The Political Community
by Dr. Viktor Pratscher
Translated by Brad Schwebler
The present day
community house was built in 1883. Before that the
old community house stood on the same site in just the
same direction and at the time it was already very
dilapidated. It was as low as the homes of the day
in 1848 and had a thatched roof. It was probably
the first community house in the settlement. It is
a wonder how it was spared from fire damage in the war
of '48. Nevertheless all of the writings and
minutes from before 1852 are missing.
The Feketic Town Hall
From 1852 on the
minutes exist in which the complaints, interrogations,
and judgments are registered. The judge gave the
sentence in the presence of two jurors which was
detained up to two days until up to 12 cane lashings or
a fine of up to 10 Guilders could be read. The
cane lashings were done in front of the community house
on the torture bench called Deresch, meted out by the
minor court judge and dictated by the jurors. The
offenses consisted mostly of thievery. So it is
noticed, for example, that in 1861 a gang had broken
into more wheat pits which are found in front of homes
on the street. Over the plank of the torture bench
four paupers towered and the backs and legs of the
delinquents were subjected to two canes which were on
display and they could not stir. Women received
their punishment with a short whip on the back.
Mainly it was neighbor women who had broken the "Häbche"
and then the loose tongues and the coarsest of
expressions by the (Staxel?) were written down in the
minutes unadulterated. Nobility, businessmen, and
officials could not be convicted by the judge. The
fines, for the most part, went into the treasury of the
congregation. Especially often the landlords, such
as Martin Bolz, the "interested landlord" in 1853 and
the musicians such as Jakob Hauser and Friedrich Hauser
in 1853 and Jakob Bechtler in 1857 were occupied with
fines because the jurors had not accomplished the "Hujjegebott"
as a consequence. For 80 years the fines were
already imposed when someone emptied ashes or wash water
on the driveway. This strict order is still
necessary in Feketitsch today because all the rubble
will be emptied on the street, and not on the periphery,
especially not far from the community homes.
The first man in the
village, or at least in the community house is the
judge. Before 1850 three people ran for the office
of "Ispan" for the judge and the one who he wanted and
still two impossible "straw men" (front men). From
1872 up to the end of the world war candidates of the
community committee ran under the chairman for the
district committee. Now the community committee
elected from its midst the village board of directors.
As far as it
establishes itself, the following Germans have so far
belonged to the community board of directors:
YEAR / NAME / OFFICE
YEAR / JUDGE / YEAR / JURORS
Before long it was the
custom that the chairman always went with the "Stäckelche"
in their office and the meetings ended day after day in
the government hall. In the old days the bill went
to community costs, (good times, where have they
disappeared?), later on to their own account.
Besides the chairman there was also a community
committee which consisted of 20 members at the time.
All these men served free of charge and were exclusively
farmers, our present judge is the first businessman.
Up to the year 1933 the chairman received a small
honorary fee which was hardly enough for the purchase of
one pair of shoes. In more recent times the judge
received 500 Dinar a month, the instructor and each
treasurer were paid 200 Dinar each.
There was only one,
later two, today three minor judges (Hartnack).
Until 1850 security
service was provided by the night watchman alone.
He had to sound the hours from 10 to 2 o'clock at night
in the summer and from 9 to 3 o'clock at night in the
winter. There was still a night watchman later but
the importance of this has often been completely lost.
Since the World War there is no longer a night watchman.
Besides this there was a mounted perimeter guard.
Since the 60's the perimeter guards have replaced all
that was stolen and therefore were in good standing.
However robbery did not spread much less until in the
years 1870 to 1872 when Count Radai brought an end
to the nuisance of robbery. He had the robbers and
their accomplices hunted with such fear by the (Panduren?)
and perimeter guards that a degree of security was
achieved as never before. As a result of it the
community received half of the money from the perimeter
guards.
The community (Vorspann)
service was performed by the farmers themselves until
the 60's. Every day two other farmers took their
turn to deal with the burdens in the community house.
Also the Komitate made the (Vorspann) wagons available
at the time for 2 to 4 weeks in the year. In 1855
the community worked to finish the Danube causeway the
length of 224 fathoms to Bezdan. For this purpose
460 workers and 1,162 migratory cattle were demanded by
the community. The community handed this work over
to a contractor. The (Vorspann) service was felt
to be especially troublesome because so much nonsense
took place with it. Jauß wrote, "Each nobleman,
each rich Jew, and other riff-raff," knew to provide a
remittance to travel with the (Vorspann).
