A Case Study on Trianon

"Mi nem vagyunk se igazi nimetek, se igazi magyarok, mi oriek vagyunk."

(We are neither real Germans nor real Hungarians. We are of the Orseg.)

-A peasant man of Alsoor, Austria.

The extent of ethnic cultural maintenance in lands once part of Hungary is difficult to measure. Official census records by the host countries are unreliable sources for scientific inquiry.¹ The reasons for this are largely political. In the perception of the governments involved, Hungarian revisionist claims to the detached territories continue to kindle ethnic hostility. It is therefore in the interest of the host countries to keep figures on Hungarians as low as possible. One way of underenumerating a given ethnic group is to define nationality in ambiguous terms; another is to place an undesirable ethnic group in a socially or economically disadvantageous position. In the latter case (used both in Czechoslovakia and in Romania) the government hopes that in the succeeding census people will claim to be members of the ruling nationality. The criteria of ethnicity include language usage, self-declaration, residence, or a combination of these. There are serious problems with any such census techniques, even in relatively pluralistic/egalitarian Austria,² let alone such countries as Czechoslovakia and Romania.

The above described situation requires that the quantification of ethnic maintenance be approached with the utmost caution. If we are to gain meaningful results, qualitative approaches, such as in-depth types of community studies, must replace the strictly demographic type of investigation. One such approach is the community-based, participant-observation technique utilized by anthropologists among tribals and peasants. A central focus of cultural anthropological investigations has been the exploration of the "normative picture," the

question of how people view themselves and their ethnic strength. Yet, here too, we must be careful. Some scholars maintain that if people think they are assimilating, their self-perception should be accepted as a rule. In the Hungarian language village, Unterwart (Alsoor), where I conducted fieldwork between 1973 and 1976, 1 found that people exaggerated the degree of their assimilation into Austrian society.³ By exaggerating, they made normative statements of how things ought to be. This, in itself, is very revealing of benign Austrian ethnic policies. However, subsequent investigations indicated that in spite of their self-perception they were far from adopting German culture.

The visibility factor has a powerful influence on self-perception (or self-deception), especially among the rural population, which is, by most signs, rapidly shrinking in East Central Europe. Because the Hungarian element in Burgenland has been traditionally rural, and entire villages of Hungarian origin are disappearing, the conclusion drawn by some observers is that Hungarian ethnicity is in real danger of extinction.⁴ Since at this time reliable scientific evidence on the fate of the Hungarians in Hungary's neighboring nations is totally lacking, attempts to assess their evolution, such as the present one, must be repeated many times before ethnic trends can be properly evaluated.

The decision to award Western Hungary to Austria by the Paris conferees in 1919 was received in Hungary and by the Hungarian negotiators with special dismay. This area of 3,900 square kilometers comprised one of Hungary's most ancient and tenaciously defended regions. It was given to Hungary's most faithful ally, a country, one might say, for which Hungary went to war. No wonder that Hungarians at that time could not reconcile themselves to, nor emotionally or intellectually accept, such a decision. They felt that even the Austrians had betrayed them in their final agony.

Historically, Western Hungary was established as a military border zone during the 10th century by the Arpad Dynasty as a buffer zone against the Holy Roman Empire. It has never been a peaceful land.⁵ During the Middle Ages the region was often occupied by Austrian kings and turned into fiefdoms. Although the 150-year-long Ottoman occupation of Hungary had a lasting effect on the Hungarians of Western Hungary (especially the Ottoman campaigns against Austria in the 1530s), the Bocskay (1604) and Rakoczi (1703-11) Insurrections took an even heavier toll among the

Hungarian ethnic group, which until the 16th century was numerically superior to the others. The ensuing demographic vacuum was filled during the lath century by German and Slavic-speaking groups.

By the middle of the 19th century today's Burgenland was a colorful mosaic of multi-ethnic land with a decisive German demographic superiority. The region was now drawn well into the orbit of Vienna, Lower Austria and Styria. During the 300 years of Habsburg rule in Hungary, the monarchs considered the region to be more German (Austrian) than Hungarian. Cultural, commercial, and social ties were strengthened between individuals and institutions in the border regions, resulting in a high degree of Germanization.

