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The land and houses of the Buda suburbs of Pécs - closing remarks, overview

In the overview of the above listed street names it is apparent that their changes are the most striking. The street names found in the land register from the year 1722 are never repeated. In other words, we address them later in the description, not as street names but as directional or destination points. Therefore, it is doubtful whether in 1722 they were actual living names, or designed only by the recorders. There are also among the indicated names only two that have reached the 20th century. This is the Király utca. This was named in 1722 as "Weeg naher Maria Schnee Kirchen". It has had this name in different types but until 1885. At the time one also gave a name to a basically nameless street at its southern extension. They saw it as a continuation of the Havi boldogasszony utca, which is why it was given this name. However, to keep both apart, the latter, the new lane, was given the attribute Alsó [lower], the old, Felső [upper]. Finally, after omitting the reference to the chapel, they live on today as Király and Alsóhavi utca. It is worth mentioning that the upper part of the Havi utca was officially named in 1804, this was, however, not in general use. Similar to, but more awkward is the fate of the name Mindenszentek utca. We know only the later part of the history of this name. The church was built as a chapel in the 13th century, perhaps together with a cemetery. Because it was already at that time dedicated to honour all the saints, it is possible that the way leading there received this name.

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During the period known to us, this street changed not so much its name as its length and its location. The endpoint was always the All Saints Church. The starting point was the Buda gate. With its upper part it made a bow sometimes in the east, sometimes in the west around the Zidina. In between, it exchanged its name with the lower part of the Tettye utca. Eventually the lower part of the street - below the Ágoston tér - got the nostalgic name Sörház utcza in 1864, after the municipal brewery once standing there. Then, after exactly one hundred years, in 1964, the upper section known as Mindszent utca was connected to Sörház utca. In this way, the street name, possibly of medieval origin, disappeared definitively. As we already know, the first official street name, the official clean-up of street names was in 1804. At the time, thirty streets were given names. Among them there is one whose name remained unchanged, the Ágota utca. However, its length has changed. Originally the Felsőhavi utca reached namely to the Vince utca, from 1864 on it ended at the Sörház utca. The other lane, whose name still lives on today, is Vince utca. Meanwhile it so happened that during the cleanup about 1864, it got the name Alsó-Puturluk-utcza, in 1928 it became Szent Vince utca and finally, 1962, it was given back its original name. There was here also a change in length because its part north of Karmelita köz belonged until 1964 to Barátur. The third is the Felsőmalom utca. The name Malom utca was given in 1804 to the road leading from Siklós, from the Budai Ucza until the custom house on the Siklósi út, so the Rózsa Ferenc utca also belonged to it. Only in 1900 was it divided into two parts, the Felső and Alsó Malom utca. Since, however, Alsó malom utca was named Rózsa Ferenc and therefore no longer existed, the name Felsőmalom utca lost its meaning. It is true that there is also a Felsővámház utca for nearly two hundred years, but there never was an Alsóvámház utca, there was though Alsó vámház [lower customs house], which was the same age as the felső vámház. Also around 1804, the former Czigány utza was named Balokányi utza, which it has retained until today. From time to time only a letter changed it. It was probably longer, but in a natural way, through further development. The dissolution of the former gypsy settlement on the former edge of pasture offered the opportunity. Because however the street which emerged from it in 1864 was called Alsó balokány-utcza, the attribute Felső had to be added to the original lane. The use of the names of the Alsóhavi and the Márton utca is totally confusing. For the Alsóhavi utca according to the land register of 1722, the street was named after the tanners working in the Tettye creek. Obviously, the North-South section of Márton utca got its name from the Serbs living there. In contrast, However, the part leading to the east of the Márton utca received its name from the master smith Ferenc Kovács living there. This means that this suburban town was the scene of true popular naming, especially if we also remember that its eastern continuation was the Könyök utca. In 1804 the streets of the tanners and the blacksmith were consolidated under the name Martony Ucza, while the streets of the Serbs received the name György Ucza.

