Bük Summary
Bük
Summary
Summary
The settlement in Vas County (Sopron County until 1949), today famous of its thermal bath, and its surroundings have been populated since the Prehistoric Age. The beautiful landscape: the rive Répce, the grass abound-ing on the flood soil on the bank, the plane on the left bank, and the hills covered with forests on the right side provided favourable conditions for farming, which encouraged already the Romans to settlement.
The settling Hungarians created several settlements in this area along the Répce. The Hungarians who settled in Bük, as serfs belonging under the bailiff, often practised their vocation: soldiering against Germans, Austrians, and Checks, who often attacked the place in the first centuries of the Middle Ages. They became the lesser nobility by the XIV. Century, which after several changes, was a determining stratum of the local society up till 1848, and preserved their separation from an intellectual point of view even in the XX. Century. The Büki dynasty emerged from them in the Middle Ages, they commissioned the building of the first version of the still existing church in the XII-XIII. Centuries, and the first mention of the village in 1265 was also in connection with them. The name of the village, with all probability comes from the species of a tree called bükk (beech), with a possible transfer by a personal name. By the XV. Century all the three village parts were formed under the names of Mankó-, Vizló- and Egyházasbük (Lower-, Upper- and Middlebük).
By the XVI. Century, in addition to the Büki dynasty and their family members, the names of other landowners are also disclosed in documents. Around 1550, about five hundred people lived in the three villages, serfs and cotters included. At that time a major re-stratification started. The nobility escaping the Turks appeared here, but some Croatians settling in Western-Hungary also found their way to Bük. Some other landowners appeared (for instance, captain Vince Gregoróczy, nightmare to the Turks in Győr, master of the fortress in Felsőbük). In the XVII-XVIII. Centuries some evangelical Germans came as well, who similarly to the Croatians, merged with the Hungarian majority.
By the end of the XVI. Century, the majority of the population of Bük was converted to the evangelical faith. At the beginning of the XVII. Century, they already had their own priest, and took hold of the ancient church, that they had to give back to the Catholics in 1673 as the latest. Until that time, Bük played an important role in the life of the evangelical church, and it hosted several councils, – among them some assembly meetings to elect the bishop. In 1697, only a catholic priest (and teacher) worked here, and one third of the population was again catholic. The catholic majority was formed by the beginning of the XIX. Century.
Bük suffered a lot but also developed during the stormy centuries. Some people in Bük also participated in the guilds formed by the millers in Répce in 1614. And in 1650, the noble settlement of Felsőbük formulated its set of rules, which is one of the earliest such documents in a national comparison. During the Rákóczi Freedom Fight, – in which the nobility of Bük mostly supported the Kuruts, and gave some soldiers to Rákóczi’s troop – the people of Bük many times provided financial assistance to the ailing Csepreg. It also indicates a strong relationship between the two adjacent settlement that nearly all families in Bük have vineyards on the Csepreg vine-hill.
The long and peaceful period of the XVIII. Century brought about physical and spiritual strength, growth in number of population, material means and culture for the three Bük villages. At that time the Nagy dynasty in Felsőbük stood out among the land-owning families. They lived in a beautifully modernised palace – partly in rococo style – and had a seignioral domestic economy. Craftsmanship in Bük was growing. Out of the craftsmen, weavers established their guild in 1761. Some Gipsy and Jewish settlers appeared in the life of the village.
In the century of the bourgeois civilisation, Bük was in the front line of changes in Hungary. Pál Nagy from Upperbük was one of the pioneer of reforms, and both the nobility and the peasantry sent their armed representatives, officers and regular soldiers to the troop of the Freedom Fight. After the liberation of the serfs, many nobles from Bük got poor, whereas cotters were either absorbed by the starting railway, and the industrial factories, and mainly the sugar factory in Upperbük owned by Austrians, which until it was burned in 1917, served as the engine of the local eco-nomy. Its sugar-beet cleaning system highlighted by the name of Károly Riedinger spread all over the world.
The wars and social upheavals of the XX. Century mobilised the people in Bük to a lesser or larger extent, many of whom proved their moral standing. The economic difficulties between the two world wars brought about a drop in solvency and population in spite of the fact that the bustling social and cultural life of the thirties and forties could have meant the beginning of an organic development. At this time, traditional folk culture still lived in many of its elements, and served as a co-ordinating force of the community.
The inhuman nature of the communist dictatorship was somewhat mi-tigated by the influx of a general development in civilisation, but it could not do away with the pain caused by broken destinies. A quick, positive turn came in the life of Bük in 1960 with the extraction of the thermal water found in 1957, and then with the quick construction of the thermal spa, and its success story until today. The talented people of the large village could also make use of the opportunities found in the thermal water (and later in the political changes), and today they can stand in the gates of the European Union with a high self-esteem – but also adhering to their Hungarian character preserved during their one thousand and one hundred years of struggle.
