In the Spirit of Abandonment and Coping Mechanisms. Cultural and Social Historical Deep Drillings for a Comparative Historical Analysis of Protestant Cultural Regions (between 16th and 19th centuries)

National Research, Development and Innovation Office Nr. K-145896

2024-2027

Principal investigator:

• Dr. Hegyi Ádám Alex associate professor (University of Szeged Department of Cultural Heritage and Human Information Science)

Senior participants:

• Dr. Zoltán Csepregi professor (Lutheran Theological University)
• Dr. Dávid Csorba director (College Museum of the Transtibiscan Reformed Church District)
• Dr. Dénes Dienes professor (Reformed Theological Academy of Sárospatak)
• Dr. Róbert Oláh senior research fellow (College Library of the Transtibiscan Reformed Church District)
• Dr. István Szabadi director (Archive of the Transtibiscan Reformed Church District)
• Dr. János Ugrai associate professor (University of Tokaj-Hegyalja)
• Dr. Edina Zvara associate professor (University of Szeged Department of Cultural Heritage and Human Information Science)

Participants:

• János Éliás MA (University of Debrecen)
• Dr. Tünde Katona (University of Szeged)
• István Tasnádi MA (Archive of the Transylvanian Reformed Church District)
• Dr. Attila Zsigmond pastor (Reformed Parish of Fugyi)

Students:

• Endre Bíró (University of Szeged)
• Tünde Horváth (University of Szeged)
• Erika Öner (University of Szeged)

Technical staff:

• Anna Janovics (University of Szeged Department of Cultural Heritage and Human Information Science)
• Dóra Nagy (University of Szeged Klebelsberg Library)
• Attila Ősz (College Museum of the Transtibiscan Reformed Church District)

Summary of the research and its aims:

Values and endeavours of indisputable significance of the cultural and public history are associated with the Protestants. They were compelled to a minority existance so in a political as in a legal sense for the most part throughout their existence, and no uniform church governance system had developed in line with the historical twists of the Hungarian Kingdom (16-19th century). This is not only difficult to be fited in any of the current church organisational models abroad, but also various centres of gravity apply to each region within Hungary. Research will be performed on the territory of the Transylvanian, Transtibiscan and Cistibiscan Reformed church districts, where the Canons of Geleji (1649) retained their validity until the historical threshold in 1848–1849. Effective examination and sensitive presentation of the significance of the geographic division can be performed in spite of the relatively short geographic distances. Here we mean the Reformed large-regions (Transylvanian, Transtibiscan and Cistibiscan communities) within which further smaller units (cultural regions) stemming from a certain close cultural togetherness can be separated from each other. It is almost certain that there are areas with specific characteristics in the “buffer zones” at the boundaries between two Reformed large-regions in each church district (e.g. the Szatmár, Szabolcs or Szilágyság) or inclusions that developed in specific situations (e.g. Háromszék in Transylvania).Consequently, the utmost importance will be attached to the dynamic change in geographic scale and to the transition between micro-, mezo- and macro-level assessments in the course of the research.

The Reformed church and cultural history needs a new, comparative approach. Over time, this mightestablishthe synthesis of the Carpathian basin church history that will meet the requirements of the 21st century, transcend the fraction lines caused by the borders of regions and church districts, handle territorial features in place, have a uniform structure, be based on interdisciplinary foundations.

To achieve this goal the investigation will be performed in three steps:

• a) archontologic-prosopographic research to search for and systematise basic data;
• b) religion-geographical comparative research on the whole of the selected Reformed large-reegions;
• c) problem historical research focusing on some smaller areas and cultural regions of the selected Reformed large-regions (research will be accompanied by writing publications, organising conferences, compiling volumes of studies and essays).