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This was though not mentioned again, it could not establish itself. The state developed that the name of Márton utca remained and exists to the present day, its meaning was changeable. At times the name of Márton referred to the one lane, other times to the other lane. Finally, in 1864, it was given a separate name, Alsó Havi Boldogasszony utcza and Márton remained the name of today's street. Even bigger is the mixture in the Orsolya, Katalin and Erzsébet utcák [streets]. The Orsolya and the Katalin utca intersect in the shape of an X. The western half of the X in 1804 was named Erzsébet Ucza. The current Erzsébet utca at that time did not exist. The eastern half of the X was the Orssula Ucza. When in 1864 the name Erzsébet was added, the confusion became even greater. Finally, in 1885, the name Erzsébet shifted to two lanes to the east, where the street resulting from the, in the meantime built up Benga, was named Erzsébet; Katalin and Orsolya utca appear, however, in their current form. Under the names granted in 1804 were Orsolya and Erzsébet, though not included on the original lane sections. So, the end result is that of the street names of 1722, only one lives on, though in a modified form, the Felsőhavi utca. Of the thirty street names granted around 1804, seven names have been preserved. Of these, only two were created from local characteristics. The others carry sacred names. The large loss of street names occurred anyway, even though the number of streets - as also in the other parts of the city – was increasing with the expansion. It would have been possible to choose a lane there for those to be honoured, but the old street names were wiped out - with success. We can see, though, that the personal street names "perpetuating" the memory of persons, according to the teaching of history, with a few exceptions, have no eternal life. There are, however, existing, or former names which should be particularly remembered because these names relate not to a street but to an area, a circle, which in Pécs was called repeatedly a "környék" [environment, territory]. The Benga, the Fűzfás, the Gáspár, the Barátur and the Zidina környék are in the suburb of Buda. Their coming into being is the result of a strange kind of expansion - because it was not only along the streets or alleys, but far away from them. Those seeking even a poor habitat were often attracted by land unsuitable for cultivation, steep or cheap. Along vineyards, pastures, meadows and creeks groups of houses formed, sometimes also without streets, such as for example, Gaspar környék. Barátur környék is included, which spread to the former conductive water trench, of today's Barátur utca on the western slope of the Havihegy. It was an island between scrub and vineyards. At the time of its maximum extent it reached the grounds of the Dimitrov utca 16; in the east-west direction it ranged from the Hegyalja út to the Vince utca.

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From the south, from the Ágotha utca in a northerly direction, the Fűzfás developed between the Vince and the Felsőhavi utca; its Slavic name was Verbák, to which one can count the Poturluk, the southern part of the present Majtényi Ferenc utca. Existing between the two areas, was the empty urban weed lot, in the second half of the 19th century the Gáspár környék. Thus, the development of the western side of Havihegy was completed. The Benga has developed differently. Its land was developed by allotment of arable land. Its area is displayed by the name Benga in the upper part of the Katalin utca where it occurs in two cases. It appears three times in the Erzsébet utca, and twice in the Rudas László utca. Its southern border is indicated by the fact that the lower section of the Orsolya utca is mentioned in 1840 as "Street to Benga". But the name Benga was not long-lasting. It is found in the city records only between 1825 and 1842. It is located in the records of the well-known city archivist, Adolf Cserkuti, as an averaging of a Pécs citizen: Benga is the Havi side of Ágoston [Augustine] Church outwards, Orsolya, Katalin and Erzsébet utcák. During this work the view emerged in me, that the name Benga described the area before development and quickly disappeared after the area had been built-up. Not only in local relationships was the Zidina környék strange. It was formed on the site of a medieval nunnery devastated during the Ottoman period. The name Zidina itself means high walls, ruins. Very soon after the Turks, the Dominicans reported their claim to the ruins. They built up their former monastery located in the field of Színház tér, despite the disapproval of the Bishop, with the stones taken from there. It is just strange that the word zidina never occurs in the urban literature. We met it for the first time in 1864 already in print in the order of the street names, when together with the present-day Domonkos utca the name Zidina környéke was awarded. Probably, the name lived in the vernacular already from the outset, even before the Dominicans would have torn down the walls. We do not know to what extent the former monastery was in ruins. There is, however, to bear in mind that according to the church register entry, a victim of the plague of 1713 died - as we have already read - "... in the suburbs between the abandoned walls of the Nunnery". The question is whether at that time a few arched rooms stood, where a poor "hajdú" [Haiduk] of the county or other poor families found sanctuary, and only then became real ruins, when the Dominicans around 1725 began with the removal and transporting of the stones. After these areas became too large and their structures very confused, one wanted in 1926 to create order and divided it into streets. There were dozens of streets, which in some places formed real labyrinths. This is exactly how it is with the house numbering of the streets. Also after the division of the "környék", it is not easy to find a house number.

