THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME 1332 - Symian, Ujsemian; 1520 - Semyen; 1900 - Érsemjén (1920 Simian). The assumption of the former priest, Szántó János, can’t be accepted. According to him Érsemjén comes from the word „semlyes” . This word meant a logged, flat countryside. Indeed, there was a marshland near Semjén but less than for example by Keserű or Szalacs. So if we take into account the sizes of these marshlands it would have been appropriate to call them “swampy”. Another standpoint seems to be more credible, according to which the name of the village Érsemjén comes from the name of the family that holded the land called Balogh-Semjén (Boloc-Semyan). The fact that the most settlements with the name Semjén was found on their property refers to this point of view. The name derives from the Latin name Simion developed in Hungarian as Semján or Semjén. THE STORY OF THE TOWNSHIP Stone Age. The first man appeared in Érmellék about 6000 years ago. The paleolithic civilization left only a few material behind because the objects used by the stone age man were rather primitive. Even so we can mention that on the north-western part of Bihar county by the area of the dunes they have found some paleolithical objects between the countryside of Érmihályfalva and Székelyhíd. Neolithic. In Érmihályfalva they have found the traces of a kind of neolithical settlement. This kind of finding wasn’t found in Érsemjén but probably after some serious exploring it would exist. Copper Age. The objects found in Érsemjén belong to the civilization of the burgeois by the Tisza. Brass Age. The objects found in Érmellék are the following: spear-heads, knives, bracelets, hammer, wide plane steel, flat rounders in Székelyhíd; ovum shaped bracelet in Érsemjén; pieces of dagger in Érkeserű etc. They have found a settlement from the brass age in Érsemjén. The Iron Age and the age of the migration probably also left their marks in this area. We don’t have any knowledge about other relief worth mentioning from Érsemjén. Information from the sattlement of the Hungarian people in Hungary The lands of the tribes were separated by wide uninhabited places natural frontiers. These natural frontiers were mountains, forrests, lakes, big flat impassable fields or desolated wildernesses. The valley of Berettyó, Ér and Kraszna were protected in the 10th century by the stem of Ákos and Kata, the genera of the regal army. In Érsemjén the first artifact was from the sattlement of the Hungarians. In this churchyard in Érsemjén from the age of the settlement was found a simple necklace. We can assume that after the time of the settlement there existed a village right next to Érsemjén. On the land of Érsemjén has settled down the Balog-Semjén family of the Elod Kende stem as they were the first owners of this place. A plenty of people considered that the „Country of Bihar” was their mother country but nobody could proove this assumption. According to Vaclav Chaloupecky the people of the settlement have found a populous slav principality on the other side of the river Tisza, and its center was the castle of Bihar. The truth is that they were only some sparse settlements and not an organised slav state. On the edge of Érsemjén there had been a slav settlement once which was called Császló. Its name derives from the Slav language based on the name Cáslav. In 1345 it was the property of the Kata stem. Probably it melted into Érsemjén in the 15th century where in 1526 there was a brook with the same name. It’s memory is kept by a part of the land between Érsemjén and Érselénd. It is true that Semjén was first mentioned in 1332 but we cannot assume that it existed in the place of the village mentioned above or as its Hungarian continuation. Both of them existed later on. THE PROBLEM OF THE SZEKLER ESTABLISHMENT Some people thought that the founders of Érsemjén were the ancestors of the Szekler people. This idea was based on the fact that the inhabitants of the nearest town called Székelyhíd were Szeklers and so they have populated the countryside. None the less that there existed a slav and a szekler settlement near Érsemjén the first people that settled down here originated from the Balog-Semjén stem, one of the tribes of the settlement. THE FIRST LANDOWNERS WERE THE BALOG-SEMJÉNS The Balog-Semjén stem didn’t come from the people of the settlement. They descended from their ancestor Ubul in 1056. It belongs to the stem from which originated the Semjéni, Kállay and Biry family. The first ancestors of this stem known from charters were: Ubul I. and Egyed I. mentioned in 1214. The three sons of Ubul I. are the ancestors of