Középső-Zemplén lakosságának etnikai összetétele és a térségben végbemenő etnikai határvonalak változásai a 18. századtól napjainkig (1) Zlatica Sáposová, Spoločenskovedný ústav SAV, Košice,
[email protected] SÁPOSOVÁ, Zlatica. Ethnic composition of Cenral Zemplin and changes of ethnic boundaries from eighteen century till present time. The analysis of ethnical composition became one of the central parts of the paper. The difficulty was caused by the fact that three ethnical borderlines have to be monitored. We are taking into consideration not only the official data of population censuses, but also the records and registries of place names before the dualism. By analysing and comparing the data we found out, that only by comparing a valid consequences can be delineated. The method of comparison is necessary to apply in order to find the differences in the researched materials and to point out the real situation, since there are serious differences between the territorial spread of languages during the time span of years 1773 and 1851. The task of examining the population’s ethnical classification from the second part of the 19th century seemed to be easier. The official population censuses of the years 1880, 1900 and 1910 showed the penetration of Hungarian language. The use of Hungarian language area gradually extended to north. The Hungarian-Slovak ethnical border spread on the line of Kolása, Alsómihályi, Velejte, Gercsely, and Hardicsa, but the number of population with Hungarian language in north also increased. From the Slovaks’ point of view this period meant both losses and gains. On the southern parts of the Gálszécs district their number decreased in favour of the Hungarians, but the Slovak-Ruthenian language border moved in favour of the Slovaks.