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
90 Izabella Danter the series of the Ethnographic Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Research was also undertaken within the framework of a project called “Changes in lifestyle and traditional culture in Hungary in the 19-20,n centuries”, which was published under the title; Peasant economic life in the first half of the 20th century- example from Kolárovo. This study examines the organisation and production structure of peasant farms from a production-consumption viewpoint. According to the study, “....the peasant farm is not an unchanging unit, but it is a productive, consumer and a community-creating unit, of longer or shorter duration, and it is working and constantly changing within diverse external and internal conditions in time and space”3 (Fehérváryné 1988: 15). Therefore, the functions of the farm have to be continuously followed from the farm’s foundation to its cessation. By understanding the productivity and relations of production of individual farms, we can define the degree of capitalisation of the peasant farm within the community as well as the social manifestations of the transformation process. The degree of effectiveness of the peasant farm is defined by the relation between its principal branches, agriculture and husbandry. However, at the same time, a good integration of secondary activities (such as gathering, fishing, hunting, beekeeping, silviculture, carriage, nutrition, barter) into the two main economic sections has also an important role. On the basis of the results achieved so far, Hungarian ethnography characterised roughly four types of Hungarian peasant farms, which can be subdivided into smaller, local types. The specialised literature describes the following types: the Alföld farms, where corn-producing (cereal growing) is joined with extensive husbandry; South-Alföld and Kiskunság farms, which base their activity on gardening; farms in the zone of Eger-Gyöngyös-Tokaj and of the vicinity of Balaton based on viniculture; farms in Northern-Középhegység, Transylvania and Bakony, where crop-producing is subordinated to husbandry and where other activities play a significant role, such as lime- and coal-burning, carriage, seasonal work etc. (Szabó-Földes 1979).