the three familes mentioned above that is: from Mihály I. comes the Semjéni family, from Egyed II. The Kállay family and from Gergely, who had died before 1250, the Biry family. In 1325 the members of the stems split the teritories between them and then the descendants of Mihály I. took the name of Nagysemjérú. The fact that Érsemjén was their property at first is known because the sod-system was extruded only in the 10th and 11th century from Érmellék to Szilágyság. So by then it couldn’t exist any population on that area. After that the territory of Érsemjén became the property of the Kállays. In 1347 the son of Panyolai János, Péter claimed that he descended from the same ancestor that the Kállay family and that’s why he demanded his part from their property. The Kállays acknowledged his ancestry. By this time existed among the properties beside the village-name Semjén also a so called „other Semjén”. The fact that the Semjéns have founded the village called Érsemjén and they didn’t get it later as a property is obvious because the properties won by them later kept their names and they were not changed into Semjén ( for example in 1272 István V., the son of Ubul donated to Mihály the village called Marcelfalva placed near the river Szamos ). The names of the settlements were mentioned only in some sale contracts or litigations. We assume that Érsemjén was not a populated village and it wasn’t the major part of the property of the Semjéns. It is interesting that the settlements near Érsemjén were all mentioned in the 12th-13th centuries in the time of the tartars exept for Semjén. Jakó Zsigmond’s opinion was that considering the patrimony of the church in 1332 we can assume that Érsemjén arose before the 13th century. So Semjén existed in the 12th century but maybe also in the 10th-11th centuries. THE ASSAULT OF THE TARTARS During the assault of the Tartars the abbeys in Diószeg, Szentjobb and Szentimre were burned also Margitta and the cloister of the grey friars in Székelyhíd. Érsemjén was not mentioned in the parochial documents probably because it didn’t have a catholic church or if it had it wasn’t sizeable. But after the loss of the battle in Moh the army of the Tartars broken into Transylvania burned Várad and broke in the county of Szabolcs. Thus the area of this county became the road of the Tartars’ assault. This assault lasted a year and a half and it destroyed every remembrance, the fugitives took refuge only in the woods of Nyír. Besides of the bigger continuous woods they took refuge in the moorish, swampy lands. The inhabitants of Érsemjén escaped during the assault of the Tartars probably because of these woods and moorlands. This idea was supported by the accounting records of Danka János between 1870 and 1872 where he mentioned a well named „Tatárkút”. This well was found on the area of the former oak-wood which exists also nowadays named Kiserdő. Today it doesn’t exist any more. Probably they spent here a longer period as they had digged out this well for their animals and for themselves. After the defile of the Tartars the restoration began under the organization of Béla IV. : he performed some settings, built castles and renovated the old ones, he organized counties on the woodlands of the former regal properties. We assume that it was the period when some minor landowners won their properties and they settled down here. The real development of Érsemjén began after the assault of the Tartars. THE FIRST MEMORIALS It was mentioned for the first time under the name of Wysimean in 1321. The prefix New- ( Wy-) shows us that the settlement probably was ruined: maybe during the assault of the Tartars or because of some other reasons (for example combustion). It was a spiritual place, the first record was from 1332. Its priest Miklós paid then to the bishop of Várad 20 coppers as a church rate between 1332 and 1337. It was an important parish as the parsonage of Szalacs, Mihályfalva, and Gyula also paid 20 coppers. Already in the beginning of the 14th century it appeared as one of the most important provincial parishes concerning its benefice and the magnitude of its building. By right of its benefice we can assume that its church was built right after the assault of the Tartars. The remained parts of its medieval church, some ashlars, were built into the gate of the reformed church that is standing nowadays but its sizes show us that it was a beautiful huge church. This church was ruined probably near the year 1600. The sum of the pontifical church rate assumes the existence of a big and rich parish. In this case the opinion of Jakó Zsigmond is true who assumed that the first