Könyörgésünk színhelyei III.

INTRODUCTION

In the 19th century, the area of Tompa, Ludas, and Verusicspuszták surrounded the fallow lands around the city in a semi-circle from the north, east, and south. Until the mid-20th century, Zobnaticapuszta also belonged to the city, becoming part of the Topolya border only in the last half-century, but its roadside crosses were erected at a time when it still belonged to Szabadka.

In the third part of this work, I present the public crosses erected in the aforementioned puszta areas. Again, I adhered to the 19th-century puszta boundaries, though some modifications were necessary for the presentation of the region, as Szabadka lost a significant part of Tompa as early as the 18th century, thus only its southern part remained in the city's possession – the area of present-day Palić and Hajdújárás. It is also justified to discuss the public crosses of Királyhalom (Bácsszőlős), because a part of the village's territory (Pörös) was owned by the city after the Ottoman occupation, and the settlement itself has belonged to the city ecclesiastically since 1923, and administratively for several decades.

I continued to adhere to the fundamental principle laid down previously – the verbatim publication of materials from archives and source works. I also did not significantly deviate from the spelling of place and personal names; thus, wherever possible, I recorded them in the form used at the time of the cross's erection. This also applies to the naming of crosses after their erectors.

In other words: the occasional inconsistencies in the spelling of names stem from the differing spellings found on the crosses and in archival sources.