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Home , Baranya County, Germany, Swabians, Transdanubia

Karl-Peter Krauss. Deutsche Auswanderer in Ungarn: Ansiedlung in der Herrschaft Bóly im 18. Jahrhundert. : Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003. 469 S. EUR 68.00, cloth, ISBN 978-3-515-08221-1.

Reviewed by Samuel Goldberger

Published on H-German (, 2005)

Following the advice of St. Stephen, frst the governments of , , and Yu‐ Christian king of Hungary, to his son St. Imre to goslavia, the Donauschwaben numbered about 1.5 promote diversity to ensure the well-being of the million and constituted the largest German cultur‐ realm, various rulers of Hungary over the follow‐ al group in southeastern . The migration of ing centuries invited non-Magyar groups to settle. the from and the character of In times of perceived need, various waves of Ger‐ their settlement in Hungary is the subject of the man settlers were invited into Hungary from the present study by Karl-Peter Krauss, written origi‐ , to develop agriculture and crafts, to estab‐ nally as a doctoral dissertation in the feld of his‐ lish operations, and to promote urbaniza‐ torical demography. tion. First, not surprisingly, they were settled in Within the principal areas of settlement of the agricultural areas along the western . the Swabians, Krauss selected the known as Subsequently, in the High and Later Middle Ages, the schwäbische Turkei, the area bounded by they were settled in the mountainous area of on the north, the River on Szepes (Zips) in and in the east, and the River on the south. The Transylvania (Siebenbürgen). Finally, during the term was applied originally to a more limited eighteenth century, settlers referred to generically southern area within these bounds--the lower as Swabians or, since War I in the succes‐ part of County/Komitat Branau. Although sor states of Old Hungary, as Krauss's study examines primarily the original (Donauschwaben) came from western and south‐ schwäbische Turkei, he generalizes about western of Germany to repopulate agri‐ the larger area, which he refers to more frequent‐ cultural areas of Hungary devastated by the wars ly as "southeast ." More specifcally, between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Turks. he focuses on the manorial estate of Bóly within [1] The settlers who left Germany for Hungary in the original schwäbische Turkei, for a number of the eighteenth century numbered originally about reasons. Unlike many of the other Swabian settle‐ 150,000 individuals. By the end of II, ments in this period, all the settlements made in when they were subjected to ethnic cleansing by H-Net Reviews the twenty-seven villages of the Bóly estate are Batthyány II (1662-1703) in 1700 for outstanding still within the of the of Hun‐ in the recently concluded war ending in gary. The records for Bóly are relatively more the Treaty of Karlowitz.[3] complete than for many others, and Krauss was In the frst of a series of tables showing the conveniently able to confne his research in Hun‐ number of tenants subject to taxation at diferent gary to archives in two cities--Pécs and -- times, Krauss makes it clear that the communities besides consulting various archives on his home of the Bóly manor were not unpopulated prior to turf in southwest Germany and in . In his colonization with German immigrants, another of introductory chapter on aims and methods, the misconceptions about the subject of German Krauss states, furthermore, that he selected the which his study corrects (p. 78). The manorial estate of Bóly because, with its mix of communities of the estate already had as tenants ethnic groups and confessions and the way it was small numbers of both Hungarian and Croatian set and managed, it refected well the complex‐ peasants and Serbian livestock herders. Following ity of southeast Transdanubia in the eighteenth the early of Count Adam, the Bóly manor century (p. 9).[2] passed into the control of his widow Countess Karl-Peter Krauss does an excellent job of out‐ Eleanora Batthyány-Strattmann (1677-1741), who lining the economic and social framework within resided alternately in a city in Vienna and which the manorial overlords of the Batthyány at a seventeenth-century Batthyány castle in (typical of Hungarian magnates of this pe‐ /Rohonc (then in Hungary, in the riod) carried out the settlement of Bóly. History Austrian of ). Under Count‐ textbooks dealing with the Swabian settlement in ess Eleanora the frst German colonists arrived, Hungary tend to focus on the areas of the but also continued to arrive at the manor as and Bacska, where colonization was largely state- they had earlier, and the diferent ethnic groups directed, thus giving the false impression that all were settled in the same communities. the repopulating work of the eighteenth century In 1738, Countess Eleanora Batthyány- was a centralized activity of the Habsburgs. A Strattmann signed in Rechnitz a "provisional" most valuable aspect of this study is the way in contract for the settlement of German colonists in which it highlights the entrepreneurial and mar‐ the of Bóly. This agreement is one of two for ket-oriented strategy which led private landown‐ the German settlements of the Bóly manorial es‐ ers, Hungarian aristocrats, to carry out their own tate that remain extant, and it appears to have be‐ settlement activity in the schwäbische Turkei. Al‐ come a template for all the others concluded sub‐ though some other landlords initiated sporadic sequently, not only for the Bóly manor but also for resettlement in this area with German colonists other manors of southeast Transdanubia. Krauss even earlier, Krauss confnes his study to the refers to it often in his study.[4] Countess Eleanora years 1720-67, when members of the Batthyány was ambitious to increase the landholdings in her family carried out the most intensive settlement line of the family; before her death she acquired of on the Bóly manorial estate. through successive royal grants or through pur‐ Many Hungarian aristocrats gained their chase two other manorial estates adjacent to the wealth through loyalty to the Habsburg Bóly estate--Siklós and Üszög. Until her death, during Hungary's civil wars and wars of religion, whatever net income Bóly yielded was remitted to and through service in the Habsburg her accounting ofce in Rechnitz.[5] The lords wars against the Ottoman Turks. Thus, Emperor and lady of the Bóly manor appointed a series of Leopold I granted the Bóly estate to Count Adam managers (Hofrichter), and regular visits by in‐

