Discussion Papers 2007. No. 57.
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia
CENTRE FOR REGIONAL STUDIES
OF HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
DISCUSSION PAPERS
No. 57
Local System and Spatial Change
– The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia
by
Marie-Claude MAUREL – Péter PÓLA
Series editor
Zoltán GÁL
Pécs
2007
1
Discussion Papers 2007. No. 57.
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia
Authors:
Marie-Claude MAUREL, director, French Research Center for Social Sciences
(CEFRES), Prague
Péter PÓLA, research fellow, Centre for Regional Studies of the HAS, Pécs
ISSN 0238–2008
ISBN 978–963–9052–75–8
2007 by Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Technical editor: Ilona Csapó.
Printed in Hungary by Sümegi Nyomdaipari, Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Ltd., Pécs.
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Discussion Papers 2007. No. 57.
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia
CONTENTS
1 Introduction: change issues .......................................................................................... 5
2 Bóly at the dawning of a systemic change.................................................................... 8
2.1 A socio-spatial system representative of the collectivised countryside ................ 8
2.2 Post-war shocks and the shift to collectivisation .................................................. 9
2.2.1 Disappearance of the peasantry ................................................................. 9
2.2.2 From noble estates to state property ........................................................ 10
3 Initial changes after 1989 ........................................................................................... 11
3.1 New municipal management .............................................................................. 12
3.2 Minimal decollectivisation ................................................................................. 14
3.2.1 Re-appropriation of land ......................................................................... 14
3.2.2 A neo-collective farm .............................................................................. 15
3.2.3 Continuance of the agricultural kombinat ............................................... 16
4 New economic and social trends as globalisation looms ............................................ 17
4.1 Privatisation of the kombinat .............................................................................. 17
4.2 Survival of the reformed cooperative ................................................................. 18
4.3 Industrial developments by foreign investors ..................................................... 19
4.4 Rebirth of the vineyards ..................................................................................... 20
4.5 Enterprising local self-government ..................................................................... 21
5 A new spatial system .................................................................................................. 23
5.1 Bóly’s confirmation as microregional growth centre ......................................... 23
5.2 New structuring of local relations via joint projects ........................................... 27
5.3 Resilience of large-scale farming ....................................................................... 31
5.4 A complex local system ...................................................................................... 32
6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 33
References ........................................................................................................................ 34
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Discussion Papers 2007. No. 57.
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia
List of figures
Figure 1 Bóly in Baranya County .................................................................................... 7
Figure 2 Population increase in the Mohács micro-region ............................................ 24
Figure 3 Migration rate in the Mohács micro-region .................................................... 25
Figure 4 Number of businesses per 1000 inhabitants .................................................... 26
Figure 5 Proportion of the German minority in the Mohács micro-region .................... 28
Figure 6 Average income per perseon in the Mohács micro-region .............................. 30
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
1 Introduction: change issues
Along with the political, economic and social transition, spatial differentiation
processes that are spreading out in Central Europe raise the issue of spatial
change’s own timetable. Urban polarization process, reactivation of the East-West
asymmetry, industrial restructuring and economic depression of rural peripheries,
are all parts of a new spatial differentiation process (Hajdú, 1999).1 Since the
beginning of the 1990s, rural areas have experienced massive scale transformation
(Gorzelak, 1998). What are the forces at play in the differentiation process and
what are the territorial reshaping patterns? Our research project intends to look at
the ongoing spatial reorganization in rural areas in three Central European coun-
tries, Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland (Maurel, 1998, 2000).2
Research began in the early 1990s, based on regularly repeated observation
since that date of transformations occurring in selected local communities. Field
work studies were designed for data collection. Case studies were selected in or-
der to give an overlook of the structural diversity (cooperatives and state farms).
Each observation place was studied in a monograph according to the same meth-
odology (interview guidelines and survey questionnaires) in a comparative ap-
proach (Maurel, 1994). Set in their geographical context, these monographs ex-
amined both the effects due to a place’s integration in a specific national system
and the effects proper to that place (given his social history).
The first surveys were carried out in State farms or agricultural cooperatives,
involving areas of several thousand hectares and populations in the hundreds.
This scale was justified at the time by the strong social integration taken to exist
in the basic framework of agrarian collectivism. During the crucial years of land
and assets restructuring, the selected observation areas were monitored for their
procedures of structural transformation (Maurel, 1992, 1994).3 As the changes
occurred and field surveys were repeated, the choice of the State farm or the col-
lective farm as spatial framework became less meaningful. At the same time, de-
cision-making power was passing from the headquarters of the former collective
farms to the offices of the newly elected municipalities. The relevant observation
1 HAJDÚ, Z. (ed.) 1999: Regional Processes and Spatial Structures in Hungary in the 1990’s. Pécs,
Centre for Regional Studies.
2 MAUREL, M.-C. 1998: Decollectivization Paths in Central Europe. Towards Which New
Models? – Eastern European Countryside. 4. 19–36.
MAUREL, M.-C. 2000: Patterns of Post-Socialist Transformation in the Rural Areas of Central
Europe. In HORVÁTH, GY. (ed): Regions and Cities in the Global World. Essays in Honour of
György Enyedi. Pécs, Centre for Regional Studies. 141–158. p.
3 MAUREL, M.-C. (dir.) 1992: Les décollectivisations en Europe centrale, tome I. Autopsie d’un
mode de production. – Espace rural. 30. 270 p.
MAUREL, M.-C. (dir.) 1994: Les décollectivisations en Europe centrale, tome II. Itinéraires de
privatisation. – Espace rural. 33. 190 p.
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
unit was changing. On the one hand, the land controlled by the state or collective
farms was being divided among enterprises of varying size and type. On the other
hand, the common people’s councils uniting several villages inherited from the
communist era were being split up in Hungary (especially in the South Transda-
nubian region), where each village wanted to become independent with it’s own
local self-government (Pfeil, 1999).4 From this point on, our empirical research
focused on the new structuring of the local scene by relatively autonomous actors
(local political elites, new entrepreneurs, associations, NGO’s, etc.) (Kovách,
1998, 2002).5 Within fifteen years or so, the reference areas changed. Freed from
a bureaucratic administration, local communities are resetting their everyday
framework of life. It is the main fundamental result of the institutional change
brought about by decentralisation.
Empirical data which had been regularly collected from fieldwork are used to
assess social and economic changes and to analyse how the spatial forms that
shape rural areas are being reworked. These changes occurred in two main steps:
dismantling of state and collective structures, and diversification of economic
functions and social uses of rural areas. By observing the Post-Socialist transfor-
mation at the local level, the study intends to establish a comprehensive under-
standing of the territorial trajectories.
To describe functional reshaping, we use a method trying to identify the poten-
tial for change, local development strategies, and types of economic diversifica-
tion. Various reshaping pathways may be distinguished according to the type of
socio-demographic trend (from growth to decrease) and the degree of specializa-
tion or diversification of functions and uses. Some rural areas are moving along a
path of integration into the Global World, while others are sliding into socio-
economic decay and marginalization. The first type of trajectory concerns eco-
nomically active, restructuring areas that develop new specializations and host
new inhabitants (tourism, leisure, residential). These areas are strongly integrated
into society as a whole (both national and European). The small Hungarian town
of Bóly illustrates this first type.6 As agriculture consolidated, economic activity
4 PFEIL, E. 1999: Co-operation among local governments as the foundation for regional subdivision.
In HAJDÚ, Z. (ed.): Regional Processes and Spatial Structures in Hungary in the 1990’s. Pécs,
Centre for Regional Studies, 1999. 77–98. p.
