Gabonaválság a 19. század végén
Grain Crisis at the End of the 19th Century

(From a Social Historical Perspective)

Summary/Abstract: The agricultural crisis of the last third of the 19th century is usually described in literature as a crisis of “overproduction”. The paper argues that this view – which was already questioned by such noted contemporary scholars as Jakab Pólya or Andor Löherer – needs to be revisited. It may be more correct to try to find the root of the problem in “one-sided” production, the overemphasized role of ploughland in the production structure and the deficiencies of the entire system of production, rather than in overproduction. In the paper, we focus on individual farmers rather than examining data on the national level. The methodology was inspired primarily by the movement in British economic historical literature that has continuously remained influential since the 1960s, according to which instead of universal statements we should rely on the results of analyses that study farms taking into account at least their main characteristics. Because farms specialized in animal husbandry or ploughland cultivation were affected very differently by the great agricultural depression at the end of the 19th century. Examining the well-documented and thoroughly studied history of agriculture of three Hungarian landed estates (the latifundium of the Piarist custodiatus at Mernye, the Csákvár estate that had been separated from the Tata estate of the Eszterházys, and finally the estates of Akasztó-Vésztő) I am looking for possible reactions to the deterioration of the market position of grain. The results prove that the macro-level crisis did not necessarily bring about the inevitable fall of people dealing with agriculture. On the contrary, even though the farms necessarily reacted differently to the challenge due to their different starting positions, all the three examined estates' traditional farming rhythm and way of life were disturbed by this state of emergency, and they were driven towards a rational, plan-based, capitalist farm organization in the medium-long term.

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