« 2022. # 5 (167)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2022. № 5 (167), 1080—1091

UDK [[39:728.6]:643.3](477.87=511.14)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2022.05.1080

THE KITCHEN AND STOVE OF A TRADITIONAL TRANSCARPATHIAN HUNGARIAN PEASANT HOUSE

KESZ Barnabas

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8417-8441
  • PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History and Social Sciences
  • at the Ferenc Rakуczi II Transcarpathian
  • Hungarian College of Higher Education,
  • 6, Kossuthsquare, 90202 Berehove, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: kesz.barnabas@kmf.org.ua

KESZ Margit

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9738-2858
  • PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Philology at the
  • Ferenc Rakуczi II Transcarpathian
  • Hungarian College of Higher Education,
  • 6, Kossuthsquare, 90202 Berehove, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: kesz.margit@kmf.org.ua

Abstract. The study of traditional folk architecture is one of the popular areas in ethnography. This task is especially relevant in regions that ethnographers consider to be relatively white spots, such as the multiethnic Transcarpathia, which has historically belonged to several state formations. Ukrainians, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Germans and other ethnic groups who have lived here in friendship for centuries mutually enrich each other’s culture, creating unique examples of interethnic relations. In this paper, the authors made an attempt to document the traditional housing culture of the Hungarian rural population of Transcarpathia. The object of research is folk architecture, and the specific subject of the research is the kitchen, which together with the oven and equipment forms the central and main room of the Hungarian peasant house in Transcarpathia. The aim of this study was to determine the type of traditional Transcarpathian Hungarian house and kitchen, as well as to outline the history of culinary space and its heating equipment, which play a central role in a family’s life, their local features, parallels or differences with other regions and peoples. Based on our main hypothesis, we suggested that in more remote villages of the region traces of archaic elements known in the material culture of different peoples and ethnic groups living at the confluence of the Great Alfцld and Carpathians can still be found (open veranda, open chimney, fireplace, stove, etc.). In addition to the principle of historicism, the methodological basis of the study includes proven methods of ethnography, such as elements of retrospective, typological, comprehensive analysis or, for example, historical reconstruction. Territorially, the study covers Hungarian and mixed villages in the southwestern part of Transcarpathia, the historical Ugocha County, and chronologically — the first half of the XX century, with some references to changes that took place in the second half of the XX century. In addition to the study of archival material and ethnographic literature, the source material of the study was the latest research, field analysis of the authors, photos and other documents, in-depth interviews with informants.

Keywords: Hungarians of Transcarpathia, three-part house,entryway, kitchen, free chimney, stove, fireplace, tripod, wood holder.

Received  5.09.2022

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