Magyarország történeti helynévtára. Fejér megye (1773-1808) by Aranka Szaszkóné SinReview by: Martyn RadyThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 291-292Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4209770 .

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REVIEWS 29I

comparison only emphasizes the fact that we must still await a serious treatment of the Russian mid-eighteenth century.

School of Slavonic and East European Studies R. P. BARTLETT

University of London

Szaszkone Sin, Aranka (ed.). Magyarorszag torteneti helynevtdra. Fejer megye (I773-I808). K6zponti statisztikai hivatal, Budapest, I987. 136 pp. Tables. Maps. Indexes.

STUDENTS of Hungarian place-name history have had their patience rewarded by a recent recovery of publishing endeavour. After a hiatus of twenty-four years, the second volume of Gy6rgy Gydrffy's Az arpdd-kori Magyarorszag tortenetifoldrajza has at last appeared (Budapest, I987), while a new facsimile edition, published in I985, has greatly extended the availability of Csanki and Fekete Nagy's five-volume Magyarorszag tortenelmi f6ldrajza (Budapest I 890-I 9 I Meanwhile in Munich, Georg Heller and Karl Nehring continue their fecund series, Die historischen Ortsnamen von Ungarn (Munich, I973 etc.). In addition to all this activity, the Library and Documentation Service of the Central Statistical Office in Budapest has begun a completely new survey of its own, which is devoted to the place-names of Hungary as they appear in records from the period I 773-I808. The first volume, on the place-names of Fejer county, is now complete and we are promised volumes on Pest-Pilis-Solt and Nograd counties shortly.

Studies of Hungarian place-names often restrict themselves to a toponymic recitation. While this may be of value to linguists, it seldom excites the curiosity of historians and ethnographers. The Central Statistical Office has avoided this limitation by including material which substantially extends the scope of its own survey. Every settlement in Fejer county is therefore listed, down to the humblest sessio deserta, and the various versions of its name are duly recorded. Beyond this, however, precise details are also supplied on the population-size of each community, on its principal landowners, on its ecclesiastical organization, and on the linguistic and religious affiliation of its inhabitants. The presence of mills, markets and postal stations is additionally indicated where known.

The survey is supported by a critical apparatus of notes and cross- references, while the provenance of the sources used in constructing the tables is briefly described in an introductory essay. Unfortunately, there is no adequate discussion in the text of the terms civitas, oppidum, pagus and praedium, by which the individual settlements are defined and given a rank-order. The rendering of these terms simply as 'city', 'market-town', 'village' and 'uninhabited area' (p. I30) unnecessarily obscures the web of jurisdictional and legal relationships governing the Hungarian countryside. Despite this minor omission, the present survey amply exceeds the narrow boundaries of a place-name gazetteer and yields a remarkable statistical snapshot of Hunga- rian rural society at the end of the eighteenth century. It is greatly to be hoped

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292 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

that in the production of this new series the Central Statistical Office will manage to keep to its ambitious publishing schedule.

London MARTYN RADY

Hoch, Steven L. Serfdom and Social Control in Russia. Petrovskoe, A Village in Tambov. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, I987. X + 220 pp. Figures. Tables. Bibliography. Index. ?2 I.25.

PROFESSOR Hoch's book seeks to penetrate 'the structure of serf life' (p. 4) in pre-emancipation Russia, c. I8oo-6i, and to identify the forms, means and articulation of control over peasant behaviour: what was it that maintained the servile order at grass-roots level? This enquiry is undertaken through a micro-level study of one barshchina estate and in particular one village, part of the Tambov holdings of the Gagarin family. These estate records have previously been used by I. D. Koval'chenko; Hoch challenges several of Koval'chenko's findings, but also exploits the material effectively for his own, different, purposes. The five chapters examine the material base and demographic profile of village life, the role in it of bailiff, peasant heads of household ('patriarchs') and commune, and finally the correlation of forces and mechanisms which kept the community stable and able to function. What emerges is a vivid microcosmic picture; and while the overall view does not conflict seriously with that given by more recent Soviet scholarship, Hoch presents some controversial conclusions and important emphases. The Petrovskoye data suggest that its peasants' average agricultural productivity and living standards were quite as good as those of Western European counterparts: it was the periodic subsistence crises from which the Russians suffered more severely. Discussion of social mobility and differentiation focuses on generational differences, stressing that wealth was redistributed through brideprice (kladka) and that 'patriarchs' had as powerful a material interest as bailiffs in maintaining extended family and undivided household. Examination of violence and coercion points up the extremely high incidence of corporal punishment in the absence of other cost-effective sanctions, and the significant role of the communal authorities (again, the 'patriarchs') in enforcing social norms. A final illuminating discussion evaluates for Petrov- skoye the 'total institution' model used by some historians of American slavery, and the conclusion emphasizes that servile life in the village was conflictual, competitive, and non-communalistic, 'far more socially oppressive than economically onerous' (p. I87). Hoch handles his material in general very professionally, both in his treatment of sources and in his data analysis and use of social science techniques; and this study is undoubtedly an important contribution. At the same time it provokes slight unease on two counts. One is the assertiveness of the author's revisionism, for which the records of one estate and his calculations from them offer, perhaps, a slender basis. The other is the relationship of his primary source profile to his broader argument. Due obeisance is made (p. I2) to the partial nature of the documents; but the conclusions seem to reflect largely what they contain. Hoch notes, for instance, that no record mentions communal festivals or

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