After the establishment of the Dual Monarchy in 1867, the Hungarian government reversed the process of Germanization. Hungary began to reestablish its supremacy by instituting far-reaching politico-administrative and educational measures. Germans and Croatians of Western Hungary offered no resistance to Magyarization. In fact, a strong 'Hungarian vogue" swept through the region. Many Germans and Slavs Magyarized their names, dressed in the Hungarian style, and joined associations for the study of Hungarian culture.

But the above are not the only reasons why Burgenland's ethnographic makeup and its man-made environment still look typically Hungarian, even to Austrian writers. Both its material and non-material culture has drawn heavily upon "inland Hungary." Settlement patterns, dwelling structures, techniques of land cultivation and animal husbandry, costumes, kinship and family structure, folk customs-almost all manifestations of rural life-bear the strong impress of Hungary.⁶ In spite of the fact that Western Hungary was geographically close to technologically more advanced Austria, innovations came from Central Hungary. The fact is most technological innovations arrived decades after they were introduced in Central Transdanubia. Such was the case with the use of the iron plow, the three-field system, special cultigens, and many other agricultural tools and techniques.

Thus, Hungarian cultural influence upon Germans and Slavs was profound prior to 1921. This is partially due to the mediating and organizing roles of the great Hungarian estates, whose owners and managers were predominantly Hungarian. Although Croatian peasant culture underwent a higher degree of assimilation into Hungarian

cultural patterns than did the German, the German "minority" did not lag too far behind in the degree of its adaptation to the Hungarian configuration. Due to a high degree of village propinquity and commercialism, interaction among ethnic groups was intense throughout historical times.

During the past sixty years, earlier ethnic processes were reversed in favor of German influence. The most marked form of change occurred in the region's demographic makeup.⁷ In 1920 Burgenland had a total population of 294,849, of which 221,185 were Germans, 44,753 were Croatians, and 24,867 were Hungarians. In 1971, of the total population of 272,119, there were 241,254 Germans, 24,526 Croatians, and 5,673 Hungarians. Both the absolute and relative losses of the minority ethnic groups were devastating. While in 1920 the Hungarians comprised 9.5 percent of Burgenland's population, in 1971 they comprised a mere 2.8 percent. The Hungarians therefore suffered a 77 percent loss of their ethnic strength. The Croatians had only a 45 percent decline during this time. It is not the purpose of the present essay to investigate the causes of this unparalleled demographic crisis, but these can be generally summed up under the following heading: emigration to the New World, rural-to-urban migration, and assimilation into Austrian society.⁸

The demographic pressure emanating from German numerical superiority ruptured many Hungarian communities in Burgenland. Today there are only four Hungarian communities extant in Burgenland. These are: Alsoor/Unterwart, the "Upper Section" (Felszeg) of Felsoor/Oberwart, Orisziget/Siget in der Wart, and Kozeppulya/Mittelpullendorf. In the present essay the anthropological convention of using the local vernacular name of the village will be followed. Alsoor, Felsoor and Orisziget comprise the Hungarian language island in Southern Burgenland, referred to in Hungarian as the Orseg. Felsopulya is located approximately 45 kilometers from the Orseg, while the villages of the Orseg neighbor one another.

Contouring the right bank of the Pinka creek, Alsoor is one of the earliest settlements in Historical Hungary.⁹ Today it has a population of 845 Hungarian speakers (1973 statistics).¹⁰ Most of the population is bilingual. Seventy-two inhabitants of the village are Gypsies, many of whom are trilingual (Hungarian-German-Romani). Although only 27.7 percent of its people farm, Alsoor is considered an agricultural village by both outsiders and natives. The

rest of the population-28.1 percent "retired peasants," 36.6 percent blue collars and 5.9 percent white collars-are also deeply enmeshed in the network of reciprocal obligations to farming. To be an ugyis alsoori (native of Alsoor) means to be Hungarian, Catholic, and to a varying extent a paraszt (peasant). It is little wonder that the Hungarians of Burgenland are more or less synonymous with "peasant."

