In the summer of 1980 I returned to Kakasd, Hungary. I had done fieldwork in this village from 1949 to 1961, surveying the history, ethnic identity, values, worldview and lifestyle of the Szekely community through its most characteristic folkloric activity at that time - storytelling.
In the late eighteenth century, Szekely refugees had settled in Bukovina, forming a language island in a multiethnic province. The Szekely people had been driven out of their Hungarian homeland following the bloody and infamous battle of Madefalva in 1764. They were a proud people of independent noblemen and privileged border soldiers who had defended Hungary's borders for many years. However, the Haps Queen Maria Theresa (1740-1780) insisted that they be forced to join the military and become common soldiers. The Szekely could not tolerate this violation of their rights and refused to serve under direct military command.
In 1761 the Austrian Quartermaster Buccow led a guard of 15,000 men against this stubborn resistance. Finally, on the morning of January 6, 1764, the soldiers surrounded the tiny village of Madefalva and fired on the 2,500 people gathered there. The Szekely had no further option but to flee and find a new home elsewhere. The battle site is marked by a monument, and even today the Szekely engage in a yearly pilgrimage to remember that tragic morning.
The people were given amnesty and remained free on the condition that they settle in the north Moldavian water lands of Bukovina. Here they remained until the end of the second World War, at which time the five Bukovina-Hungarian villages were vacated and the people returned to Hungary where the majority were accommodated at Kakasd.
The Bukovina region provided the people with a unique home that greatly enriched their distinctive folklore and traditions. Here they became part of a remarkable cross-cultural community. Ukrainians, Romanian, Germans, Poles, Jews, Turks and many others, including many itinerant Gypsies, lived here freely, engaging in the barter and exchange of goods and supplies.
Intermarriage, primarily with the more civilized Germans and Romanians, was a frequent occurrence and a rare admixture formed. The Szekely maintained their own sense of identity, but it cannot be denied that they embraced much from this environment. Their modern character is a composite that clearly shows this integration.
The Kakasd people came from Andrasfalva, the largest of the five Bukovina villages. They were given home and property in 1946-47, after the forced relocation of resident German-Hungarians.
My research covered the initial phase of long process of adjustment, during which the encounter of conflicting cultures brought about changes which normally would have taken a century. The Bukovian-Szekelys, with almost two hundred years' memory of exile, flight, expulsion, dispersal and futile attempts to rejoin their mother nation, finally found haven in a bankrupt, war-ridden Hungary. Bureaucratic policies on settling and land distribution resulted in a modification of the social structure, and this in turn led to a corresponding modification in the function of folklore.
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