ACTA SZEKSZARDIENSIUM - Pécsi Tudományegyetem Illyés Gyula ...

István Varga
poverty itself gave a good clue for determining and checking this social status, moreover,
it resulted in preserving the prevailing status quo. It was a cause and effect in one.
The forms of Poverty Certificate
As it was seen before, in order to apply for poverty rights the official certificate had to
be presented. The issue of whether or not a person is entitled for it was examined and
checked by the municipal administration. The notary, the judge, the magistrate, the
official person (today clerk) took an issued a „quasi means-test”.
Comparing the two poverty certificates (due to spatial limitation I present hereby only
2) the following can be established. Since the relevant legislation determined only content
requirements, and it did not deal with the format, there were several kinds of forms in use.
Although these contain more or less the same amount of information there were subtle
differences in them. For example, in the poverty certificate Nr 2 the form provides ample
of space for enumerating the data where the data of the questionnaire had been taken
from. Moreover, it gives opportunity to indicate the possible untruth of the data as well.
This is not possible in the Poverty Certificate Nr 1 however it transfers the liability to the
applicant regarding the trustworthiness of the data included in the certificate.
As for the way of filling them in (by hand or by typewriter) two conclusions can be
drawn from them.
From one part, filling in by typewriter was regarded a novelty in the 1920s, and 1930s.
Transferring to the typewriter from the previously used handwriting can be considered a
veritable „information-technology revolution” in Hungarian administration. (Obviously,
it took place in several phases, just like the transfer to electronic registration in the recent
past) On the other hand, the hand-completed form could be taken at the home of the
applicant, providing opportunity for an exact survey of the life circumstances, which can
be excluded in case of using a typewriter.
The applicant’s signature appears on the form Nr. 2 only, while form Nr. 1 (the
typewriter-completed version) fails to include it. This raises the rights to inspect the
documents, or else the failure of providing these rights. Presumably, (whether they
were completed at home or at official premises) both documents are the results of single
meetings, which decided whether or not the person was entitled or not at that specific
moment.
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