For centuries, a beloved ground for the Habans

In the 16th century, religious refugees crossed the Morava River into the Habsburg lands, the ‘royal Hungary’. They were mainly Hutterites (a branch of the Anabaptists) who emigrated from German lands to Moravia, where there were fewer political and religious tensions. But the long arm of the Catholic Habsburg king Ferdinand I extended into the cherished land of Moravia. The stately ranks obeyed him reluctantly. The Hutterites had to leave their courts once again. Twelve thousand of them fled to upper Hungary, where the authority of the Habsburg king was not as strong. In 1588, they found refuge in towns like Vel'ké Leváre. Many Hungarian noble families sympathized with the Reformation, and like the Hutterites, they disapproved of clerical hierarchies and infant baptism. The Hutterites proved to be skilled farmers and excellent artisans. Their ceramic tableware was in great demand. Through their labour and property associations, the ‘Haushaben’ were able to revive the regional economy. From then on, they were called Habans (Habaner in German or Habáni in Slovak). They were also active on the other side of the Morava River. In Drösing they operated a Bruderhof wine cellar. But with the Counter-Reformation after the Thirty Years’ War, another period of displacement ensued. Today Europe’s largest remaining Haban settlement attests to the ambitions of an industrious people.