2 H-Net Reviews spectors from the accounting ofce were made to Whereas in 1720 the entire manorial estate had the estates acquired by this line of the family. only 263 tax-paying tenants, 67 percent of whom Countess Eleanora's younger son, Count (later had Serbian or Croatian names and the remain‐ ) Karl Batthyány [Batthya'ny] der Hungarian names, Bóly manor in 1767 had (1698-1772), received the three contiguous 1,412 tax-paying tenants, of whom 56 percent had manors upon his mother's death in 1741, and he German names, 31 percent South Slavic names, moved the accounting ofce from Rechnitz to the and 13 percent Hungarian names. There was not town of Siklós, where he carried out a thorough only a proportional but also an absolute decline reconstruction and renovation of the in the number of Serbian tenants. At the same castle fortress there which had been badly ‐ time both the total revenue of the manorial estate aged in the wars with the Turks. of Bóly and the sources of that revenue changed greatly. A chart shows that, while in 1734 total Krauss makes the important point that the on‐ revenue amounted to 3,227 Hungarian gulden, set of a long period of rising grain prices in Eu‐ gained mostly from ground and the sale of rope gave Hungarian aristocrats an incentive to wine to tenants, in 1758 total revenue came to promote agriculture; this had become clear by the around 30,000 gulden (ten times as much), most of fnal years of Countess Eleanora, but her son which came from grain sales, with wine and Count Karl Joseph was the frst to act upon this in ground rent also continuing to be signifcant (p. a systematic way, when in the mid-1740s one set 122). Another chart illustrates that the "bottom of tenants considered less desirable--the Serbian line," i.e., the amounts of money remitted from pastoralists--began systematically to be moved out the Boly manor to the Batthyány accounting of‐ and to be replaced with Germans. With this new fce, frst in Rechnitz, later in Siklós, increased policy, the Bóly manor became vastly more pro‐ more than six times, with the highest remittance ductive and a contributor to the income of occurring during the War of the Austrian Succes‐ its lord.[6] sion, when grain prices were especially high (p. This development coincided with the willing‐ 124). ness of many persons in the southwestern and Chapter 6, about the lifestyle of the Swabian western regions of Germany to emigrate. Because settlers, is the most poignant of Krauss's study. It of population increase and patterns of inheri‐ is also highly valuable for readers who have not tance, it was becoming far more difcult and ex‐ read previously about the Swabian settlement in pensive in these areas to acquire farmland and to Hungary from the perspective of the immigrants' become successful peasant-farmers. Southeast struggles and experiences. In this chapter, as in Transdanubia constituted a frontier area where others, Krauss has shown how historical demog‐ land was more available, and those who were raphy can enrich the understanding of history.[7] landless or had insufcient land could achieve a Life was arduous, and survival fraught with peril, social status and respectability becoming much for many German settlers in the early decades. more difcult to attain in Germany. Undrained were breeding places for dis‐ Krauss's tables, pie charts, and graphs re‐ ease, nor had the settlers anticipated the some‐ inforce his conclusions about private enterprise, times-violent conficts with other groups already on the part of both manorial lords and German settled on the Boly manorial estate. Even in a cen‐ immigrants, showing a great increase, both in the tury when life expectancy was considerably lower number of tax-paying tenants and in the number than today in Germany (or Hungary for that mat‐ of tenants with German names, in the period un‐ ter), it was lower in the frontier area of southeast der study (pp. 78, 93, 96-97, 100-101, 104, 106). Transdanubia than in the immigrants' .

