# Nagyesztergár

Nagyesztergár is a village in Veszprém county, Hungary in Zirc District.

## History
### The origin and explanation of the name of the settlement

The name Nagyesztergár preserves the Hungarian version of a word of Slavic origin meaning carver, planer, or turner. (Name variants of the certificates: 1270: Wzturgar, 1401, 1489, 1492: Eztergar, 1436: Estergar, 1488: Ezthergar). The Slavic word strugar means a craftsman who works with wood with a cutting tool. The naming resulting from the occupational name is typical of the villages of royal or queenly courtiers, where the inhabitants owed a special service to the ruler.
According to local legend, the name of the village comes from the fact that a girl named Eszter Nagy drowned herself in the stream called Gár in her heartbreak, and Nagyesztergár was founded in its place. We have no knowledge of Gár patak, but the story is a fine example of folk etymology.
The name Nagyesztergár actually appeared only in the 18th century with the aim of distinguishing it from Kisesztergár, known today as Kardosrét. The village was officially named Nagyesztergár only from 1907.

### Nagyesztergár in the Middle Ages

The first residents of Esztergár, as the name implies, were servants of Slavic origin who were servants of the nearby royal court house. In 1270, King István V donated Esztergár to one of his favorite followers, Csák bán, a member of the famous Csák family, but by the 1330s it had become a royal estate again, and it remained so until 1401.
King Louis the Great paid off the loans taken from his followers with property donations. This is how Esztergár came into the possession of the Ányos family in 1401. The ownership history of Esztergár in the 15th century cannot be precisely traced, but it is certain that several families of owners acquired serf plots here on the basis of daughter inheritance, including the Marczaltőy, the Szentgyörgyi Vincze and the Bajcsi families.

### Nagyesztergár under Turkish rule (16th-17th centuries)

Esztergár was last listed in the 1588 tax census. According to family records, Ányos Boldizsár gave the Esztergár partial estate as a pledge to György Marczaltőy in 1589. After that, the village is no longer mentioned as a inhabited place, except in 1632, when it was listed in the Turkish treasury defter (tax census) with an income of 6,000 akce as an accessory of Palota Castle. The destruction of the village was a consequence of the fifteen-year war. In 1593, Grand Vizier Szinán occupied the castles of Palota and Veszprém, then in 1594 he marched across the Bakony to besiege Győr. His plundering and destructive teams burned down the settlements in the way one after the other. Esztergár also met this fate. Its inhabitants were either killed, taken into captivity, or fled. The war dragged on, and although Veszprém and the Palace returned to Hungarian hands in 1598, the Esztergár estate, destroyed in the war, was not resettled for 150 years.
Although the village was destroyed as a result of the Turkish invasion, the owners of the estate still counted their assets in the 17th century. In 1616, Gergely Ányos pledged his Esztergár estate to Ferenc Batthyány. Around 1650, the Marczaltőy family died out, and part of their property was inherited by their relatives, the Amades. In 1655, another landowner family emerged in Esztergár, the Esterházy family. It was then donated by III. Ferdinánd Esterházy's castle for Imren Csesznek, one of which was part of the Bakics estate in Esztergár, which returned to the king. The Esterházys tried to acquire the rest of the wilderness as well, which with hard work succeeded in 1733, when the entire area of Esztergár came into the possession of Count Ferenc Esterházy.

