Urban Newcomers in a Hungarian Village
Urban Newcomers in a Hungarian Village

Summary/Abstract: The paper tries to interpret the specific urban-rural migration concerning a small Hungarian village. In the 1970s most of its houses were purchased by families who fled city life and discovered the cultural and natural values of the village and its surroundings. The new owners use their properties for recreational purposes and have thereby created a new form of organization of leisure time. It is in their interest to preserve this heritage because their own self-definition and motivation would suffer should the village be flooded by mass tourism and lose its unique character. The striving for continuity indicates the degree of identification with the village’s past and at the same time it serves as a tool for the community to create a system of ritual customs throughout the year that can be used in the future to mark community boundaries, and express and strengthen community identity. The furnishings of the houses reflect a return to the past and the creation of an individually imagined and represented peasant world.

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