| The Self-preserving Aristocracy | 2. AGRARIAN SOCIETY | The Social Stratification of the Peasantry |
The nobility, just below aristocrats on the social scale, played a crucial part in the development of civil society in Hungary. In Transylvania, as in the rest of the country, these middle landowners formed a heterogeneous class. The wealth of the upper layer was comparable to that of the aristocrats; the more numerous lower layer — with landed property of no more than 57–104 hectares (100–200 cadastral acres), and even less in some cases — had a lifestyle more comparable to that of peasants. At the time of the Compromise, the majority of nobles — some 3,500 — owned land ranging in area from 57 to 285 hectares, while a minority — about 1,500 — had estates of 285 to 2,850 hectares.
{3-577.} During the Reform Era and the revolution, nobles and intellectuals had to perform the sociopolitical functions of the bourgeoisie, for the latter was still tiny in number. They were, in alliance with liberal aristocrats, at the forefront of the battle for a modern constitutional system and civil society. However, the emancipation of villeins and the slow pace of compensation dealt a hard blow to the nobility, particularly to those who owned no more than a hundred hectares or so of land. They were deprived of their indentured workers and lacked the means to hire wage-labourers or to modernize their farms. Those whose property consisted mainly of woodlands could not even dream of developing them, while the owners of arable land were hamstrung by the shortage of credit in the 1850s. On a property of some 100 hectares, a dozen draught-oxen and another thirty beef-cattle did not provide enough manure to maintain the fertility of land cultivated in triple-rotation. To be sure, better results could have been obtained if they had abandoned the rotation system, turned to the intensive production of fodder, and made use of cheap industrial products, such as chemical fertilizers. But most middle landowners did not have the cash to take such initiatives, and thus their class was the one most heavily affected by the changes. Even 170–230 hectares were insufficient to generate an income that would 'allow the owner to preserve his inherited and functionally-determined social status.'[18] In the transitional period, they could increase production only by putting more land under cultivation. Despite the emancipation of villeins and the litigations arising from socage, the owners of large and medium estates managed to retain most of their landed wealth. Where land was actually redistributed, they exerted their traditional authority to keep their property, and sometimes even obtained more valuable land. But the propertied classes also suffered some severe setbacks. Until 1860, they benefited from a moratorium on the repayment of past loans, but official records reveal that most of the compensation they received for the loss of socage went straight to their creditors. {3-578.} Moreover, in the 1850s, the traders and processors of agricultural products increased their profit margins, partly at the expense of the producers. Distilleries made a gross profit of 200 percent on grain, and the mills and bakeries each made around 100 percent. In the decade before the arrival of railroads, grain traders charged 20–25 percent for transportation, and in summer the price of grain fell below that paid in winter by as much as 70 percent.
In the years before the Compromise, only five or six large landowners went bankrupt, but middle landowners who were not good managers felt the ground shake. Writing in 1861, Imre Mikó bemoaned the 'squandering of estates' and considered the safeguarding and efficient cultivation of land to be a patriotic duty: 'Of the many misfortunes that befall us, none pains my heart more than the ever-increasing sales of Hungarian estates. In my eyes, when some propertied gentleman sells his land, a lovely bit of our Hungarian homeland is being severed.'[19] The protracted decline of medium-sized estates was brought about by some factors intrinsic to delayed modernization, as well as by the survival of anachronistic attitudes.
Economic development brought about improvements in agriculture, and industry and commerce as well, but it also set these two broad sectors against each other. Expansion and capital accumulation in commerce, industry, and finance came more rapidly than in agriculture. Agricultural producers had little or no capacity for processing, nor for independent marketing; thus much of the surplus value generated by agriculture served the growth of urban-based commerce and industry. Even the big landowners and large-scale agricultural producers suffered from the fact that investment brought faster returns in industry.