### Resettlement of Nagyesztergár

Ferenc, a young family member of the impoverished Ányos family, wanted to reclaim the village of Nagyesztergár, which had been destroyed during the Turkish occupation. Ferenc Ányos approached his father's protégé Ferenc Eszterházy, castle captain of Csesznek, chief lord of Fejér county, to return Esztergár to the family. The count agreed to the agreement on two conditions: Ányos should pay the HUF 220 he paid for the estate, and the young man should go to the war of Austrian succession in his place as a noble insurgent. After fulfilling the conditions, on November 28, 1743, Ferenc Esterházy handed over all of Esztergár to the heirs of György Ányos to Ferenc Ányos and his three brothers.
A new phase of the population history of Nagyesztergár village began in the middle of the 18th century. It was then that the heroic work of breaking up and populating a wild, scrubby and wooded mountainous area that brought little profit began. Ferenc Ányos set out to break up and populate the Esztergár wilderness without reserves that would provide financial security. The payment of the mortgage for the land returned from the Esterházy family consumed almost all of his assets. In addition, he did not have the kind of estate management experience and professional apparatus behind him that was available to the secular (Esterházy, Zichy) and ecclesiastical (the bishop and chapter of Veszprém, the Cistercian order) landowners who resettled the county during the reorganization of their management. Nor was his social network so extensive that he could have hoped for political or economic benefits. He could only rely on his own strength and the value of the hoped-for benefits of the usable property. Ferenc Ányos could only count on internal migration, immigrants looking for a new place in the hope of even better opportunities, but already staying in the country, for whom he tried to create favorable conditions. In his establishment certificate issued in 1751, he promised the construction of 20 farmhouses, the payment of extermination costs, two years of tax exemption and free movement.
In the 1750s, apart from the landlord's wooden house, there were only one or two coal-burning, potash-cooking and forest-walking huts in Esztergár. According to his name, in October 1736, a resident of Esztergár appears in the Zirci registry among those who died. The name of the potash maker József Janisch was recorded, and in 1737, the names of Lamstätner and Bruckner, as well as Lähr and Moschmann, were recorded in connection with two baptisms. From 1748, the first settlers came to Esztergár - 3-4 per year. Ferdinánd Francz moved from Zirc in 1750, followed by János Braun, Antal Knolmajer, János Majer, Augusz Widmann, the latter arrived from Silesia in 1744, but we find him in Nagyesztergár as early as 1761. Kluiman Richard, a 66-year-old resident of Nagy Esztergár, testifies in 1766 that he moved to Esztergár 15 years before, and before that he lived in Zirce for a longer period of time, 25 years.
At the beginning of the 1760s - 10 years after the issuance of the settlement letter - the names of 40 families living in Esztergár can be found in the registers1, eight years later the names of 46 serfs, 29 squires and 7 homeless squires were recorded in the urbarium. According to the data available from the last third of the 18th century, the number of inhabitants increased by one third during the quarter century after 1767. From a comparison of the registry data, it can be concluded that the population doubled between 1750 and 1771 (from approximately 200 to 400 people).
Between 1770 and 1790, more than 120 family names appear in the registers, mostly German, but from the 1770s - at least according to the names - scattered Slovaks from Bakony and some Hungarian families also entered the village. The 1784–87 According to the national census of 2006, the population of Nagyesztergár is 706, slightly more than the neighboring Oszlop and one hundred less than the population of Olaszfalu.

### Livelihoods and farming in the 18th century

The daily productive work of the farmers of Nagyesztergár was closely intertwined with the Bakony forest surrounding their settlement. The forest accompanied the daily life of the people living here from the cradle to the coffin. The collection of the fruits of the natural vegetation, as well as the catching and hunting of game, provided food raw materials, but they also got fuel from the forest. The animals were grazed in the forest pastures and clearings, the pigs and sheep were fattened on the fruits of the acorn forests, but in lean years, leaf fodder also played a major role in feeding the animals. The area of arable fields could be increased by clearing forests. Most of the agricultural and household tools were made of wood, and after the settlement, the houses and farm buildings were built of wood.
However, the occupation of agricultural forest land was far surpassed by the burning of charcoal and lime and the destruction of the forests of potash cooking, one of the most prosperous industries in 18th-century Hungary, which also produced for export. The first inhabitants of Nagyesztergár were also representatives of these industries requiring special expertise: coal burner József Janisch and ash maker Mihály Salczburger and his wife. In Esztergár, the memory of the Kecske-hegy ash house lived on for a long time, where the ashes of the wood-fired tile stove were collected and then sold to the potash makers.
The craft of making charcoal required special expertise. The charcoal burners chose a flat, clear place for burning charcoal and there approx. The soil was leveled in a circle with a diameter of 4 meters. The wood cut into long logs (beech, oak, and tan) was placed side by side and on top of each other in regular order. The resulting box was covered with fallen leaves and then with earth. The cavity left inside was filled with flammable material (chips, wood waste) and ignited through the top. It glowed slowly, without smoke, steaming for 8-12 days. The earth was then pulled off it and covered with coal dust to extinguish it completely. It was sold packaged in small bags, which were bought by blacksmiths and locksmiths for annealing metals, and housewives for ironing.