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In the Menyhért utca there are only two houses, No 10 and 12. That is, the only result was the increase in the number of lanes and street names. It is worthwhile to mention some of the objects of the city that exist even up to the present day, which became a street name, even if some are not so today. This is therefore perhaps all the more justified. Those are, for example, the Tettye, the Mindenszentek, the Poturluk, the Balokány. Tettye is the name of a site above, but near the city, where a very rich creek arises. The creek even now bears this name. Its water flows even today into the city's water supply system. In several places, the aqueduct from the Roman period comes to the fore, which leads the water into the former Sopianae. A part of the water was used in the Middle Ages, in the Ottoman period and also after that, until 1892, when the basis for today's urban water supply system was created. The other part of the water was the main energy resource of the city. It operated the gunpowder mills, paper mills, grinding and sawmills, the manufactures of the cloth and blanket manufacturer. The fullers, fur tanners and tanners were supplied with industrial water. This continued so long until the increasing urban population collected all the water and the small workshops because of the emerging industry became extinct. Therefore, the Turks had built here a gunpowder mill with mighty walls, which the Imperial military used until June 11, 1714. Already in the early 1500s, the Bishop of Pécs, György Szathmáry, had built a multi-storey summer residence, its ruins are also still in existence. It survived well, apparently also even Mohács, because according to the report of the cameral deputy, Keresztély Vincens, of 20 April 1690, it says: "At that time it belonged to Turkish monks /anachoretae turcicae/, who lived in large ruins and owned the plateau." Unfortunately, this building did not survive the liberation. Informed persons claim that the Turkish word "tekke" in Hungarian means monastery. Its vocalized form in the Hungarian language would be Tettye. This means that the high plateau and the creek got their name from the Turkish Dervish monastery and managed to preserve the name of the Tettye tér and the Tettye utca - despite adverse circumstances. Similarly significant and ancient is the Mindenszentek church and cemetery. Already around 1250, there was a chapel in the Romanesque style, which was converted into a three-nave Gothic church. Beside it the - perhaps only - cemetery in the city was located. After the Turks, the church was the parish church of the city over a century. The cemetery continued to exist. Then burial in rows was ordered by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1777 and at the same time, a rest period of 30 years for fully occupied cemeteries. After being in use for several centuries, the city had to open up a new graveyard. Around this time, the church on the Széchenyi tér was the parish church; the cemetery and the church had lost their historical role, but they safeguard the past with their almost unbroken presence. The church, the cemetery and its encirclement are still present. After such a past they did not earn it, that the street name which had existed at least since the expulsion of the Turks was deleted.

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During the last hundred years, the name Poturluk and its writing gave rise to many discussions between the local historians and the linguists. In the daily paper, Dunántúl, of March 3, 1928, Záray derives the name from the former tailor and city councilman, Mihály Potuluki. But Dr. Otto Szőnyi in his response on the 8th refuted Záray’s position. Because, according to a note in the Hungarian translation of the work of the Turkish historian Evlia Cselebi, potur is a Turkish word, which in Hungarian means a Bosniak converted to Islam. The Slavic word luk means angle / corner. The meaning of poturluk is then: corner of the Moslem Bosnians. The Poturluk utca, the present-day Majtényi Ferenc utca, therefore got this name because after the Turks the remaining poturok [Poturs] settled there. It is certainly not worth it to deal with the point of view of Záray. The position of Szőnyi seems scientifically justified, but - on the basis of the found data - it seems acceptable in our case only if the Poturs had been living there not after the Turks, but during the Ottoman period. There is however no proof, for, nor against. In the Vince utca there were actually no residential plots in the 17th century. In today's Majtényi Ferenc utca in 1712 – that is, 26 years after the expulsion of the Turks - only one piece of land could be proven to exist. In 1719, the number of inhabited pieces of land increased to seven. Among these there was an inhabitant named Busaglia; based on his name he is possibly a Turk who had remained here. At the same time there were also two Italian houses. As a result, the fate of the Poturs is an unfounded assumption. Preoccupation with etymological questions is not the task of the present study. All the more, because according to the found documents there was a completely different reason why the name Poturluk appeared here. It even seems that we have inherited this name from the Turks. In the following two centuries Poturluk, or some variant of the name, was a well on the slopes of Havihegy fed from an underground source, municipal wells and the immediate surroundings. Where the Majtényi Ferenc utca empties into the bulge of the Vince utca, which then was much larger than it is today, lay, until the end of the last century the large 200 square fathoms property of the Kniffer saw mill. The well was on the east side of this bulge separated today by a concrete wall. In 1744, they called this part Poturluk. Later, in 1761, it is written: locus communiter nominari solitus pot Urluk, that is to say: a place that in general one is wont to call Poturluk. The current Menyhért utca, which was built along a path leading into the valley, was called "Semita ad Poturluk deserviens". Under the western end of the odd numbered plots of Majtényi Ferenc utca there was a path, the one called "Semita usque Fontem Putoluk deserviens", that is: to the Putoluk fountain leading path. The well itself was called independent of the language: Putem, Puter, Fons, Putorluk, channel named Poturluk, Puturluk, Buderpruns, Putterloch, etc.

