Vaja Summary
Vaja
Summary
Summary
Vaja lies on the Eastern edge of the Nyírség, a large loess table in north-eastern Hungary. Its surface is dominated by arid sand-hills exposed to erosion, in the North-Northeastern-South-Southeastern direction of the wind. There, among these are some areas covered with brown earth, which are most suitable for tilling. In the age when the present surface was forming, there were still long stretches of numerous lakes with no outlets, and former river-beds: the reservoir of Vaja fed by main stream no. III. (an artificial canal) may take up about seven hundred thousand cubic meters of water in an area of 68 hectares. A large part of this surface earlier broken up by marshes, swamps, meadows, but mostly oak woods and birch groves has been put under intensive cultivation. Its protected botanical rarities among others are the meadow anemone, the wild angelica, and the Siberian canna.
The layout of the settlement was first put on a map in 1786, in which the village is clearly outlined along a road with its houses lined up on both sides of the Debrecen-Dobos highway. The middle of the village widens out to create a spindle-shaped centre with the church, the vicarage and the manor-house.
Today’s buildings give hardly any secrets away about the earlier architecture of the countryside. The only residential house that has been preserved from the old village houses is now under 102. Damjanich street, which was the earlier main street. The street front of the building with three rooms and an earthen floor was the first room, the so called big house, in the middle there was the porch divided into two parts, and in the back front there was the lower house. This protected building with its period furniture is a typical house of the region operated by the museum.
The name of the village first appeared in a charter written around 1280. Its owner was a family called Vajai in the Middle Ages, and from the XVIII century, the same called Vay until 1945. Family traditions derive their origin straight back to the times of Saint Stephen, the king who founded the Hungarian state, this, however, may not be proven. Their ancestors belonged to those strata of the Hungarian society who were called free, and who became noblemen in the XIII century. This book traces back the genealogy of the family.
In the 1580-ies and 90-ies, Péter Vay, the sub-prefect of Szabolcs county had the still existing rectangular, three-storied Renaissance manor-house with the drawbridge built, whose opposite north-western and south-eastern corners were given a tower each by the similarly named grand-child in 1659, who also had vaulting built instead of the earlier plain ceiling on the ground-floor and the first floor (1659). The main building received neo-gothic windows in the last third of the XIX century, and a ceremonial hall was created on the second floor, the fresco of which on the ceiling depicts King Sigismund fleeing from the battle of Nikápoly (Bulgaria, 1396) against the Turks (painted by Ferenc Lotz). The building, together with the so called small palace built opposite to it at the turn of the century, was occupied by tenants until 1944. Since 1964, it has served as a museum. Its monumental exploration and restoration started in the recent past were completed in 2003.
A notable date of the Hungarian history is associated with the building: on January 31., 1711 Ferenc Rákóczi II., duke of Transylvania, fighting for the independence of the country, had talks with count János Pálffy, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops on the peace agreement to be concluded in this place.
The settlement had two churches in the Middle Ages: they were conse-crated to Hungarian saints, the first to King Saint Stephen, and the other – built between 1350 and 1380 – to prince Saint Emeric. The latter one was preserved in a gothic, partly transformed style: as it accommodated the Reformed population of the village from the second half of the XVI century. The sepulchre of Ádám Vay (1657–1719), the court marshal of Ferenc Rákóczi II, designed by Barnabás Holló is standing in front of the church.
There were hardly any spectacular changes in the life of the village, the number of its population kept growing continuously (1549: 300, 1787: 650, 1850: 1102, 1990: 3667 people), they took part in revolutions which shook the country, and the world wars, thus adding to the number of the fallen. The village was shaken by two tragic events: thirteen men were shot to death during the Rumanian occupation (1919); in 1944, forty-one Jewish inhabitants, and from them five together with their families, died in concentration camps, while many of the men fell victims to the war performing forced labour service. In 1393, 524 people (92 men, 86 women and 346 family members) signed up from the village to some organised resettlement – and as they could not make a living in their home village – most of them moved to Magyarbóly in Baranya county.
In 1945, the Vay estate, and a total land area of 1724 holds owned by two significant landowners were distributed, and 221 new housing plots were formed. With that, a new system of land-ownership came into being: while earlier 202 inhabitants farming on less than 202 cadastral holds, and 282 between one and five cadastral holds were registered, as a result of land distribution, the number of farms under five holds was 113, and the number of those between five and fifty-five holds was 381. The electrification of the village was started in 1954, and was completed in 1962.
Today, the source of the peasants’ living is apple growing, which was started on the Vay estate (fifty holds of apple) between the two world wars, and became prosperous by the seventies. The processing of the fruit is done on a large scale, also locally.
The cultural life of the village is dominated by the events organised by the Vay Ádám museum, its International Creative Camp of Fine Arts, scientific sessions, as well as writers, poets, painters and scientists using the creative facility, thus making this large village of Szabolcs county stand out and excel among its peers.