The shrinkage of medium-sized estates coincided with the modernization of agriculture. This could be regarded as the second phase of the battle for land. Now there was less pressure from emancipated villeins, but more from the market as well as from {3-579.} those who disposed of investment capital, and the latter were generally in a position to dictate terms. Among landowners, those who were more astute — generally the wealthier ones — or simply lucky coped with these challenges. However, many middle landowners failed to adapt. Even those whose estates encompassed 200–300 hectares could not afford the expense of a bailiff and continued to 'manage the farm by themselves.' They failed to develop a spirit of economy, diligence, and vigilant entrepreneurship; instead, they tried to preserve their status by outward displays and political activism, both of which incurred increasing expense. At the end of the century, the newspaper of the Transylvanian Economic Association observed regretfully, 'They failed to accommodate themselves to the new circumstances that came in the wake of the abolition of villeinage; they did not adapt their lifestyle, nor their methods of management ... They were no worse than the other classes, just more conservative.'[20] A not atypical example of profligacy was the nobleman, who owned 170 hectares by the Küküllő River, and who had not only hired hands but also a cook, a scullery maid, and a four-horse carriage. Despite his debts, he would play cards regularly at the nearby town's casino [gentlemen's club]. To be sure, by this time there were few of those epic card games in which entire estates were won and lost. Noblemen typically spent more than they earned. These management practices and lifestyle ensured that mortgage loans paved the way to bankruptcy, and not to a modernized farm. After each harvest, they repaid some of their debts, then soon incurred new ones. By the 1870s, the rural gentry was besieging the banks and other credit institutions for loans. Many of them obtained loans from the Romanian-owned Albina bank in Nagyszeben — until 1855, when, out of political as well as economic considerations, the bank refused to do business with them; it maintained its stance for nearly twenty years. Changing lifestyles and economic conditions conspired to ruin the smaller landowners, whose estates were already being fragmented by the {3-580.} prevailing system of inheritance. An estate of 100–200 hectares could not provide a living when divided equally between four heirs, and the latter could commence a new career only by selling the land, for an education commensurate with their rank cost a great deal of money. According to contemporary accounts, some Transylvanian law students received a monthly allowance of 60 to 100 forints to help them jockey for position, for 'the university is public life in miniature, with canvassers, duels, and even parliaments.'[21]
All this explains why a financially secure job in the state or local civil service became the essential goal of the middle-landowner class. Nobles who owned between 100 and 200 hectares, and wealthier ones as well, could be found throughout the civil service, in positions ranging from sub-prefect to village notary. Contrary to common belief, their influx into the state administration did not indicate the seizure of power but, rather, exclusion from the realm where important political decisions were made. With the depletion of their landed wealth, they lost their distinctive political identity, and had no choice but to 'feed at the trough of the state.' They ended up as the state's servants, obedient, but also grumpy and cantankerous.
There are no accurate statistics on the decimation of the nobility's estates. Between the Compromise and World War I, the number of estates in the 57–570 hectare range fell by half. Although it was commonly asserted at the turn of the century that 'despite the difficulties, a good farmer will survive on his land,' the evidence indicates that more and more estates were sold, often to townspeople: 'There is a new and healthy invasion under way, coming from the towns; it brings to our land new investment and expertise, rational calculation, fresh vigour, new methods and objectives; and, here and there, it squeezes out the weakest among the long-established strata.'[22] The stage was set for the third round in the battle for the land. In the early 1900s, the peasantry returned to the fray, now with the backing of financial interests. Credit, previously in short {3-581.} supply, was now available; lenders looking for new opportunities focused on the peasants, who through dint of hard work had become creditworthy. Particularly after 1906, a lively market developed in plots from subdivided estates; Romanians, Hungarians, and Saxons, big banks and small savings institutions, lawyers and landowners, all rushed in to make a profit. Statistics produced by the Transylvanian Economic Association show that between 1902 and 1912, nine hundred agricultural properties of over 28 hectares changed hands. More than two-thirds of them were medium-sized estates that were subsequently broken up into plots and resold. Medium and large landowners had taken to selling part of their property in order to generate funds for the development of the remainder; this trend, which was not limited to Hungary, peaked in the early 1900s. In Transylvania (together with Szilágy County), some 114,000 hectares (half woodlands) were sold in plots larger than 28 hectares (50 cadastral acres) over a period of ten years, for a total of 70 million crowns.
The breaking up and parcelling out of medium-sized estates changed the proportion of land owned by the various nationalities. According to calculations by the Transylvanian Economic Association, the number of Hungarian middle landowners decreased by 25 percent between 1900 and 1914, while some seven hundred medium-sized estates passed into the individual or collective ownership of Romanian peasants. The same source indicates that transfers of plots in excess of 28 hectares between 1904 and 1914 produced the following aggregate results: a net decrease of 82,432 hectares in the area of land in Hungarian ownership, an increase of 64,300 hectares in the Romanians' landholdings, and an increase of 18,132 hectares in Saxon-owned land. There is no reliable statistical evidence to show that, over a longer span of time, the area of land in Saxon hands had shrunk.