Today, peasant life is under heavy attack from many sides; therefore it should not be surprising that young people are trying to escape from their parents' profession (who also urge them to leave) -and logically-from Hungarian ethnicity. However, the cost of escaping one's ethnicity is high. The individual must leave the community altogether, which requires total extrication from a multitude of unpaid obligations, which one or one's ancestors have accumulated. Few people are willing to leave debts behind, and everyone wants to return with honor. Therefore, the village has been holding onto its population fairly successfully, which is borne out by statistical evidence (see footnote 10).

Since the agriculturists comprise the heart of the village, and are under the greatest pressure to change, they deserve our closest attention. The agricultural essence of Alsoor finds best expression in the behavior of the landholding class-an ideologically homogeneous but economically heterogeneous core group of villagers. Conservative in economic and political matters and forming a single political party, these peasants are least susceptible to the many subtle forces of urbanization and Germanization. They control political decision-making by dominating the village government; they set and maintain rules of social behavior, adhere most closely to linguistic and religious standards, and keep a highly visible profile in the daily life of the village. Three strata of this class may be distinguished: rich peasant, middle peasant, and small peasant.¹¹ The first two strata comprise the alapvagyonos, or "people with basic property," and the third make up the szegeny paraszt, or poor peasant stratum. All practice intensive agriculture, fatten cattle and pigs for the market, and sell milk and grain. In a narrower, more technical sense, agriculturists in Alsoor may be termed farmers, but because of their strong community orientation and traditionalism, the more appropriate anthropological term used for such producers is 'peasants' (see Wolf, 1966).

The survival of an ethnic minority is predicated upon many

conditions, some of which are "given" by the major culture, while others must be generated by the group from within. Favorable given conditions are seldom adequate for ethnic maintenance. If it is to survive, the minority group must cultivate a psycho-social feeling of "we" as opposed to "them." The case of the Hungarians in Burgenland demonstrates that this opposition does not necessarily rest on antagonism or inter-ethnic tension. However, it does mobilize forces and mechanisms which have evolved during the Middle Ages within the ethnic group itself and through contact with others. Many of these practices are symbolic in nature, but symbols often have greater importance for group identity than, say, forms of violence. When symbolic identification is coupled with practical actions for group cohesion, ethnic boundary maintenance is most likely ensured. The following segment will examine four such mechanisms. These are highly interrelated practices, some having greater symbolic than practical values.

For the natives of Alsoor these "mechanisms" are taken for granted; they are integral parts of daily life in the village, and their mere listing, let along separation, would no doubt sound peculiar to the natives.

Family and kin. The primary social institution in Alsoor (as in the other Hungarian villages) has remained intact throughout the past few turbulent decades of European social change. It is based on the patrilocal residential rule of marriage, which requires the wife to move to the house of the husband's parents. Until a few years ago a strong stigma was attached to husbands who moved to their bride's home of birth. The head of the family is the most productive male, who nowadays shares many of his previous decision-making powers with his wife. Most husbands are still the primary wage-earners. Twenty percent of the families are "extended" or "joint" families (with more than one nuclear family living together), where decision-making is even more diffuse than in the single nuclear families, due primarily to diverse sources of income. The average family consists of 4.7 individuals, a sharp decrease since the 1920's when it was 6.3.

The hold of the domestic unit upon the individual is profound. In everyday life and throughout the entire life cycle the family sets the limits of one's social actions. Mate selection, the choosing of fictive kin (komasag or god-parentage), friends, social, economic and political alliances, are chosen with one's family traditions in mind. Even in families where the family is not a unit of production, members

spend as much time together as possible. For example, men working in neighboring towns a few kilometers away often eat lunch at home and commuting workers to Vienna return every weekend.

Family obligations are numerous, ranging from agricultural tasks, in which white collar members also participate, to repaying a debt of building someone's house. One of the fundamental matters that must be solved with final family approval (in some cases with action initiated by the family) is mate selection. One's choice of mate is vigorously debated by all members of one's family and kin, long before relationships get "serious enough." The vast majority of parents prefer their children to marry within the Hungarian ethnic group. For today's East Central European standards, a remarkably high degree of village endogamy is practiced in Alsoor. Approximately half the marriages are contracted within the village, and more than two thirds are ethno-endogamous. Almost all ethno-exogamous marriages are contracted by village women. Such women usually move out of Alsoor. "Foreigners" moving into the village by marriage quickly learn Hungarian and assimilate into the culture of the Orseg. Austro-Germans or Croatian brides and grooms must learn Hungarian or face social isolation and a good measure of ostracism.

