Büntetés és kizárás a Bihar megyei és Nagyváradi Nemzeti Kaszinóban
Penalty and Exclusion in the National Casino of Bihar County and Nagyvárad

Summary/Abstract: In 1902 the Board of Governors of the National Casino of Bihar County and Nagyvárad revoked Gyula Vaiszlovich’s membership on account of his participation in a duel. His grievously wounded victim was Lajos Pallay, a renowned and widely respected lawyer of the city. His brother, Emil Vaiszlovich received the same sentence in 1904 when he was excluded from the Casino because of a street brawl. As the youngest sons of Adolf Weiszlovits, the city’s reputable undertaker, the brothers had uncertain financial situation and limited social capital. The study describes the protagonists in these incidents, as well as the exclusion procedure and its rationale, the motives of the decision makers, the logic behind the decision making process, and the sanctions’ normative and social determination. In juxtaposition, the study also presents the brothers’ own interpretation of the incidents and goes on to explore the consequences of the board’s decision extending beyond the walls of the Casino. Further, the paper enumerates attempts of non-institutional sanctions. In sum, the study provides an insight into the internal affairs of the Bihar County casino: its normative structure and its practices to sanction the breach of these norms; beyond this, it also reveals – within certain limits – the casino’s ability of social organisation beyond its own community. The study shows the casino in operation, in the process of community building and social organisation, and finally, arrives to informed observations about social control in action.

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