A vidék válságai. Az ipari válságzóna jelenségeinek összefüggései a rendszerváltozás után az észak-borsodi bányásztelepülések példáján
Rural Crises. Industrial Crisis Zone Phenomena after the Change of Regime through the Example of North Borsod Miners’ Settlements

Summary/Abstract: Rural Hungary appears to have been anything but homogeneous after the change of regime in Hungary. The transition from Socialism into a market economy created insurmountable problems in several regions, mostly in the fields of economic restructuring, employment, unemployment and social composition. The picture is especially depressing in the northern region of Hungary, in the once flourishing settlements relying on mining and heavy industries, which had provided them with certain livelihood. The study focuses on villages surrounding the city of Ózd, where the survival and sustenance of the population was directly threatened by the closure of factories, plants and mines in the area. Alabán concentrates mainly on Farkaslyuk and the village of Somsály on the periphery of Ózd. Here, the memory of the halcyon days survives only in nostalgic reminiscences. The factory and its facilities, the mine, reading club, swimming pool, choir, brass band and sports club are all mosaic pieces from another age, which had once defined the everyday lives of the people living in the Farkaslyuk Miners’ Estate and Somsálybánya. The common features of both Farkaslyuk and Somsálybánya include social restructuring, negative migration processes due to manifold reasons such as demographic processes and the lack of employment opportunities, deep poverty and subsequent social ghettoisation, the gradual deterioration and disintegration of cultural and educational facilities, and last but not least, a hopeless vision for the future. With the aim of instigating new research, the study examines crisis indicators in the field of economy, society and culture, which often appeared together and had cumulative effect. It also presents collective and individual life narratives and survival strategies, which are often different to the experiences of people in similar Hungarian regions.

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