Gyönk Summary
Gyönk
Summary
Summary
The area of Gyönk, lying in the valley extending from North to South of Hegyhát, in Tolna county, has been inhabited with shorter and longer intervals since the neolithic age. In addition to the relics of the prehistoric age, archeologists here revealed the graveyards of the Longobards of German origin, and of the Avars arriving here from the Eastern steppes. The first mention of the settlement in the Middle Ages is known from a do- cument dated in 1313, but the settlement of the Hungarians here might have taken place much earlier. In the 15th.-16th. centuries, the area of the village was shared by many smaller or larger landowners. Mátyus Maróti, who died without an heir in 1476, was one of them, who later was replaced by András Pyber and his offsprings, nominated by King Mathias, and the Czobor family, who were also part-owners. The earlier Gerenyás castle in the direct vicinity of Gyönk may only have been a fortified castle built from earth and wood, but its name alongside with the names of Gyönk, and Alsógyönk was often mentioned in documents on tyranny and disturbance at the beginning of the 16th. century. Most of the legal documents, difficult to understand, were written in the nearby Csernyéd, now a puszta, which at that time was an important juridical site in the county, the forum of wandering palatine arbitration. With the elapse of the disturbed period of the dual king election, after the defeat in Mohács, Gyönk belonged to the military and administrative sanjak of Simontornya, within a smaller administrative area also called Simontornya. The village formally enjoyed the “protection” of the sanjak bey having a seat there, but the Turks neither here, nor in any other Hungarian settlement could prevent dual taxation. In the meantime, the po-pulation of villages hidden within the hills of County Tolna kept reducing in number, and was slowly perishing. For the first time, in 1713, Hungarian settlers arrived in the scarcely inhabited area from the vicinity of Csót, Veszprémvarsány and Várpalota in Veszprém county. Within a few years, some evangelic Germans, escaping shortage of land and starvation in their own country, arrived from Hessen, and also protestants from other parts of Germany. Within a few years, a settlement emerged with an image mixed both from an ethnical and a religious point of view. As neither Hungarians wanted to mix with Germans (and vice versa!), nor the protestants with the evangelicals (and even less so with the few catholics slowly coming to the settlement in small groups), there were constant arguments and moves in issues related to churches, funerals, and primary education. The situation is well illustrated by the fact that the German Village lying to the North, and the Hungarian Village lying to the South from the imaginary line connecting the two protestant churches have been mentioned separately even in recent decades. The above complicated ethnic image was made even more versatile by the presence of the Jews who started to settle in growing numbers after the middle of the 18th. century. Out of the Jews, who being tenants and tradesman, played the role of catalyst in the life of the village, it was the orthodox line, adhering to their traditions, and rejecting the innovators’ strivings for renewal that gained terrain in Gyönk. While earlier, they only provided private education for their children, later the protestant grammar school in Gyönk enjoying a growing reputation, had several Jewish students. The Religious Central School of Helvetia, moved here from Nagyszékely in 1812, carried out its activity to go beyond the boundaries of the settlement. Sometimes, it had patrons with a strong will, like Magyari Kossa Sámuel, but this also meant that these patrons ensured conditions for the smooth operation of the institute. Thus, the grammar school could not become a scene of ethnic and religious disturbances so many times afflicting the primary level of education in the village. Several participants and soldiers of the 1848/49 revolution and War for Liberty came from its students and teachers. There were among its students – without trying to give the full list – Lajos Tolnai, men of letters and priest, who gave his name to the institution, Ödön Faragó, the famous sinologist, Imre Cholnoky, legal expert, Rudolf Mestyán and Gyula Mestyán, famous medical researchers, Sándor Palcsó, opera singer, or Aladár Lackner, evangelical archdeacon, who died during the days which marked the inception of this volume, and who is also internationally renowned as the author of the known German national collection and folk house. Although, both the first and the second world wars had their victims in Gyönk, the closeness of the front-line did not cause unbearable sufferings to the population of the settlement. The removal of the German population, decently called “exchange of populations” meant a much bigger loss. The process, which started with the voluntary departure of part of the fami-lies belonging to the Volksbund, in the autumn of 1944, and continued with the forced removal of almost a thousand inhabitants of Gyönk effected nearly all the families. Several fell victims to the “malenkij robot”, women and men, dragged to the Soviet Union merely for being German, worked in collective farms and mines. The properties of the removed German fami-lies were allotted by local land committees to the agricultural citizens in Békés county, Transylvanians from Bukovina, and Hungarians from Upper Northern Hungary. This also changed the national and religious image of Gyönk. Dislike between settlers and Germans left in the village, and considered to be “natives”, having different traditions in production was difficult to dissolve. Gyönk – Jink by the Germans – the natural centre of the surrounding tiny villages from an economic-geographical point of view, had been a chief town of the district until 1961, and after 1970, it has been operating as a large administrative division together with six other settlements. Although these settlements regained their autonomy in 1991, but they cannot do without the industrial, commercial, communal and cultural services provided by Gyönk as the centre of the district. The most visible connection is at the primary level of education. The primary school in Gyönk, built in 1976, is maintained by the Public Education Association established by four settlements. The institution provides education for about four hundred school children from seven settlements. Eight classes, being German national classes, use two official languages in teaching. The German Folk House, associated with the name of Aladár Lackner, exhibits traditional personal articles used by Protestant Germans. The classicist culture house, built in the centre of the town, hosts a rich library, a group of young folk dancers, a chess-club, a German choir, and a group of artists. Exhibitions are organised continuously from the paintings of contemporaneous Hungarian painters. The monument type church of the Presbyterian church, built in 1777, has one nave. The pews, the pulpit, and the crown above it were made in 1786. Its organ was built by József Angster of Pécs. The neogothic church of the evangelic congregation, still erect today, which is also the largest evangelic church of South-Transdanubia, was built on the plans of Gyula Reppmann, architect from Arad, in 1896. Its pulpit-altar was built by Gyula Fuhrmann from Igló. The neo-Gothic Rieger organ with 16 registers is from 1897. The style of the Roman catholic church, named Christ King from 1926 blends neo-Romanesque and neo-Gothic elements in its style. The social home with the largest capacity in Tolna county is accommodated by the earlier castle of the Polish Sulkowski dynasty.
