The Slovakian



Slovakians from Upper Hungary often visited the Great Plain from the second half of the 17th century to do harvest work so they new this rich and uncultivated land. Migration was instinctive and consciously organized at the same time. Their new home provided rights for the localized serves and free practice of their religion for the Lutherans. Ambitions naturally joined to the economical, social and philosophical factors. Towns and developing settlements, like Békéscsaba, Mezõberény, Szarvas and Tótkomlós formed the type of the Slovakian settlements that developed in the first half of the 18th century. The centre of these wide-bordered settlements were surrounded by farms and created the typical kind of settlement from the end of the 18th century: in Tótkomlós a circle-shaped settlement with a pen and garden, in Szarvas the system of row of farms. The buildings of Slovakians, who lived at the southern part of the Great Plain, were built with the technology of mud wall (paticsfal) in the 18th century. So in Szarvas thatched houses with special gable, called "félkanfaros", in Békéscsaba the typical house with visor protruding to the street and the developed version with a patio (podst’enka), which was separated by a door from the brick patio, were popular. It is a speciality of Tótkomlós that granaries are standing next to the house parallel to the front of the street giving the impression of a castle. The old Slovakian peasant cottage without a patio in Mezõberény preserved the once authoritative house type (divided into three) of the Plains.

In the independently built and enriching farms the number of civil-peasants continuously increased by the beginning of the 19th century. In Szarvas the biggest peasant landed properties reached the size of 300 Hungarian acres, 200 in Békéscsaba. The wealthy farmers in Tótkomlós owned the average of 120 Hungarian acres, they insisted on the Slovakian common customs the most consistently. At the turning of the 19th and 20th century the civil institutions, transmitting the mother tonge, developed among the Lutheran Slovakian communities. The Czech bible and the Tranoscius, the Funebral, containing funeral songs in Slovakian, became the ethnic symbol of the Lutheran Slovakian.



Furniture



In Békés County the oldest type of Slovakian folk furniture was represented by trousseau chests that were scaffolded of oak from Gömör and Nógrád and had notched technology with carved archaic, geometric and figure ornaments. Until the middle of the 19th century farmers, who were talented and insisted on the traditions of Upper Hungary, made their own notched chests (szkrinya) themselves. By the end of the 18th century two complete furniture-maker centres of our county were established in Tótkomlós and Békéscsaba. As a result of German craftsmen, who were well-up in Europe and made church furniture and the carpenters’ in Hódmezõvásárhely, a new local style was created. Their pieces were equal to the type that was well-known all over the Great Plain, but the same time with chased, clipping and convex carving, rich colouring, and typical Gothic-style writings they realized a mature artistical execution. The early throne-like thiking chairs of Békéscsaba and Komlós, backed chairs, seats and mirror frames indicate Renaissance forms. The screwed columned, canopied beds and cupboards reflect Baroque ornaments. This time the dominating colours of the furniture of Komlós are dark blue, the flowers are green, red, white, yellow and occasionally brown. From the second half of the 19th century light blue and green appear more often as the colour of the base and carving was pushed to the background by painted flowers.

The furniture of Csaba was more simple and solid. The base colour of the early convex carved furniture is blue, later green, and rarely brown. The flowers were white, yellow, blue and green, sometimes red. From the middle of the 19th century the furniture dominates that has dark green base and blue, red yellow and white motifs. Then, by the end of the 19th century the base was changed to yellowish white instead of dark green. In the clean room veined (flóderes) cupboards were popular.