inhabitants of Érsemjén descended from the royal lord lieutenants of Bihar because only this way is understandable the village was detached from the properties of the stem of Turul. Since the inhabitants of Érsemjén in that period – except for the Balog-Semjén stem – were the thralls of the king, free but with military duties. It was a kind of noble social strata, and thus at the dissolution of the kingdom Érsemjén became the property of its poor owners. Later on these noblemen became poor as they were surrounded by strong neighbours. They were the victims of the expansion of a rich family: in 1445 Érsemjén became the property of the Zólyomi family. Probably the Makófalvi family – descending from the stem called Csanád – won their property here together with the Zólyomi family but they were mentioned for the first time only in 1510 as landowners in Érsemjén. László, the last member of the Makófalvi family draws back in 1561 to the village called Bátor as he was running away of the turks. There he made a will from which we learn about the number and names of his properties: Székelyhíd, Érsemjén, Csokaly, Jankafalva, Diószeg, Albis. These lands were taken from him by János Zsigmond. In 1520 Érsemjén had the right to take toll. There are some names from the year 1526 which still exist, the names of the inhabitants of Érsemjén then: Balogh, Bekér and Elekes. The mention of „Chazlo fluvius" is also from this year. The place called Császló mentioned above might have merged into Érsemjén in this period because the last notes about it as a village come from 1416. IN THE SHADOW OF THE CRESCENT After the loss of the battle in Mohács in 1526 nobody could stop the advance of the Turks. At this time there were mentioned 28 homes. To have some idea about the size of this settlement we should take a look at the items from the villages nearby: there were 33 houses in Tárcsa, 14 in Mihályfalva, 24 in Keserű, 100 in Szalacs though in 1374 it was considered a royal town. In 1563 the Makófalvi family died out and their properties were appropriated by János Zsigmond, later on he gave them to the lord lieutenant Varkocs Tamás in Várad. In this period Varkocs Tamás had 98 houses in Bihar county. In this period the reformation appeared and spreaded out. Until Fráter György, the bishop of Várad was alive he could maintain the facade of the old belief due to his power and influence. The bloody event in Alvinci – the death of Fráter György – had changed the whole situation. We don’t know exactly when Érsemjén switched to reformation. In 1552 its priest sent 3 forints to the synod of Trident. In 1563 Varkocs Tamás got the property of the Makófalvi family among which there was also Érsemjén. It can be easily understand that in Érsemjén – according to the principle of cuius regio, eius et religio – in 1566 disappeared the catholic life and it reappeared only after the year 1700. Probably the neighborhood of Debrecen had an impact above the reformation in Érmellék as Kálmáncsehi Sánta Márton had founded here the organization of the Hungarian reformed church extended to the other side of the Tisza and he himself became its first bishop. Érmellék belonged to the principality of Transylvania between 1541 and 1665 (the defeat of Székelyhíd). The turkish army tore Érmellék in 1583 burning seven villages and taking with them 440 men as prisoners. At about the year 1600 the Fráter and the Péchi family settled down in Semjén, the Bossányis under the emperor Lipót and under their influence the Kazinczy, Krajnik, Szunyogh and Dobsa families. The policy of the principality of Transylvania oscillated a lot between Austria and Porta. Finally Bocskai István consolidated the situation of Transylvania. The most important battle is the one in Álmosd near Érsemjén on 15 October, 1604. The Turks successfully attacked the castle of Nagyvárad between 18 July-27 August, 1660 that was defended in the end by 300 soldiers but they was forced to give it up only because of a betrayal. The town, the dome, the royal statues of the Kolozsvári brothers were all destroyed. The Turks have settled down in Várad but they went on capturing Szentjobb, Szalonta, Sarkad. Székelyhíd was still standing and was defending the surrounded area, the Érmellék. Boldvay Márton, the captain of the castle complained a lot about not being able to maintain the peace with his poor army because the surrounding was attacked by the austrian and turkish troupes. Another important event in the history of the countryside was the campaign led by Rákóczi György II. Rákóczi after an unsuccessfull campaign in Poland decided in 1660 to obtain the regal title from Barcsay Ákos. He completed