Zala Summary
Zala
Summary
Summary
Zala can be found in the Eastern part of the outer-Somogy region in our beautiful Somogy county, close to the border of Tolna. The settlement, settled on mild hills, and valleys, gained its name from Zala, a personal name derived from sal (flow) of a pre-Slavic origin. Probably one of its first owners was called by this name in the Arpadian age.
People lived in the area of the settlement already thousands of years ago, making use of the favourable local conditions. The vinehill of Zala today was populated by groups that could be part of the so called lengyeli culture during the Neolithic Age.
We know very little about the medieval history of the settlement, Zala. The fact that a settlement under the name of Zala certainly existed in Somogy county in 1278 is known from a charter that mentions its church consecrated to Saint Kozma and Damján. The Eastern saints may refer to the Bizanthian relations of Chieftain Koppány, once the ruler of Somogy. We have some data in a charter from the end of the XI century about Szőllős, which belonged to Zala during a period in the Modern Age. As compared to Zala, Szőllős has abounding medieval sources, and landowners turned to the ecclesiastical notarial centres many times in connection with the vine estates here.
The noble Zichy family played a basic role in the life of the village for several centuries. We know that they had estates here as early as in 1417 by way of the successors Paska Zichy. In addition to them, the Perneszties, the Batthyánys and the Bálványosis from Nagy-Pó also had some estates here in the Middle Ages. Later, the Boronkay and the Babócsay families also had estates here, but from the XVIII century until the beginning of the XX century, the Zichy family was the only significant landowner of the village.
During the Turkish rule and the following difficult times, the population of Zala also suffered to the point that the settlement became fully depopulated by the beginning of the XVIII century. The inhabitants re-settling in the village in the middle of the 1710-ies were also Hungarians similarly to those living here earlier. In the middle of the XIX century, it was general knowledge among the inhabitants that the off-spring of the Somogyi and Varga families, who arrived from Devecser and Vászoly in Veszprém county about one hundred and fifty years before represented the major part of the population in the settlement. The village of Bóta could be considered to be populous in 1573-1574 with its twenty-five tax-paying houses, but no inhabitants remained after the Turkish times. Slovakians were settled here from the Highlands already in 1718. Later, Bótapuszta became a peripheral part of Zala.
The people living in the area of Zala earned their living exclusively from agriculture from the Middle Ages until the end of the XX century. The adjacent Szőllős, which belonged to Zala from the XVIII–XIX centuries was particularly famous for its good wines.
Zala came into existence probably as a non-tax-paying settlement on a clearing similarly to other settlements in Somogy. The forest-covered areas were transformed into arable land, and thus, the number of the population also increased gradually. Eleven tax-paying households, considered to be average in this region, were registered by the Turkish tax collectors, and we know of ten tax-payers in 1720. Due to the favourable methods of bread-winning and land cultivation, becoming modernised with time, the settlement already had 478 inhabitants around the end of the XVIII century. The census of 1767 recorded more than forty local tax-payers with land.
It was a great opportunity for boosting the economic, and commercial life of the settlement that the landowner of the settlement received a right to hold four national fairs per year at the beginning of the 1840-ies. And still, the inhabitants of Zala, considered to be an oppidum from this time on – probably due to the nearby Tab, where conditions were better – remained agricultural farmers and workers, and even later just a few small artisans lived here.
The age of dualism served the economic development of the country well, which however, only made a limited print on this slightly enclosed outer-Somogy region. People found more and more difficulties trying to earn their living from agriculture, which lost its weight in profit making. And still, it was in this century, when the settlement had most inhabitants: the local population was 946 in 1910.
After the first World War, the village, which once had witnessed better days, became gradually weaker. Szőllőspuszta and Sérsekhegy became detached in 1921, and formed a separate settlement, which has had the name of Sérsekszőllős since 1926.
The national fairs held here played an important role in the life of the village in the 1930-ies. The animal fairs, which were parts of these, were famous throughout the county. The “throng” assembled four times a year was almost a long-waited event in the village.
The settlement did not suffer major financial damages during the second World War, but the so called district-creating policy of the regional development concept after the communist regime brought along the migration of masses from Zala, where jobs were scarce. The capability of the village to retain people was further decreased by the fact that the upper classes of the elementary school, and later in 1977, the lower classes were also discontinued in the settlement.
On the basis of the data available about the history of the settlement, there were no minority or religious conflicts making the life of the people here difficult, almost all of them were Hungarians and followed the Catholic religion. The Slovakians from Upper-Northern Hungary, settling in Bótapuszta at the beginning of the XX century could assimilate at an extremely quick pace, and the Germans moving in at the time, only belonged to
the settlement until 1921, because the peripheral parts occupied by them became independent.
Zala is the smallest village in Hungary, where there is a library with a collection of fine ares and ethnography, as well as publications from the XVI–XX centuries, under the name of Mihály Zichy Memorial Museum. The institution, opened in 1927 as a private initiative carries the name of the world-famous painter, who was born in Zala. He spent most of his life abroad, where he assembled the artifacts exhibited by his successors during the XX century. The most precious artifacts of the museum are the paintings by Mihály Zichy, which got to Zala from his numerous works. Mária Alexandra Zichy, the grand-daughter of the painter, István Csicsery-Rónai, her husband, and younger István Csicsery-Rónay, their son did a lot to foster the Zichy-cult during the difficult years of the past century, they preserved and enlarged the collection.
The beautiful landscape conditions are almost fully unutilised. As the place is not known enough, only very few people can enjoy the huge trees and paths of the Zichy-park, the old Zichy-graveyard, and the beautiful view from the top of the Halomi-dűlő. Due to the dead-end shaped village, there are hardly any guests in addition to the visitors of the museum. Zala in Somogy county can hardly develop in the shadow of Tab, although probably it would not be too late now to put an end to the shrinkage of the population, and there could still be some hope that this village with its more than seven hundred years of rich history could again flourish at the beginning of the third millennium.
