Changed life worlds and survival strategies in disintegration after the regime change in Hungary: a former industrial town in the shadow of the factory giant

ABSTRACT

In the literature of post-1989 Eastern European history, the disintegration of traditional industries and the decline of the factory towns that had been based on them is a well-known topic. Less attention has been paid to the transformation of the countryside or the villages that often served as the supportive network for the factory towns, a phenomenon that was also very typical of Hungary, where migrant or commuter workers became the subject of academic interest long before the collapse of state socialism. This study offers an international perspective and case study of the catchment area of Ózd, a former industrial and factory city located in northeastern Hungary that was once an important centre of Hungarian metallurgy and mining. In my analysis I address the related topic of how the decline of traditional industries affected this former industrial city and its surrounding villages, whose inhabitants mostly worked in industry until the industrial landscape and its society disappeared. This study focuses on Ózd and its surroundings, where the survival and sustenance of the population was directly threatened by the closure of collective farms, factories, plants and mines in the area.

KEYWORDS:

• Social history
• Hungary
• mining
• social stratification
• post-industrialization
• life strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. János Kádár (1912–1989) was a Hungarian Communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. He came into power in 1956 and remained in office until 1988. His leadership is commonly referred to as the “Kádár era.”

2. The fall of “Italy’s Stalingrad:” symbol of left wages war on migrants and poor. The Guardian Online. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/22/fall-italy-stalingrad-sesto-san-giovanni-milan-symbol-of-the-left-wages-war-on-migrants-and-the-poor. Accessed: 12 February 2023.

3. Il polline e la ruggine. Memoria, lavoro, deindustrializzazione a Sesto San Giovanni (1985–2015). Directed by Riccardo Apuzzo. Associazione AVoce – Polo di Sesto San Giovanni, Fondazione Isec – Istituto per la storia dell’età contemporanea, 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcF1GY0DBlY&t=44s. Accessed: 12 February 2023.

4. In Poland, for example, this can be linked to the name of Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz (1989–1991, 1997–2000), whose political draft during the regime change called for the acceleration of complementary and reinforcing reforms, even before public dissatisfaction began to curb them. Despite economic stabilization, the social costs of the reform and unemployment data were high (Baczyński 2020).

5. Data from “Ózdinvest” Municipal Asset Management and Investment Management Ltd (Ózd).

6. History of the village of Farkaslyuk and its municipality. Accessed February 11, 2023. http://www.farkaslyuk.hu/hu/tortenet.php.

7. Data from Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

8. One of Eszter Bartha’s case studies – conducted via worker interviews – at the Rába Factory in Győr examined, among other things, the role of the plant in the daily life of the employees (Bartha 2011).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the HUN-REN BTK Lendület “Momentum” Work Research Group.

Notes on contributors

Péter Alabán

Péter Alabán is a historian and the director of Gabor Aron Technical and Vocational Training School (Training Center of Ózd), Hungary. His monograph, entitled “A factory town that belongs to the past... Social changes in Ózd and its surroundings from the regime change until town” (2020) places and analyses within a local context the processes of disintegration that have accompanied the collapse of socialist industry. As a member of the HUN-REN BTK WROK-Momentum Research Group, his current research focuses on the social history of postindustrialisation in Hungary.