his poor army (at about 5000 cavaliers) in Bihar county by promising freedom to the thralls from Berettyó and Érmellék. But the anti-feudalism led to a revolt. In January, 1661 the heat of the revolt passed through the valley of Berettyó and Érmellék. The strength of the revolt had been felt in Éradony, the property of the baron called Károlyi, near Érsemjén. We have no proof that it would have had any influence upon Érsemjén but its reformed church was ruined about the year 1660, maybe because of the Turks or because of this revolt. In 1691 Badeni Lajos began his operations for the liberation of Várad and finally he succeeded through general Heissler. On 7 June, 1692 Várad was liberated, and also Papmező and Szalonta, under its influence. The Turks had left Várad but they had destroyed everything between Diószeg and the southern border. It is possible that the inhabitants that remained in Érsemjén had become the victims of this ferocious action as the census of 1692 represented Érsemjén and also the nearest village called Érselénd as a deserted place. THE REGIME OF THE HABSBURGS The life of the village was not affected by it but it is worth mentioning that Kazinczy Ferenc who was born in Érsemjén took part in the conspiracy that involved Martinovics Ignác. As a result of the unveiling of this conspiracy in 1795 Martinovics was executed together with most of his fellows but the death penalty of Kazinczy was changed into imprisonment. The records of 1790 and between 1830 and 1844 contained some very interesting items. With their help we can learn the social and economical life of Érsemjén. We know that there was a drought in 1790 in Érsemjén and the whole teritory of Érmellék. The price of the comestible had growned, for example a bushel of wheat costed 10 forints, the barley 5 and the corn 4 forints. The crops were brought in from the surrounding of the Tisza. After a dry summer came a soft winter which brought a year with a rich produce. The price of farm produces was getting down but the neat was expensive, a cow costed 40-50 forints. In 1793 the crops became cheaper, a bushel of wheat costed not more than a char which was then about 38-40 dinars. But clothes were very expensive: the clothes of a servant costed 7-8 forints, a pair of boots were 4 forints. The following year -1794- brought with by a draught again which was so strong that the brooks near the village had dried up. Therefore the people springed two wells in the wood one of them placed on the area of the Szeles, where the old Tatárkút existed. The draught caused again the high prices of the cereals. In 1797 broke out the battle between France and Austria in which took part captain Fráter Ferenc from Érsemjén, in the army of Rhédey Lajos from Bihar but he didn’t take part in fights as the two parts had arranged their problems peacefully. As a curiosity we can mention the fact that in 1802 between Christmas and New Year’s Eve Csokonai Vitéz Mihály stayed in Érsemjén who made a visit to his friend, Kazinczy Ferenc, to talk through the redaction of Dayka Gábor’s poems (1769-1796). Another interesting item of the records was the problem of the use of woods. In 1822 they organized an assembly in Érsemjén to solve this problem. On the assembly took part the landowners of the village the representatives of the Péchy, Kazinczy, Fráter and of other families and there were 14 representatives of the village. The problem was that the landowners had killed off the woods in order to get a bigger teritory for pasture. According to the arrangements the wood was used in parts; the saplings were protected by the common law; the pastures were parcelled out according to the needs of every interested party; the exploration of the wood was strictly forbidden. According to the records our items about Érsemjén are from the first days of July, 1829 when there was an earthquake between 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning. We are not sure about the damages caused by it. 1831 was again a gray year as in the valley of Berettyó and in Érmellék broke out the cholera. The whole area was quarantined. Many people blamed the nobles for this illness and so it broke out a revolt except in Érsemjén because of the skills of the village-leaders. In that period the major of the village was Sombori Imre. According to the records the building of the school was burned in 1834. In this period the county was split into five regions, Érsemjén belonged to the fifth region. This region was split into the following parts: 1. Érmihályfalva; 2. Érsemjén; 3. Kóly; 4. Székelyhíd; 5. Monospetri; 6. Berettyókirályi. 15th March, 1848 was the most hopeful year of the 19th century in the life of the Hungarian people. The war of independence broke out under the influence of the French revolution, for the abolition of the social inequalities and for the separateness from Austria. Probably there were many people from Érsemjén who took part in the war of independence but we know only a few names:
