Szili Ferenc: Kivándorlás a Délkelet-Dunántúlról Horvát-Szlavónországba és Amerikába 1860-1914 (Kaposvár, 1995)

Résumé

If we objectively draw up the evaluation of this period, it is clear to see that during the nearly halfa century period between 1867 and 1914, both throughout the country and in the region the trend of the economic development kept rising, i hough with some slacks in it, and regarding its pace we belonged to the leading countries even if measured by European standards since this period was abundant in enormous enterprises, constructions and technical inventions. In the period of dualism nearly every branch of the national economy prospered. Despite all this, no essential change in the standard of living of the agricultural day-laborers, dwarf-holders of some acres and workers took place. Partly this accounts for the frightening scales of the emigration to Croatia-Slavonia and from the 1880's more and more to America. The majority of society did not partake of the advantages of the economic prosperity in the South-eastern Transdanubia either, at least not to such an extent that it could have been a withdrawing force. Therefore a considerable crowd of people set out in both directions, for the areas beyond the Drava and then for America pursuing happiness and trying to make a living there. In our thesis we intended to illuminate the complicated and compound process of this emigration in two directions. We sought answers to the questions the contemporaries could not see for lack of the historical perspective. And the authors of the comprehensive syntheses and monographs published in the past decades called our attention primarily to global phenomena. The author of the present thesis scrutinizes a smaller region in space and the interval is shorter too. We can compare the data of the region to the national data processed by the monographs and can keep track of the different regional processes. In the course of our research we came to the conclusion that the groups of people and the individuals taking part in the migration were more receptive to emigration. It was not the poorest people of society that emigrated but those who, though living in misery, tried to get on in life and did not surrender to fate. The emigrants to Slavonia selling their lands of a few acres set out for the areas beyond the Drava with the hope of making good and there they were able to buy 15-20 holds of land for themselves. Following their lot we unavoidably crash into the SerboCroatian nationalism. As we have mentioned before, there is a certain correlation between emigration and the system of large estates. But at the same time, we can also prove that this was not the only reason, and not in ever)' case the primary one, that induced emigration. In other words, it was not from those counties where the proportion of large estates was the highest that the most people emigrated. In these counties the inner migration could, to some extent, ease the social and political tensions resulting from the lack of land. Of course, only a few were able to make their lives better this way. For the farm-servants emigration seemed inviable since only a few of them had the necessary capital to cover the costs of the crossing and the journey. Even if it was not the people of the plains that took the most advantage of emigration, it can be proved, however, as a result of the emigration en masse, their labor force was worth more, and although their living conditions did not improve considerably, they were given certain concessions. We can consider as a global reason the bad social atmosphere that made hundred-thousands leave this country and set out for America or other countries beyond the border. In Croatia-Slavonia both the Hungarians who had always lived there and the immigrants were regarded as third-rate citizens. Here, parallel to the Hungarian