Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interethnic spaces
Border region or contact zone 151 the huge losses on lives following the WWII; the consequences of the population exchange and resettlement in 1947-48; the gradual marginalisation of the Hungarian population of the two big towns, Bratislava and Košice. In the years of communism these were: the ethnic metamorphosis of small towns of South-Slovakia together with the expansion of individual and social bilingualism, the assimilation policy of the state which resulted in the creation of ethnically mixed regions and which failed to ensure tolerance there. Finally, in the last decades, the expansion of the Roma population with its ambivalent national identity and frequent language change appeared as an important factor influencing the assimilation processes. The Hungarian-Slovak ethnic and cultural contact zone showed significant positive changes in the last decade: the small regions divided by the state border for eight decades and thus destined for a periphery state are now growing into real dynamic regions. Therefore, there is seemingly a chance that in the time when Central European states will enter the EU, the mass-psychological conditions for border elimination, similar to those in Western Europe, will be created. At the same time, the data of the 2001 census, i.e. the decrease of the Hungarian population by 50,000 people and the dramatic unemployment rates of the Levice, Veľký Krtľš, Rimavská Sobota and Rožňava districts indicate that these border regions will continue to suffer the background processes burdensome with ethnic and social tensions and potential conflicts. Reference Šutaj, Š. (2001), ‘Szlovák-magyar interetnikus kapcsolatok és statisztikai asszimiláció a dél-szlovákiai járásban’. Kisebbségkutatás, 10. évf. 2: 236-248. 1 1 The name, Székelyföld, indicates the eastern part of Transylvania in Romania, inhabited mostly by ethnic Hungarians.
