Traversing political economy and the household: An ethnographic analysis of life after communism in Kojsov, a rural village in eastern Slovakia

Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)

Authors Acheson, Julianna, 1965-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Download date 08/10/2021 01:46:14

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282421 INFORMATION TO USERS

This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text dnvctfy fix)m the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter while others may be fix)m any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reprodoction is depeodcnt npon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bieedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikefy event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, b^inning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing fi'om left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Ifigher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI ABdl & Etowell bifiniiiation Conqtai^ 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Aibor MI 48106-1346 USA 313^61-4700 800/521-0600

TRAVERSING POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE HOUSEHOLD: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF LIFE AFTER COMMUNISM IN KO JSOV, A RURAL VILLAGE IN EASTERN SLOVAKIA

by Julianna Acheson

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

19 9 7 UMX Ntmber: 9806805

UMI Microform 9806805 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. Ail rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 2

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA « GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Julianna Acheson entitled Traversing Political Economy and the Household; An

Ethnographic Analysis of Life after Communism in Kojsov,

A Rural Village in Eastern Slovakia

and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Thomas K. Park, chair Date -"i—- ^ / ? 7 Ri«tvard A. Thompson Date (o-ll s B. Greenberg Date

Date

Date

Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.

K- Co-Zl- Dissertation Director Thomas K. Park Date 3

STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submittedin partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Libraiy to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertations are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate Collie when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. 4

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am greatly indebted to many for their assistance and support in the research and write-up of this dissertation. I would first like to thank Tana Petrovova and Vladii^ Smiesko for Iheir help in the initial stages of this research. At the Ethnology bistitute in Bratislava my research was welcomed by Michael and VieraKalavsky, DusanRatica, andG^iKilianova. Andrea GrifBn and the family Ondercanin helped with living arrangements during my initial stay in Slovalda. Marta and Jan Botikova assisted me in understanding the Slovak family and issues of ethnidly in Kojsov. I am also grateful to Martin Votruba for teaching me Slovak at the University of Pittsburgh. IREX supported this language acquisition. Without the people of Kojsov, in particular Andrej and Anna Petrov, their warmth, openness, and hospitality, this project would have been impossible. My relatives in Kosice were very helpful around the time of the biiih of my dau^ter. I will alwa}^ remember their kindness. During the write-up phase of this project many came to my aid. Jim Inverarity and the Sociology Department at Western Washington University were very supportive. I also wish to acknowledge Bob Marshall and the Anthropology Department at Western Washington University for giving me the opportunity to teach while I wrote. Joe Amett and Vierka and Vlado Matuska aided me in plant identification. Jim Field helped with mushroom identification. Janine Shaw read off data to me when all else had given up. I am also grateful to all those in my extended bilateral kin esped^y my father James Acheson for his advice, as well as Ann Acheson for help with kinship charts and methodology in the field. My mother Carolyn BeUerose never gave up on my long project. My grandmother Mary L. Acheson and her sister Ann Petrov were especially help^ for their many years of correspondence. At the University of Arizona I am thankful for the help and advise of Richard Thompson, Jim Greenberg, Helen and Dick Henderson, the late Bob Netting, Ellen Basso, Jane Hill, ^ce Schlegel, and especially Tad Park, my advisor. I also thank Laura Stuckey and T^aSandblom. Janet Pollack was a source of support and inspiration for my work in Slovakia. My colleagues were great assistance in this endeavor as weU. I wish to thank Ann Bennett, Alex Brewis, Liz Cartwiright, Steve Ferzacca, HaUey Freitas, Deborah House, Jan Newberry, Brooke Olsen, Er^e Olsen, Helen Bobbins, Andrea Smith, Ed. Sn£y dr, Chris Svec and Katheline Vi^lliamson. I am eternally indebted to my husband and dear fiiend John Field and my daughter Hannah Joy for their patience and f\m during this liminnl state of my life. I dedicate this dissertation to them both. 5

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. LIST OF FIGURES 8 2. LIST OF TABLES 9 3. ABSTRACT 10 4. CHAPTER ONE 13 4.1 bitroductioii 13 4.2 Contextualizing the Research 15 4.3 Why the Household? 19 4.4 Kojsov~A Physical Description 23 4.5 Dissertation Outline 29 5. CHAPTER TWO: A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE IN RETURN MIGRATION: FIELDWORKIN SLOVAKIA 32 5.1 Introduction 32 5.2 Return Migration 34 5.3 Slovak Ethology—iMzroctopis 44 5.4 Conclusions 53

6. CHAPTER THREE: METHODS 55 6.1 Introduction 55 6.2 Learning Slovak 56 6.3 Pilot Study 58 6.4 Participant Observation...The First Few Months 60 6.5 Participant Observation...The Birth 63 6.6 Participant Observation..Jiiovlng to the Village 68 6.7 Establishing Rapport 70 6.8 The Survey 71 6.9 The Population 75 6.10 Representativeness 78 6.11 Problems in the Field 81 6.12 Conclusions 84 7. CHAPTER FOUR: KOJSOV AND A CENTURY OF CHANGE 87 7.1 Introduction 87 7.2 1948-1918 94 7.3 The First Slovak Repiiblic 97 7.4 The Second World War 100 7.5 1948-1968--The Emergence of Socialism 104 7.6 1969-1989—Normalization Ill 7.7 1989-1993~The Velvet Revolution 118 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS CX>NT. 7.8 1993-Preseiit Independent Slovakia 123 7.9 Conclusions 127 8. CHAPTER FIVE: SUNDAY DINNER WITH THE KOVAC'S: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE HOUSEHOLD 128 8.1 Litroduction 128 8.2 Sunday Church Service 129 8.3 The Ethnography of Dinner 131 8.4 Conclusions 155 9. CHAPTER SIX HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION 157 9.1 Introduction 157 9.2 The Household as an Analytic Category 158 9.3 Households in Kojsov 162 9.4 Four Types of Households in Kojsov 169 9.5 The Extended Family as a Household Tjrpe 172 9.6 The Elderly Retired Household 174 9.7 Households from Town 176 9.8 Vacationers in Kojsov 179 9.9 Conclusions 180

10. CHAPTER SEVEN: HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION 183 10.1 Introduction 183 10.2 The Sexual Division of Labor 184 10.3 Grardening 187 10.4 Subsidizing the Garden 193 10.5 Gardening by Household Type 196 10.6 Animal Husbandry 202 10.7 Gathering Activity 206 10.8 Discussion 208 10.9 Conclusions 212 11. CHAPTER EIGHT: "WE HAVENT EATEN FRIED CHEESE SINCE THE REVOLUTION": HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION 214 11.1 Introduction 214 11.2 Increase in the Price of Groceries: A List of Household 216 11.3 Comparison of a Fixed Basket of Consumer Goods 219 11.4 Strategies for Coping with a Decrease in BiQingPowCT 221 7

TABLE OF CONTENTS CONT.

