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
Identities in change 61 Southern Slovakia were resettled in Hungary by forced population transports. Some of the Hungarian families from Galanta district, Matúškovo, Mostová and Horné Saliby villages were resettled to Baranya county (Southern Hungary), into Hird, a village inhabited by Hungarians and ethnic Germans (Schwabs). The analysis follows the integration of 11 Hungarian families displaced from Czechoslovakia to the village community of Hird, and their sustained kin-relations and friendships with the community of origins left behind in Slovakia. The main objective of the study was to discover those interethnic settings in Hird and between homeland community- resettled community and to discover certain dynamics between those two systems. Resettled families from Slovakia chose the individual way of integration into their new environment. A dilemma between a complete segregation and a smooth integration never really appeared in such a form. After a relatively short period following the deportation marked by strong personal grievances and longing for the home environment, a process of integration started. Several decisive factors determined choices of individual strategy for integration. (1) The resettled group of ethnic Hungarians from Slovakia came from a minority status, that is why one cannot speak of a classic immigrant situation in their case. (2) Settlers arrived in a Hungarian speaking environment where no linguistic obstacles stood in their way of social integration. (3) Cultural, social and economic differences between the group of resettled Hungarians and the “native villagers” (Germans and Hungarians) were negligible, i.e. such differences did not form a basis of persistent group distinctions, providing neither a basis for ethnic conflicts or violence, nor wide ethnic gaps. (4) There was no religious distinction as both the newly arrived “Upperland Hungarians" and the old villagers from Hird were Roman Catholics. Historical experiences of injustice (due to their deportation) in the case of Hungarians from Czechoslovakia, the political and legal deprivations of the 1945-1947 period strongly influenced the resettlers’ integration into the new environment. During socialism, they realized that their new
