A tradicionalizmustól a modern gazdaságig. Kanizsai kereskedők és vállalkozásaik a feudalizmus utolsó korszakában 1690–1848

This study examines the commercial enterprises of the Batthyány market town Kanizsa. Contrarily to the conventional Hungarian pattern, this town primarily based its development on trade. Due to the continuous growth of population and economic capacity, by 1828 Kanizsa became the seventh biggest market centre of the country. By outlining their course of life, the paper presents the Greek, Christian and Jewish merchants. Until the Reform Age, Christian merchants formed the determining group in the town’s trading system. According to statistics, the number of Kanizsa merchants began to grow in the 1820’s. In the case of Nagykanizsa, the analysis of the 1837 register of taxes shows that the average income of merchants belonging to the weakest group twice exceeded the incomes of those engaged in craftwork. An important point in this unfolding tendency was that while the number of merchants belonging to the highest category decreased, their wealth grew. The tendency of commercial advancement observable all over Hungary was realized in this typical merchant town to a significantly greater extent than the average. Since merchants paid the most taxes, lived in the richest houses and occupied the centre of the town, one can rightly assume that they were the wealthiest in town. From England to Western Europe, the same process passed: merchants, shopkeepers, lawyers and innkeepers increasingly constituted the elite in the world of small towns.