Adatok a kolozsvári virilizmus történetéből (1872-1917)
Contributions to the Highest Taxpayer's History of Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) 1872-1917

Summary/Abstract: In 1870 the government of Hungary introduced the so-called virilist-system as part of the new administrative laws. This system was based on the concept, that half of the government seats of counties and cities were reserved for the highest taxpayers of those administrative units. (The other half of local government positions were fi lled according to election results.) The term “virilists” refers to those men of the elite, who automatically entered the local governments due to the high tax fi gures they paid. The intellectuals have been taken into account with their doubled tax amount. At the time the system seemed conservative, but by this differentiation the intellectual power began to dispose of local decisive infl uence, turning the wheels to liberalism in general, and to urbanization in particular. In Kolozsvár there were 50 to 56 virilists in the local government between 1872 and 1917 –in annually renewed hierarchy – mostly merchants, artisans, industrialists and intellectuals (university professors in general). Naturally, property owners and offi cials of the central government represented by the traditional elite (aristocrats) persisted, but their number decreased in time in favor of the progressing burgeois elite. In the spirit of the age, along with the rapid growth in welth and political infl uence, and by the appearence of banks and the general prosperity the town showed, more and more intellectuals, merchants, solicitors, architects, bankers and industrialists of the bourgeoisie went into real estate, and with the taxes they paid on those properties and their income, they became virilists. The face of town rapidly changed, attracted other social groups to the – by now – city, and in 40 years the population’s number doubled. Thus, and by the growing number of schools, theaters, cinemas, newspapers on one hand, and the presence of hospitals and scientifi c laboratories on the other, Kolozsvár gained its fame of being a cultural, educational and scientific center this part of the country.

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