Summary
Summary
Somlóvásárhely lies at the meeting point of the Marcal basin on the Small Plain and Bakonyalja (the foot of the Bakony mountain) on the Western edge of Veszprém county, but the Somló monadnock standing out from the wavy surface of the area is also an integral part of the landscape. It looks like a large island above its vicinity, and calls for the attention from a large distance. The village was established at the meeting points of landscapes and roads, and thus, it was exposed to the marching of armies, the soldiers levying taxes, but during the times of peace, it could also become the transit point of trading and ideas. The Somló hill, due to its special natural resources – its hillsides have always provided good conditions for wine growing –, has attracted those who like good wine and beautiful landscapes from far away lands.
Due to its natural resources, the Somló has always been a favourite place of living for men. According to the several archaeological relics, the hill and its vicinity, and thus, the area of today’s Somlóvásárhely, as well, have been continuously inhabited from the Neolitical age until today. The peoples that settled here have always played a central role in the life of the region. This was a centre from the Iron Age (proven by the mass tombs explored here), through the Roman Age (Mogetiana, the only settlement having the right of a town), until the end of the Middle Ages, when twelve trading routes went across the settlement.
The development of today’s Somlóvásárhely and its vicinity was determined by the fact that Stephen, the state founding king of the Hungarians, founded a Benedictine nunnery next to today’s Torna stream, under the Somló hill. Apácatorna (as the settlement was named at the time), being a nunnery centre, became an important link in the connection with other regions. Due to this fact, Vásárhely developed into the most significant settlement in the South-West part of our region in the Middle Ages. It became a borough with a right to organise fairs. It became the legislative centre of the Western part of the county, and the comitat of the nobility also kept its meetings in the settlement until it started to belong to Veszprém. According to the assessment of taxes in 1488, it was the most populous settlement after Pápa and Veszprém.
It only lost some of its importance after the ravish of the Turkish armies and the Csoron family of Devecser at the end of the XVI century. The Turks burnt down the borough already in 1546, making its population flee. In 1567, Vásárhely had to give in, and its new lords made it pay tribute money for several decades. And the powerful lords of the region were hardly any better than the Turks in plundering. The leading role was played by the Csoron family, whose nest was in the castle of Devecser. The most notorious “plunderer” of the family, András Csoron, and his son, János had their seat here, who elevated into the rank of the nobility by military service, loans extended to the ruler, and a successful economic activity. They were characterised by excessive greediness, and hunger for land, and they kept plundering the domain of the nuns of Vásárhely for forty years, and did not want to comply with the repeated military commands. If continuous exposure, and internal fights had not yet worn out the strength of the remaining population, the long – or fifteen year – war (1593–1606) was the last blow. The nuns of the nunnery and the protectors of the church people had to escape.
The new landladies of Vásárhely, the Clares of Bratislava replacing the Benedictine order initiated repeated legal procedures against the serfs for disobedience and rebelliousness. The borough of Vásárhely tried to build out the individual and community guarantees for its autonomy. On the level of individual possibilities, people tried to obtain personal nobility in order to receive exemption from certain public encumbrances, and on the level of municipal administration, they were striving for a higher level of autonomy. They were successful at both levels, and the community could preserve its municipal rights, and by the end of the XVIII century, almost half of its population were noblemen.
Joseph II suppressed all such monasteries, and confiscated their wealth in 1782 that did not deal with school teaching, nursing or science. The lands of the Clares were managed by the religious fund. This change had an unfavourable impact on the development of the borough, and this was coupled by the fact that the religious fund started to limit the acquired rights and interests of the community after the 1820-ies.
The people of Somlóvásárhely experienced the period between the 1848 revolution and the first World War as the decades of economic recession, impoverishment, and shrinkage into a small village. After the abolishment of serfdom, in 1857, the lands of the village were shared between a big landowner and 431 small landowners. In the area of about four thousand acres, there was significant wine production, but there was little arable land, not even three and a half acres per capita. The people of Vásárhely, who used to fighting so relentlessly for the rights of the borough, now had to fight for their everyday living. But not even those farmers could enjoy the results of their efforts for long who could finally get rid of the burden of the vine tithe, as the phylloxera ruined their vines within a few years (it appeared on the Somló in 1888).
In 1910, already one third of the agricultural population of Somlóvásárhely belonged to the agrarian proletariat. As no industrialisation took place in the village, they could not find any jobs, at best, they worked as day-labourers in the domanial vineyards of the Somló hill. Between 1921 and 1930, the village lost 315 people, who moved out of the settlement, and went to overseas countries or to America with the hope to find a better way of life.
There was an attempt at a reform of land ownership to alleviate the conflicts that rooted in the unhealthy structure of land ownership between the two world wars, but this could not put an end to the economic and social tension in the village society. The long expected unity to strengthen the region of the Somló that was having severe problems after the vine-pest, came with the revolt against the planned opening of the basalt mine on the hill. After 1928, the intellectual class feeling responsible for the Somló, and the local vine-growers (headed by Károly Schandl M. P.) started a movement, and took all the possibilities, and used all their relations to boost the country of the Somló economically. Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of the second World War, the result of the huge organisational activity that started after the end of the 1920-ies and seemed to yield its fruit by the end of the 1930-ies, turned into blue air in a jiffy.
Although the decree on the abolishment of the system of large farms, and the distribution of land to the farmers, of the Temporary National Government issued in March 17, 1945 basically changed land ownership, the 1950-ies still brought about a difficult destiny for the society of the village. The introduction of the delivery obligation, the physical persecution of better-to-do farmers brought a situation for many companies that it was difficult for them even to earn their daily bread. The depressive atmosphere of these years was lifted by the revolution in 1956, but many people escaped from the co-operative movement of the 1960-ies to the industrial basin of Ajka. At that time, many young people from Vásárhely became miners, metallurgical or factory workers. More and more people were escaping away from land.
After the 1980-ies (similarly to the movement of the 1930-ies), the influential people who loved the Somló used their knowledge and influence to do something in order to save the hill and its vicinity. This also applied for the settlement, the population of which had all reasons to believe that they could again use the valuable legacy of their past for their own and their community’s benefit.
