The Population of Fejér County in the 18^th Century Through the Eyes of Foreign Travellers

Lack of source material makes it difficult to examine the population history of the times of the Ottoman domination in Fejér county. Therefore it is inevitable to use memoirs, travel diaries, travel books and country descriptions penned by foreign travellers. In our study we are following the change of the image of the Hungarians, and the images of other ethnic groups as they appear in the memoirs of foreign visitors.

In this paper we compare the descriptions of different ethnic groups inhabiting the county in the 18^th century. We are interested in the following questions: first, how much of these descriptions are based on personal experience; secondly, to what extent these books reflect their authors’ experiences or they are rather influenced by stereotypes of their age or earlier periods