5 KOVÁCH, I. – GRANBERG, L. (eds.) 1998: Actors on the changing European Countryside.
Budapest, Institute for Political Science.
KOVÁCH, I. 2002: Leadership, Local Power and Rural Restructuring in Hungary. In HALFACREE,
K. – KOVÁCH, I. – WOODWARD R. (eds): Leadership and Local Power in European Rural
Development. Aldersot, Ashgate. 91–144. p.
6 The main results of our research project were presented in MAUREL M.-C. 2006: The Resetting of
Rural Areas in Post-Communist Central Europe. Pécsi Politikai Tanulmányok III. Pécs, Pécsi
Tudományegyetem. 191–204. p.
The field research in Bóly had extended on seven expeditions: in 1991, 1993, 1995, 2002, 2003,
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
was extensively diversified into industry and tourism based on the local vineyards
and countryside. This growth trend corresponds to the local development strategy
started off by the new mayor in 1990. In a town with a population of German-
speaking Swabians (Donauschwaben) and Hungarians, he sought to overcome the
divisions between the two communities by making use of local entrepreneurship
and attracting foreign investors (especially from Germany). More recently, he has
begun to take advantage of the local heritage of landscapes and culture by apply-
ing for funds from the European pre-accession programs. The Mohács–Bóly
White Wine Route, created in 2000, contributes to the development of tourism.
(See figure 1).
Figure 1
Bóly in Baranya County
Edited by J.-C. Raynal (EHESS).
2005, 2006. The first two were conduced with the help of Katalin Kovács, the third with the help
of Dezsı Kovács. The four last expeditions were carried out in close cooperation with Péter Póla.
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
2 Bóly at the dawning of a systemic change
2.1 A socio-spatial system representative of the collectivised countryside
The village of Bóly clusters just off the road between the county seat Pécs and the
town of Mohács on the Danube. The extensive farmland abruptly gives way to the
village buildings. Its houses line the roads that form its structure around the leafy
grounds of the former stately home of the Batthyány-Montenuovo family opposite
the Baroque Catholic church completed in 1746. The well-kept fronts of the 19th-
century Swabian (German settler) houses open directly onto the roadway behind
the rainwater gutters. The wealth of the Swabian community that lived in (né-
met)Bóly (German Bóly) before the Second World War still shows in the archi-
tectural style, the ochre facades, stucco bordered windows and wide gateways
onto inner courtyards (Kovács, 1990). The dilapidated state of most of the build-
ings adds to the nostalgic charm of the settlement centre, troubled only by a few
pedestrians and cyclists. Once the shops and offices shut in the early afternoon,
the village slips into a torpor that it does not leave until the following morning.
On the road to Villány a two-storey modern office block houses the headquarters
of Bóly’s large agro-industrial kombinat, which owns over 20,000 hectares and
controls production units up to 70 km away. Next door, the head office of the
farm cooperative in an old peasant’s house is more modest. On the edge of the
village centre, new housing estates have sprung up, evidence of the relative im-
provement in the town’s living standards. The plots around these new detached
houses look like gardens (hobbykert). In the older sections of the built-up area
(intravilan), the small plots around the traditional peasant houses are still highly
productive. This food-producing function, a key element in the lifestyle of small
farmers, is of great importance, as we saw in our first surveys in autumn 1990.
Retirees, cooperative members and state farm employees grow plants and rear
animals that provide significant extra income. Near the village centre these small-
holdings are scattered among the properties owned by the cooperative, the ma-
chine repair shop on a large plot on the road to Töttös, and the Sziebert family’s
old winery opposite the cemetery and Batthyány-Montenuovo mausoleum. To-
wards the neighbouring village of Szajk, the old wineries are strung out along
hillsides that still bear a few vineyards overlooking the valley of the Versend
stream (Versendi vízfolyás).
The collective system confiscated all the property of the former land-owning
classes, whether aristocrats or peasants, and left its mark on spatial structures,
some of which dated from the end of Ottoman occupation in the 18th century.
Most of the pre-Communist buildings were integrated into the new spatial struc-
ture. This particularly included manor-houses, breeding stables and wineries, con-
fiscated in the late 1940s, which are now state property held by the kombinat.
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
Local names preserve the trace of this former pattern (Békáspuszta, Sziebert-
puszta, Trischler-puszta). The division into large arable fields, the new farm
buildings, livestock units and grain processing units left their mark on the coun-
tryside. Before the system changed, all these properties were the pride of the
kombinat directors and cooperative officials. In a region of exceptionally rich
farmland, the countryside was the perfect expression of Communist agriculture on
the grand scale.
Bóly is the largest settlement in the region (3,500 inhabitants) and houses the
offices of the joint council that since 1973 has administered the villages of Töttös
(500), Nagybudmér (160), Borjád (400), Pócsa (180), and Kisbudmér (130). At
the start of the 1990s, Bóly presented the image of a relatively egalitarian society
of workers and smallholders enjoying a fair standard of living. Most of the villag-
ers worked for local farm companies or in retail and public services (post office,
school, surgery, disabled orphans’ home). Some worked in the county town Pécs,
which offered a wider range of jobs.
2.2
Post-war shocks and the shift to collectivisation
2.2.1 Disappearance of the peasantry
Beneath this pleasant picture lie the just discernible traces of a cruel past. The
Baranya region was repopulated by German settlers after the end of Ottoman oc-
cupation and possesses a multicultural profile. The main minorities were Ger-
mans, Croats and Roma. The proportions varied from place to place. Some vil-
lages were seen as German by local people. The Germans were expelled in Sep-
tember 1946 and returned a while later.
The descendants of the German settlers established in the 18th century formed
a hierarchical society speaking a Swabian dialect, Catholic, and highly structured
by social organisations (guilds, age cohorts and sex). Craftsmen and rich farmers
were the upper stratum, living in petty bourgeois style. The values of work, fru-
gality and authority that governed the ethos of the German community affected all
social relations. A number of tragic events put an end to this form of social or-
ganisation in the years following the Second World War. In the early 1990s, no
one would volunteer the facts. Once confidences were exchanged, there emerged
the history of local society comprising different ethnic groups: Swabian families
expelled on 3 September; “Slovak” families displaced from Upper Hungary (vil-
lages of Negyed and Csallóköz) arriving on 17 September and housed in the
Swabian peasants’ empty homes. The expulsion of the Swabian peasants7 and the
7 Some never left. In the village of Liptód, for example, far from the main roads, the German
families hid in the surrounding woods for a few months.
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
confiscation of their property and land was the first stage in a process leading to
the complete destruction of the peasantry and its way of farming in two waves of
collectivisation at the start and end of the 1950s. The entire period was marked by
sharp labour disputes fomented by agrarian reform and collectivisation at the ini-
tiative of the Communist Party. In twenty years, social structures and the peasant
way of farming were completely overthrown. This destruction led to a waste of
resources, know-how and skills that the farm sector took a long time to recover
from.
