Rural history in Hungary

David,

Good to hear from you! I live in Kecskemét, and have researched some aspects of Hungarian rural history, with the help of relatives and students. In particular, we did an oral history project in Apostag, a village in Bács-Kiskun on the eastern bank of the Danube which had its entire Jewish population of sixty families deported in the Spring of 1944. It's called 'As The Land Remembers Them' and is available on www.chandlerozconsultants.wordpress.com.

Sincerely,

Andrew

So many different ways to try and even give you a tiny answer.
I really do not know much, my son is into Hungarian history and wants to learn more about the pagan past of HUngary. He loves all the old tales of Magyar battles, it's hero's and villains.
For him it is a passion because the family on his father's side can trace back their roots to the time before St. Stephen.
Our family surname and relations are recorded in some detail in the National Archives.
My husband started to do serious research in the library located there but gave up, lazy I suppose.'For him it is funny in some ways, his family was in the so called"Noble" class way back, he only went as far as the 1500's and gave up. One relation was the Viceroy of Hungary and several were Royal doctors or tax collectors. Very well known in church affairs and were often asked by high up's in the church to do favors as the family held some degree of power in the day. Now no one even walks into a church in the family, times have changed!
Funny because the family lost everything and my husband was just a simple factory worker in Hungary before he escaped in the early 1970's, the mighty fell down more then a few pegs!!
I know from the little I understood from my MIL that many of the rural areas in Hungary are still a bit stuck in old ways, before a marriage a female member on the males side would move in with the future DIL and screen the family, the wedding was helped up waiting on the older aunt or cousins approval of the future bride and her family. Might still be the same way, I know my 80 year old MIL went insane when my son was going to marry a HU lady who she didn't think was good enough for the family, She cried and begged us to stop the marriage, we should of listened to her, she proved to be correct in seeing the down side of his future bride and her family.
My MIL would go crazy if I hung up laundry outside on a Sunday, even though she only went to Church on rare occasions herself. People still care about keeping up a good front for the neighbors.
Everyone in small villages talks about the neighbors who have a messy yard, rude children or don't take good care of their animals, gossips everywhere.
I figure it is pretty much the same in any old world country where people have lived in the same region for generations, one black sheep in the family and everyone thinks the whole family is up to no good.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

..... his family was in the so called"Noble" class way back, he only went as far as the 1500's and gave up. One relation was the Viceroy of Hungary and several were Royal doctors or tax collectors. Very well known in church affairs and were often asked by high up's in the church to do favors as the family held some degree of power in the day.......

Mrs Fluffy has this "noble" thing as well and she used to hold meetings for the "noble" family to get to know the relatives. Eventually she gave up because it didn't really do anything and took too much time up.  She did manage to track down a range of people who were linked into it, including some in Slovakia (most of whom could hardly speak Hungarian). One of them I think was an actor in the movies. Don't know which ones.  Being "noble" has never brought any benefits whatsoever as far as I can see.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My MIL would go crazy if I hung up laundry outside on a Sunday, even though she only went to Church on rare occasions herself. People still care about keeping up a good front for the neighbors.....

We used to get this kind of stuff when we lived in Austria. I can imagine it goes on in the countryside as well in HU. In Austria I felt socially pressured not to get out my power drill on Sunday or even mow the grass. They didn't want me to "disturb the neighbourhood" on the day of rest.  I felt unrepresented and disenfranchised in that kind of religious environment as I don't believe in any of that stuff.  Bit the same as HU with it's religiously oriented Sunday closing (where are the non-religious/atheists/agnostics/humanists represented in that little scheme?). 

Interestingly the Turkish community in Austria (and there are lots of them - my village was 30% Turkish) felt no such qualms about banging stuff around on Sunday. I saw them working relentlessly on their own personal house construction on many a Sunday including using noisy power tools, concrete mixers, chain saws etc.  I doubt anyone would have tried to take the Turkish folks over their activites.

davidpearce wrote:

Is there such a thing as a social and economic history of Hungary, or is it that they just aren't translated into english?

My wife, who also likes these topics, says there is a lot in Hungarian, but not much in English.

fluffy2560 wrote:

We used to get this kind of stuff when we lived in Austria. I can imagine it goes on in the countryside as well in HU. In Austria I felt socially pressured not to get out my power drill on Sunday or even mow the grass.

Loud brush cutters and power sprayers are used all weekend where I live in rural Hungary, including on Sunday. Often hear power tools being used by neighbors.

In fact, Sunday is often the busiest day now for such tools to run; after all nobody is off doing much shopping anymore on that day.

This time of year, in the vineyards, are the constant Beep!Beep!Beep! of noise devices designed to "scare birds away" from the grapes (for those too lazy to put up netting which is the most effective method to reduce bird damage to grapes). And for two years now, also have a propane cannon firing now for months in the late summer, every day, all day long, in a local orchard. Kaaaaa-BOOOOOM!

http://stcoemgen.com/2013/09/21/beep-beep-beep-boom/

Seems someone is always doing some sort of repair around this old house too.
New neighbors moved in upstairs from us in June.
HATE them, nothing but pounding, drilling or scrapping sounds every day from 6:45 am to nearly 7 pm! They stripped the whole apt. down and moved the kitchen and bath areas, turned a small 50 sq. meter flat into a 2 bd, have no idea what it looks like, judging from what an idiot the one young man is, I doubt they have any taste.
Still at it, 10 pm and a few hammer blows here and there.The main construction took over 5 months, everyday!!! Everyone in the house was guessing what was taking so long since the flat is not very large.
I am waiting for the sewer line to break over my head, don't trust the looks of anyone I've seen working up there.
Everyone is the house hates, them even the party animals Gypsy family living next door to them had guests that went over and told them to stop it.I even lost my stuff one day and screamed to shut it up for a bit.
Another good reason to sell out and move on.

László Kontler's 2009 'History of Hungary', is a broad up-to-date general history, written in English by the author, with good sections on social-economic background and a useful bibliography.