After the war of independence was beaten down began the bloody sanctions. The Committee ordered to the authorities around Érsemjén to punish everybody who took part in the war; if they showed their loyalty toward the emperor they escaped from death penalty. This had to be announced by the priests of every village. The priest also had to popularize the vaccination against tuberculosis. The royal curt of law began its activity in January, 1850 in Nagyvárad. The governor was Józsa Péter and the sergeant of arms was general Hraunhoff. Here was imprisoned Dobozy István, a landowner in Érsemjén who after the war turned home to his estate in Vajda but later he gave himself up. After a year of remand he was sentenced to death but after another year the sentence was changed into 4 years in prison. In 1900 Érsemjén had 2587 inhabitants. By the turn of the century the richest landowners from here were: the Fráter family, Szunyogh Zsigmond and Krajnik Ödön. In this period there were a lot of mansions here: the mansion of the Fráters (two of them still exist), the mansion of the Erőss family, the one of the Szirmays (nowadays it is a catholic church), the mansions of the Szunyogh-, Nagy-óh Krajnik families. THE PERIOD OF THE WORLD WARS A lot of men from Érsemjén took part in the World Wars; many of them were killed, some of them returned home wounded and with medals but most of them endured the monstrosity of the war. We should mention here some of those who gave their lives for the country between 1914 and 1918: Babos István, Babos László, Herei László, Csányi Ferenc, Csányi Sándor, Dobos Ferenc, Dobos József, Jobágy János, Nagy András, Szabó Ferenc, Szello András, Szello látván, Venkli Antal, Gazsi Ferenc, Balázs József, Zih Miklós. But we also know the names of those who were honoured because of their heroism. The records about them were found by Balázsi József, the major of Érsemjén to the request of the valiant knight Bereczky Árpád, the president of the Valiant Alliance in Transylvania. Besides there were more people who had fought bravely in the bloody war! Without medals but heroically. After the peace-treaty on the 4th of June, 1920 from the territory of Hungary of 350 000 km2 remained only 93 000 km2. Transylvania and the bigger part of Partium were attached to Romania that is the whole Érmellék. Romania got the bigger part of Bihar county. After the annexation the first important event in the life of Érsemjén was the land reform in 1921 but between 1921 and 1923 the landowners also existed. In 1924 a new schoolhouse was built, the first institution where the education was performed in Romanian language. In this year the reformed church got new bells as the old ones were destroyed during the World War I. On the 3rd October, 1937 Érsemjén got the grade of parish thanks to Fiedler István, the bishop in the area of Várad-Szatmár. He bought a mansion (the house of the Szirmay family) and he rebuilt it with a belfry near the entrance. The construction was supervised by Gámpe Károly, the parson in that period. The german troops marched in in 1944 occupied the building of the school near the parish but they were not considered as a danger for the church moreover they took part reverently in the litany of May, according to the records of the parson, confessing their sins. But their marshing in had a sad impact on the lives of the Jewry as the nazism had collected them from everywhere. In the period of their deportation the parson of the village made everything to save them, he had also baptized many of them to avoid their deportation. After the second Viennese adjudication the north part of Transylvania was reattached to Hungary. The inhabitants were waiting for the hungarian troops in a fancy way. In this period the bust of Kazinczy, that had been hided in the reformed church for many years, was replaced on its original place. The emigrants from Debrecen had sent to the village the Hungarian national flag that was placed near the bust of Kazinczy. The inauguration of the flag was held by the minister and the priest together. The hungarian administrative authority was rebuilt. The infiltrated romanian population moved out. Some families emigrated to America between 1940 and 1944 (the Precups or the Tivadars...) but most of them came home after 1945. The entry of the russian army