In Bóly and the neighbouring village of Töttös, the first farm cooperatives
were established in the autumn of 1949 at the initiative of social groups from a
proletarian background.8 Most of these cooperatives were Hungarian. The farms
were given land that had been nationalised (particularly property confiscated from
the German-speaking peasant families refused residence permits in 1946–47).
When some of the Swabian peasants returned in 1949–52, they joined one of the
two cooperatives, Árpád, which had merged with Haladás to form Kossuth coop-
erative. In 1951, another cooperative, called Rákóczi, was formed by peasants
from the village of Csallóköz in Upper Hungary (present-day Slovakia). The his-
tory of these early cooperatives was marked by purges carried out to eliminate the
better-educated peasant elites (known as kulaks), and the effects of the October
1956 uprising, which caused some of their members to withdraw. The final phase
of collectivisation in 1959–62 saw the merger of the Kossuth and Rákóczi coop-
eratives in 1961, and in 1965 it joined the Töttös cooperative. By that time, the
cooperative had just over five hundred members and covered 2,500 hectares.
The key features of this chaotic collectivisation process were the violence of
social conflict, the desire to expropriate or even eliminate the peasant elites and
the exacerbation of ethnic divisions as a result of population displacement. The
economic and social patterns of pre-war peasant society disappeared. The hold-
ings of the Kossuth cooperative of Bóly and Töttös are made up of former peasant
land. During the 1960s, land consolidation gradually removed all traces of the
earlier peasant holdings.
2.2.2
From noble estates to state property
Alongside the land farmed by peasant communities, after the end of Ottoman
occupation the Austrian imperial authorities granted extensive estates to aristo-
cratic families. After the Second World War, the largest landowner in this region
was Archduke Albrecht of Habsburg, who owned the Károlymajor majorat (en-
tailed estate), managed from Sátorhely, some ten kilometres from Bóly, with an
area of 10,293 hectares. Archduke Frigyes owned 460 hectares at Ormánypuszta,
8 The first cooperatives were called Árpád and Haladás in Bóly, and Szabadság in Töttös.
10
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
the bishopric of Pécs held 2,170 hectares, the Batthyány-Montenuovo estate cov-
ered 632 hectares, and the Zsolnay-Mattyasovszky property at Bár 115 hectares.
All these estates had introduced farming methods that were highly productive for
the time. Under the agrarian reform pushed through after 1945, this land was con-
fiscated and used for the first state farms. At that time, “state reserve fund” prop-
erty comprised land that large landowners were not allowed to keep (above a 115-
ha threshold) and land confiscated from other types of owner (Swabian families
expelled in 1946–47, and, later, land transferred to the state by peasants unable to
keep up compulsory crop deliveries). After a period of confusion following the
agrarian reform, the Bóly state farm was created in 1949 on an area of 3,000 hec-
tares, two-thirds from peasant holdings, and one-third from the Montenuovo es-
tate (632 ha) and land confiscated from two rich Swabian families (Sziebert 287
ha, Müller 172 ha). From 1949 to 1956, the holdings of the state farm were reor-
ganised several times. In 1957, the farms in Bár, Babarc and Bóly merged to form
an area of approximately 6,322 hectares; in 1961, those in Sátorhely, Károlymajor
(Kislippó) and Ormánypuszta joined them to form a farming area of 13,800 hec-
tares, with the addition a year later of the state stud farm at Békáspuszta (466 ha),
and the experimental farm of the Mohács agricultural technical school (575 ha).
In 1977, the state farm became the Bóly kombinat. Just before the next set of
changes in 1991, the kombinat comprised a dozen production units including six
farms, livestock production units, farm produce processing plants and harbour
installations at Mohács on the Danube. With over 2,000 staff, the kombinat was
the largest employer in the region. It was considered to be the national agricul-
tural champion and was top of the list of most productive kombinats in Hungary.
3 Initial changes after 1989
The first changes came as part of the general transformation of the system. Re-
form involved the creation of democratic institutions, the shift to market regula-
tion of the economy and the restoration of private property. The disappearance of
the Communist regime meant a radical change in the political system. Reform of
local administration in 1990 introduced the principles of the Western institutional
model, based on political democracy and local autonomy (Pálné Kovács, 1999).9
This replaced a unified system of public administration that held the monopoly of
state property and financial monopoly of the budget. The change caused a re-
shaping of the system of local action and a new structuring of the political scene.
9 PÁLNÉ KOVÁCS ILONA 1999: Regional development and local government in Hungary. Hajdú, Z.
(ed.): Regional Processes and Spatial Structures in Hungary in the 1990’s. Pécs, Centre for
Regional Studies. 53–76. p.
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Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
3.1 New municipal management
Let us follow the stages of change in the local system of Bóly. Fairly rapidly,
following the municipal elections in the autumn of 1990, power changed hands.
The local political scene was reorganised, older political and social forces re-
emerged and new parties were created.
For some years there had been increasing signs of forthcoming changes. The
system of plural candidacies introduced in 1985 had allowed a non-Communist to
become council chairman. At that time a new association was founded by a small
group of young engineers and technical staff from the state farm. Originally there
had been a movement to defend urban heritage, which spread to villages, and
Bóly was one of the first to form this type of association. Its name, Községvédı,
means “community defender”. Its leaders developed an alternative way of think-
ing. They formed a sort of free-market opposition with quite separate preferences
from another association, Kolping Család, which was more Catholic and tradi-
tional.10
In addition to these associations, which each put up a candidate for the local
elections in the autumn of 1990, there were three political parties standing for
office. The Smallholders’ Party, the reconstitution of an older party, put up three
candidates, the Alliance of Free Democrats another three and the Democratic
Forum two. A large number of other candidates had the combined support of
more than one association or party, up to four, as in the case of the candidate
standing for mayor, who was supported by the Alliance of Free Democrats, the
Smallholders’ Party and the two associations. Of the twelve members elected to
the town council, two had stood as independents, and a third on behalf of the
German-speaking minority. In practice, voting was highly personalised, and can-
didates’ name-recognition counted for more than their political affiliations. Some
representatives of the local intelligentsia, close to the previous authorities without
having belonged to the Communist Party, made a point of standing for office. The
new council members were relatively young educated people open to entrepre-
neurship and occupying enviable social positions in the town. They included four
doctors, two teachers, the bank manager, three engineers and two technical staff.
This enlightened elite reflected the structure of local groups and the most impor-
tant institutions. A new leader, formerly an employee at the kombinat, with a
reputation as an opponent of the old regime, became mayor in the autumn of
1990.
10 In the late 19th century, the Kolpingwerk charity was based in Augsburg, Germany. It
worked with young apprentices and the Hungarian branch was founded in 1889. It was
active during the inter-war period, suspended in 1946 and only re-established in 1990
after the regime change.
12
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
In May 1991, the new mayor agreed to an interview in which we learnt about
his previous career, his political views and his vision of local society. He was
born to a mixed German-Hungarian family in the village of Szajk. After qualify-
ing as an engineer, he moved to Bóly and built a house. As a member of Község-
védı he was politically passive, “a way of expressing [his] disagreement” with the
regime, as he put it. He said that he did not belong to any party: “I am not a
politician”. He explained how he saw the management of local affairs and his
priorities: the primary school, wastewater treatment in the unconnected part of the
town, help for older people. The long list of tasks undertaken by the municipality
included health services, street lighting, parks, the cemetery and roads. The young
mayor was not short of projects but pointed out his constraints: insufficient re-
sources and the lack of financial independence.
