Divergencia a konvergenciában. Gondolatok a kelet-közép-európai rendszerváltozások történetéhez
Divergence in Convergence: The East Central European Transformation since the 1980s in Historical Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The revolutions of 1989-91 and the post-revolutionary transformation are going down in history and therefore become an issue of historiography. The article deals with one of the major results of this transformation: the intra-national divergence between rich and poor regions in East Central Europe. The major reason for the rising social and spatial gap was the global hegemony of neoliberalism that came into existence in the 1980s, and its specific adoption in post-communist countries. Reform policies neglected the rural regions, while the capital cities and other areas of strong growth profited from foreign direct investments. As a result, a decade after 1989, the poor regions of Poland, Slovakia and Hungary earned only a fifth of the per capita GDP of the respective capital cities. However, since the enlargement of the EU, this divergence has been disappearing, or has even been slightly reversed. The divergence was accompanied by transnational convergence between the capital cities. Warsaw, Prague and Budapest have caught up with western capital cities, the former two have even surpassed Berlin for a number of years. But there is also a convergence of poor areas, such as that larger region which stretches from south-eastern Poland to northeastern Hungary. The inhabitants of this region have reacted by various strategies of “selftransformation”, among them long-distance labor migration. The article finally poses the questions: how this divergence has influenced everyday life in poor regions, and why it did not provoke more protests or counter-action.

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