Some families consider ethno-exogamous or village-exogamous marriages desirable for their children: "We have been marrying within the village for much too long. We must refresh our blood." Austro-Germans are more desirable as mates than Croatians because they are perceived as wealthier and more modern, and therefore more capable of raising the economic standard of the family. Since girls are increasingly attracted to non-peasant life styles, their preference for non-peasant foreigners is especially noteworthy. Such a person is free of the many long-accumulated obligations which are characteristic of a young adult of Alsoor. One significant condition of this outward-orientation is education. There is a direct correlation between education and exogamy. The better educated or skilled a person is, the greater the likelihood of his marrying out of the village and his ethnicity.

Although intergenerational differences have increased substantially in the past sixty years, respect for elders is still strong. This is another insurance against breaking ethnic boundaries. As one of my informants put it: "My wish for a Hungarian son-in-law is respected by my daughter." At the same time, this father admitted that a

German son-in-law would not be rejected. He added: "If she insists on marrying a vidiki (foreigner) so be it. But I know her. She will think about us when choosing a mate."

In addition to family-centrism, village norms dictate adherence to kinship rules, forms of address, and inheritance practices. The Hungarian kinship system is termed bilateral or cognatic, which means that approximately equal importance is attributed to one's mother's and father's relatives in both reckoning kin and in one's obligations toward them. Although the "inland" Hungarian pattern has a slight (and at times strong) patrilineal bias, the bilateral pattern of the Orseg is strictly adhered to. When inquiring about someone's descent, both mother's and father's family trees are traced, and even specific houses in which ancestors were born are identified. In sharp contrast to the pattern of the Orseg, the German and the Slavic models used by neighboring villagers are patrilineal. This means that the role of one's agnates (male relatives in the male line) is paramount in agricultural and social cooperation. The Hungarian model, in which one may rely on relatives on either side of the family, allows for greater flexibility and facilitates a higher degree of cooperation as well as indebtedness.

Relationships within the family are warm and intimate. The closest and most affectionate ties can be found among mothers and daughters, followed by grandparent-grandchild relationships. Since fathers are expected to be strict disciplinarians, they must project a stern and outwardly less emotional attitude toward their children. Affection between father and child is restricted to infancy and special occasions, such as confirmation, engagement and wedding.

Warm relationships between grandparents and grandchildren extend beyond the marriage of grandchildren. If they live apart from one another, the grandchildren visit grandparents at least every other day. Grandparents and parents reciprocate by "helping out" (kisegitis) with infants, cooking and agricultural tasks. Naturally, the more urbanized, or less agricultural a family is, the less cooperation is needed with the elderly, and the more ritualistic the inter-familial relationships become. Although intergenerational cooperation and interdependence have diminished drastically in the past sixty years, young people do not weaken their ties with their elders. On the contrary, non-economic intergenerational relationships are much more intimate than half a century ago. Freer from work than before, the elderly spend many hours around their children and

grandchildren, recounting and thereby transmitting their experiences to eager listeners. Most young people can give colorful descriptions of old customs, agricultural practices, names of objects and places.¹²

Rules of land tenure and inheritance. Ethnic erosion in the peripheral regions of historical Hungary (and sometimes in Central Hungary) was almost always accompanied by the alienation of arable land. This has been the case in Transylvania and in Southern and Northern Hungary, where ethnically homogeneous Hungarian villages were gradually mixed with Romanians, Serbs, Germans and Slovaks. At times, large demographic vacuums were left as a result of prolonged warfare. Such was the case following the Ottoman Turkish occupation of Central Hungary (1526-1686). The Habsburg rulers were quick to settle foreigners in these depopulated areas. Large numbers of Germans, Slavs and Romanians wedged themselves within the Hungarian population. This process has not stopped today in the areas once part of Hungary.