During the interview he returned several times to ethnic issues to declare his
determination to overcome ethnic differences and any emergence of conflict be-
tween different sections of local society. As he saw it, Swabians were in the ma-
jority even if many of them said that they are Hungarian, and Hungarians were a
de facto national minority. Aware of these identity problems, especially the risk
of backlash after decades when these matters were taboo, he intended to avoid
any revival of the “old traditions”, an implicit reference to the social organisations
there had been during the inter-war period. From various hints, we understood
that he distrusted the power games associated with Kolping Család. He was more
interested in another cultural activity, the choir, which had over 80 members and a
tradition going back centuries. Choral activities might act to bind the local com-
munity together.
Local government now had the task of coordinating and integrating citizens’
action within the legislative framework defining its responsibilities. Local elected
officials, social organisations and new entrepreneurs had greater autonomy than
before. These local stakeholders were going through a collective learning process
in new ways of managing local affairs and raising resources. The whole local
system was changing shape. With the introduction of local autonomy, the centres
of power had shifted away from the farm kombinat and agricultural production
cooperative, which now only had productive functions.11 As the town’s main em-
ployers and providers of public services, the two agricultural units were faced
with the challenge of decollectivisation.
11 From the start of the 1990s, the kombinat and the cooperative, which had always made a
major contribution to the local council’s development programmes, cut back on the
services it had previously given free of charge.
13
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
3.2 Minimal decollectivisation
With the shift to a market economy, the way in which economic and social activi-
ties were regulated underwent a complete change. Privatisation, i.e. the estab-
lishment of property rights over all assets, applied in agriculture to land and pro-
duction equipment. It caused an overhaul of the old collectivist structures (state
farms, cooperatives) and of social relations within them (Kovács, 1998).
3.2.1 Re-appropriation of land
A prerequisite for adopting the arrangements to reform the cooperatives and pri-
vatise the farms was to re-establish property rights over the land. In the vast ma-
jority of cooperatives, cooperative members had remained the formal owners of
their land, even if they lost the right to use it. The case of former landowners
whose land had been confiscated or taken from them when they left the collective
farm was a harder one. It took three “compensation” laws.12 The legislature opted
for a compensation of confiscated property that enabled it to be voluntarily re-
appropriated by the former owners. Part of the land belonging to the cooperatives
as their joint estate could be auctioned off. Only the holders of compensation
vouchers could bid in the auctions.13 On the basis of information collected by the
Compensation Office and transmitted to them, cooperatives were obliged to di-
vide up their land and decide what area would be put up for sale, not exceeding
50% of the joint estate.14 Since the state was also due to sell off part of its land,
state farms were required to follow the same division procedure. In the Bóly area,
the compensation procedure particularly concerned the former German-speaking
landowners expropriated when they were expelled in 1946–47. Because of the
delay in passing the second compensation law, they were only able to apply in the
summer of 1992, one year after the first claims were filed at the Compensation
Office and used to indicate to cooperatives the total of land claims.15 In this spe-
cific situation, the cooperative and the kombinat divided up their land in the win-
ter of 1992. The total valuation of the cooperative’s land was 92,100 Gold
12 The first, passed in June 1991, provided for the compensation of the former landowners deprived
of their property by the Communist regime after 8 June 1949. The second, passed in March 1992,
extended this to those who had suffered material loss at the hands of the Hungarian government
between 1 May 1939 and 8 June 1949. The third concerned the victims of political persecution.
13 In addition to the former landowners, local residents and cooperative members could bid if they
had vouchers (which could be bought from their original holders).
14 At the Kossuth cooperative, the joint estate was made up of compulsory purchases from former
cooperative members or their heirs (1,160 ha) and land transferred by the state (350 ha).
15 These claims, filed in the spring of 1992, could only be used for the last auctions in 1993, when
the supply of land available was already reduced.
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Crowns.16 Of this total, some land, valued at 35,503 Gold Crowns (38%) had re-
mained the property of the members, but most of these members had joined the
cooperative after being expropriated. The cooperative reserved 8,444 Gold
Crowns’ worth (9.1%) for its employees and landless members and only 5,913
Gold Crowns (6.4%) for the compensation fund. The rest, 42,238 Gold Crowns
(45.8%), was available to be shared among members on the basis of their “busi-
ness shares” (i.e. non-land assets). At the kombinat, compensation claims were
eligible for approximately 4,800 hectares valued at 104,000 Gold Crowns (one-
fifth of the kombinat area) scattered among 46 villages, and the rest remained
state property.
3.2.2 A neo-collective farm
The reform of the cooperative farm took place under arrangements laid down in
the laws passed in January 1992 providing for the “personalisation” of assets,
modification of structures, voting for new by-laws, and the appointment of man-
agers for the reformed cooperative. The Bóly cooperative, with an area of 2,489
hectares, was traditional in its organisation and production mix of cereals, fodder,
cattle and pigs; its conversion was representative of the Hungarian collective
sector. When the management consulted the cooperative members in October
1991, those who were resistant to the changes opted massively for maintaining
collective farming (241 out of 448). As on all collective farms, the cooperative
divided up the land and then allocated “business shares” by name. On 29 April
1992, a general meeting of members was held to decide on the criteria for adapt-
ing the way of sharing the non-land assets among those eligible. Most (57.2%) of
those present were retirees, and the meeting opted to give most weight to length
of membership and working life. Following the share allocation, 42.8% of shares
were held by 270 retired members, 36.2% by 176 members and 21% dispersed
among 248 former members and their heirs. Once the by-laws were changed, 120
working members and 250 retirees renewed their membership. The cooperative
now rented the land from its members and other smallholders for a land rent. The
area farmed fell to 1,970 hectares and the farm sold two-thirds of its livestock.
The cooperative’s business and financial position became critical,17 and new man-
agement was needed. The new managing director, an agronomist, attempted to
rectify the financial management (repaid the debts) and succeeded the following
year. The production mix remained virtually the same, and the cooperative merely
16 The Gold Crown [aranykorona] is a traditional measurement that expresses both the
area and fertility of land.
17 Operating losses and debt came to half the book value of the assets.
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sold off its machine repair shop. It could barely afford any investment in changing
strategy.
3.2.3 Continuance of the agricultural kombinat
Because of its crucial importance for the production of high-quality seeds, the
kombinat escaped from the decision to privatise state farms.18 This did not pre-
vent it having to reform its structures on the basis of a business plan submitted to
the Ministry of Agriculture in April 1992. The management team was kept on.19
The kombinat was reorganised as a joint-stock company, Bóly Co., whose major-
ity shareholder was the State Holding Company (ÁV, later ÁPV) set up in October
1992, which held 90% of the capital. In 1991, a small amount of the capital (7.5%
of asset book value) had already been distributed to the employees as shares
according to seniority and salary. A small number of free shares were allocated to
local self-governments. The kombinat began to refocus its business on seed
production, and sell off some of its units (machine repair, abattoir) and most of its
housing.20
The two main farm production structures came through the initial phase of de-
collectivisation unscathed at the cost of minor adjustments to the structure of their
production assets and by-laws. The size of their land holdings, their business po-
tential and the “social relations of production” remained untouched. Both man-
agements opted to keep virtually identical structures. In practice, the two enter-
prises entered the restructuring phase without having undergone any essential
changes in their social relations of production. At both of them there was a strong
social consensus to preserve vested interests and employment. At neither the co-
operative nor the kombinat did anyone surveyed at that time express a preference
for returning to the peasant farming model21 (Maurel, 1994).
