ABSTRACT
We have seen Darnton advising historians to stop when they do not understand something: if they dig deep here this site could serve as their point of entry into an alien system of meanings, an unknown world-view (Darnton 1985: 5). The first significant result of Hungarian microhistory can serve as an example for this: why did one landlord beat another half-dead on 23 May 1784, in the village of Bercel in Eastern Hungary, when allocating the plots for the peasants to cultivate water-melon? Lajos Für departs from this event, not understandable at first glance, and in order to find the answer, he explores a hitherto hardly known world. On reaching the end of his book, his reader's sympathies are turned: we find out that the victim of slight build, Lajos Olasz was a ruthless exploiter, while the strong assailant, Boldizsár Bessenyei appears to be an impoverished representative of a patriarchal approach, defending villagers from Olasz (Für 2000).