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When in 1774, the city directed water from there to the about half a kilometre farther urban brewery, it was written that, „… das Wasser von dem so benannten Brünnen Quill gegen herüber bey dem Butter Brünn zu fassen“ ["...to take the water of the so named fountain source opposite the Butter Fountain"]. This means that the water is to be taken from the source coming from the line in the vicinity of the well. In 1823 the "Fontem pot Urluk dictum antiquissimum" was to be repaired, i.e. the ancient well called Poturluk and from the then leading underground line 8 fathoms. There could remain memories of the water quality from this well, independent of the urban water supply, fed from separate sources. In the release of 1887 under the title "Szabad kir. Pécs Város házszámainak sorozata" [the order of the house numbers of the free royal town of Pécs], its editor, Béla Németh, adds to Alsó-Puturla-utcza, the following: "Puturla is supposedly from German, Butterloch, which expression is awarded to the spring water, others see in it a Turkish word meaning hillside." All this proves that the Poturluk name does not come from the remaining Bosniaks, but was left by the Turks and the name of a well with a productive and good water was used for the only street beside it which led to it, today's Majtényi Ferenc utca. We have to take note of the interpretation of the second part of the name, the word luk, which means angle according to the experts. If we remember, though, that according to the Historia domus of the Jesuit College of Pécs, the source at the foot of the Rókus Hill - which is known under the name of Kerlejala, Kerkalló - as "Fontana Edes baba luk dicta effluens de sub monte", that is to say, the Edes/Idrisz/baba luk called source at the foot of the hill, then something must become apparent. And, indeed, that Edes baba is a luk, and Potur is also a luk, and both are water recovery points. Edes baba is quite certain, Potur is likely a Turkish relic. Is this just a coincidence? Since Poturluk no longer exists as a street name, one should go into the circumstances of its loss. In 1928, the residents of Alsó Puturla utca asked for the change of name. In order to get the historical name back, Felső Puturla utca should take the old name, Potorluk utca. The city assembly decided that Alsó-Puturluk utca should be given the name Szent Vince utca. Because the correct spelling of the word Poturluk is uncertain, the council would report after thorough investigation. Such a report is not known, and the street continued to be called Felső Poturluk. In 1948, there was once again an application of the inhabitants. Their main argument was that during the reactionary times, the German Scientific Institute in a popular city-wide circular established the German character of the city thus, that utca Butterloch was the ancient name of the Puturluk. The commission designating streets decided that the street would be named Ferenc Majtenyi, after the former Baranyaer local authority, who in the struggle for freedom had made major contributions. The town meeting accepted this proposal on the condition that the memory of the Poturluk name would be perpetuated on a panel, the name, however, would be Majtenyi Ferenc utca.

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Now there is only a problem, namely, that the Baranyaer local authority was Baron József Majthényi during the struggle for freedom. The end result was that the old name of Poturluk disappeared, but whose name the street bears, we do not know. The name Balokány is burdened with similar problems and solution theories. From the above, we learned that even three streets leading there alternately carried the name balokánya. Although in 1804 the Felső balokány utca officially took the name Balokányi Utza, Balokana Gasse, the name for decades appeared at times at Alsó balokány utca, and at Zsolnay Vilmos. The meaning and etymology of the word Balokány is unclear to this day. Starting with the naive interpretation that there was in the Ottoman period the hán /estate/ up to the interpretation of Antal Klemm, who suspected it was a borrowing from the Serbo-Croat balega, baloga, translated: animal dung. The opinion that the words were formed by the Turkish verb stem bal meaning clay, mud of György Györffy, seems much more convincing. The position of János Sterba was similar, according to which the previous Slavs could have called Blatuny only Balaton, i.e. mud area. According to information of György Sarosácz in Lotárd so today is called a deep, located along the brook meadow, which might have been once a swamp. According to data which has come to the fore, Balokány, in the suburb of Buda was originally a huge clay pit, located to the south, approx. 200 x 150 metres wide. This provided the clay for the brickworks of the city and the inhabitants, probably even during the Ottoman period. After the excavation of the water sealing layer, the spring bubbled up from the depths and a mud lake was formed on the floor of the pit. Then the city also began to excavate a new clay pit on the east side. This is clearly visible on the 1780 map of Duplatre, and the label "Lamgrube" on the new pit shows its unambiguity. The name appears in the suburb of Buda on January 28, 1746, for the first time. The council gave the "Ballukanyam extra Portam Budensem habitam et vulgo vocitatam", i. e. lying outside of the Buda gate, commonly called Ballukanya, to the merchant, Marton Gregorics, who committed to cleaning up the mine at his own expense against tax exemption for 8 years and to convert this to a meadow. But we do not know what happened in the following years, because there is no decision to this effect in the logs of council meetings. From the accounts it turns out that the city, from September 1758 to February 1759, brought the construction of a ditch to the meadows and about 389 or 467 fathoms of earthwork and trenching for the discharge of water in a channel in today's Pécsi and 40 fathoms of deep cleaning of the ditch of the stone bridge in the direction of the Bassa mill. This means the waters of the five springs were dammed in a basin back filled with earth and a moat was created for the drainage of excess water.