On the basis of the changes made in 1992, the kombinat and cooperative pur-
sued the same course without major changes for over ten years. Their relative
importance in the economic life of the local community tended however to de-
cline as new businesses set up and helped to diversify employment. In the early
years after 2000, a second wave of reform swept over the former structures of
collectivised farming.
18 Of the 120 state farms, the state decided to maintain a controlling interest in 24.
19 The director, J.K., remained at his post until his retirement in 1998.
20 Interview at the kombinat head office on 13 May 1992.
21 See the results of our inquiries made in 1992. MAUREL M.-C. (1994), La transition post-
collectiviste. Mutations agraires en Europe centrale. Paris, L’Harmattan, coll. Pays de l’Est, 366
p.
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4 New economic and social trends as globalisation looms
4.1 Privatisation of the kombinat
The major turning point came in 2003–2004, when the government decided to
privatise the last state farms. A brief overview may be given of the situation just
before privatisation.22 Now an agricultural and commercial company (Bóly Co.),
the kombinat still had almost the same area, just under 20,000 hectares of excel-
lent farmland suitable for wheat, maize, soya beans, peas and sugar beet. The land
was rented from the state (12,500 ha) and on five-year leases from private land-
owners. To maintain such a large landholding, the company had to evade the legal
requirements that prohibited a joint-stock company from renting more than 2,500
hectares by creating a number of wholly-owned limited liability companies (Ltd.).
Part of the crops was used for seed production (Törökdomb unit), which remained
the main business. One-quarter of this tonnage was exported (to Japan and other
European countries). Another part was processed as concentrated cattle fodder.
Investment doubled the kombinat’s processing capacity. Livestock presented
greater difficulties. The capacity of the Sátorhely dairy-breeding complex was
increased from 2,200 to 2,700 head of Holstein-Frisian. Its production barely
turned a profit. The pig section, with a capacity of 2,300 sows, did better. One of
the two huge pig units, at Újmajor, was renovated. The poultry factory farm at
Bár was in a poor situation. Horse breeding (an aristocratic heritage of pre-war
days) made the reputation of the Békáspuszta stud farm and racecourse. Bóly Co.
also managed 34,000 hectares of hunting grounds between the rivers Danube and
Drava. The harbour storage, processing and shipping installations on the Danube
at Mohács also belonged to this agro-industrial complex, marked by its vertical
integration. Each production branch now had profitability as an imperative, and
the profits from seed production could no longer be counted on to make up for the
losses in other areas. There was talk of selling off the engineering services work-
shop.23 Labour productivity required a stricter management of the labour force.
Employment was gradually reduced by not replacing retiring staff (1,620 employ-
ees in May 2002, 1,540 in September 2003), but that was not enough.
In 2003, a new director, P.V., took over. He was an agronomist who had
worked for over twenty-five years at the kombinat and had belonged to the man-
agement team since the late 1980s. In September 2003, his anxiety for the com-
pany’s future was perceptible. He said that both the purchase of the kombinat by
its staff and the arrival of a foreign investor were equally likely. The decision was
a political one, to be taken by the government. The director considered that “agri-
22 Interview with the new director, P.V., at the kombinat head office on 11 September 2003.
23 It was sold in the summer of 2005.
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culture is at the heart of rural development and management of the environment
and countryside”. This attitude was well received by regional stakeholders, the
county council and fifty or so municipalities involved. A year later, the kombinat
was privatised and transferred to the management and staff, following an ex-
tremely complex financial arrangement that it is difficult to shed full light on.24
The capital of the agro-industrial enterprise is now held by local shareholders
(managers, employees, integrated agricultural partners) and Hungarian financial
investors. The kombinat has escaped control by foreign investors. The director
now talks in terms of the free market. Staff has been cut by one-third and salary
levels are no longer subject to the controls that restrict the public sector. A hand-
ful of managers appear to have succeeded in keeping the enterprise alive at the
cost of adaptation (labour downsizing, divestment of loss-making units, aban-
donment of welfare activities, etc.). At the end of 2005, this careful financial ar-
rangement was threatened by the main financial investor, who took control of the
capital.
4.2 Survival of the reformed cooperative
In 1999, the former cooperative adopted the legal status of a joint-stock company
(Rt). The chairman explained that the political risk to cooperatives had forced him
to restructure the capital to ensure the continuity of the estate. Company law of-
fered more guarantees, since it also concerned other sectors of the economy. The
cooperative at that time had approximately 300 members and the concentration of
“business shares” was limited. As part of the legal process, a few outside land-
owners joined Bóly-Töttös Co., and 60 to 70 former members sold their shares.
At present there are approximately 300 members.
Since the 1992 reform, the cooperative’s area has stayed the same, 1,900 hec-
tares of land rented from 700 landowners who are paid a land rent. Bóly-Töttös
Co. only owns 23 hectares. The production mix has hardly changed. Plant
production is mainly seeds, maize and oilseed rape (for cattle fattening). The
cooperative works with the kombinat to produce seeds and soya-beans, but it also
trying to develop its own processing capacity. Livestock farming specialises in
pigs (capacity enlargement at Töttös pig farm), and dairy farming has been
dropped. The former cooperative vineyard has been sold and is now entirely
private property. The cooperative is barely profitable. The land rent paid to the
owners is a heavy imposition and it is hard to pay dividends to the shareholders.
The management prefers to invest in modernisation (pig farm, seed processing
unit, new machinery). The cooperative employed 77 people in 2005, a reduction
24 Interview with the director at the kombinat head office on 22 September 2005.
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of 48 since 1994. As the years pass and the chances of improving performance
recede, the director is under no illusions.
4.3 Industrial developments by foreign investors
Recognition of the principle of free enterprise and the opening up to foreign in-
vestors have given an impetus to the creation of small and medium-sized enter-
prises. The arrival of new businesses has occurred as the local economy has
opened up to the international world with industrial developments by foreign in-
vestors. From 1993 to 1995, three companies set up in the new business park
(Ipari park) just outside Bóly on the road to Töttös. An industrial estate created
by the Bóly council together with the neighbouring villages of Szajk and Versend,
covers 20 hectares in Szajk (bordering on Versend) and 31 hectares in Bóly. Lo-
cal government paid for the infrastructure, made professional grants and offered
lower taxes for the first four years. In 2002, business turnover tax accounted for
15% of local budget resources in Bóly and approximately 8% in Szajk. In Bóly,
the new companies have created 600 jobs, absorbing almost all local unemploy-
ment. The main businesses include :
− construction of modern technology industrial buildings (Italian and Hungar-
ian capital, 130 jobs);
− manufacture of power window mechanisms for the German automotive
industry (German-Hungarian capital, 400 jobs);
− stove assembly (German-Hungarian capital, 80 jobs);
− motorcycle assembly (Hungarian capital, 40 jobs).