The process by which a village becomes, let us say, Romanian, is through the alienation of arable land. Interestingly, this process has seldom been violent. Characteristically a certain ethnic group "invites" members of another into a community, usually for a given economic advantage such as labor opportunities, cash, or other valuables. Thus, even when land is not donated outright by a monarch or a landlord, a village community can easily justify the presence of a strange ethnic group. Newcomers may also find entrance to a village through marriage, or by taking over a given trade or skill. The latter was in fact the case of Felsoor, where the entire central section of the town was settled by German merchants, specialists, and government officials. The number of Germans in Felsoor grew dramatically during the past sixty years. Hungarians today comprise barely more than one fourth of the town (a complete reversal of the demographic distribution of sixty years ago).

Until the latter part of the 19th century, Western Hungarian communities practiced three forms of land tenure. The township was divided into three sections. The first was owned by the village and referred to as the "commons," the second by the descendants of the original settlers, and called "arrow lands" (named after the method of "drawing arrows" for rotating plots), and the third was owned privately by individuals. Until the middle of the 19th century no more than one-third of the township's land was privately owned. Private plots were tiny, often too small to turn around in with a

harrow, and such family estates were not valuable enough to attract outsiders.¹³ By the end of the 19th century the commons were reduced by two-thirds and the arrow lands were distributed for private ownership. These lands were now subject to trading and selling, frequently to outsiders. Most of the buyers were from the neighboring Hungarian villages. They tended to be the highest bidders, since they wanted to achieve contiguity in their land holdings. The threat of foreign buyers was further minimized by the continuing practice of the Hungarian inheritance system. This practice is termed partible ideology, which assumes that all children receive equal portions of the family property regardless of age, sex and order of birth. As far as it can be ascertained from the rather poorly documented cases of the past, and from the memory culture of the elderly, unequal inheritance, such as primogeniture or ultimogeniture, was not and is not in practice in the Orseg.¹⁴

While it is true that a strict adherence to both forms of inheritance practices, partible and impartible, will help maintain ethnic boundaries, by keeping the land within the ownership of the residents and by making it possible to pass it down to consanguineal (blood) kin successors; nonetheless, impartible inheritance, such as primogeniture, expels the nonrecipient from successful agricultural competition and denies him an opportunity to form a family within the village. When land and job opportunities are scarce, heirs not receiving a share in the family's property must leave the village. For an ethnic island such as the Orseg, impartible inheritance would have accelerated assimilation into the major culture.

Within partible ideology the recipients of the divided estates face a set of conditions which are in sharp contrast to the conditions of the undivided inheritance system. Heirs receive only a portion of their elder's estate, which as in the case of Alsoor, is too small to operate successfully. They know that a land share under a certain size and soil quality is not viable as an independent farm operation. The minimum land size for unsupported subsistence operations prior to World War II was 5 holds (1 hold = 1.4 acres), and today a viable estate must exceed 10 holds. Yesterday's rich peasant is the middle-to-poor-peasant of today, and poor peasants have gone into other professions.

The natural process of estate fragmentation following the inheritance is thus a potential threat to economic equilibrium. Inheritors who once lived under the roof of a farm house that was in

full operation are faced with the prospect of total or partial in-operability. If the elders' property was large enough or the number of heirs few enough to safeguard viability (as in the case of most rich peasants), the new owner's estate and his socioeconomic position within the village could have remained the same as those of his elders. If, however, the holding of the elders was small to begin with, as was frequent among small and medium peasants, or the number of heirs greater than the rules of viability would demand, the heirs were faced with important decisions. They had to either convert their inherited shares to other forms of wealth (i.e., house, forest, money) and seek employment outside, or look for marriage partners whose inheritance complemented theirs and thereby formed a viable holding. Theoretically, succeeding generations in this process could slide downward on the social ladder, but due to the highly disparate number of inheritors (or family size), it was always possible to keep the standing of one's family of origin by marrying a person with the "right amount of land." It was-and still is-possible for one to marry up, thereby gaining more land than he brought into the marriage. Many conditions influenced the chances of upward mobility, such as the prestige of the family, the reputation of the individual, his diligence and shrewdness, and the potential network of consanguineal, affinal and neighborhood allies he could utilize for running a farm operation. It is true that peasant social structure in the past was rigid and the above justifications had to be made quite clear to both parties before someone moved up on the social scale, but in the cases investigated, a large percentage of marriages combined estates of unequal wealth. On the basis of the testimony of the elderly and the cadastral records, it appears that the ideal was always to match marriage partners according to their inherited wealth. Today this consideration is largely ignored because agriculturists are desperate for brides.