11.5 Conclusioiis 225 12. CHAPTER NINE: REPRIVATIZING LAND IN KOJSOV 230 12.1 "The Tallest Blade of Grass is the First to be Cut" 230 12.2 Reprivatizatiaii 232 12.3 An Overview of Land Reform in Slovakia 233 12.4 The Privatization Campaign in Spis 237 12.5 Interview #I 246 12.6 Interview #2 253 12.7 Laterview#3 261 12.8 Interview #4 269 12.9 Conclusions 273 13. CHAPTER TEN: CONCLUSIONS 274 14. REFERENCES 278 8

1. LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.0 Photograph of Kbjsov 11 Figure 2.0 Map lowing the location of Kbjsov 12 Figure 3.0 Photograph of Julianna (Pagurfa) Petrov, Michael Petrov, and Mary (Petrov) Acheson circa 1963 35 Figure 4.0 &oj worn by village girls 46 Figure 5.0 A List of Topics of Study by Slovak Ethnologists as Shown in the Etnograficl^r Atlas of Slovakia (1990) 47 Figure 6.0 Photograph of Hannah, passport photo, 1993.... 66 Figure 7.0 Photograph ofOndrej Petrov, age 93 89 Figure 7.1 Photograph ofOndrej PetroVs house 90 Figure 7.2 Photograph of Maria and Ondrej Petrov circa 1940 91 Figure 8.0 The G^eek Catholic Church in Kojsov 103 Figure 9.0 A Typical House fi-om the Period After Socialism 156 Figure 10.0 GatheringMushrooms 182 9

2. LIST OF TABLES Table I Eastern European Countries and Their bivolvement in Food Production 188 Table 2 Garden Production in Kojsov for Village Extended Families 195 Tables Canning Activity from One Root Cellar 198 Table 4 Garden Production in Kbjsov for the Village Elderly 199 T{ible5 Garden Production in Local Towns 200 Table 6 Animal Husbandry in 1993 201 Table? Canning Activity for 1993 and 1992 201 Tables Fixed Basket of Goods 226 Table 9 Percentage oflncome Spent on Fixed Basket. 226 Table 10 Inflation in Grocery Prices 227 Table 11 Changes in Household Income Between 1989 and 1993 228 Table 12 Unemployment and Retirement Rate in Kojsov 228 Table 13 Other Expenses 228 Table 14 Change in Grocery Consumption 229 Table 15 Reclaiming Land in the Province of Spis as of Sept. 1993 251 10

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is the result of ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Slovakia in the village of Kbjsov during the year of1993. The goal of the dissertation is to examine issues of the household economy in light of the "transition from communism to capitalism". At the level of the household differences between consumption and production can be revealed and reaction to opportunities from the 1989 Velvet Revolution are made ludd. Household composition, production, and consumption form the basis for the second part of this dissertation. I point out how individuals consume significantly less, produce more in kitchen gardens, and endure the financial stress of economic change. Of prime importance during this period of transition is the process of decoUectivization and reprivatization of land in rural Slovakia. This process is the focus of the third and final section of the dissertation. Villagers in Kojsov are extremely slow to reprivatize their family lands. This behavior is tied to a village ethos of egalitarianism, an antipathy for stratification, an overall lack of capital necessary to take the risks integral to entrepreneurial activity. Thus both ideology and limited finances determine the fate of Kojsov's land. This dissertation is a case study which examines contemporary issues surrounding peasants, the moral economy, the "transition" capitalism and entrepreneurship. Figure 1.0 Photograph of Kbjsov Figure 2.0 Map showing the location of Kojsov. 13

4. CHAPTERONE

4^1 Introductioii

This dissertation is an ethnographic investigation of village life in eastern Slovakia after the fall of communism in 1989 and after Slovakia became an independent Republic in 1993. This dissertation first recounts a rather imique ethnographic experience in the village of Kojsov: I conducted fieldwork in the village fi-om which my great-grandfather originated. As such, it is an attempt to decipher several inter-related topics germane to peasants in eastern Europe. The introductory section of the dissertation focuses on describing the context of the field research. In order to understand the economic and political chaos impacting villagers, the household economy is next taken as the point of analysis. By analyzing household composition, production, and consumption patterns, one is able to make out the fine details of daily life which impact decision making. An ethnographic analysis of village households allows us to explore explicitly the economic turmoil "post- communism" presents at the village level. The third section of the dissertation focuses on the status of land decollectivization and process of reprivatization in I&>jsov. The dismantling of Eastern Europe's socialism entails the annihilation of such state institutions as the collective farm. It also entails an assumption that individuals will act "rationally" in a market economy. In Kojsov this reorganization of the collective farm and reprivatization process has been 14

impeded by an egalitarian ideology more than other economic constraints. This part of this dissertation is both exploratory and e3q)lanatory in deciphering this seemingly "irrational" behavior of Kbjsovians. Early phases of reprivatization were enhanced by the Czechoslovak government supplying banks loans and farm equipment. Kojsovers did not respond to such incentives sponsored by the government. Economic hardship at the household level, while quite severe in some instances, has not increased villagers' initiative to either partake in the newly established market economy or to reprivatize the land due to them in the state's restructuring of collective and states lands. Part three of this dissertation takes to task one of the most central themes in contemporary peasants studies. Unlike the findings of research on the family farm and other traditional peasant studies, my study suggests Kojsovians do not view their family lands as a safety net to be used in times of financial hardship. Rather they act as if they have "maintained" a "moral economy" and avoid risty behavior at all costs. FinaUy, this dissertation may be of value to anyone interested in understanding the tendency of Eastern European nations to vote, both figuratively and literally, for the return of communism. From the village perspective, the uncertainty of the political and economic present are unwelcome. In the words of villagers, "Big Brother was better than no one." 15