### Nagyesztergár in the 19th century and emigration

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Nagy and Kisesztergár (later Kardosrét) part of the settlement separated as a result of the distribution of property by members of the Ányos family. The formation of the settlement's ethnically uniform (German) and now stable population can be dated to the middle of the 19th century.
After 1850, we can get a more accurate picture of the population from the data of the Austrian and Hungarian censuses. Based on the data and the graph, we can say that the population grew evenly and continuously until 1890, but the rate was not too high, between 1795 and 1890 this meant a population increase of 4 people per year. It can be observed that the number of births usually exceeds the number of deaths, but there is not much difference between the two data sets. Devastating epidemic diseases appeared during this period and later, such as the great cholera epidemic in 1873, which claimed 22 lives, and the throat lizard plague of 1880, which claimed the lives of 20 children. The devastating Spanish flu in 1918–19 and the bronchitis epidemic in 1930 took their toll.
The emigration to North America and South America from the end of the 19th century was a loss for the village. Before the 1880s, emigration occurred only sporadically in Hungary, but at the turn of the century we can already speak of a mass movement of people, which can be traced back mainly to economic reasons. The majority of Hungarian emigrants were agricultural workers and dwarf landowners, who (unlike other nations) did not travel with the intention of permanently settling abroad. Their general idea was to collect capital in America, which would then enable them to establish some kind of independent existence after returning home. From Nagyesztergár, farmers, mostly young people from small or impoverished middle-class families, ventured out. In Nagyesztergár, 15 families and 30–40 people were affected by emigration, most of whom returned home. An important city for emigration was Jaraguá do Sul, located in the state of Santa Catarina in Brazil, where part of the colonization began. Several families came from Nagyesztergár and other towns in Veszprém county, especially families of Swabian origin, among them the Kitzberger family.
In Nagyesztergár, the majority of the population lived from agriculture, almost a quarter from mining and industry, and within this, farmers lived in Nagyesztergár, while industrialists, masons, carpenters, and roofers lived in Kardosrét. Those whose own possessions were not sufficient for subsistence took advantage of the opportunities provided by the forest: they burned charcoal and made wooden tools. Sheep farming played a prominent role in the farming of the people of Greater Esztergária. In 1895, the farming community still had 1,577 racka sheep, but this proportion decreased by the end of the century and further decreased to 653 in the first half of the 20th century. Later, he supported himself and his family by part-harvesting, cutting wood, day labor or as an economic servant. Fruit growing could provide additional income. Plums, apples, pears and walnuts were grown in remarkable quantities.

