Zalavár Summary
Zalavár
Summary
Summary
The settlement lies in the area belonging to today’s county, on the Southernmost tongue of the Zalavári ridge. Its climate is average, and the area is rich in rainfall. The past history of the vicinity was basically influenced by the closeness of the Small-Balaton. The water regulation processes started in the second half of the XIX century, and the Zala river received a new riverbed dug out in the first years of the 1920-ies. The filling-up of the Small-Balaton, and the silting-up of the Keszthelyi bay became faster. The abundance in fish, and the growth in the number of birds that came with it at the end of the last century stopped, and could only recover over the very last decades. The most typical birds of the moor here are the tufted heron and the cormorant.
The recovery of the moorland of the Small-Balaton only started in 1981 for the protection of the water quality of the Balaton. The bird reserve to be found here received the highest level of protection in 1997, when the National Park on the Upper-land of the Balaton came into being.
The earliest known ethnic groups around the Small-Balaton settled close to the crossing point at the end of the bridge, recognizing its strategic importance. During the Roman rule, there might have been a small settle-ment in the place of the village on the basis of the archaeological findings. The Roman tradesmen also used the road traversing Transdanubia to con-nect North-Italy and Óbuda. This road crossed the Balaton at Keszthely-Fenékpuszta. There are some tombstones that witness about the presence of the Romans.
The most significant period in the history of this region started when Pribina, Slavic emperor received this region as a feudality from Louis the German, the Eastern Frankish emperor. Pribina built out his centre on the Castle island, which was called Mosaburg, the Moor Castle. After the fortress was built, the emperor had several churches built in the area, which were dedicated by archbishops from Salzburg. In 866, Cyrill and Method, Slavic missionaries arrived in Mosaburg invited by Kocel, Pribina’s son.
The settlement was a flourishing Carolingian county until the end of the IX century: the archaeological excavations of the last two decades surfaced manor houses of the nobility, and the settlements and graveyards of the people serving in those manor houses.
The settling Hungarians took the Avar-Slavic-Frankish peoples of the vicinity under their control. After the failure of the raids of the Hungarians against other nations, first Taksony, and then Prince Géza became the master of Transdanubia, who settled Koppány, his relative down here. After his revolt was broken down, the area of the Small-Balaton was con-trolled by King Stephen. The king set about building out the institute of the state, and established districts controlled by bailiffs, and bishoprics. The county of the Kolon castle, the later Zala county also belonged to the bishopric of Veszprém, established in 997. Zalavár became the reli-gious centre of a wider region in this period. Saint Stephen founded a Benedictine monastery on the Castle island in the place of the Carolingian Saint Adrian basilica in 1019, which he generously provided with donations.
Zalavár probably became the centre of Zala during the times of Saint Ladislas, to replace the settlement of Kolon, which has disappeared since then. It was first mentioned by the data of a charter in 1164. The royal county was transformed into a county of the nobility at the end of the XIII century, but without a permanent seat at the time. Thus, Zalavár lost its role as the capital town in the county. The castle got under the control of noble families being rivals to each other in the middle of the XV century, and later, it became the property of the abbey in 1472.
The abbey was controlled mostly by secular governors instead of monks after the beginning of the XV century, and often its income was rented out. That is how the members of the Terjék family from Szenterzsébet became the governors of the Zalavár abbey, and namely Tamás Nádasdy, the treasurer of the later paladine, Antal Sárkány, and then Ferenc Háshágyi, his relative.
In spite of the decline of religious life, the monks continued their activ-ities as representing ecclesiastical bodies entrusted with notarial functions. These were special legal institutions in Hungary in the middle ages, which issued public charters on the demand from different parties. The most important of these ecclesiastical notarial bodies were the convents in Zala-vár and Kapornak in the old Zala county.
In 1553, Ferenc Mezőlaky became the governor of the abbey, who also managed the reinforcement of the castle for one and a half decades. The significance of the castle also grew due to the Turkish menace. After Kanizsa fell, it had to undertake the role of the crossing point after 1600. Its forti-fication was ordered several times during the XVII century, but it was not very successful. The already ruined fortress was exploded by Austrian soldiers on the emperor’s command in 1702.
The emperor donated the abbey to the Göttweig Benedictine order in 1715. Maria Theresa returned the license of an ecclesiastical notarial body to the monks in 1757, who were carrying out their activity in the nearby Zalaapáti. The building of a new monastery was started there in 1752.