4^ ContOTtoaliziiig the Research The year 1989, in Eastern and Central Europe, marked one of the most fimdamental transitions in the history of the western world. It was the year that altered the course of the "Cold War". Giorbachov's restructuring and opening of "communism" in the U.S.SJt known as Perestroika and Glasnost, created an atmosphere for the dismantling of socialism as it was known in "eastern bloc" countries. The ramifications of Gorbachov's Perestroika and Glasnost were most visibly seen in the destruction of the Berlin Wall when both Eastern and Western Germans dismantled one of the most blatant symbols of the cold war. The iron curtain had risen and the wall had come tumbling down. Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia like the former East Germany would be responsible for redefining their relationships with the U,S.S.R, the west and their own foreign policies in general. These countries would also face an enormous social transition, one which was envisioned as completely altering their socialistic, centralized, and inefficient economies. This social transition was to be accompanied by the privatization of property owned and managed by the state. This transition, formulated by politicians, intellectuals, and economists of the urban elite, has had and will continue to have profound affects on the countryside. As Vasary points out in reference to Hungars^:

"Policies unveiled by the new regime have opened up multiple avenues of change of labyrinth-like complexity which the political leadership, economic advisors, and most of all society must negotiate together. The rural population, most affected by the brut^ change of the human-ltmd relationship throu^ collectivization in 1950-1960, is now experiencing, per^ps more 16

acutely than any other section of society, the uncertainly of fireedom and the related choices that have to be made" (1995:10).

Vasary's point aptly describes far more than just the Hungarian situation: the rural populations in each of the previously mentioned ex-eastem bloc countries fit the description as well. Rural peoples throu^out much of the world lack access to the glamorous marketplace known to urban dwellers where the results of newly established consumerism sometimes blind the eye to the emerging social problems associated with fast stratification and the dissolution of social welfare. Rural dwellers have much less access to the niceties associated with the "West". The electric deep-fi^rs, satellite dishes, and colorful western products promulgated by blaring televisions take much longer to radiate into villages. Instead rural dwellers, like those interviewed for this research, bear the brunt of inflation, unemployment, social service cuts, and increased isolation without the pretty perks which celebrate the Revolution with each round of consumption. The most exalted, pervasive, perhaps invasive, plan for rural dwellers by architects of the transition include first and foremost the reprivatization of lands and a total restructuring of agriculture. Vaclav Havel wrote in 1992:

"A great transformation and rebirth are awaiting agriculture. As I write this, impassioned debates about its future are taking place. ...I can imagine, that ten years fi'om now this great rebirth of agriculture should be basic^y complete. It should leave our countryside looking essentially different. First of all, our villages will once again have become villages, modem and pleasing to ^e eye. The natural connection between their traditionalraisond'itre —a place for people to live, for the raising of livestock, and for the cultivation of the fields-must be gradually renewed. Agriculture should once again be in the hands of the farmers-people who own the land, the meadow, the orchards, and the livestock, and take care of them" (1992:109). 17

Shamelessly romantic and intensely ambitious, Havel's plan for villagers, to bring them home to their peasant past, lacks insight into the reality of villagers' lives. If nothing more, this dissertation is an impetus for sounding out the policies and ideology of intellectuals. Reprivatization is far from a simple process; its complexity has only recently been researched. Gerald Creed, for example, insists that from the villagers' viewpoint the collectivization process in Bulgaria of the 1950-60s was much closer to its diametrically opposed opposite, reprivatization, than one might consider at first glance. He states that villagers somehow saw post-socialist land restitution as a reprise of communist collectivization—an old song in a new voice. Both prc^ams were attempts by the state to force villagers into radically different agricultural arrangements. Collectivization was an attack by communists in the name of a proletarian working class; decollectivization was an attack by urban intellectuals in the name of western oriented capitalist entrepreneurs (1995:41). This dissertation sheds light on the complexily of the reprivatization process. It demonstrates the motives for resisting the top-down administrative program for restructuring the countryside, \nilagers in Kbjsov, are a case study in resistance, and show that the process is far from simple. Land tenure in Kojsov looked very different from the vast spans of land employed by Czechs. Perhaps the plan by Havel is more appropriate for Czech villages surrounding his home in Prague. However, in Slovakia, especially in mountainous villages like Kojsov, plots of land have been fragmented dwarf holdings. Before the communist period, beginning in 1950, rarely did a family own more than one to two hectares. The parcels were 18

scattered in noncontiguous pk>ts difficult to access car, but adequate for travel by foot or by horse. The size and scattering of parcels in no way correlated to villagers' connection to the land, hi true peasant fashion, Kbjsovers lament the loss of family lands upon collectivization—they still mourn the loss of a way of life. To manage and organize data on village perspectives about the reprivatization question, in light of the poHtical economy, I have chosen the household as a unit of analysis. 19

'LS Why the household?

The household is a classic unit of economic analysis; the Greek etymol(^ of the word economy refers to domestic production within the household (Rose, 1993:9). David Cheal (1989) states that there has recently been an increase in the study of the household as a result of two factors. First of all, there is more interest in the "adverse effects of contemporary economic changes and with the way individuals respond to these changes"(1989:13). Studies of households thus examine how household structures support people in the face of problems. Secondly there is an increased interest in women's disadvantages which can clearly be demonstrated through analyses of the household (as opposed to studies of the public realm which do not capture the "second shift" of women). This dissertation will study how people face problems and how such problems are acted out in the household and in doing so take women's work as a primary concern thus both contributing to the current trend in household economy study as well as taking a new angle. Instead of taking the household as focal point ofvillage social organization, I will contextualize the household —as a link to understanding a larger political economy-one in a state of great transition. The household economy is extremely helpful in exposing the affects of political and economic upheaval on the everyday person—especially the often underrepresented "i)easant'* left behind in the countryside. Much of the "crisis" firom "without" hit individuals hard and it is within the household or through household studies that the "hard" can be measured. It is within the household that an ethnography can count concrete changes— 20

wage increases, unemployment shifts, food shortages. It is within the household that these impacts culminate, decisions are made, and problems are resolved. The small and mundane, when aggregated, form a solid basis for an analysis of the culture and economy of rural Slovakia. The household, as a point of reference, is nothing more than an "arbitrarily-imposed-abstracted- category" but it serves very nicely as a link between the actions firom "without" and the resistance at the small scale, community and individual level of experience-from within. This dissertation will drive "home" how the "Velvet Revolution" and the ^dependence of Slovakia have affected people in the countryside. It is at the level of the household that individuals' feelings, firustrations and ambitions clearly change from mere beliefs and are vented and transformed into behavior. One woman complained to me how terrible the situation was for her family at the time. But it was only when she looked into her cupboards and found that her seventeen year old son, out of hunger, had been stealing preserves and other canned goods that she realized how stark her reality was. Her family probably would not have enou^ food to make it through the winter. From this it was decided that her son would look for migrant labor in the foreign West as soon as he was finished with his technical school degree—not as a punishment merely as a solution. Decisions based on such emotions and other physical constraints affect the household financinl well-being. It is at the level of the household where the political, social, and economic changes "from without" hit hard and it is at the level of the household that new coping strategies are ludd and one is able to fathom the severity of the effect of the Revolution on the population of people in the countryside of Slovakia. 21