Interviews with factory managers revealed the factors behind the choice of
site. In three cases, the initiative came from German investors who had adopted a
strategy of outsourcing their manufacturing to areas with lower labour costs. The
presence of a Swabian minority was a determining factor. The use of the German
language and the working ethos of the German-speaking minority were men-
tioned by the factory managers. Furthermore, this potential in skills is made more
effective by relationship factors. Contacts going back some years had been estab-
lished between the German entrepreneurial community and the project sponsors.
The parent company, based in Germany, provided some or even all of the start
capital, trained managers and retained technological control over manufacturing.
These companies are classed as small and medium-sized enterprises, began mod-
estly and gradually raised their production volumes and number of staff. The local
factories operate as subcontracting units receiving orders, raw materials or com-
ponents from the parent company and shipping finished or semi-finished products
after assembly.
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Most of these factories enjoyed particularly favourable installation conditions
granted by the Bóly and Szajk councils, namely the offer of developed plots in
newly laid out industrial estates and start-up tax exemptions. Most of them have
modern premises with efficient equipment. The availability of local labour is the
main competitive advantage over the German labour market. Workers are bussed
in from neighbouring villages and accept the constraints of shift work for average
monthly salaries of 80,000 forints in 2005 (approximately €320, one-fifth of the
rate in Germany).
The Bóly region has been relatively successful in positioning itself in the com-
petitive process following the opening up of the Hungarian market to foreign in-
vestors. Local society appears to be able to meet the challenges of globalisation
by using specific skills and the presence of a labour force prepared to integrate
into production chains managed from outside that for cultural reasons are not
perceived as totally foreign.
4.4 Rebirth of the vineyards
Winegrowing, traditional in this region, was significantly reduced during the col-
lectivist period. In 1987, the cooperative cultivated 58 hectares of vineyard on an
industrial basis. It had a capacity of 450,000 litres in a winery that once belonged
to the Szieberts, a rich Swabian family. The plots allocated to cooperative mem-
bers as side businesses (officially “auxiliary economy”) and those that still be-
longed to individuals, in all just over 20 hectares, were cultivated by individual
winegrowers. They delivered some of their grapes to the cooperative, which mar-
keted the wine under an agreement with the Villány state kombinat. After 1989,
the cooperative began to transfer the cultivation of its vineyards to the small
winegrowers, first under a sharecropping lease arrangement (22 ha in 1989), and
then by distributing the vineyards among its members. With the loss of markets in
the former Soviet bloc, sales collapsed and the cooperative sold off its wine-
growing business.
In Bóly and neighbouring villages (Versend, Szajk, Nagynyárád, Babarc, etc.)
the vineyards cover the well-drained hillsides and ridges. The wineries that re-
mained the property of residents are located in a district hard to reach along steep
narrow lanes. Most of the winegrowers cultivate their vineyard as a leisure activ-
ity (hobbykert)25 and the wine harvest is a time when extended families and
neighbours help each other out. Vines and wine are a major feature of country
life, a form of sociability that collectivisation did not stamp out. During the
1990s, a handful of small winegrowers attempted to relaunch the business as a
main or secondary source of income. They are now supported in this diversifica-
tion by the White Wine Route Association, founded by the mayor of Bóly, him-
25 There are said to be some 400 hobby winegrowers along the white wine route.
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self a winegrower. These winegrowers’ income comes from a mix of sources that
depend on the size of the vineyard (from a handful to over twenty hectares), type
of production (craft or professional), markets (local, national or European), and
the presence of local tourist accommodation.
To help the winegrowers promote the sale of their wines, the mayor of Bóly
founded the White Wine Route Association in April 2000 with 13 municipalities
and 80 private members, a viticultural centre (with an elected wine authority for
quality control), winegrowers,26 and hotel and restaurant owners27. The idea came
from the Villány wine route, which began in 1994. The European PHARE pro-
gramme was interested in developing a partnership with a chain of wine routes in
Transdanubia. The four existing associations in the region cooperate. The aim is
to contribute to tourist development, and a brochure for tourists has been pro-
duced with an explicit acknowledgement of PHARE financing.28 A house of wine
with a tasting cellar receives visitors in the Bóly museum building in the town
centre. The association covers 700 hectares of vineyards. Its chairman is the
mayor of Bóly, a winegrower who cultivates 17 hectares. The White Wine Route
Association employs a publicity manager who attends wine shows and arranges
festive events, such as the “white wine, white roast meat” festival held every year
in the Bóly park. This winegrowing region is not yet very well known in Hungary
and needs to be promoted at wine industry fairs. But the association has few re-
sources, its members' subscriptions are small and it has few assets of its own.
4.5 Enterprising local self-government
The municipality has pursued an active infrastructure policy, from its own re-
sources and with specific subsidies. The budget for 2002 was 900 million forints.
Half its income comes from state grants and 15% from local taxes. To that is
added the income from municipal property. Expenditure comprises salaries (363
million forints) and the operating costs of local institutions (166 million forints).
Grants and welfare aid are given to cultural and civil associations, the church and
apprentice workshops. In 2003, the proportion of own resources rose (52%) and
compulsory state grants were reduced. Various infrastructure projects have been
completed in the last ten years: mains drainage (with two other villages), internet
connection, and road maintenance. Housing and public facilities have been
26 For winegrowers cultivating small vineyards returned after the privatisation of collectivised land,
wine is only a secondary source of income. They lack the capital and technology.
27 The wine route has 81 members: 14 municipalities, 4 winegrowers’ unions, 26 quality winegrow-
ers, 13 hotel-restaurants, a hunting association, and German-Hungarian and Austrian-Hungarian
friendship associations.
28 There is a district in the town with over 400 wineries. Many have been turned into second homes
and are occupied by German tourists.
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erected that contribute to the town’s new attractiveness. Properties have been
converted into flats for young couples with a grant from a state-financed social
housing programme.
Grants from the European PHARE and SAPARD programmes have been used
to renovate the school and dentist’s surgery. The old parish mill is being con-
verted, with a shop on the ground floor and rooms for civil organisations and wel-
fare activities (such as professional training) on the upper floors. The town park
has been renovated, trees planted and pavements laid out along the streets. A
rainwater drainage system has been built and car parking spaces have been built
over the old ditches. Two new streets have been connected to mains services. The
new building plots have been bought by young couples and newcomers from the
surrounding villages. The roads to the winery district have been surfaced.
The municipality is also concerned about the conservation of the environment.
The wastewater treatment issue has been solved by building a plant with a capac-
ity of 4,000 tonnes per year. An application has been made for cofinancing for an
animal carcase-processing unit to produce odour-free compost. Bóly intends to
build a biogas factory (capacity 7MW) at Lajos-major. Geothermal power has not
been a great success, and the water is used to heat the school, municipal buildings
and swimming pool. The mayor plans to present the town’s candidacy for Norwe-
gian funds to aid in developing alternative energies.
The mayor is considering developing the tourist function in the near future to-
gether with the reception of disabled children. The town has had a home for dis-
abled children for fifty years. To meet demand from the families of disabled chil-
dren (in Germany and Austria), the idea would be to offer therapeutic tourist
packages. The municipality intends to develop tourism as part of a clear local
development strategy of a scope that goes beyond the town’s boundaries.
The proven results of this active urban renovation and infrastructure policy
have greatly enhanced the mayor’s authority and role as leader of local society.
