Preview

Gypsies, the Work Ethic and Hungarian Socialism

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
387 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Gypsies, the Work Ethic and Hungarian Socialism
Gypsies, the work ethic, and Hungarian
Socialism

In his work Socialism; Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice, Chris Hann includes the text in which Michael Steward analyses the Gypsy responses to Hungarian social policy providing the image of the sources of popular resistance to the massive experiment in social engineering undertaken by the socialist governments of the Soviet bloc. The text focuses on the twenty five years period in which the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party led a vigorous campaign to assimilate the near half-million Gypsy population into the Magyar working class by trying to eliminate all traces of Gypsy lifestyle and behavior. In the author’s view there was there was an important plank formed in the social policy of the Hungarian regime. This happened due to several reasons: the largest minority in Hungary lived shocking poverty conditions, the state was looking to renew its socialist pledge by modernization under social equality and the economic, social and cultural distinctiveness of the Gypsies. The result of this campaign was not the one intended because Gypsies were in 1985 as prominent in the Hungarian society as they were in 1960. Moreover, the state had managed to create conditions in which, in popular imagination at least, being a Gypsy seemed the most viable way to survive the privations and humiliations of a planned economy.

The campaign to assimilate Gypsies in socialist Hungary The campaign lasted from 1961 to 1985 and it began with the decision that Gypsies were neither an ethnic group nor a nation. Cultural factors did not play a significant role in the reproduction of Gypsies and the attempts to turn them into a nation had been misguided. Gypsy nationalists programs slowed down the process of assimilation and their self-organization and expression were to be discouraged. The author states the Gypsies were characterized by a way of life marked out behavioral traits such as scavenging, begging, hustling, dealing and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Heda Margolius Kovaly’s Under A Cruel Star is a captivating memoir that provides historical accounts during the time period when Czechoslovakia was under Nazi control and faced with Stalinism. Kovaly gives her personal first hand accounts on experiences in concentration camps, post-war struggles, and the life that she lived while under Communism. Contrasting with Under A Cruel Star, John Merriman’s A History of Modern Europe uses clear and concise mundane facts to provide the accounts of history during this era. Presenting history in a memoir makes the read effortless and alluring but it also takes away some of the factual significance that the textbook offers. History presented in this form differs from accounts during this time era written…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    This sparked the physical battle portion of the war, and led to the American’s first gunfire encounter with their enemy. It also brought the colonists together for this big encounter, and though they suffered casualties, allowed them the small victories of not only firing upon the British, but causing them more casualties than their own troops.…

    • 1487 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hungary went through great sacrifices to stand up against the oppressive rule of the Soviet Union for a world they could chose for themselves. Led by the idealistic Imre Nagy, civilian demonstrations erupted across the nation in 1956. Despite their efforts, the country was overpowered and crushed; Nagy was privately executed and his legacy buried. Yet, people of Hungary refused to remain hidden or silent; they protested, fought, screamed and died to build a nation most would never live to experience. Still, their struggle was far from fruitless and the Republic of Hungary was born in 1989.…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poland DBQ

    • 1328 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The massive disconnect between the communist party’s policy and the desire of the people was a factor in the emergence of the entire opposition movement. The communist party originally had promised the Polish workers that it would be a government that put the needs of the working class before all others, but over time it became obvious the government was following a policy of dictatorial political repression. When the Polish working class attempted to make its “voice heard” in Poznan during a protest against communist rule, several dozen workers were killed in the government’s suppression of the strike. Marketed in a governmental propaganda piece as an “exciting and uncommon” event, they promised that the party was “united with the nation.” (Doc 1) Edward Gierek, head of the Polish communist party, addressed the issue as a whole by demanding that the Polish workers not “demand that kind of…

    • 1328 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Harvest Gypsies Analysis

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the early 1930’s, there were many difficulties in the Midwest. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl caused many problems. Midwest people lost their homes and had no source of income because of these difficulties. In Harvest Gypsies, government camps and speculative farms have different and similar ways on fulfilling the physical and emotional needs of migrants. Government camps fulfill the needs of migrants better than speculative farms.…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mankind just never seems to be able to come to their full realization of how it is bad. To this day, not everyone is treated same all the time, sometimes some are indeed treated different due to their sex, gender and race. There are still some anti- communists out there but very few or no attention is driven towards them. But one major issue that had been continued is the fact that some countries still don’t want to accept others’ unique opinions. According to the WSWS, the Polish parliament recently adopted a de-communization law, giving local governments one year to remove all symbols representing communism from the public space. This indicates that to this day people are still against communism and very few have failed to…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    • John Connelly, ‘Why the Poles Collaborated so Little: And Why That Is No Reason for Nationalist Hubris’, Slavic Review, 64/4 (2005), pp. 771-781.…