The Velvet Revolutaon^ did not occur only in the streets of Prague or for only a few short moments to end witii big men in great cities shaking hands and writing their names on piles of papers. Revolutions are played out at the local level, in the household, and even in cupboards. This dissertation will discuss exactly how the Velvet Revolution and the Independence of Slovakia have affected rural households, rural people and rural affairs. It examines the makings of the family farm, the kitchen garden, and gathering activities. By examining the household budget, it discerns how the Revolution has impacted the mundane workings of everyday life. Consumption patterns have been altered and the family budget has been modified to account for the massive political upheaval and the formulation of a new post-socialist ideology of "democracy" and despair. Analyzing both the household budget and activity along with the lack of interest in reprivatizing land, the reader is exposed to the central component of Kojsov's "life in transition"--the resistance to change as a village ideology. Resistance, however that has taken an interesting twist during this last half of the twentieth century. During the 1950s there was a massive national campaign to strip the peasants of their land—their mainstay and the very source of their sustenance and identity. In 1993, Kbjsovers have had the opportunity to reclaim this land. After years of complaining and romanticizing traditional ways, Kbjsovers will not take back their land—they will allow it to be controlled and maintained by the collective farm. Resisting that which they have dreamed about for so long is quite surprising—to me, an ethnographer and

^Hie Velvet Revoution is the name given to the revolutionaiy social movement beginning in 1989 with a series of mass demonstrations in Vadavske namesti or Wesalas Square. It was deemed a Velvet" revolution because of the lade of violence with which the process was assodated (Vsetecka ed.:1990). 22 to the politicians like Vaclav Havel who dreamed of dotting the landscape with tiny parcels of privately held, fields. Havel, likft me, needed to talk to Kojsovians to figure out why his dream and poli^r was such a failure in Kbjsov. Why dont people reclaim their land? Bentley (1989) points out that sometimes i)eople do the only obvious thing—'they eat the dead chicken". For people in Kojsov taking back their land is the least "obvious" thing to do: rather, it is veiyrislq^. These villagers, like many others, have learned very well to avoid taking risks, taking responsibility, or acting as entrepreneurs. As Slavenka Drakulic points out:

"Communism, more than a political ideology or a method of government, is a state of mind. Political power may change hands overnight, economic and social life may soon foUow, but people's personalities, shaped by the communist regimes they lived under, are slower to change. Their characters have so deeply incorporated a particular set of values, a way of thinkiTig and of perceiving the world, that exorcising this way of being will take an unforseeable length of time" (1993:xvii). 23

4^4. Kojsov~A Physical Description

Kojsov is a village of some 854 inhabitants in the region of Spis, a region in eastern Slovakia. Afiill one third of the inhabitants are officially "retired"^. It is located exactly forty kilometers north of Kosice^, the nation's second lai^est city, and ten kilometers west of Gelnica, the closest town. There are 356 houses of which thirty-four are uninhabitable. Of the inhabited homes two types dominate: houses firom before socialism and those built after socialism. Houses built before 194S are long and narrow, whitewashed stucco and usually shaped into rows of "H's" the hollow functioning as a courtyard for several domiciles. These old houses look connected and because of their structure, appear to house a single family, bi actuality, each door entering a section of what appears to be one structure, actually houses separate families, individuals, or separate households consisting of a single room or two rooms: poorly lit, "apartments" which lack indoor toilets and centralized heating. Most of the individuals living in such houses are old women, abandoned by their families in cities, outliving their spouses, and secure with their life in the village. These old houses sharply contrast with the post socialist house which stands two or three stories high, constructed of cement In these newer homes each room is large and airy, well lit and painted or paneled with pine. Centralized heating, indoor plumbing, electricity and sometimes even a satellite dish~ although this is a post-Revolutionary feature- ofifer the best of modernity to families living within these "new" houses.

^Hiere are 854 inhabitants: 441 males and 413 females. 271 are retired. ^Eosice is a dty of roughly 100,000 inhabitants. Ironically, Kosice is the third largest Slovak dty in the worli The second largest Slovak dly is Pittsburgh. 24

The inhabitants of Kbjsov identify themselves as "Slovaks". Many would even claim their identity primarily stonsfirom the village ratherthan the nation and state: they were "Kbjsovian". From outside, others, interested in promoting the edinic minority of Rusyns, might claim Kbjsovers as members of this Rusynian minority since Kbjsov houses a Greek Catholic Church (Uniate Religion) and since most villagers do not have "Slovak" surnames, but rather more "Russian" sounding names like Leskov and Petrov*. Most would agree that Kojsov is the home of rural villagers, young and old, whose lives have been greatly affected by socialism. As the two types of houses in Kbjsov demonstrate, life in the village after communism greatly improved. It is to this memory that so many are attached. The houses fit tightly at the bottom of what is known as Kojsovska Dolina, the valley of ]&>jsovska Hola (mountain). If you were a hiker, Kbjsov would seem especially appealing. For it is nestled between bills and marks the last stop on the bus route to Kojsovska Hola and Folkmalska Skala, the latter of which is famed as one of the best rock climbing spots in the r^on. The hiking club in Kojsov is one of the only "dvil" coUectivities, although sparse in members and relatively inactive, it

