"For placing ourselves in the
circulation of our universe –in this timeless and endless pipeline– we have to know our preterit,
our ancient roots and our history well. We have to know our myths, our arts and our motifs of
crafts, which show us the genre painting of our ethnical groups by clear signs. We could place
ourselves only if we would honour our ancestors, our traditions and we would have known their
identity beside natural forces and rules. We have to live our modern life aware of these rules and
we have to perpetuate these legacies to our descendants." (has been written by Mrs. Anna
Kubinyi)
Our small village, Bata has been placed
at the south ending of county Tolna, beside ‘Gemenc’ forest which belongs to
Danube-Drava National Park and has been bordered by flagging hills at the flood-basin of river
Danube. From the tower of our ‘Szent Ver’ ~ ‘Holy Blood’ church –was built
over the ruins of Benedict Abbey, founded by King St. Louise, in 1093- you can see over the whole
Champaign of ‘Sarkoz’. Our village cause of its geographical location was built-up area
by Celtics and was hit by the Roman warpath. The first written documentary of origin, as the fishing
village of Abbey ‘Pecsvarad’ mentions it as ‘Batato’ in 1015. In the middle
ages our village was a flat village (without castle border walls), reputed of its relics of our
‘Szent Ver’ ~ ‘Holy Blood’ church and known as pilgrim place of
‘Hunyadi’ dynasty. The village also was often visited by our Kings: Mathias, Sigmund and
II. Louis. Thanks to its fortunate geographical location was important gate and port, furthermore
also the commercial way of Transylvanian salt supplies and pinewood ties through ferry port of Bata.
Negative happens of the history does not respect the village, even so populated solidly and its
habitants keep their catholic religious and patriotism, even if settlers came from other
nationalities or residents of ‘Sarkoz’ acceded to historian Reunion. Before the
harnessing of river Danube only the quarter of the area was plough-land all the other countryside
has been river meadow and field. In these days the residents run with floodplain farming and the
main subsistence is fishing. Thanks to the river harnessing in the ninetieth century plough-lands
expanded and the indeterminate material growth improved education and literacy of people, like other
townships around. The village construction also had been changed. Fishers live at the riverside of
the village, called ‘Alszog’, wealthy, reformed peasant families live at the main
street, called ‘Fo utca’ and catholic, peasant families live at the territory called
‘Folszog’.
Residents of Bata were always proud to their traditions and their folk dance
groups regularly toured around the whole country. Mrs. Dér Józsefné Stigler Treszka, the young
master of folk art recreated the waxy egg painting –practised only between Catholics of Bata at
‘Sarkoz’- and her collection of homespun textiles significantly augmented the relieves
of Bata. Collecting and exhibiting the memories took long time. Our house of popular customs and
local traditions was founded by principals of the village only in the 1980. The opinion leader was
Mrs.Kiss G. Lászlóné B.Tóth Erzsébet, who started to collect the village’ relieves by the
assistance of senior citizens group and the history training students of our local school. Her
successor Mrs. Balogh Imréné Jánosi Erzsébet is the guardian of the public collection since 1990.
The relieves were exhibited firstly at our Fishing house (presently House of fishing and fisher
folk) where only one room gave place to the exhibition and the smaller objects were displayed in
another room and farming tools were set out at the open air. The collection contained tools for
fishing and also tools for farming ambivalently. At the end of the nineties the growing collection
claimed for bigger place and conceived an idea, it would be nice to present the collection of
fishery and the collection of farming separately, besides giving opportunity legacy transmitting.
The local government bought a house
for popular customs and local traditions in 2001., where ancient buildings and belongings of the
house were unattached.
Reconstruction and
building operations were overlapped partly by own resources and partly by successful tenders through
the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for reconstruction and through the Office of
Agriculture and Rural Development, as the assigns of SAPARD Plan, entitled "Supporting the
establishment of producer groups", "Protection of agric-environment" and
"Technical Assistance" for ‘village expansion, renewal and conservation of material
and spiritual heritage’. An up-to-date arts and crafts workshop also was built up, which gives
home to arts and crafts manual training, permanent painted egg exhibition and periodical
exhibitions. Thanks to ‘Tengertanc’ development program, tendered by the Ministry of
Education and Culture (National Cultural Heritage) we were also able to set up the workshop
properly.
In aid of Fundamentals of
National Culture, we were able to protect master files in 2008.
This website’s development, lingual
versions and printed multilingual brochures has been tendered by the Ministry of Education and
Culture under the professional expansion of 'Houses of popular customs and local traditions' and was
subsided by Year of Renaissance 2008.
In our House of popular customs and
local traditions in 2002, a permanent exhibition opened which demonstrate wealthy peasant
farmers’ lifestyle, and three years later, in 2005 another permanent exhibition opened the
Painted Egg exhibition. In the old house of popular customs and local traditions you can find a
permanent exhibition of fishing and fishers since 2004. For the assistance of our work and for
events of popular customs and local traditions our local government founded the Public endowment for
folk culture and for the house of popular customs and local traditions of Bata. The
foundation/public endowment’s name’s in Hungarian: Batai Tajhazert es Nepi Kulturaert
Kozalapitvany.
Our House of popular customs
and local traditions parts of the Hungarian Association of popular customs and local traditions. Our
local government’s scope of activities were second best nominated by tender of ‘Museum
advocator local government’ by Ministry of Education and Culture (National Cultural
Heritage).
