Lovasberény Summary
Lovasberény
Summary
Summary
The fertile area of plain and hills extending between the Southern spur of the Vértes-hill, and the Northern spur of the Velencei-hill, with the Rovákja-stream cutting across, was already populated by thinking and creating peoples as early as in the second millennium before Christ. They peopled Mihályvár and its surroundings in the Bronze Age, but the traces of Celtic and Roman settlements and graveyards can also be found on the border of the village today.
The name of the settlement came up in the form of Lowazberen (Lovászberény) in a charter issued in 1302. The name of the settlement became permanent as Lovas-Berény at the end of the XVII century. Its surrounding fields belonged to the Csák dynasty’s ancient place of living since the turn of the IX–X centuries. It already had a church in 1332, and became the estate of the Buzlai family in the XV century. Miklós Buzlai reconstructed and enlarged the church in the last decades of the century, and the Saint Andrew church here received a permission to celebrate its saint’s day from Pope Innocent VIII in 1484.
The village became depopulated in the first decades of the Turkish rule, and it only became populated again by reformed Hungarians arriving from Bikács in Tolna county in 1637. The number of reformed families amounted to over sixty by the end of the XVII century, and the population of the village came close to three hundred people. The village was reconstructed, lands started to be cultivated, and the former Roman Catholic church started to be used again. The process of population in Lovasberény took
a new turn in the first decades of the XVIII century. Jews arrived from Moravia, and thirty Catholic families settled coming from the Hessen-Kassel landgrave’s county in Middle-Germany. Since that time, the population living in the settlement was blended in its religion, culture and habits. The number of Israelites kept growing continuously until the middle of the XIX century, and it rose above 1200. After they could also settle in the free royal towns, their number started to drop quickly.
The XVIII century was not only the period of economic development but also the time of deepening antagonisms between those reformed and the Roman Catholics. Re-Romanization was linked with the Cziráky-s, the members of the land-owning family. Count József Cziráky bought the estate from baron Franz Anselm Fleischmann in 1730. He concluded an agreement with his serfs in 1740, and took the church away from the Refromed in 1748, and handed it over to his subjects following the Roman Catholic Religion. The Reformed held their services in the open air for nearly two years. They built their oratory woven from hedges and reeds in 1751. They could only erect a church built of stone in 1786. In this period, all the three denominations (Roman Catholic, Reformed and Israelites) had schools, even the teachers are known. As a result of the economic up-trend, Lovasberény obtained the right of organising fairs, and was elevated into the rank of boroughs. At the end of the century, as many as 327 living-houses were registered, the number of families was 490, and that of the population was over two-thousand-five-hundred.
The history of the village, later borough and the story of the Cziráky family were linked after the XVIII century. The “constructed world” of Lovasberény was primarily dominated by count Antal Mózes Cziráky. The construction of the manor-house was completed in 1809, and the building of the Roman Catholic Church, which was monumental by rural standards, was fininshed in 1834.
Major changes took place during the 1848–1849 revolution and freedom-fight. Serfs became free, land-owning peasants, getting rid of the landowner’s economic and legal supervision. The dominating majority of the population of Lovasberény entered the military service to defend their homeland, even the Roman Catholic priest and the Presbyterian priest were arrested by the Imperials as they were the followers of Kossuth and the Hungarian independence.
The bourgeois development started to evolve in the history of Lovasberény only after the compromise of 1867. The body of representatives and the borough council were established. New schools were built in the spirit of the Act on Public Elementary Schools, and a kindergarten was opened in order to prepare children for school. Grass-root movements emerged in the local society, social and cultural societies were formed, and among others a support club, a reading circle and a fire-fighting society started their operation. The cultural societies ensured an opportunity for education, they shaped public taste, and created social relationships.
The further progress of the settlement was broken by the I World War, and the following revolutions. The societies were revived and re-organised during the consolidation, which was started around the twenties of the XX century, and new social and public educational clubs and societies were formed amidst the changed conditions. Lovasberény could once again be characterised by bustling public life.
The second World War brought about more severe trials than ever before in the life of the village. Lovasberény also became a theatre of war in December 1944, and the noise of arms ceased only on the 20 March 1945 after severe fights for four months. 97 people lost their lives, and 51 fell victims to the holocaust during the war. 72 dwelling-houses were damaged, and 38 became uninhabitable. The fighting forces used up the animal stock, 62 pieces of cattle, 75 pieces of swine and 104 horses were left in the settlement.
The democratic transformation that started to evolve in the spring of 1945 tapped into several sources: the multi-party system, the activity of the people’s power organisations and the implementation of the land reform. The land reform was taking place parallel to the organisation of public administration. 2099 “holds” of arable land were distributed among 236 applicants for land, thus on average, nine “holds” of land could be given to one applicant. The sizes of the small pieces of land can be understood by the fact that 6350 allotments were registered in the fields around the village.
Nationalisation began in 1945, and masses of the farmers, who were kept in constant fear by a decree on kulaks (wealthy peasants), gave up their profession at the end of the forties, and offered their properties to the state. Even the Presbyterian and the Roman Catholic churches were pushed to the background, and their schools and kindergartens were nationalised. In 1950, even the self-government of the settlement was eliminated.
The objection came in the outburst of the Hungarian revolution and fight for freedom on 23. October 1956. A national committee and a national guard were formed also in Lovasberény. The concentrated attack of the Red Army baffled the further growth of democratic intentions on the 4. November.
In the years after the revolution and the fight for freedom, the socialisation of the countryside and the establishment of co-operatives came to the forefront. Socialised agriculture was controlled by “Új Barázda” Co-operative. The number of the population also reflected the changes: 3102 in 1949, 3129 in 1960, 2973 in 1970, 2639 in 1980, and 2594 in 1990. Today we can witness a modest growth, the total population of the settlement is 2701 persons.
