The Wine and the Soldiers

A Microhistory of Hungary, 1761-1799
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-22203-3
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 234 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Microhistories

This book is a social and economic history of Hungary in the late eighteenth century, written in the form of a microhistory. Through microanalyses of a miller’s recruitment into the army, the life of a vagrant farm labourer, the illicit sale of wine by a postmaster, a violent conflict between two squires, and two murder cases, it addresses a range of important themes, including the relationship between peasant communities and their lords, and the presence of the army in the everyday lives of common people.

These micro-level analyses combine to create a coherent account of Hungary from the 1760s to the end of the century. They reveal significant capital accumulation in the agrarian sector, the omnipresence of both the army and wine in everyday life, and crucial role played by the local communities of the oppressed population in sustaining the ancien régime. In this way, microhistory offers a novel framework for national history.

The Wine and the Soldiers: A Microhistory of Hungary, 1761–1799 is intended primarily for historians and postgraduate students interested in Hungarian history and, more broadly, in early modern Europe. It may also appeal to readers interested in an innovative methodological approach demonstrating how microhistory can illuminate the major historical questions of late eighteenth-century Hungary—issues more commonly explored through macro-level historical scholarship.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Szijártó, István M.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

List of Maps

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Currency and measures

Chapter 1: ‘Fit to be a Soldier’: The Fiscal-Military State and the Local Community

The Gloomy Widow

Noblemen and Peasants

The Squire’s Wine and the Miller’s Wife

Subjects: Useful and Disposable

Macaroni and Community

Chapter 2: The Wanderings of Panna Rósa

Mobility in the Ancien Régime

The Mobility of Peasants, the Freedom of Women

Question Marks and Parallels

To Ladakh or to Zagreb

Chapter 3: ‘Let them cane you!’

Babócsa and its Squires

Wine, Money, and the Postal Service

The Attorney’s Career and the Postmaster’s Honour

Noblemen with and without Charters

Michael Kolhaas in Transylvania and in Babócsa

Chapter 4: Who’s Afraid of Anna Rósa?

Women’s Afflictions

Women’s Rights

Women in Court and on Tax Lists

Women in Last Wills and Divisions of Property

Women Proprietors in Judicial Practice and Jurisprudence

The Return of Panna Rósa?

Murder in Rigács

The Noble Family

Chapter 5: The Miller’s Fortune

Robbery, Murder, and Criminal Justice

A Jesuit in the Bakony Hills?

Menocchio in Inota

The Squire, the Bishop, and the Accumulation of Capital

Jura regalia minora

Chapter 6: Enlightenment in the Melon Field?

The Responsibility of Sowing Melon Seeds

The Background of a Conflict

Back to the ‘Black Lands’

Enlightenment in Vienna and Bercel

György Bessenyei, Pierre-Simon de Laplace and a Nineteenth-Century Enlightenment

Epilogue: A Toothless Crocodile?

The Uses of Microhistory and Hungary in the Ancien Régime

The Economic System I: Grains and Mills

The Economic System II: The Army as Consumer and the Peasants’ Money

The Army I: Recruits and Deserters

The Army II: The Return of János Koszer

Society I: Pitchfork, Sword, Pickaxe

Society II: Herrschaft mit Bauern

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

István M. Szijártó is Professor of History at Eötvös University, Budapest. His research focuses on the history of the Hungarian Diet in the eighteenth century and on microhistory. His publications in English include Estates and Constitution. The Parliament in Eighteenth-Century Hungary (2020) and, with Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, What is Microhistory? Theory and Practice (2013). Together with Wim Blockmans and László Kontler, he co-edited Parliamentarism in Northern and East-Central Europe in the Long Eighteenth Century. Volume I: Representative Institutions and Political Motivation (2023) and Volume II: Practices of Representation (2025).