Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Time and social networks
44 Árendás Zsuzsanna people from different generations, age groups, professions, family status, etc. In Hird one can distinguish between two generations of resettled Hungarians from Slovakia (previously Czechoslovakia), and within each of these generations two different age groups. I call the "old first-generation” those who arrived to Hird as adults, married, with children (usually above age 30). The “younger first generation” will be those who were resettled from their home village in their childhood or as youngsters, and still have lot of personal memories and emotional ties to the “homeland”. I call the “second generation” the children of the first generation, and those who arrived to Hird in their early childhood (approximately under age of 5), and accordingly, they have no, or very few personal experiences from their land of origin. They only know it from others’ accounts or from later “home visits” in the 1970s and 1980s. These categories were established during my fieldwork with the agreement from my informants, based upon their own self-classifications, personal narratives and evaluations. A “third generation” as such does not exist in Hird. This “would-be group” does not have those experiences or background knowledge that would distinguish them from their other peers in Hird or connect them to “homeland” relatives. One can say, that the resettled identity disappears with this generation, and that they are fully integrated in the new environment. The picture is rather different on the "other side”, in the native village. The resettlement can be traced back only in narratives of a limited circle of people. Reasons are various. Very few peers of the “old first generation” stayed in Matúškovo: most of them were displaced from the village, deported formerly to the Czech part of the country, or from those who had the chance to stay, many had died already. I received most of the information from contemporaries of the "younger first generation” (today they are 60-70 years old). They attended school together with those now living in Hird, and they spoke to me about friendships, loves, rivalries, fam-
