The past of the mangalica breeding

The mangalica breeding has begun in 1833, when the first 2 boars and sows arrived in the Kisjenő estate of József Nádor from the famously fat Serbian sumadia-pigs, which were used for crossing with the domestic pigs of Bakony and Salonta existing before. They did this with such a success, that in the years around 1850 there was blood of Kisjenő on all stock-farms and the mangalica became almost the only pig breed of the Hungarian country by the end of the 19th century.

The sausage and salami factories and industrial meatworks appeared in the second half the 19th century bought the famous Hungarian mangalicas in mega-quantities not only in Hungary, but also in numerous other countries.

The popularity and the market successes of the breed did not declined neither after first World War, nevertheless the Serbian, Romanian, Slovak mangalicas from stock-farms out of Hungary appeared in the market.

The official top organization of the mangalica breeding, the National Association of Mangalica Beeders (Mangalicatenyészt?k Országos Egyesülete) was established in 1927. The Western European store-pigs appeared between the two World Wars jeopardized the leading position of the mangalica at that time not yet.

However the mangalica could not get over the destructions of the second World War and the transports for war damage compensation. It represents well the qualities and the survivability of the breed, that there was still stock-farms in the southern member states of the Soviet Union in the 70s, from the stocks transported there in 1945. Oddly, the ruin of the Soviet Union did not aid the rescue of this genetically valuable stock, but rather it prohibited this. The new Muslim muselmanischen successor states bloted out the sticks remained immediately.

The industrialization of that 1950s, the urbanization of the population intensified the demand for meat more and more, the last disaster for the species was the increase of the imported store-pigs and the spread of the consumption of sunflower edible oil.

In that 60s the amounts of the mangalica decreased steadily and it has aamost become extint by the 70s.

The gene banks established by the state in 1974 rescued the mangalica from the total extinction. By then the number of the sows had fell off to 200 animals.

The gene banks, functioning till the political revolution, have preserved about 300 sows usually on cooperative pig-farms.

The colleagues of the locally competent stock-breeder companies and the breed-conservatory National Institute of Agricultural Quality Control (Országos Mezőgazdasági Minősítő Intézet) preserved the breed working under worse and worse financial conditions for the uncertain future.

However the political revolution swept these small little pig stock-farms away, moreover the breeding associations also disappeared or were restructured. The last remainded animals were slaughtered in great quantities, with such a speed that by the summer 1991 its number fell again under 200 animals, and these were also planned to get slaughtered, so the complete extermination of the fany breed was expected by 1992-1993.

Instead of the entire extermination, the rebirth have come however, but this story belongs separate not to the past, but to the renaissance of the breed.