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
62 Árendás Zsuzsanna Situation in the mother country (Hungary) meant an improvement in their lives both in terms of social status and in economic circumstances. The geographical position of Hird (next to the Baranya country centre, Pécs) and the rapid socialist industrialization provided them with suitable work and stable incomes. Among resettled Hungarians from Slovakia a stable and long-term solidarity, “groupness” did not take shape for several contingent reasons. They never formed a one village-community before the resettlings (as happened in the case of some other communities from Czechoslovakia), but were collected from various, often rivalry neighbouring villages in the Galanta district. The unstable, “fluid situation" of the early times in Hird, the sharp competition for “survival” (finding the best living conditions, enough land, or appropriate financial compensation for the property left behind at home) did not bring the resettled Hungarians under “the same shelter”. A “puffer effect” of collective defence did not emerge either, as far as there was no “real” danger from the “outside” (i.e. from "native groups”) to protect themselves as a group. Instead, industrialisation brought together members of various groups and origins, developing a common platform for everyday cooperation, or at least neutral living together. During the political-economic transformations of the post- 1989 era, the social background of these family relationships changed radically. Markets and provisions of the two countries became somewhat equalized, thus financially motivated trips, so-called "shopping-tourism” disappeared. The resettled families are unable to sustain close family contacts with their home villages anymore. Most attempts at contact became reduced to an occasional exchange of postcards, greetings, short telephone calls for special occasions (anniversaries, Christmas, etc.) and rare family reunions, mostly taking place at funerals, as the final occasion for the dissolving of family ties.
