Zoltán Klamár: Territory Marking Practice of Ethnic Minorities Living in Magyarkanizsa in the 18th – 20th C.
From the study we can get a picture on how important in the life of a community is the role of country building and area organization of the church. The churches were built – by Serbians between 1773–1775, Hungarians in 1768 and 1912 – in the center of the town, close to the main square or at a busy point of the territory, in order to emphasize their presence in the built environment. This practice was followed by the solvent peasant-civil layer, when placed sacral monuments in the territory.
The first sacral building was built by Catholics far from the town, on a hill. The Calvary built to the country is the only memory of the town from the 18th C. In the 19th C further eight sacral monuments were built, from which six were created by Catholics, and two by Orthodoxies.
When we examine these objects, we can see that four of them were placed to the sacral area around the churches, and the other four to the other sacral area of liturgical practice.
In the 20th C. another nine sacral monuments appeared in the town streets, squares thanks to the financial contribution of Catholics, from which two are statues. Two chapels/ceremonial rooms were built in the Catholic big cemetery, both at the beginning of the 20th C. The statues were placed to the important and busy centers of the town.
The Catholic community of the town signed the sacral squares used by the community by placing eighteen monuments on its area.
The two Orthodox crosses also express strong center of space structure. When we examine the dedications, we can see that from the twenty monuments there are only two on which the name of its creator is not present.
Although the author of the study agrees with statement that the practice of placing sacral monuments is of religious character and serves primarily for territory marking of religions, but discusses its relation to national minority.
The population is practically composed of the identical ethnic group belonging to the religious cultural circle, but at its examination we are faced with the fact that beside the ethnical, Serbian-Hungarian duality we have to consider the Orthodox-Catholic religious duality.
For the Serbians living in the town the ethnic identity was always an important part of religious identity. Moreover, their religion made „true glorification of God“ – ortho doxa – in mother language of its believers that strengthened them in their belief and their mission consciousness, as well.
The integrating power of the Catholic religion showed mainly in that that it helped the small number of German, Slovak, and Croatian settlers living beside the Hungarians to adapt and assimilate.