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From these descriptions it became apparent when and how the Balokány emerged. But also that it got its name not from "Tó" [sea] but from the previous muddy clay pit. When this was approximately, could unfortunately, not be determined. It seems that this pit could already have served the brickworks in the Turkish times. If we look at the site formation, it could be assumed that this was its predecessor on the site of the present tennis courts. From then on, the name, Balokánya, occurs more frequently, and in the majority of cases, with a vocalized ‘a’, even in the second half of the 19th century. The-‘i’-form appears rarely and only in Hungarian texts. Sometimes the variants Bolikánya, and even Pellikána occur. Because of their long and interesting past one can also remember that here too, the past waits for the Felső and Alsó balokány utcák. If we modernize the name of Balokány liget [park, grove], there would be no memory of this interesting part of the city's history. The label on a panel at the entrance is Ífjusági park [Youth Park], below it, however, in small letters, Balokány liget; so, it happens already. In the historic suburb of Buda there are 56 streets. 15 streets bear the names of personalities of public life or history. Nevertheless, almost all street names in the course of history changed - as you can see. The root cause of these changes can, however, not be fathomed. Because the Harang Utza [Bell street] name was justified in 1804, because, in this street the bell makers Fischer, then Veinperth lived. Nothing, however, backs up that 1864 this name was transferred to the neighbouring lane, which had no connection to the bells, and that from the Harangöntő utca was made Láncz utcza [chain lane], although chains had never been manufactured there, nor in the area. One could list more such ‘justified’ changes. Therefore nothing guarantees that the current street names will live on and will be changed with such reasons. It is indeed unlikely that a Pécser would proudly show his guest newly arrived from Bulgaria, what beautiful street is named after their national hero, Dimitrov. It is no coincidence that the 2nd part of the work "A Pécsi budai külváros Hungarian" [The streets of the Buda suburb of Pécs] received the title. In general, squares belong to the common area of cities. Pécs is an exception, because the city shied away from such squares, both in the past as in the present. In the suburb of Buda the Ágoston tér and Irányi Dániel tér bear this distinctive name. But the Ágoston tér, was, as we have seen, never a tér [place/square], only a forecourt of the church. And this was split in parts by a stream, mill race and road. By contrast, the Marhatér [cattle square] was a huge square, later it was given the names Vásártér [marketplace], Buzatér [(grain market?), wheat square], then Irányi Dániel tér. In this century, the Zipernovszky Károly professional school, the elementary school and the urban apartment buildings arose on the built-up part. So the square was partly developed though on the other hand separated into two parts. Its northern part, which bears this name, was actually a wider road. Its southern part, the present 48-as tér, can be regarded as a square, it is, however, only a fraction of the former square. The plans of the urban planning office do not indicate a more favourable possibility for change.

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As a result, the only square in the city remains the Széchenyi tér, because the gardens of Szent István tér does not fulfil the role of a square. There, one cannot mobilize the masses, nor create a memorial. In addition, it would be a mortal sin to eliminate these small green spots from the enormous stone and asphalt mass, although even in the past it was a larger area. At the end of the 18th century, its two sides were already built up. According to the plot plans of urban engineer Eisenhut, of 1791, one intended to divide the whole, only in the vicinity of Szent György kút [St. George fountain] would a small free space still remain. Fortunately, this plan was not realised. We must learn a lesson from all this. The street names have a double purpose: orientation and identification. As we have seen, the names given by the inhabitants corresponded to this double provision. They were way signs, distinctive and in many cases they had a local spice, a popular bouquet. By calling them after saints or public figures, they have lost their orienting function and are suitable only for identification, as long as their names do not change again. Our street names also have or had local specific features, which do not occur in other places because only here were there those historical events from which they were formed. Kossuth utca and Petőfi utca occur in every village in which there is more than one street. Tettye utca, Poturluk utca, Zidina környék, Balokány utca and Felsővámház utca are found only in Pécs, because only here can they exist. In the future, it seems preferable to return to the old name, and if it must be, to reserve the new name for the abundant emerging new streets.

József Madas