NIEKOĽKO SÚVISLOSTÍ POZEMKOVEJ REFORMY A ŠTRUKTÚRY SPOLOČNOSTI NA JUŽNOM ZADUNAJSKU (1945 - 1949)

• Authors: Tóth Ágnes

Title variants

EN

Some connections between changes in land reform and social structure in Southern Transdanubia (1945 - 1949)

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

After the Second World War the social and political elite rightly attempted to change the outdated social structure of Hungary. Naturally, this change sought to strengthen the new elite's power position, but these efforts, when assessed from historical perspective, were to be seen as a contribution to a more effective and balanced society. The execution of the land reform and settlements significantly influenced the nationality composition of this region. The only significant minority of the country became the German minority amounting to 475 491 people. This process reached its peak after the Second World War in which the affected settlements were put under openly frightening pressure. At the census in 1949 ninety-eight percent of the population considered itself as Hungarian in terms of nationality and mother language This study states that the expulsion of Germans from Hungary - together with other similar inhuman processes - did not achieve the assumed more effective and more balanced social relationships. The national principle was not declared and not legally formalised during this process in Hungary, unlike the AVNOJ decisions in Yugoslavia, but in practice it was applied as necessary. The stirring of anti-German feelings did not reach extreme levels, but the press allowed and enabled such rhetoric in order to make the arrangements seemly acceptable. The national homogenizing process that began after the First World War in Hungary reached its peak after the Second World War. As consequence of the execution of settlements the country became practically uni-national. As the forced economic, political and cultural restructuralisation of the society continued, as a part of the Sovietisation process, the process of loosing identity among national minorities, including German minority, was deemed to be irreversible. However, after 1990 the revitalisation processes show that Germans in Hungary, similarly as other groups, even after the impact of the general policy of the assimilation pressure did not disappear and did not loose their self-identity.

Keywords

EN

GERMANS IN HUNGARY; HUNGARY; LAND REFORM; SETTLEMENT; SOCIAL STRUCTURE; SOVIETISATION PROCESS

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Social Sciences
• Journal: Človek a spoločnosť. Internetový časopis pre pôvodné teoretické a výskumné štúdie z oblasti spoločenských vied
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Pages: -
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Tóth Ágnes

• Ústav pre výskum etnických menšín Maďarskej akadémie vied, Budapešť, Hungary

• Agnes Toth, Ustav pre vyskum etnickych mensin Madarskej akademie vied, Budapest, Hungary

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09SKAAAA066422