'^Upon giving a lecture in Pittsburgh on the village of Kojsov, I was informed in no uncertain terms that Kojsov can be consider^ a Ru^'nian village. My fieldwork experience there leaves me uneasy with the claim that Kogsov is a Rusynian. Every interview I conducted posed the question of ethnic identity. Not a sin^e in^vidual finm fojsov claimed to be Rus3mian: some claimed Kojsovian, others Slo^^dc. None believed that their Kojsov language was Rus:^an in nature, rather it was thou^t to be one more ddalect of ''Spi8"frDm the province in widch it lies. The fact that the church was Gireek Catholic or Uniate was explained by the fact that the Uniate Church can be found in a few Slovak villages as well as Rusynian villages. No one denied that the family surnames were not'Slovak". When I asked where the names originate if not fixnn Slovakia, individuals responded three things. 1) They did not know where the name originated. 2) Diey were Bulgarian or from someplace with sheep herding. 3) Hiey were Russian names. I cannot claim to have studied a Rusynian village when not a single person in the village associates a sin^e cultural aritifact, language, or cultural trait with Ru^ynians. Therefore, in respect for the people of Kojsov, I too will daim that they are a Slov^ village. 25 makes its debut every year with, the Kbjsov twenty-five kilometer hike (Kojsovska Dvacatpatka). If you were a hiker and you took the bus into Kojsov, you would probably be delisted with the regularity of the buses. If you were American you would probably be amazed that public transportation actually ran to such a village which hides four kilometers off an already remote highway. If you were Slovak though you would imdoubtedly be cursing the new hi^ prices of the buses and thinking about how much worse it will probably become. When getting off the bus a hiker would be in the center of the village. There would be a store, a butcher shop, a fruit and vegetable shop and a "nature school"^. Other than that, the only commerce might be the group of Ukrainians, deemed "Russians" by the Kbjsovians, who come to town to peddle various wares—pots, metal bowls, scissors, garlic presses, and lots of textiles including baby tights, flannel pf^amas, and cheap underwear. Since there are no signs marking either the infamous rock climbing wall (Folkmalska Skala), nor Kojsovska Hola, you would most likely stop and ask someone for directions. You would probably meet a stout older woman briskly walking in the midst of her daily shopping. She would be holding a plastic grocery bag which would have three loaves of sourdough rye bread brimming to the top. (She would keep a loaf and distribute the other loaves to two of her closest neighbors.) She would have stuffed some of the other ingredients deep into her bag to avoid interrogation by other women as to the contents. If she considered herself very

"nature school" or skola v prirode consists of a school building and is used to house various classes of children fivm nearby cities. Hie ofcgect of the sd^l is not so much that children attend a "summer camp" but more that they escape the pollution of the dty for some simple quiet solitude in the countryside. Hie nature school >in«« a director and several employees thus it is one of the very few institutions -which hire help and sopply emplojrement to the village of Kojsov. 26

traditional, she would certainly be dad in kroj or folk costume. In Kojsov, kroj consists of several layers of relatively short skirts, a colorful waist high jacket, and a specific type of bonnet which is especially characteristic of this village. Althou^ women no longer wear the village folk costume in many villages in Spis,^ Kojsov is a village where traditional dress is still lavish and proudly worn by many on a daily basis. The woman would direct you up a hill toward the mountain. She would tell you to followpotok^ the brook which babbles into the village along the side of the major upward winding road. When you began walking up this road you would pass through clusters of houses. You might not be sure which doors in a courtyard actually constitute a separate dwelling and which ones were just separate entrances to the same house. You would notice that the road was lightly tarred and that some parts had big pot holes. The potok itself would be running fast beside your steps since the road is constructed next to the brook and does not attempt to cover it. You might also reflect on the ingenuity of the driveways which connect each courtyard to the road. Each such driveway looks like a mini-bridge covering the water below. Geese would no doubt threaten you with hissing noises as you walked upward. Some of the geese would be half naked having had their feathers stripped to make heavy perinky (feather quilts). A dog or two might make a frantic attempt at guarding their fenced territory. Each and every yard 3^u passed would be carefully walled in by a heavy metal or wooden fence. There would be no question where one neighbor's land began and the other's ended.

^Spis is the name of the eastern Slovakian province in which Kojsov is found. 27

Far off on the adjacent hills you would see a dirt road or two winding upward. There would be a huge crowd of sheep grazing in an enormous pen. On the other hillside, you might look at the large collective farm's fields. Depending on the time of year and the crop selected for that year, you would see rows of large scale agriculture. You would not be able to help yourself from noticing the huge ominous cross that stands erect in the middle of the field. You might contemplate how strange it is that the symbol of Christiamty has resumed such a dominant space in the midst of communist-bound fields. If you looked up ahead on the potok you would note the beauty of the wild trees. Soon you would be siuTounded by migestic Douglas fir trees and patches of birches. Before you knew it you would no longer see the village. At this point you would be making the hike that older generations of Kojsovers remember malring to gather hay for the winter animals. You may even be greeted by a contemporary, carrying a massive mound of nettles in his linen sack to dry and make fodder for his swine. If it were summer time, others would be rushing past you in an effort to gather blueberries or cranberries at the top of the mountain. If it were already fall, you would see many a family out trampling through the woods to find wild mushrooms. If you were out for a mere hike, you would no doubt feel idle in their presence. This dissertation, though is not about hiking. It is about people and their livelihood. It is about what it is like for villagers in the Slovak Republic to live through a Revolution, the end of communism, how they feel about their new nation, "the Slovak Republic" and how these massive political and economic transitions have affected their lives on a very practical basis. It is about defining the forces that have caused enough finistration in the 28 nei^iboring countries of Poland, Hungaiy, the Ukraine, and even Russia to push other leftists" back up to the podium of political strength in their own fragile, newly forming governments. A goal of this dissertation will be to expose exactly what villagers find so challenging about a new regime and how they have collectively forgotten much about the "evils" of the very-socialist past. 29

4.5 Dissertation Outlme

This dissertation is also about a unique fieldwoi^eiq)mence. Chapter two describes how the fieldwork was conducted in the village from which my great-grandfather originated. Itfichael Petrov migrated from what was the Austro-Himgarian Empire to America in 1908. My great-grandfather kept in contact with his siblings and parents in the village throughout most of the twentieth century. My fieldwork greatly benefited fi:om this long-distance corresx)ondence. A second major influence on this work stemmed fi*om the work by Slovakian ethnologists who maintain an esteemed role of guarding the "Slovak past" and preserving the "Slovak folk". I did not conduct research in Slovakia as a maverick, alone in an academic field that was not respected or unknown. I built on the studies of Slovak ethnologists yet employed somewhat, although not entirely, non-traditional methods. Because of the important influence of the previous Slovak ethnologists on my field research methods, I discuss Slovak ethnology in detail in chapter two. Chapter three provides a description of the methodology employed in this dissertation. Participant observation, interviewing and surveying problems are addressed. Attention is paid to survey methods and to the analysis of data collected by surveys. This section also addresses some ethical questions involved with doing fieldwork in Kbjsov, Slovakia. Chapter four explores the history of Kbjsov and Slovakia. The so-called "epochs" of the Slovak national eaperience are illustrated. Attention is drawn to the relationship between the larger history of Slovakia and the specific 30

village history of Kbjsov. The interpretatioii of several outstanding political events fix)m the villagers' perspective will be discussed, bi this chapter, the identity of Kojsovians is e3q>lored. Althou^ Kojsovians are not in any quandary as to their identify, this dissertation would be incomplete without a detailed discussion of the confusion that pervades the nature of Kojsov's identity from "without" (i.e. the Rusynian question). The aforementioned chapters two through four serve as a completed introduction to the greater questions with which this dissertation is concerned. Chapter five consists of an introduction to the household economy in Kojsov: an ethnographic description of one Sunday dinner illustrates the innerworkings of a typical household in the village. Chapter six describes household composition in Kqi'sov*. This composition is much more fluid than many American household and this should be recognized in order to comprehend the complexities of household functions and decision-making. Chapter seven is an introduction to household production. This hi^dy ethnographic description explains how Kbjsovers are relatively self-sufficient and knowledgeable of farming methods. Chapter ei^t is quantitative in nature and uses survey data to compare household consumption between 1989 and 1993. During these four years, prices first doubled and then tripled compared to what they were in 1989. Coupled with the high unemplo3mient rate of the entire Spis region (33%), the impact of inflation means great hardship for Kojsovers. The third section of this dissertation is concerned with the process of reprivatization of land and the theoretical underpinnings which help explain Kojsovian behavior. Chapter nine is a description and discussion of the reprivatization of land in the village of Kojsov. Kojsovers are resistant to 31

reprivatization of their family lands. Reasons for this apparent "irrational" behavior are Chapter ten is a theoretical discussion of what this resistance to privatization means in lig^t of the anthropological literature on peasants. This dissertation is a bridge connecting theoretical assumptions with practical problems. It is often assumed in peasantology that one's land is a safely net used or returned to in times of economic hardship. I t«l«> this assumption to task. If this were true, then Slovaks in Kojsov would return to their land, they would reprivatize it, they would cultivate it and they would capitalize from their proceeds. This dissertation offers several reasons for such "aberrant" behavior and why families do not see the land as a safety net A contemporary village ethos does not support entrepreneurial activity but rather a more generally egalitarian status for all. Netting has pointed out that to operate private family farms is to have a stratified socie1y(Netting, 1993:197). Kojsovers are well aware of this axiom and avoid setting the stage for the re-emergence of class-the rich distinguished from the poor. While Kojsov is just a sin^e village, certainly not representative of all, the overall pace of privatization is much lower than politicians and policy makers presumed. Individuals are not interested in the responsibility associated with private lands (agricultural activity is obligatory). Entrepreneurial agricultural activity not only contradicts a village ethos, but also entails risk. Therefore, this dissertation claims that in some cases, the use or re-use of family leuids does not constitute a safety-net in times of risk for a family—but rather a risk in and of itself given certain historical, cultural, and economic circumstances. 32

5. CHAPTER TWO

"A Unique E:i9erieiioe in. Return AGgration" Fiddwork in Slovakia

5.1 Introduction

My understanding of rural Slovakia, the methods that I chose to use, and my fieldwork experience were influenced stron^y by two factors. First, my great-grandfather was originallyfrom the village I studied. Second, Slovak ethnologists left a rich l^acy which aided my fieldwork immensely. This chapter will e3q)lore these two influences. I am the great-granddau^ter of £Ui American immigrant fix)m Kojsov, the village where I conducted this research. As many in the village said, I was returning to my homeland when I went there to conduct my fieldwork My baby, bom in Slovakia, was claimed as their own: she was called a mala kojsovianka (a little Kojsover). Althou^ this reflexive account of my fieldwork and family has little to do with any dissertation hypothesis on the status of peasants in eastern Europe, its premise cannot be overlooked. Rather, it is related to fieldwork and is the antecedent to the succeeding chapter on methods, bi this section of my dissertation, I indulge in a form of "modernist texf'^as described by Marcus and Fischer (1986). For if there were ever a time when the reciprocity of perspectives between insider(s) and outsider(s) was

^Hie use of the term "modernist" to label these ethnographies is intended by Marcus and Fischer as a parallel reference to allude to the late-nineteenth-and eaiiy-twentieth-century literary movement in reaction to realism, lliey state, "If realist texts continue the convention of allowing the ethnographer to remain in. unchallenged control of his narrative, modernist texts are constructed to higUig^t the eliciting discourse between edmographer and subjects or to involve the reader in the work of analysis" (1986:67). 33 appropriate in ethnographic research now would be the time. Clearly a more authoritarian writing in which I hardly makg mention of the fact that I was related, albeit distantly, to half of the village I studied, would seem ridiculous. 34

5^ Retomlliligration

My relationship with the village of my great>grandfather can best be imagined if one considers the correspondence that has occurred as long as I can remember. At Christmas time my grandmother and her sister mail money to Slovakia. Not large sums of money but a feasible amount, enou^ for a nice present or two. They also exchanged cards. Mygrandnother and her sister also receive Christmas cards and some packages from Slovakia. The pretty hand-made folk items decorating their houses attest to the fact that they have been making this seasonal exchange for a long time. The way the presents are displayed leads one to believe that my aunt and grandmother greatly value their Slovak mementos. The mementos and money do not represent some short-term pen-pal relationship. They are the symbols of almost a hundred years of systematic correspondence. When I arrived in eastern Slovakia, I was not immediately viewed as a complete outsider. Rather, I was a distant relative "coming home." That fact that I had roots in the village made my interest in studying Anthropology there obvious to most. Where else would I possibly want to work? At least this was the viewpoint of the viUagers. To them, it was natural that I would want to return and study my Slovak roots. My great-grandfather, AGchael Petrov, was bom in Kojsov Slovakia in 1888. When he was nineteen he left his village in the night. The lore surrounding this eventful trip he took to America are too varied to record here. As irritating as it maybe to hear the same event transfigured and amended by family members, there are a certain number of consistencies that ring true Figure 3.0 Juiiaxma (Pagurko) Petrov, Michael Petrov, and Mary (Petrov) Acheson circa 1963 36