The settlement was possessed by the abbey from the donation made
by Saint Stephen up to the abolishment of serfdom. We have informa-tion about its territory in the middle ages from a field survey in 1335. It received the right of organising fairs in 1424, and later it was often called a borough. It became depopulated in the Turkish times – after the end of the XVI century, and it was a derelict place in the XVII century. The abbey signed a reconstruction agreement in 1721, and the socage regulation was issued in writing in 1783. The natural characteristics of the territory were favourable for arable land, pastures and animal husbandry. The people tried to enlarge the land area of the village by draining the moorland of the Small-Balaton.
Strivings became stronger in the reform era, in the first third of the XIX century, aiming at the separation of the abbey from Göttweig. During the freedom fight of 1848-49, the abbey offered gold and silver objects to cover costs, and monk Gergely Modrovics even joined the national guards. He was imprisoned for ten years after the freedom fight was broken down, and after he got free, he became the first independent abbot in Zalavár in 1874.
A treasure finding consisting of silver coins, explored in 1854 directed the attention again to the relics to be found on the Castle island. Flóris Rómer, the father of Hungarian archaeology, conducted excavations here from 1881. Planned excavations started here in 1946, headed by the archae-ologists of the National Museum of Hungary. After the death of Ágnes Cs. Sós in 1961, Miklós Szőke Béla has been the head of the exploration here. In 1996 a historic memory park was started to be created here.
Several family heads were recruited as soldiers from the village during the First World War. The memorial plaque in front of the new church completed in 1923 has preserved the names of 64 people fallen heroically.
27 soldiers from Zalavár participated in the Second World War. Six local Jews fell victims to the holocaust. When power was taken over by the Hungarian nazis in 1944, the Germans built a military airbase next to the village.
The Red Army took control over the area of Zalavár at the end of March 1945. The village did not suffer severe losses in the fights. The Smallholders’ Party received most of the votes during the first elections.
The airbase built at the beginning of the fifties was a huge burden for Zalavár. It was taken over by the Soviet army in 1962, and kept it under its control until 1990.
The number of the inhabitants of the village was diminished by the two world wars of this century, and after the 1960-ies, urbanisation only added to the speed of the diminishment of the population. In addition to this, the aging of the population is another blow.
Between 1907 and 1950, the settlement in the rank of a large village, was also a registry district. It was annexed by Veszprém county as part of the district of Keszthely in 1950. From this time, it became a settlement with an independent council, and later, in 1977, it was attached to the neighbouring Sármellék as an associated village until the changes of the political system.
The economic life of the settlement was dominated by plant production. At the beginning of the XX century, there were hardly any farmers with a full plot (thirty acres) due to the small sizes of plots of land. The basis of the economy was still arable land at the beginning of the XX century. (The abbey was the largest owner, followed by Richárd Reischl from Keszthely until 1945. Due to the small amount of land that could still be distributed, the land reform in 1945 led to further problems, as an average of five acres could be allotted to the applicants.)
The most important crops were corn, potatoes and maize. The other source of their income was animal husbandry, and mostly cattle breeding.
The Új Idők Co-operative (‘New Times’) was founded in 1949, and a new one after the 56 events in 1958. Small plot farming became wide-spread in the seventies with swine being the most important line within that.
Both the image and the structure of the village reflect the smallholding type of farming. The church was built in 1923, with the presbytery and school built next to it. Most of the buildings still had mud walls in the middle of this century, and most of them have a cubical shape, unlike the traditions of this region. Infrastructure – electric light, bust transport, water-mains, internal road network – only started to be established from the fifties.
In Zalavár, a Roman Catholic elementary public school provided the possibility of education in the first half of our century. The first new school building was built at the beginning of the sixties. This institute belonged to Sármellék between 1982 and 1986. The new elementary school, bearing the names of Cyrill and Method was inaugurated in 1990, the number of students of which, however, keeps diminishing year by year.
The typical folk costume of Zalavár demanded broad skirts, bead deco-rations and hair gathered into a coil at the back of the head. Women adhered to their traditional costume for a long time until the 1960-ies.
The holidays of the village were in connection with peasant lifestyle and religion. Many elements of the rich folk habits in Zalavár are still living today. The fertility charms festival on St. Lucy’s day is an old ele-ment of the Christmas holidays, and another, the Holy Family Walk has just revived again. Carnival time is celebrated with feasting and masked balls. The local elements of the Easter holidays are very rich. May-pole dances and Rogation days are also known. The tradition of having a pro-cession on Corpus Christi Thursday is coming back again.