The task of the
chairman is still always the acceptance of the shephard
who has to look after his flock. So in 1854 there
were: cow keepers, oxen keepers, pig keepers, and
horse keepers, the last were the notorious "Csikoich."
The payment for each cow: 1 bread, 25-30 Kreuzer
(crowns), 1 portion of wheat, ¼ pound of bacon, 1
measure of vegetables, 1/8 of salt, but for the pigs
only half was paid.
The community already
found themselves in need of money in earlier times.
So for example from the national loan of 56,880 Guilders
drawn in 1855 it gave only 100 for 86.
In 1873 the
inhabitants of the great famine were affected. The
community offered a loan of 30,000 Guilders which gave
the following guarantees: under land register number 277
listed a community position worth 6000 Guilders and
under number 646 was entered 1,546 yokes of Hutweide
(pasture), of which 1/6th belonged to the rulers but the
community was charged for the remaining 1,332 yokes; the
yoke was calculated to be only 100 Guilders and produced
a total 133.200Guilders. - In the same year a support
association for the poor was established and the German
members of this association were: Ferdinand Hamel
(Evangelical pastor), Adam Schwebler, Adam Müller, Jakob
Schmidt, Johann Will, and Christian Gerber.
The following belong
to our community's fortunes today: 1. the 4 house sites
on which the buildings of the community house and 2. the
doctor's apartment stood. Some locales which are
found on the main street had been furnished and leased
out as businesses for years. 3. The building of the
kindergarten (nursery school) under house number 4. 4.
The large notary's apartment, which could be found
nowhere else in the whole Batschka region. 5. The post
office building which served until 1922 as the constable
barracks. (Today our constable's post is in
Sekitsch.) Besides that our community had some
yokes of Hutweide (border pasture), which also served as
the fairgrounds. Here also stood the stables for
the bulls and the boar as well as the apartments for the
community shepherds and the (Wasenmeisters?).
Here one can also still find the slaughterhouse, an ice
cellar, the hemp toaster, and the community brick oven.
Here the communal cemetery bordered the epidemic
hospital, and the tree nursery bordered the gardener's
apartment and 26 yokes of notary's field. - The
remaining field of 50 yokes and the notary field towards
Vrbas mentioned earlier were expropriated before long
for the purpose of agrarian reform with the reason that
the community had an additional 100 yokes. These
fields existed for the most part only on paper.
The outlying area of the
community consisted of the following parts:
|
agricultural land:
7,765 yokes, 1,434 sq. fathoms |
|
(Jogh?): 132
yokes, 1,432 sq. fathoms
|
|
vineyards: 309
yokes, 1,520 sq. fathoms
|
|
state roads: 77
yokes, 82 sq.
fathoms |
|
community surface:
322 yokes, 877 sq.
fathoms |
|
community gov't
surface: 1,694 yokes,
309 sq. fathoms |
|
(Gewannwege?): 56
yokes, 1,483 sq. fathoms |
|
market square: 5
yokes, 380 sq.
fathoms |
|
community brickworks:
22 yokes, 480 sq.
fathoms |
|
tree nursery: 3
yokes, --- sq.
fathoms |
|
cemeteries: 13
yokes,.1,200 sq. fathoms
|
|
_______________________________________ |
|
Total: 10,403
yokes, 1,217 sq. fathoms |
Besides the two judges
and the German jurors the community committee had
eight other German members at the time. In the
community house 9 officials were employed at the time.
The notary was Sergej Todorovic. - We have 3 lower court
judges and 5 police. The lower court judges and
the police have worn uniforms since 1886 which the
community pays for. Of the staff the Germans at
the time were: Johann Zuschlag, officers' assistant;
Jakob Wolf, policeman; Friedrich Hauser, lower court
judge. In earlier times the community often only
had a staff one third the size of today's staff.
The representatives
elected for the state in the early days was always a
lively affair. The mood maker "Kortesche" already
had organized weeks before election day to have a free
drink festival in the guest house as a favor to the
candidates. On the day of the election the wagon
carried that carried the voters from Vrbas under
fluttering flags, where first they drank, then they
voted. The right to vote was only for those who
had paid a certain total of taxes, could read and write,
were 24 years old, etc. Today a general right to
vote has been introduced and is practiced here in the
community where each 21 year old man has a right to
vote. During the election alcohol is forbidden for
three days. So the vote therefore no longer ends
in such a heated debate as earlier. Still the
election was always public, except in the years 1920 to
1930.