subverted the life of the village. According to the records of the priest Gámpe Károly and of other people we can affirm that they had caused a lot of damage in the village „in the name of the liberation”. They raided the houses, took away the clothes, the animals and the food and they raped many women and girls. As the minister ran away, Gámpe Károly remained the only priest in the village. The reformed worshippers also visited the catholic church and he baptized and intered everybody. In his records he mentioned a concrete case: he buried the reformed Gerő Sándor who had been shot by the Russians as he tried to save his wife’s honor. In World War II. there were many people who had been fighting in the Hungarian army and most of them had never returned from the Russian front lines. To their memory we should recite some names, the names of those who died in foreign countries: Balázs Sándor, Balázs András, Balázsi István, Csányi Ferenc, Csányi Imre, Csányi Lajos, Csányi Sándor, Csiri József, Csordás Sándor, Czirják József, Czirják Károly, Dobos Ferenc, Farcan Miron, Fodor Kálmán, Fülöp Jeno, Garbac János, Gazsi Ferenc, Gazsi Gyorgy, Gál Lajos, Geszti Lajos, Geszti Miklós, Geszti Sándor, Hauzer István, Keresztúri Lajos, Máté András, Molnár József, Nagy Gyula, Nagy Sándor, Oláh András, Pál Lajos, Rácz Gábor, Rozsnyai Ferenc, Szatmári Erno, B. Szél József, Szucs József, Szucs Sándor, Tácsik Elek, Vátiyi Antal, Ványi Imre, Usvat Avram. In the World War II. Hungary was on the side of the losers. It loses the north part of Transylvania and all the reattached territories. After the replacement of the frontiers by Trianon, Érsemjén belonged to Romania again. THE STORY OF THE VILLAGE IN THE RECENT PAST AND NOWADAYS On 23rd March, 1945 the government of Groza proclaimed the law of the land reform according to which they have expropriated the properties of the war criminals, traitors and of those who after 23rd August, 1944 emigrated to the countries which had an inimical relationship with Romania. The members of the committee in Érsemjén were: Medve János, Lucufa George, Nagy János, Fodor István, Ádám Sándor and Stéfán György. At the beginning of the land reform the landowners were allowed to keep 50 ha of their properties but the other part of these lands were divided among the poor peasants proportionately with the number of the family members. In 1945 in the period of the land reform 340 cottar-families got building sites in the village and they could move in from their hovels on the manorial farms. In 1950 began the collectivism which ended in 1962, 3 years earlier as it was planned. The state farms came into existence on the places of the big properties and on the well-equipped farms and they were greater than in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In Érsemjén the state eliminated methodically the old rural economical structure. In the first phase (1949-1951) began an attack against the village in the name of the rural class war. The obligation of the surrender was raised up in 1949 and there were used severe means by the collection. In the same year they expropriated all the lands above 50 ha and the landowners, at about 150 000 men, were deported from all over the country. The next target of the class war were the so-called „kuláks”. The main criteria of belonging to this class were the following: to have a bigger land than 20 ha, the employ of foreign labors, a property with other incomes, other retail trades. But the peasants stood up against the collectivism between 1949 and 1951, regardless of the sizes of their properties. They were beaten, the state applied psychical pressure and those who couldn’t be suppled were deported. Roxin Tivadar was a romanian lawyer and landowner, had a spirit-factory, he was a deputy of the Maniu-party at the elections from 1946. One year after the agrarian reform (1946) he went out to the street and shouted that he himself would hung up anybody who tries to take away his land. But he couldn’t resist to the force of the collectivism and he was curtailed of his power. The victims of the dictatorship in Érsemjén were Roxin Tivadar and Ványi István. Among the landowners was deported the Czirják family, this was written also by the reformed bishop, Csiha Kálmán born in Érsemjén in his work entitled „Light on the Bars”. We could give a very long list of those who were beaten and humiliated. On 29th March, 1954 Fráter Boriska asked Czirják Sándor in a letter to give her a certificate where was written that she had no possessions beginning with 1948. She got this certificate with the help of Papp Gábor, who in 1948 took part in the division of the lands. The