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‘The sin of Transdanubia’: the one-child system in rural Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Ildiko Vasary
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Continuity and Change , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , December 1989 , pp. 429 - 468
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Jankó, J., A Balatonmellék tudományos tanulmányozásának eredményei (Results of the scientific sunery of the Balaton region) (Budapest 1904), 30.Google Scholar

2 Buday, Gy., ‘Az egyke’ (‘The one child system’) (1909)Google Scholar in Litván, G. and Szücs, L., eds., A sociologia elsö magyar mühelye (Budapest, 1973) 136–151Google Scholar; also Hidvégi, J., Hulló Magyarság (Perishing Magyars) (Budapest, 1938), 30.Google Scholar

3 Van de Walle, E., ‘Alone in Europe: the French fertility decline until 1850’, in Tilly, C., ed., Historical studies of changing fertility (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar. Also Flandrin, J. L., Families in former times: kinship, household and sexuality (Cambridge, 1979).Google Scholar

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6 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 141–2.Google Scholar

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8 Kodolányi, J., ‘Földindulás’, Magyarország, 18, no. 40 (02 1939), 9.Google Scholar

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10 Elek, P., Gunda, B., Hilschler, Z., Horváth, S., Karsay, Gy., Kerényi, Gy.Kocogh, A., Kovács, I., Pocsy, F., and Torbágyi, T., Elsüllyedt falu a Dunántulon: Kemse község élete (A sunken village in Transdanubia: life in Kemse) (Budapest, 1936).Google Scholar

11 Bitter disputes were waged on the pages of the left-wing periodical Századunk in the 1930s between the sociologist R. Braun and the populist writer Gy. Illyés. Braun argued that parish registers are valueless in sociological research and anyway, non-specialists should keep away from sociological subjects. But from the start the dispute deteriorated into political bickering. See Századunk 8–10, (1933), 252–6Google Scholar and Ibid., 2 (1934), 73–4 and 3, 141.

12 See Andorka, , ‘A dél-dunántuli egyke kutatások’Google Scholar, 1248. Buday presents: (1) population in the villages of Baranya county between 1869 and 1900 according to the census; (2) number of children aged below 6 from census; (3) birth and fertility rates based on official statistics; (4) numbers of children enrolled in school; (5) questionnaires filled out by village councils on the subject. Results in Buday, ‘Az egyke’ (1909).Google Scholar

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16 Report to Ministry of Agriculture from council member I. Szécsényi about birth trends in Somogy county (1886). Also Szecsenyi, I., ‘Az egyke’ (Budapest, 1896), 129.Google Scholar

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19 Ibid. 149–50.

20 Fülep, L., ‘A magyarsag pusztulása’ (‘Destruction of the magyars’) in Pesti Napló, 10, 16, 17 11 and 4, 15 12, 1929 (Budapest).Google Scholar The question was political too. Fülep's articles were attacked by many, notably by F. Nagy the politician, who wrote that Fülep had ‘violated the honour of the Magyar peasant’ in Kisgazdák Lapja, 24 12, 1929. Fülep's reply to him was never published.Google Scholar

21 Kovács, I., ‘Egy elsüllyedt Dunántuli falu’ (‘A sunken village in Transdanubia’) (1936), reprinted in Toth, P. P., ed., Agrárszociologiai irások Magyarországon (Budapest, 1984) 236–46.Google Scholar

22 Kiss, G. K., Ormányság (Budapest, 1937).Google Scholar

23 Hidvégi, J., Hulló Magyarság (Perishing Magyars) (Budapest, 1938).Google Scholar

24 Ibid. 48.

25 Kovács, I., Néma Forradalom (Silent Revolution) (Budapest, 1937).Google Scholar

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31 Andorka, , ‘The one child family system’, 8.Google Scholar

32 Ibid. 8. Evolutions in infant mortality are crucial in the argument, yet most difficult to establish with precision (cf. Andorka, , ‘Az ormánsági születéskorlatozás’, 52–3).Google Scholar In the villages examined by Andorka, infant mortality rates were not exceptionally high in the late eighteenth century but ‘there is no clear tendency in infant mortality until the second half of the nineteenth century’ (in ‘Family reconstruction’, 22).Google Scholar Infant mortality did not decline when fertility suppressions were adopted, on the contrary it increased in the period between 1820–1850, probably due to epidemics, and declined slightly only late in the nineteenth century. Andorka reckons that in the eighteenth century less than half of the children born reached the age of five, and this increased to about two-thirds by the end of the nineteenth century (‘Az ormánsági születés korlátozás’, 52)Google Scholar, but ‘… mortality rates declined less than the rate of live births, hence the number of children born decreased and so did the rate of those that stayed alive’ (ibid.).

33 Andorka, , ‘Family reconstitution’, 20.Google Scholar

34 Andorka, , ‘Születéskorlátozás az Ormánságban’, 83.Google Scholar

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40 Serf holdings were between 20 to 40 cadastral holds, depending on the quality of the lands regionally, and usually included a house too. Serfs owed corvée and tithes in proportion to the fraction of telek they occupied. Serfs in Hungary were not chattels, but were bound to the estate.

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43 Kovács, I., ‘A néma’, 88–90Google Scholar, also Jankó, J., ‘A Balaton’, 132.Google Scholar

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56 Three million beggars was the title of a book by Gy. Oláh in 1928, but it also passed into popular usage as a slogan of the political left.