Contemporary observers realized that changes in land ownership could have repercussions in the realm of national politics. As {3-582.} early as 1861, Imre Mikó apprehended that a decrease in Hungarian landed property 'might eventually lead to a great statistical-political liquidation.'[23] That great representative of the Romanian middle class, George Bariţ, urged his fellow-Romanians in 1855 to acquire land: 'This is truly an economic war and, if we want to survive and have a real homeland, we must wage it with all our might, all over the country.'[24] The Hungarians' anxiety increased after 1900. Placing the problem of noblemen's estates in the context of the national interest, István Bethlen sounded the alarm in 1913: 'The Hungarians of Transylvania are on the brink of economic and political ruin.' He blamed those of his countrymen who had 'thoughtlessly forced upon Hungary institutions inspired by the cosmopolitan mentality of the French Revolution.' Bethlen's remedies, the entailment of property and state credits, were not novel; in the 1880s, people were already calling for such measures to save the nobility's estates from further decline.[25] Taking their cue from Bethlen, Hungarian nationalists evoked the spectre of 'a country for sale' and anticipated that 'if we have a few decades of peace, we will have to reconquer Transylvania.'[26]
By the time war broke out, the landowning nobility had become wholly disorganized and polarized. Its upper strata linked up with the aristocracy, although the two groups maintained separate social lives. The nobility's special preserve was the county, where they largely excluded the Romanians from public life. They played a key political role in some regions; Hunyad County was in the grip of the Mara, Pogány, Török, and Hollaky families, and Udvarhely in that of the Ugron family. Many members of parliament came from these families, as well as a few cabinet ministers. Of the fifteen lord lieutenants in Transylvania, at least nine or ten always came from the ranks of the landowning nobility. The nobles also defended their prerogatives against aristocrats, whom they seldom allowed to take up administrative posts at the county level. The prosperous Zeyk family married into the wealthy aristocracy, {3-583.} and in 1893 one of them received a baronetcy. The least prosperous nobles were more open to mundane choices; they were happy to launch their sons into business, engineering, or medicine, and by the early 1900s, noble-born professionals were found in senior positions at the national railways. They were less drawn into the life of a career officer in the army, because they were too rebellious by nature, and because it entailed studies at the military academy in Budapest or Vienna. Generally, daughters received no more than a modest education at the secondary level, for they were expected to stay home until a appropriate suitor showed up. For the offspring of Székely lófő (lesser nobles), a career as notary public was already a step up, and after the turn of the century even a teacher's job was deemed acceptable. Where nobles lacked the diligence or frugality necessary to make their farms prosper, 'the country houses fell into decay, or were taken over by new owners. The new generation huddles in some small office and scribbles away.'[27] Although much of this stratum blended into the middle class, they did not forget their noble origins and traditional values. Thanks to their numbers, they were the principal bearers of national traditions in the realm of politics, and consequently their mentality and inherited lifestyle had a profound influence on the value system of Hungary's changing society. The nobles may have been shorn of their land and excluded from power but, for the population at large, they still possessed an aura of authority.
The Romanian landowning gentry was like a distant satellite of the Hungarian nobility. At the beginning of the century, there were 804 Romanian-owned estates of over 57 hectares, although their average size was less than half of the Hungarian ones. In 1906, the largest Romanian estates in Transylvania were those owned by the Vlad family (3,834 hectares), the Mihus family (3,005 hectares), and the Vaida-Voevod family (2,181 hectares). There were some large Romanian estates in the Banat, and in Szilágy and Máramaros counties as well. The largest in all of Hungary, at {3-584.} 16,030 hectares, was the Mocsonyi latifundium in the Banat; another fourteen Romanians, including lawyers and clergymen, owned estates of between 570 and 1,140 hectares. There were also over a thousand medium-sized Romanian estates, in the range of 57–170 hectares, and a significant proportion could be classified as peasant property. Many of them were situated in the counties of Máramaros (123), Kolozs (116) and Szolnok-Doboka (109). The Romanian landowning gentry — including those of noble ancestry — differed little from their Hungarian counterparts with respect to housing, dress, and lifestyle, or, despite a certain nationalistic antagonism, in their political attitudes.
| The Self-preserving Aristocracy | 2. AGRARIAN SOCIETY | The Social Stratification of the Peasantry |