### Nagyesztergár in the 20th century

The two world wars were a significant loss for the village. In the first world war, Nagyesztergár gave 22 heroic deaths to the country, in the second world war, 41 soldiers fell on various battlefields. During the Second World War, the SS recruitments of the German army also meant losses, primarily among the younger generations. In 1941, during the first two conscriptions, 46 lads were enlisted, and on May 23, 1944, during the third SS recruitment, there were 80 applicants. With the approach of the front (in December 1944), the families that played an active role in the Volksbund (more than 40 people who declared themselves to be of German nationality, mostly women) settled in the German Empire.
In the 20th century history of the village, the biggest change was the resettlement and resettlement directed from above. The event of resettlement is so significant in the history of Nagyesztergár that it can be regarded as an era boundary. In many ways, for many reasons. Macrostructurally and historically, the organic development, which was essentially continuous from the arrival of the German nationality until the evacuation, was interrupted, or at least interrupted, without any major bumps. According to the official censuses, eighteen percent of the village, 215 people, 44 families, mostly the village's wealthiest families, were evicted. For them, the displacement was a tragedy, they had to go into the uncertain unknown, they had to leave the result of the work of generations, the house, land, furniture, everything except the allowed fifty kilos. Here they had to leave their neighbors, some of their relatives, the village, the country, and moreover as a punishment, in most cases completely innocently, for crimes they had never committed.
The lives of those who stayed at home changed, and so did their self-esteem for a long time. The ethnically formed, basically homogenous character of the village community changed, with the appearance of the resettled Hungarian population, a radical intervention took place in the life of the village community. The exchange of population, which itself represented a strong, traumatic effect, was essentially accompanied by another trauma, the introduction of the Soviet-type system and its imposition on the village.
The displaced were replaced by 20 families from the Upland region of Ipolyság, with nearly forty people as part of the Slovak-Hungarian "population exchange", who were well-to-do and hardworking people (they could bring their farm equipment and furniture with them). Similar to the displaced families in Nagysztergár, moving in was a serious shock for the Hungarians in the highlands. They left the familiar neighborhood, the family home in tears, and longed to return even years later, many of them moved to the Danube in the hope of moving back.
The natives of Nagy-Esztergár who survived the displacement tried to come to terms with the new situation, but they did not even recover from the great shock. A traditional peasant society functioned and reproduced for a good two hundred years after the settlement, the occupation of the majority of the population was agriculture. On the other hand, according to the 1970 census data, the majority of the people of Greater Esztergária already work in industry (primarily in the Dudar mine), the proportion of active earners and dependents employed in agriculture is only twenty percent. Since then, the number of people working in agriculture has continued to decrease, and today it is only a few percent. The people of Greater Esztergár resignedly accepted the commuting lifestyle. Between 1949 and 1969, the population also increased somewhat. The attachment to the village is proved by the fact that between 1960 and 1970, the desire to build increased. After that, however, there is stagnation and slow weight loss, the reasons of which can be, among other things, the decrease in births, the increase in the number of deaths and the migration of young people to the city.
The settlement is starting to find itself again after the regime change. With the approval of the President of the Republic, the reconstructed village separated from Zirc on January 1, 1993 and became an independent settlement. In the village, between 1993 and 2003, the doctor's office, the library, the office of the German Nationality Circle, the bus stops were renovated, and the heating of the school and kindergarten was switched to gas heating.
The regime change, on the other hand, destroyed the socialist economy. The tsz was abolished, the former farmers received compensation tickets for their taken land, but they were not able to buy much with it. In 1994, the Dudar mine was also liquidated, some of the workers were retired with an age discount, and others were relocated to Balinka or Márkushegy. They saw an opportunity in the establishment of small businesses as a starting point. In 1993, 31 were operating, which increased to 39 by 2000. The 171 cars also testify to the rise in the standard of living, i.e. almost every family has a car.
The change in the system was accompanied by a resurgence of religious life, and it was again possible to hold religious classes at school. There is an increased need to strengthen and nurture national identity. On February 1, 1996, the United German Nationality Circle was founded, which became the engine of the village's cultural life.

## Geographical environment

Its area is 18.29 km$^2$. Surrounding settlements: Csesznek, Bakonyszlop, Dudar Bakonynána, Olaszfalu, Zirc, Borzavár. Its entire border is located in the small town of Öreg-Bakony of the North Bakony small town group. Its border is 6.1 km north-south, and 7.0 km east-west. Its highest point on the western side of the Cuha valley is 443 m, the lowest is 335 m at the outlet of the Gaja stream, while its inland center is 418 m above sea level.
Its surface is largely covered by Quaternary loess, which enables extensive arable farming. Around the inland area, there is an Oligo-Miocene detrital assemblage under the loess and, in smaller patches, Eocene limestone, which sometimes reach the surface. Both rocks come from the Tertiary period of geohistory. Medieval rocks older than this can be found in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the border. In the northwest - around the Cuha Valley - Jurassic limestone is exposed, while in the southeast Cretaceous limestone surfaces.
Its climate is moderately cool and moderately humid. The average annual temperature is 8.5 °C, and the annual precipitation is 800 mm. The settlement is located at the watershed of the Cuha and Gaja streams, several branches of the latter originate in its territory. Its original forest cover was cherry oak, which was suppressed by farming. Larger patches of forest can be found in two places, southeast of the interior and northwest of the border, around Cuha Valley. The stream branches are accompanied by a narrow strip of alder along the stream. The settlement near Zirc lies along the Zirc – Bodajk road. The nearest train station is Zirc (3.2 km).