John C. Swanson. Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth-Century . Pitt Russian East European Series. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017. 464 pp. $34.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8229-6429-2.

Reviewed by H. Glenn Penny

Published on H-German (January, 2018)

Commissioned by David Harrisville (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

John C. Swanson has written a fantastic book. in Hungary. So-called Saxons and Zipsers came Acting as both ethnographer and historian, Swan‐ earlier, settling in Transylvania and Upper Hun‐ son studied the shifting meaning of “being Ger‐ gary, and they were part of a much bigger pattern man” in Hungary from the eighteenth century un‐ of migration. By the outset of the eighteenth cen‐ til today. This is neither about becoming national tury, some forty-two million people could be nor about national indiference. Instead, Swanson counted as “” in East Central Europe. narrates how disparate groups of people in Hun‐ German speakers, in fact, became “the largest eth‐ gary “thought German,” how that notion varied nolinguistic group in the region,” and as the em‐ with time and space, and how tangible versions of pires broke up and new nation-states emerged af‐ that idea—direct connections to dialect, dress, ter World War I, Germans, along with Jews, be‐ habits, place, and religion—were forced to com‐ came “one of the two largest minorities in Eastern pete with more abstract notions of belonging to Europe” (p. xii). In Hungary in 1930, 83 percent of ethnic or national groups. Tangible belonging those German speakers still lived in villages, most fared better than we might imagine. Swanson were agricultural workers, and two-thirds of them demonstrates that it not only trumped other lived in communities that were still majority Ger‐ forms of identifcation among many rural Ger‐ man. man speakers in Hungary before World War I but Most German speakers who arrived in Swabi‐ also persisted well into the twentieth century. In‐ an Turkey were Catholic, a smaller number deed, if the rise of abstract forms of ethnic or na‐ Protestant. Local rulers cleared the way for their tional belonging and the hegemonic power of settlement, pushing out other groups who occu‐ modern nation-states unsettled it greatly, they pied lands after the Ottomans left following the never eliminated it completely. 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, and accommodating the Swanson’s insights help us understand the ac‐ new arrivals in other ways. “Landlords, as well as tions of German speakers and their neighbors in a the Vienna Court,” Swanson explains, “made at‐ variety of historical situations. His focus is on vil‐ tractive overtures: free land, building supplies, lages near the city of Pécs, in an area known as tax relief, and even some religious tolerance, of‐ Swabian Turkey. These were not the frst German- fered specifcally to German speakers” (p. 24). Mo‐ speaking migrants enticed by local rulers to settle tivated primarily by economics, these rulers H-Net Reviews wanted productive, stable populations loyal to Organizations such as the Bauerbund approached God and local lords. They sought out Germans be‐ German speakers in Hungary as a united group cause they regarded them as inherently loyal, and ofered them economic benefts as its mem‐ with a calculating, hardworking, frugal, and prov‐ bers. The Hungarian state increasingly identifed ident character. pro-German activity as anti-Hungarian. It exerted While there was more variance among the ar‐ more infuence on local education, and as it began rivals than those stereotypes might imply, Swan‐ using language to identify and count people, such son argues that they all were “extremely pious in‐ abstract notions of belonging “developed into a dividuals. Religion was a major marker in their new form of competition to the sense of German‐ identity,” and that remained consistent across dom centered solely in the villages” (p. 45). That generations (pp. 25-26). Moreover, none of them did not drive all German speakers together. Many retained extensive contact with their places of ori‐ recognized the advantages of speaking Magyar. gin. Consequently, rural German-speaking vil‐ Since it was tied to the state, it was tied to upward lagers knew very little about their ancestors’ ori‐ mobility—much more so than either standard gins by the late nineteenth century. Their children German or one of the (p. 53). only began learning about them during the 1920s Consequently, economics as much as identity poli‐ and 1930s, as ethnographers, historians, and lin‐ tics drove many peasants’ choices regarding afli‐ guists began studying the various dialects of the ation and belonging, and not all German speakers German speakers in Central and Eastern Europe chose what the Bauerbund and similar organiza‐ and attempted to link Swabian villages to specifc tions had to ofer. regions in . German speakers had even more reasons to The frst signifcant shift toward a conceptual rethink what it meant to be German after World integration of German speakers came with the War I. Counted together, they became the largest Ausgleich of 1867, which established the dual minority in the new Hungary—about 7 percent of monarchy of Austria-Hungary. It increased the the total population. That quantifed presence in‐ presence of the Hungarian state at local levels. creased prewar tensions around language and be‐ The state increasingly tried to dictate what “Hun‐ longing, and the contests about belonging were garian” meant. That, in turn, led to standardiza‐ increasingly tied to resources. Moreover, in‐ tion eforts that caused tensions in multilingual creased mobility fed discussions and debates. Vil‐ communities. Indeed, it was largely those eforts lage communities became less isolated as modern that forced many German speakers to think be‐ transport and markets placed them into ever- yond the local while rethinking what it meant to greater contact with other populations, many of be German. That process, however, was neither which had their own notions of what it meant to rapid nor all-powerful. Villages retained great au‐ be German. Local German-language newspapers tonomy, and villagers continued to exchange their mattered a great deal, but so too did trips to mar‐ children with other families to ensure multilin‐ ketplaces and pilgrimage sites, interactions with gualism. Local schools remained under local au‐ soldiers, and new reading associations and lend‐ thority, and their communities remained animat‐ ing libraries. ed by the “numerous dialects and diverse cus‐ As a result of numerous new forms of interac‐ toms” brought by the original settlers (p. 26). tion, “being German in Hungary could no longer Yet in the decades leading up to World War I, exist in isolation from ideas brought from Ger‐ “ideas supporting a sense of Hungarian-German many” (p. 108). Yet those ideas were often as unity crept into Swabians’ everyday lives” (p. 45). strange to villagers in Hungary as the high Ger‐

