Performációk I. „Zsidó társadalom” Tiszaeszláron a nagy per előestéjén
Performations I. “Jewish Society” in Tiszaeszlár on the Eve of the Great Trial

Summary/Abstract: A lot has been written about the 1882–1883 Tiszaeszlár-case, nevertheless the overview provided by modern historical studies appears to be rather scanty. The subject of the present study is not as much the trial in Nyíregyháza, but the society of Eszlár on the eve of the trial. Our approach could be defined as one of micro-level social history. As a first step, we shall describe the Jewry of Eszlár on the basis of their own sources and the findings of the investigation. We have established the socio-historical basis for the study using local sources (birth registers, terriers, electoral lists), using the documents of the investigation and the trial to supplement, detail or, if necessary, to animate these. Beside the composition of the population of the village Jewry, its position within the settlement structure of the Old and the New Village, its occupational structure, house and land properties and financial structure, we have also analyzed the internal relationships and conflicts within the branch parish. The sources show a recently settled and conflict-ridden community that had already become differentiated during its formation, where the forces of disintegration appear to be stronger than those of cohesion. The indictment presumed that the “murder” had been committed by vagrant, rather than local Jews, abetted by the Jews of Eszlár and Máramaros. The diachronic socio-historical analysis of the village shows that those Eszlár Jews whose were worse off, had less prestige, were less integrated within the social network and had many conflicts had a better chance of becoming defendants, rather than witnesses in the trial. This, however, does not imply that we intend to postulate a unidirectional causal relationship between society and politics.

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