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

152 László Szarka

2 Csallóköz (in Slovak: Žitný ostrov) is the island formed by two branches of the Danube which separate first below Bratislava to reunite only at Komárno. It is called also the granary of Slovakia.

3 The Roma segregation process became particularly intense in the regions along the state borders which in the last eighty years lost their significance and their natural town centers. Due to backward infrastructure, lack of employment possibilities, and strict controls common in the border regions, the Hungarian and Slovak population gradually moved to more distant towns and the remaining population suffered ageing. Romanies have slowly replaced the original ethnic communities. During the last decade this process became evident especially in the Gömör region.

4 These are: Hungarian communities in South Slovakia, in Transcarpathian Ukraine, in Transylvania, in Serbia (Vojvodina), in Croatia, in Slovenia (Mura region) and in Austria (Burgenland). I omit the Hungarian minority living presently on the territory of the Czech Republic: because of its particular historical, social and economic circumstances among which it came to exist it belongs to the most recent Hungarian diaspora-communities and thus to a particular category of minorities.

5 The seventy per cent of the Hungarian minority in Slovenia (Mura region) lives in villages with less than one thousand inhabitants.

6 Dezső Szabó’s emblematic work, The swept away village, was published in May 1919, in a critical period of the dissolution of the historical multi-national Hungary. In this period the government of the Hungarian Soviet Republic (Tanácsköztársaság) announced a military resistance against the Czechoslovak and Romanian territorial conquests.

7 Today the northern Hungarian-Slovak language border is interrupted in the Selmec valley at the following villages: Plastovce (Palást in Hungarian), Ipeľské Úlany (Ipolyfödémes), Vinica (Ipolynyék), Čebovce (Csáb), Opatovská Nová Ves (Apátújfalu), Batorova (Bátorfalu), Nenince (Lukanyénye). It continues then crossing two-three villages (Slovenské Darmoty/ Tótgyarmat, Záhorce/ Erdó'szelestyén) where it becomes identical with the actual state border. East of Rožňava (Rozsnyó) at villages Krásnohorské Podhradie (Krasznahorkaváralja), Drnava (Demo) and Borka {Barka), the language border ends in the valley of Bodva. From here it runs through Háj (ÁJ) and Turnianske Podhradie (Torna) villages, up to Jasov (Jászó), then it turns again south and arrives to the state border at Moldava nad Bodvou (Szepsi)and Cecejovce (Csécs) villages. The second interruption of the language border occurs in the Hernad valley,