Egy paraszti „önéletrajz” a szocializmusból
A Peasant’s ‘Autobiography’ from the Socialist Era

Summary/Abstract: In this study I analyse the writing of a woman, who was born in 1900 into a peasant family – later she moved to the city (first to Debrecen and then to Budapest) and lived there for quite a long time before finally moving back to her village after World War II. Mrs. János István put the story of her life on paper between 1974 and 1977 upon the request of ethno-grapher Árpád Lajos; her autobiography is interrupted by diary-like entries that refer to the recent past. Keeping the characteristics of the genre and content of peasant autobio-graphies connects the author with traditional peasant culture, at the same time the new things she experienced as an old woman and the way she evaluated these separate her from the view of life of her contemporary villagers. The detailed descriptions of day trips and bathing at spas organised by the agricultural cooperative all speak of the appearance of ex-perience-based consumption. At these trips and in her village the old woman continuously ‘witnesses’ the achievements of socialism that are good for her (e.g. the three-course meal served at day trips, the programs organised on old people’s and women’s day, the helpful-ness of her female labourer mentors); with her naive stylistic means (e.g. she asks the poe-tic question of ‘so thiz is what Soczializm is like?’ several times in the text) she draws atten-tion to these achievements. Since Mrs. János István experienced both city and village life she cannot be considered a univocal representative of either village or urban lifestyle. Through her work we have the chance to shed light on certain aspects of changing life-styles, moving from a village to the city or living in Hungary before World War II and in the socialist era.

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