ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on both the long drawn out trends and phase of rural development in discussing de-peasantisation and its broad impacts in Hungary. It discusses how to identify differences and similarities of transformation of peasants in Hungary in comparison to other Green Ring countries. The chapter explores historical-structural peculiarities of Hungarian rural structures. It argues that about 50 percent of Hungarians live in rural settlements, that is, farmsteads, villages, or towns with a strong rural character. The chapter explains the importance of politics in the making and unmaking of peasants. It includes the three different levels of multidimensional change – cultural, structural and societal de-peasantisation. The de-peasantisation of Hungarian rurality started decades before the economic success of collectivised Hungarian agriculture, but the politically created collectivisation, the double structure of the economy and rural society, social mobility, and changes in the way of life or more generally the new system of social reproduction speeded it up.