He has been re-elected four times and works with a municipal council that has
been almost entirely replaced since his first election. Compared with then, there
are more entrepreneurs on the council, alongside engineers, teachers (school
headmaster) and the former director of the kombinat (1998–2002), who was al-
ready a councillor in 1990. In 2002, two councillors did not stand for re-election
and the two new entrants are a woman horticultural engineering graduate who
worked at the town’s cultural centre and an engineer in charge of an estate
agent’s. The business elites are gaining in influence, seeking access to financial
resources and power in local politics. A new connection is being made between
political and business interests on the local scene, where the mayor is the key
player. As his authority has increased over the years, he has become a local de-
velopment entrepreneur. His action is no longer restricted to his own town. In
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recent years he has sought to extend his influence within the micro-region by
taking a number of initiatives for local development.
5 A new spatial system
5.1 Bóly’s confirmation as microregional growth centre
Population changes between 1994 and 2002 have been favourable for the town of
Bóly29 and its surrounding villages within the statistical micro-region (kistérség).
A number of localities have seen their population increase, a sufficiently rare
development in rural Hungary to be worthy of note. Versend, Bóly, Borjád,
Szederkény and Sátorhely have increased their residential population. Szajk’s
figure is virtually stationary. Töttös and Nagynyárád have lost 10% of their
population. These trends reflect differences of attractiveness between the
localities. Only the town of Bóly and the villages not far from the Pécs–Mohács
road have gained new residents. All the localities except Versend post a negative
natural increase, as deaths are more numerous than births in aging rural villages
(Figures 2–3).
These demographic trends can be compared with the economic data. Bóly is
one of the localities where the number of enterprises per thousand inhabitants is
the highest in the entire statistical micro-region (Figure 4). The neighbouring vil-
lages of Szajk and Szederkény also have high ratios. This is due to the three lo-
calities’ policy of welcoming new enterprises. They attract workers from a travel-
to-work area that comprises the surrounding villages. The unemployment rate is
relatively low, below 8%, in most of these places. An example is the village of
Szajk (786 inhabitants). In addition to the agricultural cooperative that extends
over six villages (3,000 ha) and the motorcycle factory, the village has forty or so
small firms (restaurant, bakery, grocer’s and a number of self-employed builders).
The mayor explains that unemployment is low (6%) because the village is well
placed on the main road to the urban employment centres. The unemployment
rate tends to rise in the remoter villages such as Liptód, with only 267 residents, at
the end of a bad road. Among these villages, Versend is an exception: high popu-
lation growth due to positive natural and migratory increase, few enterprises and a
high unemployment rate (24.5%) with a large proportion of long-term unem-
ployed. It is also the place with the highest proportion of residents identifying as
Roma, almost the majority.30
29 Bóly was granted the status of town in 1996.
30 Interview at the village council on 6th September 2006.
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Figure 2
Population increase in the Mohács micro-region
Source: HCSO, 2004. Edited by J.-C. Raynal (EHESS).
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Figure 3
Migration rate in the Mohács micro-region
Source: HCSO, 2004. Edited by J.-C. Raynal (EHESS).
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Figure 4
Number of businesses per 1000 inhabitants
Source: HCSO, 2004. Edited by J.-C. Raynal (EHESS).
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5.2 New structuring of local relations via joint projects
The former local councils imposed by the Communist regime were dissolved in
1990. The smaller villages distanced themselves from what they saw as subordi-
nation to the local small town. The village of Töttös, belonging with four other
villages to a single council based in Bóly, broke away to remain independent,
while the other four opted to have a joint notary’s office, a less constricting solu-
tion than the former local joint councils. Usually it was two or three villages that
adopted this form of administrative cooperation. This is the case for Liptód (267
inhabitants), which depends on Babarc (818 inhabitants), and for Monyoród (207
inhabitants) with respect to Szederkény (1,870 inhabitants). The most successful
cooperation has been in school premises. All the school pupils from Töttös, the
upper primary pupils (years 5 to 8) from Szajk and Borjád, and some from Babarc
and Liptód attend school in Bóly.
The communities around Bóly practise consultation and partnership. The
mayor of Bóly’s energy has set an example for neighbouring villages. The mayors
of Szajk, Szederkény and Babarc have joined him for joint projects. The mayor of
Szajk points out that cooperation with neighbouring villages is excellent and en-
courages enterprises to tender for expensive infrastructure (waste management,
selective waste collection, mains drainage). It is mostly local infrastructure and
development projects that lead to combined initiatives by local leaders. Wine
tourism is an obvious example. The White Wine Route Association has 13 vil-
lages with vineyards, most of which were planted by German settlers in the 18th
century. Most of these villages have retained intact the traditions and know-how
of craft winemaking, with wineries where the grapes are pressed after the harvest
and the wine is aged in old wooden barrels. Most of the small winegrowers who
own the wineries cultivate their vineyards as a hobby. People make their own
wine to enjoy with friends. Only a few slightly larger firms buy grapes to market
the wine. The mayors of Babarc and Szederkény agreed to join the association
although winegrowing is not a significant economic activity in their villages.
Bunches of grapes are to be found symbolically in the coats of arms of Babarc
and Liptód, but winegrowing is more to do with acquiring a new image than any
real lucrative business (Figure 5).
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Figure 5
Proportion of the German minority in the Mohács micro-region
Source: HCSO, 2004. Edited by J.-C. Raynal (EHESS).
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Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
The revitalisation of social relations is an important aspect of the local devel-
opment policies that each locality seeks to promote. Endeavours are made to re-
discover and promote all types of heritage. The Catholic and Protestant churches
that had not been maintained for forty years have been restored (Szederkény, Ba-
barc, Töttös, etc.). The same is being done for cemeteries, war memorials and
public squares. Each community seeks to preserve the relics of the old peasant
way of life brutally eradicated by the Communist regime. It may be a museum
(Bóly) or a room in the town hall (Babarc), or an old peasant dwelling bought to
serve as a museum (Liptód). All the locals join in to collect old items (household
utensils, tools, festive costumes, looms, etc.) to be displayed in these modest
shrines to the old peasant life.
In this region where there is a large German-speaking minority, institutional
autonomy has the crucial role of preserving Swabian identity and culture, and
organising programmes and events to save its traditions. The Swabian communi-
ties are particularly committed to what is presented to their children as a duty of
memory. To weave links with the traditions of former community life, festivals
are held throughout the year. The Swabian community both asserts its cultural
traditions and participates decisively in the region’s economic growth. This is an
essential component in a social memory that is spatially anchored in the structure
of the villages settled by Germans in the 18th century. This structure of rural
housing is a factor for stability in the socio-spatial system. It is a permanent fea-
ture that has been only marginally affected by the demographic processes that
tend to increase the population density of the villages closest to the main roads
and accelerate the depopulation of the aging communities in the north of the sta-
tistical micro-region (Figure 6).
29
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
Figure 6
Average income per perseon in the Mohács micro-region
Source: HCSO, 2004. Edited by J.-C. Raynal (EHESS).
30
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
5.3 Resilience of large-scale farming
The stability of the field structure established by collectivisation raises questions.
How is it that large-scale farming has been maintained virtually identically here in
the region of Baranya? What is the role of medium-term farming heritage (dating
from the Communist period), compared with the longer-term heritage of the ma-
norial estates?
