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Ethnic Peculiarities and Inter-ethnic Parallels in the Traditional Material Culture of the Hungarians of Ugocsa
233-252Views:27The Hungarians living in the present-day Transcarpathian region have lived peacefully for centuries together with the majority Ruthenian/Ukrainian population, as well as with the Romanian, German, Roma and other ethnic groups, who live in a similar minority to the Hungarians. Ethnographers and tourists visiting the region are convinced that these nationalities have retained the characteristics of their culture to this day. At the same time, it is worth observing how this long historical coexistence is reflected in the way of life and mentality of these people. The parallels between Ruthenian and Hungarian language and folklore, folk customs are excellent examples of interethnic relations, but I have also encountered similar examples when researching the traditional material culture of the villages in Ugocsa. In the field of folk architecture, for example, the gate called tőkés kapu, as well as the abora, aszaló [the dryer] and the barn. Interethnic phenomena between Hungarians, Ruthenians and other nationalities of the region can also be observed in folk costumes (the guba, or the shoes called bochkor). Throughout history, in Transcarpathia, which belonged to different state formations, it was noticeable that culture was not strictly tied to peoples. Thanks to the tolerance shown towards each other, the nationalities of the region have preserved their ethnic and religious characteristics and identity, but we can also find many similarities in their cultures. When studying the interactions that mutually enrich each other's culture and provide a colorful and attractive image to the region, it is often impossible to find out who borrowed from whom and when. During the ethnographic research of the local communities, the main point is to take into account the ethnic interaction of the nationalities living here, as the folk culture of the local Hungarians is determined by the aggregation of the cultures of different ethnicities.
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Remain of a Dialect in an Urban Cultural Medium by Means of Folk-tales: Role of Some Tale-tellers of a Hungarian Ethnic Group Székelys of Bukovina in Hungary
31-46Views:54The aim of the paper is to show the role that storytellers can play in the transmission of traditions, identity and dialect today. The paper focuses on a Hungarian ethnic group: Szeklers of Bukovina settled in Hungary in 1945. The main aim of this paper is to present the function of dialects in tales and tale-telling after the change of traditional peasant way of life and dialects. In Bukovina this ethnic group was isolated from the Hungarian mother-country and the majority of Hungarians, their cultural and language changes did not reach them, therefore the members of this ethnic group could retain their traditional culture and dialect. However, in Hungary they were settled into 38 settlements, thereby their original communities broke up. The dialectal and sociolinguistic data of this paper comes from the storyteller’s websites, written and oral personal stories, the text and sound-recording of folk-tales, and also data of formal dialectal researches of this ethnic group is used. This paper presents an analysis of some storytellers who use several dialect elements of this ethnic group, besides the role of dialects in tale-telling is studied too. It is an important aspect of this analyse how some storytellers utilize their dialect in tales and during tale-telling, and why they usually use it. The results of research present that these storytellers can use dialect elements in different ways in their tale-telling. The main conclusion is that use of a dialect can be a part of language education, a dialect is an identity marker, and by the help of it a storyteller can create a pictorial experience during the tale-telling, besides it can be a source of humour too.
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The Concept of Dissimilation in the Study of Inter-ethnic Marriages within Homogeneous Meskhetian Turkish, Azerbaijani Marriages in Turkestan
95-114Views:22While analyzing the preservation of cultural heritage is more straightforward in homogenous households, inter-ethnic marriages present a captivating lens through which to examine cultural integration, social identity, and the preservation of tradition within diverse societies. This study explores the dynamics of inter-ethnic and homogeneous marriages among Meskhetian Turks and Azerbaijanis in Kazakhstan, applying the theoretical framework of dissimilation theory. By drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2024 which involved 45 interviews from two research villages, Turki Poselkasy and Kentau, located in the Turkestan province in the southern part of Kazakhstan, the research investigates the historical context and contemporary realities faced by these communities. In doing so, it highlights differences in culture, language, and social norms that can influence the formation of both mixed and homogeneous marriages among minority groups in the region. The theoretical background of the study is grounded in dissimilation theory, which posits that individuals in inter-ethnic marriages tend to distance themselves from their own ethnic groups to establish new identities within the context of their relationships. Through interviews and surveys conducted across diverse settlements, the study explores social identities and groups as well as concepts of cultural and social differences including gender dynamics, to uncover the intricate mechanisms of dissimilation.
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An Informal Group of Hungarians in the Multicultural, Urban Culture of Berlin
67-86Views:94Minority groups leave their traces in the cultural life of cities and it is an important task of science to track down and document these traces. The formation of ethnic communities through self-initiative has been intensively researched and ethnic groups play an increasingly important role in the representation of cities. This study gives a brief insight into the present research work that shows and documents an example of ethnic community organization in the urban space of a large city. The focus of this research is an informal group of Hungarians in Berlin, the Berlin Szalon, which already looks back on 50 years of history. After a brief excursion into the history of salon culture in Berlin, the historical roots of the Berlin Szalon are described. In the second part of this study, some results of an online questionnaire survey carried out amoung the audience of the Berlin Szalon are presented. An important objective of the data collection was to determine the motivation factors and attitude of the salon guests when attending the salon evenings and find out the audience’s opinion of the salon events.
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The New Challenges and Situation of an Ethnic Minority within a Local Community in the Light of Social Changes
151-177Views:83Our memory is largely shaped by the way we look at the peoples currently living within the Carpathian Basin. Once a well-known tobacco-growing village in Historic Hungary, Torda (also known as Torontáltorda in Hungarian) is now a dispersed settlement with a Hungarian ethnic majority located in the Banat region of Vojvodina, Serbia.
The shifting of national borders, the two World Wars, the events of the Yugoslav Wars and migratory movements have collectively changed and decimated the lives of Hungarians who had found themselves outside their motherland’s borders after the 1920s.
In spite of the decline in population, the emigration of young people, and the everyday struggles resulting from hard living conditions, this village in the Central Banat district could attract further socio-ethnographic interest. In the micro-communities of rural settlements, education and religion play a key role in creating social value, maintaining Hungarian culture in the area and forming a national, local sense of identity within the community. Commemorative rituals, local traditions and national holidays often cross each others’ paths and blend together through education and religion, highlighting the reality and cultural values of the community, as well as the array of connections between community life and ethnic culture. This study discusses Torda’s present in the light of social change and the process of cultural mapping, touching on the importance of the local cultural association in the community’s life. This study also explores the events of the past few decades that have left a deep imprint on the micro-community’s life in a cultural, social and ethnic sense.
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Competing Nationality Politics Targeting German Communities at the Hungarian-Romanian Border Zone after the Great War
71-86Views:167In my study, I focus on the events that took place in the short period after the Great War ended (1918) and before the consolidation of Romanian power in the Hungarian-Romanian Border Commission (1922) from the point of view of the artificially created ethnic category: the Satu Mare Swabians or Sathmar Swabians. The historiography related to the “ethnographic” aspects of these events have appeared multiple times and in several contexts and forms in the years since. However, the question of ethnicity has not arisen in relation to the population of German descent, but rather in relation to the Hungarian-speaking Greek Catholic communities of Romanian and Rusyn/Ruthenian origin who were treated by the Romanian side as Magyarized Romanians. Following this example, the Romanians later began to collect data on the Magyarized Germans, which they then presented to the Border Commission. Germans living in the territory witnessed a strong competition between identity politics and discourse supported by rival Hungarian and Romanian states. One of the key features of this rivalry was the intensive propaganda activity promoted by both the Romanian and the Hungarian authorities to gain territories to the detriment of the other.
