Akadémia Kiadó

The book focuses on the agrarian economy and rural society of a village in the Small Plains (North-West Hungary) tracing the changes between the years 1920 and 1959. The majority of people in the community of Táp are of the Reformed Presbyterian denomination and they had been small-holder peasants before the communist collectivization in 1959. Utilizing actual case studies, the analysis attempts to show what cultivation, sustenance or development strategies were employed by individual families belonging to different holding categories, how their divergent work capacities and equipment made them assume different market relationships seeking a balance of self-sustenance and surplus production. The book also examines the various family structures, production methods, labor structures and relationships as well as the factors fundamentally determining peasant production, such as holding structures and movements, the history of property development, instruments of utility and cultivation, the size and composition of livestock, the development of production profiles and the possibilities of developing external sources of income, the relationship to the marketplace and specific economic strategies. The analysis also sheds light on the ulterior motives behind economic structures, phenomena and activities, such as value orientation and ways to manifest social rank and prestige. The author relies on the oral testimonies of data sources as well as an exceptionally wide array of written sources. By carefully comparing local findings with regional and national data, the book also attempts to place the peasant society and cultivation methods of Táp into a larger complex framework.