from the accounts I have heard. Depending on the member of my family with whom you speak, you would hear various stories surrounding this trip. Grampom, as he was called to all of his descendants, fled. Slovakia, into the night, without saying good-bye to his father, and escaped the plight of poor young men in an overpopulated, economically desolate village in Slovakia. Some claim he left to escape a war or a lifetime conscription ascribed to him as the oldest son of a family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The fact that he did not say good-bye to his father is not a point to be contested but the reason for this is under dispute by various members. Some maintain that he could not say good-bye because had his father known that he was "escaping" he would have been imprisoned for allowing his son to leave without serving in the army. Others state that he did not say good-bye because his father was a tyrant and would not have agreed to allow his oldest son to leave the family farm. One of my great-grandfallier's brothers is still living and claims Michael Petrov's father arranged the trip for his son. Much to my own amazement, Grampom's father himself had made two trips to America in the late 1800s and had returned with money to support the building of a house-or the restoration of the older house. My great-great Uncle Ondrej (bom in 1900) maintains that the reason that their father did not say good-bye to his oldest son when he left for America was only a logistical problem. Michael Petrov needed to leave good and early in the morning. Given the latitude of Slovakia, for a good quarter of the months in a year it would not be too hard to imagine that "nighttime" might really have been a distortion of him leaving in the "dark." My great-great uncle says that father and son did say good-bye to each other however, they were forced to wave from the hillsides. Given that the predominant mode of 37

transportation for poor villagers at that time was by foot, it is not too strange

to tJiink that as his father was walking home from a week's sojourn of work in a Tnining town some twelve kilometers away, that his son, limited in time and opportunity, 1^ before his father arrived home. So perhaps they did wave to each other as they stood on opposite hillsides—a habit not uncommon in da3^ when other forms of communication were non-existent.^ My great-

I could reconstruct the story of the departure of my great-grandfather after having heard it told by contemporaries of my great-grandfather, witnesses of the event (his little brothers were the ones who did get to say good-bsre with their mother), I would say that the story goes something like this: There once was an extremely poor family living in a mountainous village in Slovakia, Northern Himgary. They were poor because there was absolutely no work for them in the village, the land was too mountainous and rodQr to farm very industriously, and they had many mouths to feed. Tlie family was not a bit unique. Most of the families in the village were also indigent. Hie only food they ate were various forms of potatoes which they called grueU in their dialect. The fact that they had their own dialect in no way symbolizes isolation of the village to the outside world. People in desperation or with gusto had been leaving the viUage to make better for themselves in large numbers for several geno^tions. Hie great need for labor in America combined with an American racism which prioritized the immigration of white Europeans for work over hiring the already available wotk force &om the poorer sectors of American populations (namely newly released people had been enslaved). Within the village and towns there was a great deal of talk about how to make a better life for oneself. It was the kind of talk that one finds anywhere where economic strife is prevalent and the kind of work that most people do is boring, dangerous, and lends itself to talking to your "comrades" (so to speak). "Ae father of this particular family decided to take an opportunity about which he had heard others talking. They had probably read an advertisement calling for men to work in America. The advertisement may have explained to them that their transportation would be paid by the company lending an opportunity to those without even a single toliare to leave, "^s father probably left with a gang of other men, at least three or four good acquaintances. Ihey probably traveled north or west to a coastal dly like Gdansk in what is today Poland, but at tlie time was part of Prussia. Then they sailed for a month to America, eating sparingly. When they arrived in America, they were probably in New York. Ihere was probably a hoard of paperworic that they needed to do and prob^ly even more that was done for them by the agency that hosted their stay. They were no doubt quarantined for a short period of time, chewed for lice and other illnesses, and then shipped together with other men from all over Europe by train to somewhere in the middle portion of the U.S. where the minmg industry was booming. Jung Petrov probably woiked between a year and six months in America both the first and second time and then returned home to his family in Slovakia, then Northern Hungary. When his son came of age to leave, he arranged throu^ the same agency or one just like it for his son to go to America. One day when the papers were arranged and the trip confirmed, my great­ grandfather said good-bye to his mother and siblings. It was very early in the morning, probably around six o'clock AM. His father had be^ woikuog the previous week in Gelnica. His father had no choice about when he would woric or not: he needed to work when there was a job to do and could not arrange to be home to say good-bye to his son. Besides, he had returned from America so why should his son not return soon enough. He had told his 38 grandfather, Michael Petrov, was probably ^ccited and anxious to leave. He was not leaving alone but was accompanied by his finends. They probably had little more to with them than literally a knapsack on their backs. That was not too strange given that he probably did not own more than that to begin with. So like his father before him, my great-grandfather left the village with or without the desire to return. In my heart somewhere, I believe that his plan was never to return, but surely I do not know this for a fact. Several years after arriving in America, Afichael Petrov met a very young American Slovak woman, Julianna Pagurko who had been bom in Kosice. Sometime when she was still a babe, she was carried in her mother's arms to America. Like thousands of eastern Slovakians, they would make a new life for themselves in America. Michael Petrov and his wife Julianna would have two daughters, Amia and Maria, who would come to be called, Ann and Mary. Julianna would tell them stories, and laugh and cook good food (such is the extent of my knowledge of my namesake). She would die in the winter of 1966. A great-grand dau^ter would have been bom in ^ril of the preceding year. And that would be me. My curiosity called me to that alluring land of my foremother and forefather. I went to question and ponder, systematically of course, and my work was much son what to watch out for in America and explained to him the ins and outs of life in boarding homes that line the Manogahela and Ohio Rivers. He had probably said, "Go with God" many times as such was the custom to say to anyone coming or going at the time. He had probably also instructed his son how to m^ money home after he had made enough to pay for his trip and had some to spare for the family. When Michael Petrov left home, he did not leave as if to escape the battlefixmt, leaving behind a world of comfort to seek a new life in an unknown land. He was no lone soul sneaking away like the Von IVapp family firam Austria daring World War II. (His story has been depicted like this all too fire^ently.) He left as many young men and women finm his village and region had already done, knowing that he would woik very hard but that the gains would be worth it. He knew exactly where he was going. He was going to America to make money. Ihere is nothing novel, fantastic, and no matter how mu^ I might like to believe, his trip was nothing extraordinary. 39 facilitated by the relationship that my great-grandfather and his daughters had maintained with th^ relatives in Kbjsov. When Michael Petrovdied he had assimilated himself and his family into the American ways of doing thizigs. Lideed not a single grandchild or great grandchild would know a word of Slovak or its dialects (save for a few choice curse words). Some of my siblings, cousins and uncles confuse the ethnicily of the great-grandparents. Some thought they had Polish or Czech blood or consider them all "the same thing anyway." One of my father's brothers once thought that his grandmother Julianna spoke French. Romanticizing ethnic heritage has been a favorite pastime in my family. We know very little. For what we have lost, we have fabricated stories often with enthralling detail. Althou^ the assimilation is quite thorough on the American side of the Atlantic, its thoroughness is not understood by our relatives in Slovakia. They interpret American ethnicity to mean very much the same thing as it does in Slovakia or in other nearby nations such as Hungary, the Ukraine, or Poland. That is members of ethnic groups in Slovakia have been relatively successful at maintaining their identity. This is largely a result of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 which allowed various ethnicity's emerging fix>m within the compartmentalized Austro-Hungarian Empire to live unabated, uncontested, and quite intact (Galantai, 1989). A description of a few of tiie villages surrounding Kojsov may demonstrate the degree of wholeness that such ethnicities were allowed. Twelve kilometers to the east of Kojsov is the small town of Gelnica. Gelnica has been a German town for at least 450 years. Although a nation grew aroimd the town, individuals continued to speak German as their primary 40 language. The Gennan dialect they speak is heavily laden with antiquated grammatical and nominal forms, yet it is nevertheless widely spoken and understood. The Germans in Gelnica speak Slovak as well. Hungeurians, however, in villages dotting southern Slovakia, in gen^^ are not fluent in Slovak. To speak of nationalism and language laws in this part of the world, one is not speaking of a simple transition in formalizing institutionalized code- switching from Slovak to Hungarian, Slovak to Romany, or Slovak to Grerman. One is speaking of very basic rights to live entirely within the world of a language separate from the one spoken by the nation in which the ethnic minorities reside. The Hungarian political dispute about language laws in Slovakia which are often heard in international news do not focus only on rights of children to attend Hungarian school because this has been a right of Hungarians in Slovakia for the span of the century. When we speak of language laws in Slovakia we are talking about comprehensive language laws— the permission to have all street names within a particular viUage be written in Hungarian; the right for women not to have to add a Slovak ending onto their Hungarian last name; the right to have documents, formal and informal, written in Himgarian. We are talking about a situation which in no way reflects the kind of ethnicity eastern European Americans may feel when living for a couple of generations in the U.S. Ethnicity in Slovakia is so pervtisive, it is difficult for an American to imagine. Such ethnicity is the basis for political orientation, religion, and national identity. The experience that Kbjsovers have with individuals who live in nations not associated with their ethnicities, such as Hungarians in Slovakia or Germans living in Gelnica has given them a certain set of expectations in 41