On the occasion of the
election in 1925 the Germans had at one of the election
places 287 small balls in the ballot box. But at
another election place there were conspicuously less
(70). The number of Germans eligible to vote was
570.
Taxes. Before
the year 1850 tax payment consisted of (Robot?), tenths,
and portions. Noblemen paid no taxes. The
tenths consisted of the 9th and 7th parts of the gross
yield. Besides that there were the "chimney
Guilders" and the so-called "portions". The last
burden consisted of the following payments: for each cow
40 Kreuzer had to be paid, for 1 horse 20 Kreuzer, for a
sheep 15 Kreuzer, for a vineyard 50 Kreuzer, for a ¼
field 1 Guilder, 20 Kreuzer (crowns). The
general tax duty was first introduced in 1852 which at
first only included head-, house-, and field tax.
Then came the stamp fees, inheritance tax, assessor's
tax, traffic tax, and Komitat's taxes. Soon
followed monopoly taxes rent taxes, income taxes,
business taxes, and cultural taxes, etc. - After the
World War the wealth taxes were initiated which still
affects so many today.
Today in the "tax
book" of the taxpayer are the following columns: 1.)
Arrears or overpayments from the past year; 2.) The
field tax will be calculated from pure income and
divided into classes. The principle of the former
pure income remained, only this was multiplied with the
number "34", of which 10% of it goes to base tax (also
called direct tax). For example payment on a yoke:
|
1st fathom of field 26
× 34 = 884 Dinar pure income; of it 10% =
88.40 Dinar in direct tax. |
|
2nd fathom of field 23
× 34 = 782 Dinar pure income; of it 10% =
78.20 D. in direct tax. |
|
3rd fathom of field 20
× 34 = 680 Dinar pure income; of it 10% =
68.00 D. in direct tax. etc. |
|
Of these taxes there
was a 20% decrease in 1935.
The
additional tax comes from the following
table: |
|
from 1000-2000 D. pure
income: 2% |
|
from 10000-12000 D.
pure income: 5% |
|
from 2000-4000 D. pure
income: 3% |
|
from 12000-15000 D.
pure income: 5½ % |
|
from 4000-6000 D. pure
income: 3.5% |
|
from 15000-20000 D.
pure income: 6%
|
|
from 6000-8000 D. pure
income: 4% |
|
from 20000-30000 D.
pure income: 6½ %
|
|
from 8000-10000 D. pure
income: 4.5% |
|
from 30000-40000 D.
pure income: 7% |
|
from 50000-100000 D.
pure income: 7½ % etc. |
Of all the additional
taxes there were no autonomous taxes (community taxes,
banal taxes, church share of costs, etc.) It
should be mentioned that through the mixing of these
direct and additional taxes hardly anyone in the place
could make out what's what in their tax books. It
hinged only on the community board of directors that the
tax offices concerned act to separate the figures of the
direct and additional taxes entered in the booklets.
Then most of our Germans could make out their tax
booklets. 3.) House tax. In Feketitsch there is a
tax duty on each house because the town has over 5000
inhabitants.
For this reason rent
could be taken by renting out the house. In the
settlement of the accounts 30% goes to the maintenance
of the buildings. From the remaining 70%, a direct
tax of 12% is to be paid; added to it is still the
additional tax of 2% which is to be calculated for rent
up to 10,000 Dinar. For example, if the rent
taken in each year is 3,000 Dinar, so at first 30% will
be taken off; 2,100 Dinar remains; direct tax of 12% =
252 Dinar, 2% additional tax added to it = 42 Dinar.
Together it equals 294 Dinar. Well noticed is that
one is often persuaded to want to take this tax from
3,000 Dinar and not 2,100. 4.) In the fourth
column the sales tax 3rd class is entered which was
collected all year. In the first group belong:
sales people, businessmen, among others and pay 10% of
the pure income. In the second group belong
spiritual workers and they pay 8%. Added to it is
the additional tax. This amounts to 2% for up to
10,000 Dinar, 2½ Dinar for 10,000-20,000 Dinar, 3% for
20,000-30,000 Dinar, 4% for 30,000-40,000 Dinar, etc.
5.) The pension tax from borrowed money is rather
meaningless to us; 6.) Room fees; 7.) Commercial tax,
amounts to 2% of the gross intake. 8.) Military pay. 9.)
Other. 10.) Total of the above mentioned taxes.
On autonomous taxes we
paid banal, community, and church share of costs which
were paid every year at established percentage rates was
calculated. So for years we paid 10% of the direct
tax as banal share of costs. Then the community
share of costs was calculated in the year: 1930.