2 H-Net Reviews man in which they were communicated. In much Soon afterward, some 50,000 Hungarian Ger‐ of Swabian Turkey, for example, people continued mans fed toward the Reich. A similar number to be distinguishable by their dialect and dress were deported as laborers to . Another during the transformations in markets and mobil‐ 220,000 were expelled from Hungary and sent to ity. Priests who spoke high German continued to either East or West Germany after 1945. A similar fnd it difcult to communicate with their congre‐ number remained, but their lives were drastically gations and to earn their trust. “In many ways,” changed. “People moved away from being Ger‐ Swanson explains, “ was just as man; they tried at least in the years following new to rural Swabians as Magyar” (p. 153). More‐ 1945, to escape their ethnicity as well as their lan‐ over, many villagers did not see their language as guage.” Consequently, much as in the United the essential marker of their identity. Many more States following World War I and many other thought frst in terms of class, location, and voca‐ countries during and after World War II, “if a tion, and for those interested in upper mobility, sense of ‘being German’ still existed, it went un‐ Magyar continued to ofer them more opportuni‐ derground” (p. 330). ties than either high German or local dialects. Two generations passed before open discus‐ The pressure to choose between languages, sions of what it meant to be German-Hungarian and thus between more sharply designated no‐ returned to Hungary. They became more common tions of German and Hungarian, increased with after 1990. But here, as in many other places the Nazis’ rise to power and the outbreak of where language and ethnic identity became nega‐ World War II. As Swanson reminds us, the Nazis’ tive markers, there was a key problem. One can “main purpose was to convince all German speak‐ pursue cultural and linguistic revitalization but ers of their place in the and of the National none can escape the fact that the “new Swabian Socialists’ foremost position within that group” image is, to a large extent, tied to the language, (p. 208). Thus as their organizations spread across which cannot be the ever-fading dialects of the Central and Eastern Europe, rural Germans in‐ now older generation. German—acquired as a creasingly felt compelled “to accept membership second language—will (and to some extent al‐ either in Germany’s Germandom, which the new ready has) become the new abstract marker of the Hungarian-German leadership also began to fa‐ German minority in Hungary” (p. 343). So, even if vor, or in a Hungariandom that some defned in Germanness returns to being an openly recog‐ opposition to any form of Germanness” (p. 227). nized marker of belonging in Hungary, it will nev‐ Once the war began, many German speakers were er regain its tangible character of the past. drawn into the German military. Others fed into This is an important book that can be read in the Hungarian military. Divisions deepened and many ways. It is a model analysis of belonging in increased. Initially, German-speaking Jews were local communities, and a clear contribution to our safe from persecution because of bilaterial agree‐ knowledge of Hungarian history and the history ments between the states. Hungarian eforts to of German speakers in Central and Eastern Eu‐ gain a separate peace, however, upset those rope. The transition at the heart of Swanson’s nar‐ agreements. The subsequent German invasion in rative, however, is one that afected many Ger‐ March 1944 was quickly followed by massive de‐ man speakers in similar ways in other parts of the portations, and “the Jews of Swabian Turkey,” world. It is hard not to notice, for example, simi‐ counted for generations among the Germans larities in Swanson’s tale with the histories of ru‐ there, “were rounded up and sent to their deaths ral German speakers in southern or even in in early July 1944” (p. 295). the midwestern United States. It remains to be

3 H-Net Reviews seen if the modes of belonging Germans took to places like Latin America or the United States were as “tangible” as those in Swanson’s story, but there is good reason to believe that this would have been the case in many isolated, rural com‐ munities.

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Citation: H. Glenn Penny. Review of Swanson, John C. Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth-Century Hungary. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2018.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50539

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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