r^ard to ethnicity in general. Just as it is hard for Americans to imagine that ethnicity would be so pervasive in the lives of individuals, so too is it difficult for Slovaks to dispel their notions of hard and fast boundaries separating ethnicities as they have experienced in their own proximity. A simple map depicting ethnic boundaries in Slovakia does much to display the degree of ethnic diversity and perhaps a map with historical inference would show us how relevant ethnicity has been through time. However, understanding the intricacies of ethnic identity is a more delicate matter. My point is that the particularities involved with Kojsovians understanding who I was when I "returned" to their viUage are completely wrapped in this web of cultural understanding about ethnicity in their own land. I was certainly deemed as originating fi:t)m a land where my Slovakness had persevered. It was assumed by many that my grandmother spoke fluent Slovak (and very little English) and that my father claimed Slovak ethnicity on his formal documents of identity. Certainly many must have assumed that there exists a space on every government document in which one might fill in ethnicity-Slovak would be assumed to be distinct from all other "white/ Caucasian/ European" categories. It was assumed that we had continued a tradition of folk crafts, cooking, songs, and the like. In essence, Kojsovians with good reason, assumed that I was far more "Slovak" tJian I could ever attest to being. Most assimie to this day that I had learned to speak Slovak as a child frt)m my parents. They could not fathom that I speak it solely as a second language and that I did not know a single word of Slovak until I was twenty-six (not even any choice curse words). 42

The frame of reference tbat Kbjsovers worked with when I "came home" to a "village of my origin" willi my "little Kcgsovian daughter" is extremely different from that which one might otherwise imagine. It is within this frame of reference that I worked on a daily basis, constantly fluctuating between explanations about my family, my ethnicity, and my convoluted network of kin (a typical American family laced with divorce and intermarriage of various ethnicities from Greek to English to French Canadian to Jewish). Almost no conversation would escape without some type of clarifying reference to the status of my own ethnicity. However tedious the explanations might have been, I cannot say that this hindered my fieldwork. After all, if I were part Kojsovian, then of course I would be interested in them and all the fine details of their life. Where on eartJi else would I go? I benefited not only from "coming home" as a unique returned migrant. I also was advantaged because within this kind of "greeting" I was privy to information I would have otherwise found unavailable. As I discuss in the section on ethical concerns in the next chapter, I refuse to expose many of the finer details of everyday life simply because of the potential pain the release of such details could inflict. I do intend to use information that I believe will not be hurtful and will help to describe life in a village after communism. Generalizations will be used whenever possible. I do admit that a certain amount of emotional and personal responsibility on my part is the result of my interaction with my "fellow villagers." For in their definition of my own ethnicity, and in their interpretation of my "returning home", I cannot escape (nor do I want to) a certain amount of emotional bonding. Although far frxim going native, I cannot deny that I feel a strong affinity for the people of Kojsov 43

and an intense sensitivity to their lives, ambitions, desires, and aspirations. A presentation of this information without atiaring these emntinng would be incomplete. 44

5.3 Slovak Ethnology—ATarod^u

Another factor which has greatly affected my fieldwork in eastern Slovakia is the work of Slovak ethnologists-the makers of Narodopis (Ethnology). Ethnology has been defined by a Slavic ethnologist as "the science whose subject is first of all the nation and secondly the products of its culture, relics of the past" (Slavec, 1991). Slovak ethnologists have been very active in preserving the folk traditions of Slovakia for the entire span of the twentieth century. The significant historical role of these scholars, combined with the fact that their work is very much publicized to the general Slovak population forged some interesting dynamics for my own fieldwork. This section will espand upon what the interests of Slovak ethnologists are, describe how pervasive such studies are, and discuss how such interest and study affected my own fieldwork. