A proper place-name sign for the inhabitants of
Újbalázsfalva/Otkovci When
we drove from Farfasfa, heading for
Apátistvánfalva/Števanovci in March 2008 we spotted a new
place-name sign reading “Apátistvánfalva,
Újbalázsfalva, Otkovci” at the gateway to the village of Števanovci.
We were rather astonished by this new place-name sign since there used to be
a place-name on the very same site, on which there was written solely
“Apátistvánfalva, Števanovci”. The term
“Balázsfalu” however, was always familiar to us.
Tibor’s great-grandfather, József Bedi, was born in
Balázsfalva. Still today, both Tibor’s father and the
inhabitants of Števanovci use the term „Balászfalu”
in their colloquial language, despite the fact that Balázsfalu has
been part of the municipality of Števanovci for more than half a century
now. In the mid sixteenth
century, Otkovci was mentioned by name for the first time. Until the end of
the nineteenth century, the Hungarians used to call the village
Börgölin. Hence that’s why we repetitively came across
entries with the place of birth stated as “Börgölin”
and not with the place names
“Apátistvánfalva” or
“Balázsfalu” when we were searching for Tibor’s
ancestors in the church records. At the end of the nineteenth century,
Börgölin was renamed Balázsfalu and later
Újbalázsfalva. Finally in the 1930s, the At the initiative of some
inhabitants of Otkovci, the place-name sign “Otkovci” was set up
at the periphery of this small dispersed settlement in February 2008. Now, the small municipality has also
gotten its name back visually, and everyone who passes through
Števanovci can see that there is a place called Otkovci. We thank the initiators for
making their project on a new place-name sign possible and that, as a
consequence of their efforts, Otkovci will not fall into oblivion in the
future!
Pictures Tibor
Horváth / Joël Gerber |