    • 2547 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The ‘logic of capitalism’ perspective help invites difficult questions. As if Przeworski (1980) has argued, working-class consent is assured on the basis of material hegemony, that is, self-willed subordination to the system, it is difficult to see why up to 40 percent of the national product must be allocated to the legitimating activities of a welfare state. A second problem is to derive state activities from a ‘mode of production’ analysis. Eastern Europe may perhaps not qualify as socialist, but neither is it capitalist. Yet there we find ‘welfare states too. Perhaps accumulation has functional requirements no matter how it proceeds? (Skocpol and Amenta, 1986; Bell, 1978).…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shel Silverstein

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Shel Silverstein was born in Chicago, Illinois 1932 and died May 10, 1999 from a heart attack. Shel Silverstein was a well know and well liked author/poet. Silverstein noticed his talents when he was twelve years old. When most boys are playing sports and chasing girls, Shel was at home writing and drawing original pieces. His talents were well –developed by the time he served in the US Armed Forces during the 1950's. While in the military he was a cartoonist for the Pacific Edition of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. After his time spent in the military he became a cartoonist for Playboy in 1956. Those works for Playboy were then published into collections named " A Playboy's Teevee Jeebies" and "More Playboy's Teevee Jeebies (Do it yourself Dialogue for the Late Show)."…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gypsies and Travellers have experienced discrimination for years from all areas of society. (Cooper,O,Hara,Shmid2007) explain that research shows and demonstrates groups of people deemed to be diverse and different suffer oppression and discrimination from the majority or advantaged groups within society. The discrimination has been shown to come from all areas of socio cultural society including statutory agencies and those there to uphold the law and communities such as Policing, medical, education, Judiciary and penal systems as well as general society. The enactment of the “Equal Status Act” in 2000 now provides some redress for Travellers and Gypsies who have experienced discrimination at institutional level but they still have to face…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This chapter tackles the complex questions surrounding the sudden crime drop of the 1990’s. It dissects a slew of possible reasons and comes to a conclusion that wasn’t even originally listed, but was talked about at the beginning of the chapter. It begins discussing Nicolae Ceausescu, the communist dictator of Romania, and his abolishment of abortion. He felt the increase of child birth would ensure it a rapid increase of national strength. And he was right. Birth rate doubled, but these children had it worse in almost every way. They had lower test scores, bad luck finding jobs in the market, and were more likely to be criminals. This ban stayed in effect until the family lost control in 1989. The protesters were all very young and unhappy with their lives.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Huseby-Darvas, S. (1993). Needy guest, reluctant hosts? Refugee women from the former Yugoslavia in Hungary. Refuge, 12(7), 6-11.…

    • 3565 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements developed in approximately 100 ghettos in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe (“Jewish”).…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Dr. Ian Hancock, “centuries of powerlessness and abuse are probably the cause of this destruction of the spirit; many Gypsies, having been born to it, probably saw their enslavement as part of the natural order of things” (Hancock, 1987; 39). Since the Roma born into slavery never experienced freedom or even witnessed another Romani person living freely, other than the Netoţi, their standards of living extended as far as their limited knowledge on the subject of freedom.6 The Netoţi are supposedly Roma who escaped slavery and lived in the Carpathian Mountains according to gadže accounts; however, there have been no actual Roma who claim to be descendants of the Netoţi. Because the Netoţi received bad reputations by stealing from travelers to survive, the Netoţi intimidated both the gadže, non- Romani people, and Romani people. With only Netoţi to serve as an example of what living freely was, the image of freedom probably did not seem as appealing to the…

    • 4463 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    America has always been the choice of land where most of the migrating families will settle into. Immigrants left everything they had and knew behind to come to this new land of opportunity. Whether the reasons were economical, religious or oppression from their respective government, they wanted to be part of the great new world that was being developed west of the pond. A new world where all immigrants were welcome with open arms, where freedom was the common goal and everyone wanted to succeed.…

    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays