Hello all,
My family hails from Nagyrozvagy and Kisrozvagy, small neighboring villages in northeast Hungary. While we have clear and detailed accounts and photos of farm life up to around the 1940s, we do not have any for the 19th century or early 20th century. Our family tree for this side of our family stretches only to the early 1860s.
I was wondering what daily life was like in villages and farms from the 1860s-1920 in Hungary, northeastern Hungary if that makes that much of a difference. What crops were most commonly grown? How were homes designed? How close knit were villages? What was the family dynamic in areas like these?
We have many photos from the 1920s up until the modern day of our areas of Hungary, along with plenty of family stories and an understanding of how life is in the modern day and recent times there. But what was this area like from 1860-1920 for the average person? What could a day in the life of my ancestor in Nagyrozvagy or Kisrozvagy look like?
Thank you in advance!
The specific period you are asking about is very interesting because in today's Hungary it is the most fetishized time period in our history, nicknamed the "gémeskutas idők" (gémeskút was a specific kind of well that were very commonplace in Hungary during that time, especially in the lowlands).
The farms and villages during that time, like throughout most of hungarian history, were very antiquated for the time. In the urban areas, like Budapest, Pozsony (today Bratislava), Nagyvárad (today Oradea), most people worked in the industry, and very usually very politically active. Especially because the 1860s was a time of much political change in Hungary, known as the "kiegyezés" (compromise, with the Habsburgs).
But as I said, rural areas were much different. Political activity was basically absent. People typically spent most of their life in the village they were born in, moving to someplace else was uncommon. Families usually lived were close to each other, or even in the same house, and worked on their lands to keep themselves fed (unlike the urban areas, agriculture was the most common field of work for people in rural areas). Because of that the homes were understandably designed to house a lot of people, entire families even.
Because not many people moved out of villages, the people there were very familiar with each other, they were quite close-knit.
As for what crops were usually grown on lands, I sadly cannot answer that, I don't know the specifics of this era's agriculture, I apologize.
Many cultural elements from the Early Modern Era were kept even in the late 19th century, and early 20th century. One of them was the very popular "népviselet" (folk-wear), here is a picture to give you an example. This again goes to show how non-modern the villages were, although the clothing is undoubtedly beautiful.
One thing I haven't mentioned yet is the education in these areas. Children typically went to school for 4 years, which may seem like a ridiculously small amount of time to us, but it actually helped to increase literacy in Hungary from ~22% in 1850 to 69% in 1910.
So in summary: Your ancestors probably went to school for 4 years as children and then spent most of their time in agriculture with their families.