formation of the communist party had a negative impact upon the church, too. By the secularization in 1948 the building of the school was taken from the church, the parish registers were destroyed thus the priest was forced to enter the necessary things in a home-made register for years in secret. The collectivism took away the lands of the church. Everybody was forced to communal work, even the priest himself. On Whitesunday the priest and the worshippers were ordered to go to the new border of the village and root up the trees. On the saint’s-day in August the military forces sealed the door of the chapel forbidding to keep mass. In that period this was natural as religion was considered „the opium of the people”. The houses and properties of the landowners were secularized thus the mansion of the Horváth family had been changed into a cooperative farm; one of the mansions of the Fráters was changed into a nursery school, then into a post office and central, the other mansion became a school in Feketefalu (Újsemjén); the mansion of the Erőss family became a nursery school, etc. The cooperative farm was using a field of 1551 ha, 268 ha served the needs of the members, 229 ha was a pasture, and 243 ha was a meadow. It had a property of 49 ha as vineyard and they produced culinary plants. It had an orchard of 149 ha; later this became a state property. Beside cultivation they dealed also with stock-raising. The leader of the cooperative farm was Nagy János; from 1957 Mihályi Irén was the engineer. In 1960 they began to drain the whole Érmellék and in the 70’s they finished the construction of the barrage on the west side of the village. There wasn’t a big area in Érsemjén under water. In the 1970s the town industry took away the workers of the cooperative farm. The employees worked in the factories of Várad, Székelyhíd and Érmihályfalva. At 4:30 AM half of the village people got off to Várad with the slow train and at 6:00 AM they were working in the factory. In the afternoon they went home. At noon got off the second turn. Ioan Fericel, the secretary of the cooperative farm affirmed bitterly that from ten years not a single young man had learned to mow in Érsemjén. The number of the members of the cooperative farm fell off from 1400 to 600. The waning of this number was caused by the state farm (I.A.S.) founded in the village which offered a better earnings. Also in the ’70s the public investment supported the idea of blacktopping the country road with 5 million lei; though this road ended in the center of the village; it supported the drainage with 1 million lei. They have bought the cristern of 60 000 l produced in the machine-shop of Érsemjén as a water tower and it was placed in the park near the reformed church. The electricity wired in the ’60s was used only now for public lighting. The cooperative farm contributed to this with 350 000 lei and the state farm with 400 000 lei. The population of the village in 1974 consisted of 3700 men. Between 1968 and 1969 the community of the village raised the new storeyed building of the school which had eight classrooms. They also raised a block where the professors and instructors could live. The last institutional building was the nursery school which was finished only in the mid ’80s. In the mid ’80s a lot of people ran away to Hungary because of the unbearable situation in Romania. The military raid became a commonplace, a lot of people were shot by the border-line or were tortured if catched during the escape. The events in ’89 gave people a new hope. After the dissolution of the cooperative farm people got back their lands and they were compensated for the loss of their animals during the secularization; the stock-yard was demolished and the building material was sold. From 1991 appear the bilingual placename-plates. The RMDSZ was formed. In the same year they organized the first commemoration of Kazinczy in which they inaugurated the bust of Kazinczy Ferenc (the little museum was completed by a room to the memory of Fráter Lóránd in 1994). The economic development is shown by the fact that some streets have pavements and the system of the public lightning was upgraded. Between 1998 and 1999 a new drainage was built on a section of 1,5 km and it is developing nowadays, too. In December, 1999 they began the installation of the automatic switchboard and of the wire lines. Besides they began to collect signitures for the installation of the natural gas and its plan is ready. On 20th August, 1999 a war memorial was built for the memory of the victims. It was the year when they organized the Days of the Village for the first time in Érsemjén. |