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The records show many settlers remarrying very teamster work. In , also, as the population soon after the death of a spouse (how else to con‐ of the manor grew denser, opportunities for inter‐ tinue a or to raise ?) and some‐ ference of the lord's agents in the lives of his sub‐ times soon remarrying again. Very often, because jects multiplied. Tension grew even more as it be‐ of multiple and remarriages, children in came known that Hungarian Queen Maria There‐ these blended found themselves in the sa intended to regulate land-registers to standard‐ care of parents, neither of whom was a biological ize the obligations of subjects to lords. After a se‐ parent. Remarriages between spouses of highly cret meeting of the German subjects of the Bóly disparate ages were also quite common. estate in July 1766, peasants began to employ pas‐ In chapters 5 and 6, as well as others, Krauss sive resistance and delaying tactics when de‐ shows how private enterprise worked out for the mands were made by the lord's agents. By Sep‐ immigrants. Unlike other areas of Hungary where tember 1, nine thousand tenants of estates in settlement was state-directed, many of the Ger‐ , armed with sticks, were gathered man settlers of the Boly estate actually surveyed in protest at the castle fortress in Siklós. Soldiers, and laid out their own lots. Even though the latter, who had been brought in, at frst shot over their as opposed to those who were taking over a lot heads but ended up shooting into the crowd and previously occupied by someone else, were usual‐ killing twelve protesters before the rest dispersed. ly granted the incentive of three years' exemption The "uprising" dissipated. from taxes, not all the immigrants brought with In a fnal statement, Karl-Peter Krauss points them sufcient means to become successful peas‐ out that most of the activists involved in the inci‐ ant-tenants. Social mobility was much greater dents of July- 1766, at least on the manori‐ than in the land the settlers left, but there was al estate of Bóly, were the better-of and more suc‐ also the possibility of social failure. A man who cessful German settlers. After the royal regulation had been a tailor or herder of sheep or could of land registers, the Urbarium of 1767, came to rise to become a proud peasant farmer, a Bauer, pass, neither lords nor peasants in southeast but when personal disasters struck movement Transdanubia gained everything they wanted, but also occurred in the other direction. Many of the tensions eased considerably. With limitless de‐ settlers became cottagers, and occupying mands for compulsory labor restrained by the a house but working for wages or exercising one new uniform standards, Prince Karl Joseph of the many skilled trades in demand on the es‐ Batthyány and his agents turned to increasing the tate. sale of alcoholic spirits on his estates as a way of Finally, in chapter 8, Krauss traces the keeping profts at the same . For this study in buildup of tension between the subjects of the historical demography, 1767 was a convenient ter‐ Boly estate and their manorial lord, Prince Karl minal date. Joseph Batthyány, in the years leading up to 1767. This historian defnitely recommends As the estate prospered, the lord and his agents Krauss's study as valuable for specialists in mano‐ erected numerous manorial of all sorts, rial life under the Old Regime, the history of Ger‐ both to better administer the estate and to pro‐ man migration, and the modern history of Hun‐ duce more income; the greatest concentration of gary. Appropriately for a volume within the publi‐ these buildings was in the Swabian town of Bóly cations series of the Danube-Swabian Institute for (table, p. 220). Every opportunity was employed to History and in Tübingen, the Institute's di‐ compel the subjects of the estate to contribute , Dr. Horst Förster, stresses in his forward their unpaid labor to work and the relevance of Krauss's study to current debates

