ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Ferenc Erdei life and work of considerable interest in attempting to assess recent changes and prospects in the Hungarian countryside. The vicissitudes of his personal career and his posthumous reputation seem to exemplify much that is central to the history of Hungary in the twentieth century. The chapter shows how the ambiguities and ambivalences of Erdei's life can be related to the ideologies and real struggles of millions of people in rural Hungary. Erdei produced the classic accounts of social structure in pre-socialist Hungary. Erdei's critique was most effective when he discussed the areas of the Great Plain which he knew intimately from childhood and from the regular field trips he made during and after his student days. One such area is the puszta zone of sandy soils between the rivers Danube and Tisza where Tazlar is located.
