History, Local Stories, and Power Dynamics: The Changes of the 20th Century and the Counts of Bethlen of Bahnea/Bonyha

Abstract

"The Bethlens acquired an estate in Bonyha/Bahnea located by Kis-Küküllő/ Târnava Mică River at the turn of the 16th century, but their presence can be doc-umented with certainty starting 1545: they remodelled their manor-house the very same year. However, the over 400-year-old local history of the family took a sudden turn and was almost completely disrupted in 1946 and the subsequent years as be-ing moved to an assigned residence. Apart from the introduction and some theoreti-cal and methodological considerations, this study is divided into three parts and aims both at tracing what the 400 years meant, the role of the family in the life of the village, and the area and the macro - and microprocesses that accompanied the liquidation of the family’s estate in Bonyha. Finally, the most important part of the paper attempts to examine the way in which the Bethlens are still present in the life of the village. This study starts from the premises that the major political events (wars, regime changes, border changes) represent the environment of everyday life, and people should react to these apparently external and remote conditions in order to shape their own day-to-day horizons. In this context, the seemingly objective statement that an agrarian reform took place in the year 1921 meant for the Bethlen family of Bonyha the first stage in the tragic process towards the liquidation of the estate and ultimately the family’s disappearance. Thus, this study analyses the dy-namic interrelationship between macro history and the small, local stories. Keywords: history, local stories, everyday life, regime change, counts of Bethlen, Bonyha."