4 H-Net Reviews in Germany over immigration. He reminds Ger‐ lines. Krauss concentrates on those members of man readers that "immigration" is a new phenom‐ the family in a subsidiary line who were the enon for Germany, various regions of which, prior manorial lords (or lady) of the Bóly estate. From to the twentieth century, had a negative balance 1524, when Franz Batthyány received the manori‐ of migration, and he recommends the conclusions al estate and fortifed castle of Güssing/ revealed by the present study as germane to this Németújvár (now in the Austrian province of Bur‐ present-day debate. As an American whose spe‐ genland) from King Louis II of Hungary, until cial feld is modern history of Hungary, I could not 1716 the administrative center and accounting of‐ help reading Krauss's study from a somewhat dif‐ fce of the line of the family was in Güssing. ferent perspective--not so much of Germany's loss From 1716 until 1945 this administrative center (both in terms of eighteenth-century emigrants was at a family mansion in Körmend. and the cultural destruction and sufering caused [4]. Throughout the book Krauss is mindful of by twentieth-century ethnic cleansing), but of the the ambitions, not only of the Batthyánys who losses in diversity to present-day Hungary and Ro‐ owned the Bóly manor but also of the German mania and the successor states or entities since colonists who immigrated there, and he shows 1993 of Yugoslavia.[8] It is interesting to refect very well the interplay between them, especially that the current foreign minister of Germany, as refected in this contract. Since the German christened Joseph Martin in 1948 by his parents colonists, unlike Hungarian serfs, enjoyed free‐ recently expelled from Hungary, proudly calls dom of movement, they were anxious that the himself . contract they entered into would protect this in Notes the future, and the contract ultimately did so, [1]. Eighteenth-century emigrants from Ger‐ even though the manorial lord tried to this many to Hungary originated in many diferent ar‐ about with some restrictions. The immigrants eas. Krauss points out that in all the contempo‐ wanted to owe a minimum of obligations to the rary documents generated by the colonists they feudal lord of the manor, and this appeared to be invariably referred to themselves as "Germans." the case in a provision that limited the days of "or‐ The and South whose neighbors dinary" forced labor for the lord to three per year. they became pejoratively stereotyped them as Here, however, the immigrants' lack of ability to "Swabians," and in the century the descen‐ read "fne print" led to their overlooking a clause dants of the colonists fnally adopted the term that provided for "extraordinary" forced labor themselves. without any limit, an opening for future abuse. Later on, in any case, manorial agents would [2]. Although a list of placenames in one of point out that the contract of 1738 was "provision‐ the appendices correctly gives Deutschbohl or al" and had long since lapsed. Deutschboja as the of Bóly, Krauss never mentions that, in the nineteenth and twen‐ [5]. There is a photograph of the seventeenth- tieth centuries until after World War II, Bóly was century Rechnitz castle in the book, but neither in fact called Németbóly, the Hungarian equiva‐ the text nor the caption mentions that the castle lent of the German name. There still exists a near‐ no longer exists; it was set on fre by retreating SS by town in the same county named Magyarbóly, troops in 1945 and was subsequently demolished i.e., Ungarischbohl. (p. 67). [3]. Unlike the Esterházys, who kept all their [6]. Krauss shows well the friction between entailed estates in one line of the family, the the Serbian pastoralists and the other groups ow‐ Batthyánys divided estates between diferent ing to the fact that the Serbs were accustomed to

