Mária-Erzsébet Berekméri

Province and Rural Development

The paper wishes to present a few elements of the Romanian rural settlements network and to sketch the geographic spread of the various village types. We would like also to talk in brief about the dysfunctions, weaknesses of the Romanian rural area and some features which promote development, and how can this elements influence the evolution of rural space. 

Zsombor Csata

Differences of the Business potential in Transylvanian Regions

The study is dealing with the regional disparities of entrepreneurial activity in rural regions of Transylvania. First it presents the regional distribution of firms registered after 1990 then sketches its possible socio-historical explanations. Following this, several conclusions are drawn about the relationship between regional density of ventures and the value orientation-patterns of local population.

József Gagyi

Changes in the Structure of Society and in Lifestyle in the Village of Csíkfalva (1945-1989)

In my essay I seek the answer how economy and society villages Csíkfalva (Vărgata, Mureş County) changed between 1945 and 1989. I’m analyzing how the structure of local society transformed, how the lifestyle changed.

The Agricultural Cooperative which was formed in 1950, was really working in the early 60’s and 70’s  as a modernization center, ensuring a remarkable income for the villagers. In the 80’s the Agricultural Cooperative was still alive, but at this time the practice of stealing was widely spread. This can be considered as a demodernization. In 1991 the Agricultural Cooperation ceased.

Trough 40 years the active population has decreased to its 1/3. A new phenomenon is that a new pensioner layer has formed. More than the half of the active population is working in the industry, the percentage of those who work in the agriculture is less than 20%.

Márton Kemény

Amongst Global Trends and Local Norms

The Significance of Social Continuity in a Hungarian Village Nowadays

The article presents on the example of Som-lóvásárhely, a village situated in Western Hungary, in what way the traditional local norms as well as the macro-economic ideologies of today’s ‘great transformation’ have influenced the strategies of various social strata. Both the village and the surrounding wine-growing micro-region have been for quite some time strongly polarised in social and economic terms as well. Yet, whereas the social relations are from several aspects continuous, the structure of economy is more considerably under transformation. Some families have managed to preserve their economic strength, favourable position, entrepreneurial skills and integrative role for centuries, meanwhile a considerable part of the population has preserved their strategy of having part-time jobs and mixing peasant, industrial worker and entrepreneurial patterns. The members of the former group conform to the ‘not culturally bound’, global values of the progressive entrepreneur, the latter to the worldwide trend of pluriactivité. On the other hand, the several century-long dual economic system based on the small and large-scale economic units has begun to disintegrate owing to scale economies. Because of the opening of price scissors, the cheap mass products and the laws promoting large-scale entrepreneurial activity, the self-sufficing farming, part-time peasant household agricultural production and wine-growing have begun to come to a halt. The agriculture and the traditional network of relations both in the ‘first’ as well as in the ‘second’ economy have increasingly been relegated into the background.

Sándor Oláh

Rural Entrepreneurs

The author has interviewed 25 different rural entrepreneurs in 16 villages, who had started their business after 1990. Based on his findings, he discusses the interrelationship of the ventures and their social and economic enviroment. He determines the defining role of cultural particularities in the process of gaining (material) independence. The majority of smaller businesses appeared in those  places where, in their past, local inhabitants were not tightly connected to agricultural production as a means of making a living. In these places, the aspiration towards economical independence has been a tradition on both familial and settlement levels.

In the initial stages of their development, the majority of these ventures relied primarly on resources available through familial and social connections.

Each business built itself up through the constant reinvestment of its profit.

During this process, the life-style (working time, types of relationships, division of labor inside the family) of each entrepreneur suffered changes.

Most of these rural businessmen affected the local and regional markets, by dividing the market among themselves. Some of them are present on the national market as well, where they are faced with the competitive disadvantage posed against them by the global market.

Rural businesses are fragile, their economic equilibrium uncertain. Due to lack of funds, low level of technology and poor force of labor, they can never grow into larger ventures.