Two overlapping hypotheses may be put forward:
1) The officials at the Chamber of Agriculture of Baranya County 31 cite the
exceptional soil quality (among the highest Gold Crown valuations in
Hungary), and the high degree of productivity and profitability achieved
during the Communist period. This point of view hypothesises a sort of
continuity between large-scale collective farming and large-scale post-
collective company-owned farming. The quantity of equipment and high
productivity, it is argued, helped absorb the shock of transition and
maintain productive structures while making necessary adjustments.
2) A complementary hypothesis stresses the importance of early technical
modernisation in this region in the first half of the 20th century (technical
advances introduced on the large manorial estates and the prosperous farms
of the Swabian peasantry). This raises the question of the transmission of
this modernity to the state farms organised immediately after the Second
World War. How did it occur? As far as the peasant farms were concerned,
the structures were largely destroyed by expulsions and successive waves
of collectivisation. The former peasant elites were sidelined. However,
some of the descendants of these peasant families opted for education
(technicians, engineers) and subsequently found work on the cooperative
and state farm.
The transmission of long-term agrarian heritage operated differently for the
manorial estates and the peasant farms. Locally, there has been no attempt to re-
turn to the peasant model. At no stage during the land reappropriation process in
the early 1990s were any of the owners of small individual farms or the former
owners tempted to try family farming. Land divisions were removed in a largely
virtual manner, and the large-scale collective plots remained to be farmed by the
post-collective owners. Collectivisation’s mark is still visible in the farm land-
scape while farming has adapted to the new demands of the free-market economy.
This has been successful to varying degrees. The process may be described as the
resilience of large-scale farming, its ability to integrate a disturbance to its opera-
tions without changing its qualitative structure. The state kombinat, and to a lesser
31 Interview at the Chamber of Agriculture of Baranya County on 23th September 2005.
31
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
extent the cooperative farms (Bóly-Töttös and Szajk), have behaved resiliently by
absorbing the effects of the transition crisis and adapting their productive struc-
ture to the new conditions on the farm produce market. This behaviour is no doubt
a function of the context, namely a natural environment favourable to large-scale
farming. However, it would appear that the powerful agro-industrial foundation
constructed by the kombinat and the strong relations of integration previously
established with its partner cooperatives also played a role in maintaining the
structure of the agro-industrial system.
5.4 A complex local system
The local economy is more diversified than it was fifteen years ago, and is now
largely open to the outside world via investors’ capital flows, tourist visits, and
daily commuting to the regional employment centres. The spatial structure of the
local system at the end of the phase of change has been partly reshaped. Few fea-
tures of its inherited spatial structures have disappeared, and the collectivist field
division remains virtually unchanged. Older spatial structures, once seen as resid-
ual, have regained importance, as winegrowing, for example, has prospered.
Structures dating back to various periods have interacted successfully. From the
heritage of landscape and architecture, a few enterprising stakeholders have cre-
ated a new resource, rural tourism. These tangible structures in the form of spatial
markings have been reshaped and reintegrated as active components of the sys-
tem.
Other more abstract structures, not immediately visible or perceptible, have
also played a determining role. This is another dimension of memory, which may
well be based on a territory and place, but belongs more to the residents and their
daily lives. With the buried, repressed memory of the expulsions and expropria-
tions and the collective memory of the ethnic communities a slow and delicate
rehabilitation is being done. The acceptance of the other within a multicultural
society, as urged by a handful of representatives of the local elite, will remain an
empty dream unless it involves policies to integrate the unemployed and the
Roma. Such policies are far from enjoying a consensus, to judge from the remarks
of most mayors.
The local system in Bóly has changed not only its structure, but also its scale.
Despite its modest size, it was granted the status of town in 1996. This promotion
recognised its socio-economic energy based on enterprising municipal govern-
ment. Bóly has become a business centre for the entire western part of the statisti-
cal region, including in its direct area of influence the villages of Liptód, Babarc,
Nagynyárád and Sátorhely. Thanks to the cooperative links it has formed with
these villages, the small town of Bóly is a direct competitor to the town of Mo-
32
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
hács, which is the administrative seat for the new multiple-purpose micro-region.
A number of indicators illustrate this new prosperity: income levels and car own-
ership. The mayor of Bóly’s leading role with respect to the mayors of the sur-
rounding villages is the sign of an intercommunal system that is voluntarily ac-
cepted because it is successful (Csatári, 2005).32
6 Conclusion
The example of the changes that have affected the local system in Bóly reveals
the importance of the relations between social stakeholders in institutional ar-
rangements both political and economic. Although the path taken appears to de-
pend on the manner in which the stakeholders emerged from collectivisation, it
belongs even more to the long history of settlement and improvement of this ter-
ritory by the Swabian rural communities. A long process of accumulation of
know-how has produced a set of specific resources.
These are, first, modern large-scale farming, which has come through vicissi-
tudes at the cost of structural adjustments, namely the shift from the large collec-
tively farmed estate (state farm) and from the kombinat to the major agro-indus-
trial company Bóly Co. The resilience of large-scale farming has been ensured by
the existence of a localised agro-food system (kombinat and partner network)
creating external economies as a result of the density of productive infrastructure
and proximity between stakeholders.
Second, winegrowing is the example of an activity that has been reborn thanks
to the impetus of a handful of entrepreneurs with the technical know-how and
concerned to make use of their heritage (a component of the local community’s
social capital). An effective strategy of adaptation has enabled the stakeholder
system to identify the assets of winegrowing to construct the foundation for wine
tourism as part of the diversification of the local economy.
The local stakeholder system’s successful shift to the market economy is based
on processes of collective learning, a work ethic, know-how, and entrepreneurship
that owe much to the culture of the Swabian communities. This adaptation has
been supported and coordinated by the municipal council, which has always
sought closer integration between the productive sector and institutional support.
32 CSATÁRI B. 2005: Major changes in the Hungarian micro-regions. In: Rural Development
Capacity. In FLORIAŃCZYK Z. – CZAPIEWSKI K. (eds.): Carpathian Europe. Warsaw, European
Rural Development Network. 79–94. p. (Rural Areas and Development, 3.).
33
Marie-Claude Maurel - Póla, Péter :
Local System and Spatial Change – The Case of Bóly in South Transdanubia.
Pécs : Centre for Regional Studies, 2007. 34. p. Discussion Papers, No. 57.
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HORVÁTH, Gyula (1998): Regional and Cohesion Policy in Hungary
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HORVÁTH, Gyula (2002): Report on the Research Results of the Centre for Regional
Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
No. 41
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Regions in Information Society – a Hungarian Case-Study
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No. 44
HAJDÚ, Zoltán (2004): Carpathian Basin and the Development of the Hungarian
Landscape Theory Until 1948
No. 45
GÁL, Zoltán (2004): Spatial Development and the Expanding European Integration of
the Hungarian Banking System
No. 46
BELUSZKY, Pál – GYİRI, Róbert (2005): The Hungarian Urban Network in the
Beginning of the 20th Century
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G. FEKETE, Éva (2005): Long-term Unemployment and Its Alleviation in Rural Areas
No. 48
SOMLYÓDYNÉ PFEIL, Edit (2006): Changes in The Organisational Framework of
Cooperation Within Urban Areas in Hungary
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MEZEI, István (2006): Chances of Hungarian–Slovak Cross-Border Relations
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Resources in Hungary During the Transition
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BARTA, Györgyi (ed.) (2006): Hungary – the New Border of the European Union
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No. 56
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38