5 H-Net Reviews graze their animals wherever they pleased, which man state, the town of origin of some of the Bóly tended to ruin land used for growing crops. Entre‐ settlers. Although he makes reference to a ‐ preneurial manorial lords of southeast Trans‐ lished work comparing the same sort of data in danubia motivated to promote agriculture rather the same period for the Upper and German than livestock raising were also bound to lack pa‐ communities in Pennsylvania, Krauss did not look tience with a Serbian population that appealed at primary sources for the latter (p. 164). continually to the privileges granted them by the [8]. Prince Karl Joseph Batthyány's great- Habsburg rulers when they were from grandnephew Count Johann Baptist Batthyány the Turks and to ignore the requests of Hungarian (1784-1865) in 1807-08 built the neoclassical man‐ manorial lords. As the infux of German immi‐ sion that still stands in the town of Bóly and be‐ grants began, the Serbs behaved defantly, gaining came the frst of his family to reside there at least for themselves accusations on the part of estate part of the year. After his death without a male agents of being "lawless" or "thieving." Although heir the Batthyány clan lost the estate, which the Habsburg rulers continued for political rea‐ passed to a son-in-law of Count Johann Baptist, sons to renew the privileges granted the Serbs by Count Wilhelm Albert Montenuovo (1821-95), Emperor Leopold I in 1691, it became clear after a whose heirs maintained ownership until 1945. while that they were reluctant to enforce these One of Krauss's tables, showing the Hungari‐ privileges against the Hungarian aristocracy. an census of 1920 for twenty-six of the twenty- When Empress renewed the privi‐ seven communities of the Bóly manorial estate leges in 1743 the wording of the document inti‐ (one community being inadvertently omitted mated that they had become anachronistic and from the table), indicates a total population of needed modifcation to up with changing 18,276, of whom 68.4 percent spoke German as conditions. The Hungarian Chancellor who signed their primary language. The town of Bóly had a this document was none other than Count Ludwig population of 3,022, of whom 83.3 percent were Ernst Batthyány (1696-1765), the older brother of German (p. 11). I could not fnd information as to the manorial lord of Bóly. In the following years how many of the two hundred thousand Swabi‐ manorial lords of southeast Transdanubia used ans of southeast Transdanubia were forcibly ex‐ various methods to drive out no-longer-desirable pelled from Hungary in the years 1946-1948, but Serbian tenants, and this process was augmented the tourist website for Baranya County, by land-hungry German settlers eager to buy out (www.baranyanet.hu/baranyakapuja/), indicates Serbian tenants. Most of the Serbs driven out or that at least 20 percent of the county is still Ger‐ bought out migrated beyond the Danube into the man-speaking. An act of 1994 entitles all commu‐ Bacska or south of the Drava into (pp. nities in Hungary with at least 20 percent of the 201-205). population speaking a to mi‐ [7]. Besides correspondence found in various nority representation and to street signs in the archives, Krauss made use of the church registers minority language. Another website (http:// recording , baptisms, and deaths of fve archiv.meh.hu/nekh/Magyar/nemethelyseg.htm) all-German communities of the Bóly manorial es‐ lists the German communities so entitled. Among tate deposited in the archives of the Arbeitskreis them is Bóly, the website of which (www.boly.hu/) donauschwäbischer Familienforscher e.V. in Sin‐ indicates it was given municipal status in 1997 de‐ delfngen, German State of -Württemberg. spite a population of only 3,800. For purposes of comparison Krauss also exam‐ ined the eighteenth-century church register of the town of am kalten Markt in the same Ger‐

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Citation: Samuel Goldberger. Review of Krauss, Karl-Peter. Deutsche Auswanderer in Ungarn: Ansiedlung in der Herrschaft Bóly im 18. Jahrhundert. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2005.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10175

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