At present approximately half the marriages are exogamous. By far the overwhelming majority of exogamous marriages are contracted by workers, peasant-workers and members of the white collar class. Peasants, for the reasons mentioned below, would rather marry their children down than out to Austrian or Croatian villages.

Land tenure in Alsoor can be likened to the movement of an accordion. Successive generations disperse holdings through inheritance and consolidate them through marriage. The longevity of fragmented land tenure in a single generation varies considerably.

Since land division occurs after the reading of the will, already-married children who have invested labor in their parents estate abruptly become independent. The choice is theirs to make whether to continue farming by setting up an independent operation or remaining at home with the elders. This will largely depend on the size of their share. Parents prefer to keep a son at home to care for them. A daughter-in-law obeys (szuofogad) better than a son-in-law who may be more disagreeable because of his highly disadvantageous position in the matrilocal marriage. In the Orseg matrilocal marriage was referred to as firhomenis, and it carried a stigma similar to those in other regions of Transdunabia. The firhoment male had difficulties with his wife's agnates, neighbors, and the traditional allies of the farmstead of his wife's family. This situation changed significantly after the 1950's, because fewer men are now willing to be farmers.

In 1973 the largest category of viable landholdings was that of middle peasant. This group is significant not just as a statistical category. It is made up of the most conscientious, vocal and active farmers, and has the most successful operations in terms of energy investment and returns. The average middle peasant family has 2.2 children, which for purposes of land division means an almost even split of the estate. Thus, a 20-hold-estate would split into two estates of 10 holds each after inheritance. With 10 holds, the heirs can declare independence and attempt to manage the new holding. Until the 1950's there was strong competition among siblings for the farm-stead which also included a somewhat larger share of the arable land, received in return for supporting the elders. (For practical purposes, the concept of lateral partible ideology remained only an ideal.) In Alsoor parents were supported by their favorite child. The other heir then tried his luck in accordance with the spirit and rules of capitalistic competition, which required the pursuit of two distinct but interrelated goals. His first goal was to increase his landholding by the aforementioned process of endogamous marriage, and the second was to maneuver carefully for land consolidation. Thus, an attempt was made not only to expand holdings but also to create estate contiguity. The cultivation of widely scattered fields has been costly especially since the sudden rise of fuel costs in 1974. The best time for the consolidation of the estate is when husband and wife combine their inheritance. This intricate mission of diplomacy requires locating and convincing one's field-neighbors to trade, sell or rent

their plots. All strata are equally affected by the problems of the scattered field system; they, too, need consolidation. Marrying out of the village effectively puts a stop to such a mission. People are not sympathetic to the cause of field consolidation when it is needed for a mixed marriage. "Hungarian hospitality" has its limits.

Middle and poor peasants naturally need additional land after division more than rich agriculturists do. Therefore, the smaller the land holding, the greater the need for marrying within the village. This rule, of course, loses its operational value with the bottom strata of landholders, or with families with too many children.

A new goal of the not-yet-competitive heir is to mechanize his farmstead. Two alternatives are available in this area. One is to seek outside employment and leave the wife in charge of the farm. The other-less workable for Hungarians in Austria-is to marry someone from the outside possessing cash inheritance. In the latter case, which similar to that of rich peasants (see below), the problem of the vidiki (foreign) wife may present some obstacles in the smooth operation of the farm. Therefore, the most reasonable and widely practiced route taken by peasants wishing to be competitive will again be village endogamy. It is from the middle peasant stratum that worker-peasants emerge. They now comprise a sizable portion of Alsoor's agricultural class.

A Case Study on Trianon