57 Kovács, , ‘Egy elsüllyedt’, 325–30.Google Scholar

58 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 146.Google Scholar

59 Kiss, G. K., ‘Ormányság’, 354.Google Scholar

60 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 139.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., 148.

62 Kovács, , ‘Néma’, 129–131.Google Scholar

63 Kiss, G. K., ‘Ormányság’, 127.Google Scholar

64 Hidvégi, , ‘Hulló’, 120.Google Scholar

65 The connection between the one-child system and peasant property remains to be denned. Attempting to correlate farm size and family size, R. Andorka found that differences within one village were very small, and in fact serfs with smaller holdings tended towards lower fertility (‘Family reconstitution’, 20–3). The data Andorka uses here are results of the census of serf households for 1828 in Besence and Vajszló; these alone are insufficient for any major conclusion and Andorka does not intend it as such. He appears to be in agreement with the contemporary one-child-system literature in linking the one-child system to economic status, writing: ‘what is the common factor linking ethnic groups where early birth control was found? Not religion, not ethnicity but – in my view – that they were landed serfs.’ (‘Az ormánsági születés korlátozás’, 55.)Google Scholar

66 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 146Google Scholar; Kovács, , ‘Néma’, 169.Google Scholar

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69 Kovács, , ‘Néma Forradalom’, 152–4 cf. R. Andorka, ‘Az ormánsági születéskorlátozás története’ (‘The history of birth control in the Ormánság’) in Valóság 6 (Budapest, 1975), 45–61.Google Scholar

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72 Kodolányi, , ‘Baranyai’, 99.Google Scholar

73 Illyés, Gy., Puszták népe (People of the puszta) (Budapest, 1936), 29.Google Scholar

74 Elek, et al. , ‘Elsüllyedt falu a Dunántulon’, 49.Google Scholar

75 Kovács, , ‘Néma’, 143.Google Scholar

76 Harsányi, G., ‘Egyke’ (‘One-child system’) in Nyugat 19 (Budapest, 1933), 275.Google Scholar Also Fél, and Hófer, , ‘Proper peasants’, 131.Google Scholar

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78 Ibid., 46–7. Also L.Simon writes: ‘the daughter, if she is rich, is not given into marriage, they bring ‘a son in law’. In such a family the woman is in charge, the husband is in a position of servility.’ ‘Az egyke és az erkölcs’, Református Élet 34–35 (1934), 253.Google Scholar

79 Andorka, , ‘Az ormánsági születéskorlátozás’, 49–50.Google Scholar

80 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 150.Google Scholar Fülep also mentions marriages between boys aged 13 and girls aged 10 in his parish. The marriage is not consummated but the children already live in one household. See ‘A magyarság pusztulása’, 118.Google Scholar

81 Kovács, , ‘Néma’, 141.Google Scholar Also Simon, L., ‘Az egyke és az erkölcs’ (‘One-child system and morals’) in Református Élet 34–35 (Budapest, 1934), 261–3.Google Scholar

82 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 150.Google Scholar

83 Harsányi, , ‘Egyke’, 276Google Scholar; Kovács, , ‘Néma’, 141.Google Scholar R. Andorka reconstituted the evolution of birth intervals in selected one-child-system villages and found them ‘remarkably long’ and ‘the data again confirm Hölbling's statement that couples in the region tended to avoid parities in the first years of marriage’ (‘Family reconstitution’, 18–19).Google Scholar But Andorka does not confirm decade-long intervals. The literature probably refers to observed individual instances here rather than to a norm followed by a majority.

84 Morvay, J., Asszonyok a nagycsaládban (Women in the extended family) (Budapest, 1956), 194.Google Scholar

85 Fél, E., Kocs (Budapest, 1941), 90.Google Scholar

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93 Számado, E., ‘Ormánság: a balladák népe’ (‘Ormánság:the people of ballads’) Magyar Nemzet (Budapest, 25 and 27 09 1938).Google Scholar

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95 Buday, , ‘Az egyke’, 141.Google Scholar

96 Harsányi, , ‘Egyke’, 276.Google Scholar F. Daróczi describes the case of a woman for whom the midwife ‘aborted twins, one today, one two days later and she did not even take to bed’. ‘Egy kalotaszegi falu’ in Magyar Népegészségügyi Szemle (Targu Mures, 1936), 232–3.Google Scholar

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103 Szombatfalvy, G., ‘Tiszazug’ in Nyugat 8 (Budapest, 1931), 153–8.Google Scholar See also the account of the Tiszazug trials in Györgyei, F., ‘Arsenic and no lace’ in Caduceus III, 2 (1987), 41–65.Google Scholar

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106 Hidvégi, , ‘Hulló’, 67–70.Google Scholar

107 Kodolányi, , ‘Baranyai’, 167.Google Scholar

108 Ibid., 168.

109 Kiss, , ‘Ormányság’, 376.Google Scholar

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123 Fülep, , ‘A magyarság pusztulása’ 17 11 1929.Google Scholar

124 Hidvégi, , ‘Hulló’, 43.Google Scholar But Hidvégi was wrong in his prediction: in 1986 the population of Hungary was 10.6 million, not 13.8 million.

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132 Tilly, C. (ed.) Historical studies in changing fertility (Princeton, 1978).Google Scholar

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