villages that had 
to rely on their own sources in order to modernize (e.g. school system, electrifying) which made these projects 
incomplete.  After a while relying on state help also appeared as the debates on education show in the case of 
Jászdózsa. It happened even in the 19th century that state intervened in order to “solve” local conflicts like 
conflicts of land consolidation in Jászdózsa or of building school in Páty.  
The extent of state intervention was increased and became determinant after the Second World War. Villages 
were deprived of their long serving notaries and politics started to play greater role in everyday life. The second 
part of the 20th century subverted traditional farmer society. 
“Land reform” in 1945, the daily experience of communist dictatorship and the collectivization campaigns 
forced the farmers into a mismatched struggle. The autonomy of the village decreased in these years but archival 
sources also show the growing importance of informal relationships. Cooperation and mutual help was 
characteristic in the villages before but in these years they served as a tool against the growing power of state. 
Although technical improvements boosted the effectiveness of communist dictatorship farmers could 
successively resist its will until 1959 and partly preserved former autonomy. The insufficient operation of 
collective farms proves that the victory of the dictatorship was Pyrrhic causing social wounds which are still in 
evidence today. 
 
  
 IV. Related publications 
 
2017 
 
 
"A megye területén a rémhírek özöne van”: Buda környéki és jászsági rémhírek a kommunista diktatúra első 
éveiből, 1948–1955 in: Forrás: Irodalom – Művészet - Tudomány 49:(10) pp. 62-74. (2017) 
 
Párhuzamos társadalomrajzok: A vidéki társadalom átformálásának kezdetei Jászdózsa és Páty példáján (1945) 
in: Csikós Gábor – Kiss Réka – Ö. Kovács József szerk. Váltóállítás : diktatúrák a vidéki Magyarországon 1945-
ben. MTA-BTK – Nemzeti Emlékezet Bizottsága, Budapest. pp. 195-234. (Magyar vidék a 20. században; 1.) 
 
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Egyéni és kisközösségi autonómiák (1850-1970) Jászdózsa és Páty társadalomtörténetének példáján

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