Western Transdanubia - Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum: Skanzen

TThe regional unit presents the traditional, vernacular peasant culture of Vas and Zala County. The clayey soil is difficult to cultivate but the area is rich in streams. In the woods oak, beech and pine are indigenous. The settlers founded their first settlements by burning up the vegetation on the wooded hilltops.

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These villages came into being at the time of the Magyar conquest of Hungary. The Magyars used to belong to our frontier regions until the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. The frontier guards serving the king stayed in their villages after the destruction of their organisation. Göcsej people served as soldiers and served the royal court therefore received noble rank. The one-time guards living in the 18 villages of Őrség (the area of the defence system) enjoyed privileges which were curtailed only in the 17th century. The people having lived here since the age of the Árpád-Dynasty are the descendants of the late border guards some of whom were raised to nobility, but others of whom sank into serfdom. In the earliest stages of Reformation the communities here became Protestant. However, in the 18th century serfs, were converted back to Catholicism by their landlords but the gentry remained Protestant or Lutheran.

People supplemented their livelihood by gathering. Mainly rye, barley, millet and buckwheat were grown. Animal husbandry involved nomadic raising of livestock and stabling as well, and in oak-forests pigs were fed on acorn in the oak forest. Their famous cattle were sold mainly in Austrian and German cattle-markets until World War I. The flourishing cattle-raising in the second half of the 19th century led to a rapid growth in the middle-class peasant bourgeois class that leed a conservative way of life.

The traditional construction material of the region was wood; in areas lacking wood wattle - and earthen-walled buildings were characteristic even at the turn of the 19-20th centuries. The carved oaken sills and the hewn and carved pine log walls were usually plastered with mud and whitewashed. They had thatched roofs although since the middle of the 19th century tiled roofs also appeared.

The belfry standing in the middle of the regional unit, together with the houses and yards clustering around it characterised the small villages in the flatland of Zala County. The compound on the distant hill conjures up the scattered irregular settlements. Further away, the press-houses of the Zala hills can be seen.