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Táska

(County Somogy)

The coat-of-arms is a shield erect with a rounded base. It bears: azure, a mallard proper holding in the beak a reed vert, the neck transfixed by an arrow in bend sinister or.

The blue background and the reed refer to the waters and flora of Táska's natural environment called Nagyberek, the wild duck represents the indigenous fauna, whereas the arrow is the symbol of hunting.

The settlement is located among the southern spurs of Nagyberek. The name itself is a proper name of Turkish origin from the early Árpádian age, which was then transformed into a place name in the form Task. Based on the origin of the name it can be assumed that the village existed as early as the 10-11th century.

In the early Middle Ages Táska was located around the artificial mound of today's church hill. The first mention of the church dates from 1542; this building must have stood on the site of the present-day church. The village itself was probably mentioned for the first time in 1121, when the monastery of Balatonalmádi acquired the right to fish in the vicinity.

Táska is certain to have been referred to by the name Villa Task in 1298. From the early 15th century onward the village was part of the Marcali estate but we do not know when it got attached to the demesne. The Marczalis of the Pécz clan acquired land in the comitat Somogy in 1275, thus it is probable that Táska became part of their possessions at that time.

In 1488 the demesnes of the Marczalis were inherited by the Báthorys, whose ownership was confirmed by the monarch in 1495. It was in 1513 that Táska, an original part of the Marczali demesne, was first recorded as a Báthory possession.

In the late 15th century Táska was a village of average size. The Turkish occupation broke the continuity of life. Data from 1543 prove that the population of the areas near Marcali and Öreglak was either killed or forced to escape.

From the 1550s the area was in the forefront of borderline fights, which only calmed down in the second half of the 1570s. Turkish sources mention Táska as part of the nahije (administrative unit) of Marcali in 1563, when five houses were registered in the village. However, in the royal tax registers of 1564 it was mentioned as a puszta (uninhabited area). From that time onward until as late as the mid-18th century, only rather unreliable, if not conflicting data are available with regard to Táska. Contrary to the Hungarian tax registers, according to the Turkish registers it was dwelt uninterruptedly; in 1575 six houses, in 1580 eighteen houses were recorded. The reason for this contradiction was explained by Róbert Müller, who discovered several temporary places of dwelling on Táska's outer fields. He identified two Turkish-age dwelling places along Medvogya árok and one at Határárok, which, according to him, used to be dwelt by the people of Táska. They might have been small communities consisting of a few families, living at a safe distance from combative troops and tax collectors.

In the 16th century the Báthory family got into conflict with the Hapsburgs, who controlled Transdanubia. As a result, the Báthorys could not keep their possessions here. However, in 1595 Táska was owned by Count Ferenc Nádasdy who, as one of the most powerful landlords of the country, had enough power to enforce his rights as the owner of Táska, even though the settlement was situated within the boundaries of the Turkish Empire.

During the Nádasdy rule Táska managed to survive, as is proven by its more or less regular appearance in tax registers until 1660. However, between 1677 and 1699 it was mentioned as a destroyed settlement, which is unique in the region. It was in 1651 that the Széchenyi family got into contact with the Marcali demesne, whereby György Széchenyi, Bishop of Pécs, leased it. In 1670, because of his participation in the Wesselényi plot against the Hapsburgs, Ferenc Nádasdy was executed and his possessions were confiscated. In 1677 they were purchased by Count György Széchenyi, then archbishop, who in his will passed it down to his brother Lőrinc and his son. Thus for several centuries another landowning family, the Széchenyis were to play an important role in the history of Táska.

From the 18th century onwards Táska began to be mentioned by sources as a village dwelt by Croats. In the second half of the 16th century, the Turks replaced the died-out population of the Somogyvár-Balaton area with Ifláks (peoples of Vlach origin from the Balkans, most of whom were Orthodox Serbs), but the people who came here might have included Catholic Bosnian Croats as well. The Ifláks were a people privileged by the Turks, thus their history can be traced down in the Turkish tax registers relatively accurately. However, by studying these tax registers it can be concluded that the Ifláks only settled down in the neighbouring villages, but never at Táska. Yet among the names of Táska's Croatian population some Vlach names such as Fellai and perhaps Gyanó do occur.

This population was swept away by the 15-year-war. In the early 17th century the villages got populated again, this time mostly with Croats, as described in documents.

The new dwellers probably arrived at Táska in this period, as is referred to in the Historia Domus of the parish of Somogyvár. According to this, the Croatian dwellers of Somogyvár, which was also a Nádasdy possession, were settled here by the Nádasdys from their demesnes along the River Száva.

The settlement took place in several waves, all through the 17th century, and it only came to an end in the mid-18th century. The peak came after 1686, when from Bosnia more than 100,000 Croats arrived in Slavonia, Baranya, Bácska and the Balaton region.

Parallel with the resettlement, the Croatian church was also established. The first reliable data about Croatian priests are from 1643, when at Andocs a Croatian Jesuit mission was in operation, whose task was to take care of the Croatian population of the Balaton region.

From 1687 till the end of the 18th century the area was frequented by Ladislait Franciscan monks from the Franciscan monastery at Segesd. Their basic area of operation was that of Zagreb and Varazdin, thus it is not surprising that the last wave of settlement in that period included Croatian settlers from these regions. Such was the Dörnyei family, who came from the village of Drnje, or the Kotori family from the Mura region. The Gadányi family may also have belonged to them, since the village of Gadány served as one of the stopping places in the comitat Somogy for the settlers coming from Western Croatia. Several of those who temporarily remained at Gadány were to resettle at Táska later.

Most of the new settlers coming from Western Croatia were not recorded in the tax registers by their family names. Instead, they were given the name horvát (Croat) as their proper name, in order to be distinguished from the Croats who were already living here, for the latter had arrived from Bosnia and Slavonia, and thus called themselves sokác (a Slavonian ethnic group).

In 1699, Táska was mentioned in the landlord's records as a village of 31 houses, which proves that by then it had firmly been established as a settlement. The fact that Táska, in spite of all this, until the early 1710s was recorded in the national documents as an uninhabited place, can be explained with the intensive domestic migration of peasants and the various advantages offered by landowners in order to promote this process. In the case of Táska, it would have been against the interests of the powerful landowning family if state officials or tax collectors had known about the existence of the village.

In 1718 twenty-eight households were recorded at Táska, while the following year's comitat-level records mentioned twenty-nine. Based on this data, the estimated number of population must have been about 400-500. After the population had permanently settled, the village's position was stabilised, as proven by the fact that in 1752 the church, built on the foundations of the old one, was consecrated. This church was to be replaced with the recent one in 1820. It must be noted that until 1831 the village priests were all Croats, who would come from the diocese of Zeng and Zagreb.