Cibakháza Summary
Cibakháza
Summary
Summary
The village may be found on the South-western edge of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county. It lies on the left bank of the Tisza, in the Northern part of Tiszazug, a peculiar small region enclosed by the lower reaches of the Tisza and the Körös.
The neighbourhood of the settlement is one of the driest areas of our country in spite of the closeness of the river. It consists of three large parts. Its Western half is Sárszög, which is a former catchment basin fenced by the Holt-Tisza (the Dead Branch of the Tisza), which has a very good soil. The middle part, the inner part of the settlement today, is an elevation with smaller and bigger sandy and sodic patches. The Eastern part is a territory with a mild slope towards the Körös valley. No significant system of farms has formed in its area, which is rather small as compared with its environment on the Great Hungarian Plain. There is no railway line crossing it, and in spite of the density of bus lines, there is no easy access to the settlement. River Tisza, bordering it from the West, separates it from its neighbours on the other side.
The name of the settlement, part of which is a personal name, may relate to the fact that the village was inhabited as early as in the Arpadian age. It was first mentioned in written sources in the second half of the XV century, when it belonged to Outer-Szolnok county.
The settlement became part of the territory under the Turkish rule after the fall of Szolnok. As a result of the fifteen year war, the population of the village became scarce in numbers, and it even became depopulated at times during the XVII century. Cibakháza was burnt down by the Turkish-Tatar troops during the war for liberation from the Turkish rule, and many of the fleeing population were killed. Its inhabitants left again during the Rákóczi freedom fight waged for Hungarian independence, and it was re-populated only around 1717.
The village of serfs together with the area of several neighbouring settlements and waste-lands was obtained by the Földváry family in the first half of the XVII century. The Földváries did not establish any farmsteads based on forced labour, instead, they created a simple lease system. The community leased the land and fields around the village for a flat amount of money. There was an important crossing point on the Tisza near Cibakháza, and later, in the first half of the XIX century, even a bridge was built here. This is one of the major reasons that the settlement obtained the privilege of a borough in 1832. It shows its military significance that a significant battle of the nation’s freedom fight in 1848–49 took place at the bridge of the borough, which the Hapsburg military forces tried to seize several times, but the Hungarian forces always beat off their attacks.
The development of the borough was cast back by the control of the Tisza. In the course of this, the curve at Sárszög was cut off, and with this, both the bridge and the crossing point lost their significance. After the abolishment of serfdom, the Földváries put an end to the joint ownership by 1873, and new landlords purchased large land areas from them. They established their own estates, and started to farm on their own. With this, the possibility of large land and waste-land leases was not any more available for the inhabitants: the area of land earlier used by the serfs dropped to one quarter of its earlier size. Most of the independently farming peasants gradually became labourers on the estate, which was a clear degradation from their previous social status. This caused serious social tensions at the end of the XIX century.
The spread of vine- and fruit cultures on the remaining fractions of the land gave a new means of subsistence for the population. They delivered the fruit, the wine and the schnapps mainly to places in Békés county, and Nagykunság. The unfavourable ownership structure was rather significantly modified by the Sváb Foundation of one of the landowners – the Sváb family. The introduction of the small-holding system became possible with its support on a territory of almost one and a half thousand cadastral acres in 1941. The hemp plant was also constructed at the beginning of the 1940-ies – providing some work possibilities – which operated as a military plant later.
The forced co-operative movement of the Socialist era encountered a rather strong resistance in the village. In the first half of this period, apart from agriculture (co-operative), industrial production was also significant (Hemp processing plant, Industrial co-operative, Machine station, and later Agricultural Machine unit). Later the Hemp processing plant ceased to exist, the production of the remaining business units dropped, and especially after the change of the political system in 1990.
Cibakháza could be characterised with a very lively cultural life from the second half of the XIX century. The earlier status of a borough and the local results of the peasant-bourgeois development seemed to play a role in that. Between 1883 and 1951, there were twenty-five different societies and circles in the village, and these small communities were working actively. They organised extremely many self-educating, training and cultural programmes until 1945. Amateur acting, the choir movement, and sports had very serious traditions. Although this tradition revived in local plants during the first half of the Socialist era, but later it gradually faded away.
The population of the village was re-organised into a peasant community with a unique image during the re-settlement around 1717. The trends of the population could be characterised by a large-scale influx until about 1785, and later during the bourgeois transformation, and the formation of estates. Remembrance has come down about German, Austrian, Slovakian, and later Russian and Bulgarian newcomers, but the new settlers fully merged with the Hungarians within one or two generations’ time.
The Catholic Cibakháza had a special place in Tiszazug, mostly populated by the Reformed. Its inhabitants were deeply religious, and local parsons played an important role in the life of the village. The baroque style church of the earlier borough was built in the middle of the XVIII century, and its graveyard chapel around 1860: both buildings are monuments and worthy of protection. The old Csuhaj inn, and the Kossuth-house (today’s fire-station) are historic monuments worthy of local protection.
Cibakháza is a hardly investigated settlement from an ethnographic point of view. The set of tools and the methods used in the wine- and fruit production dominating in its economy are basically the same as those used in other places within Tiszazug. The most important market of the produced wine and schnapps was Békés county, as well as the settlements in the area around the Körös rivers. Several old wild growing varieties of grapes and fruits can still be found in the neighbourhood until today. Partly, there would still be a demand for these on the domestic market, while they could be important for Western Europe as a gene-bank. Among the intercrops of grapes and maize, mainly French beans were famous, and later even market-gardens were created. Keeping of stable-animals became soon general due to the loss of the waste-land.
The memory of the people preserved data mainly about the marked days of the winter festivities lasting from the beginning of December until Easter. As the population is of various origin, some connections and similarities can be equally traced with the folk culture of the Upper Hungarian areas of the Palots, Nagykunság, Jászság and Csongrád. The complex, joint impact of the neighbouring regions can be noted in the way of nutrition of the people.
