Nesnovna kulturna dediščina

Traditional geographical names

območje : Vasi Hegyhát
kategorija : oral traditions
Traditional land names were given by locals and remained for centuries by word of mouth.
These names were often connected with geographical phenomena, historic events or, in the case of meadows, with the owner's name.
The names given this way are not always the same that can be found on maps. Even more, in some cases, the territorial borders within the region are not the same as the locals claim.
Hegyhát
The name ‘Hegyhát’ (Mountain's back) refers to a plateau on a hill.
This name ‘Hegyhát’ however, as a geographical name, is common in many areas in Hungary. This is the reason for the ‘Vasi’ which means „in Vas county”. The settlements located on the hill, parallel the river Rába belong to the Vasi Hegyhát region. The name ‘Hegyhát’ demonstrably existed in documents from the second half of the 16. century.

Soldiers' Road
In our region, the Vasi Hegyhát, emerges as a natural corridor between the two catchments of Rába and Zala rivers. The hill stretching from North-East to South-West gave was part of the ancient, long-distance road called ‘Katonák útja’ (Soldiers’ Road) today. Two roads from the inner side of the country merged once into this track: one came from the direction of the towns Székesfehérvár-Veszprém and the other one from the direction of the town Győr. Then it passed through Hegyhát and Őrség regions and descended to the Mura region and left the country near Muraszombat (today Murska Sobota, Slovenia). Beyond our borders, crossing Styria and Carniola, it went down till the antique Poetovio (today Ptuj, in Slovenia) where the road merged with the former Amber Road's trace and continues down to North-Italy.

The track surely had roman predecessor, but it became used intensively by the presence of the Hungarians. Our conquering ancestors went to Italy for their war acts on this road (there are archeological evidences about it), according to this fact, the historical sources mention it as „Strata Hungarorum”, which means ‘Hungarians’ Road’. There is a reminder about it on a wall painting from the 12th century, located in Aquileia Cathedral in Italy which shows an archer on horseback in light armor shooting backwards.
After the end of the conquests and journeys, certainly, the protection of the tracks became necessary. Fortunately, spectacular elements about this protection remained: two entrenchments and the road itself.

The well-maintained field road, mainly used by the forestry, branches off from the former Pozsony-Varasd road between Zalalövő and Körmend, and at Szőce it detaches to North-East. Therefore a 38 km section of the Soldiers’ Road can be seen in the Vasi Hegyhát region. The road until Vasvár entrenchment was fully maintained, but to North-East from that point some sections are missing. However, a line of still existing field roads draw even the path of missing part road clearly until Hosszúpereszteg. The track avoids settlements and in some places it is, even today, the border between villages (e.g. Oszkó-Alsóújlak, Csipkerek-Szemenye, etc). The road-lining's characteristic is that it avoids slopes and keeps the height. It goes accurately on the watershed of Rába and Zala rivers, and it hardly crosses any stream. As a conclusion we can say that it was not meant to serve the local traffic.
The track of the road is the same as of the Amber Road from Poetovio until Italy, so that, it could be used, for a second time, in the middle ages. The name „Soldiers' Road” could come from that it was used frequently for going to war.

Vasvár entrenchment
The Hungarian archeological and historical literature did not have exact data about the early Hungarian entrenchments until the research about the one in Vasvár. There were some descriptions about some so-called longitudinal entrenchments, but the archeologists were only able to assume that they were in connection with early border protection. However, earth forts from the early Árpád-age were well known but today we can clearly say that these were not made of earth: they had a cassette beam-structure filled with earth. This kind of architecture can be imagined the following way: firstly, a great trench was dug into the earth. The earth that they dug out was put aside of the trench. The builders created a huge cassette structured walls by using great beams. Then the cassettes were filled with earth. After the construction’s decay, only the trench and the embankment remained. That is why the vernacular calls it „earthwork”, or „earth fortress”. From the known longitudinal border-defense entrenchments is the one that is located in Vasvár which survived in the best shape. We can say that even the colloquial language of the region has preserved a historically important cultural element of the region.

Single meadow names were generally well-known in the Vasi Hegyhát region, they served the locals basically in orientation. Few of them still exist, they are marked on the map under the same name.
Former single meadow can be found even in the streets' names of the villages. For example, ‘Nagyköveshegy street’, ‘Kisköveshegy street’ or ‘Gesztenyés hegy’ (Chestnut Hill) got their names from the old meadows, but places like ‘Kalocsapuszta’, ‘Rókalik’ (Fox Hole), ‘Gesztenyésmajor’, ‘Újmajor’, ‘Stájerdomb’ (Styrian Hill), ‘Bukovics domb’, or ‘Rákosmező’ belong to this category. At the time of forced collectivization, in the communist period, many meadow names were abolished, therefore most of them are by now forgotten.
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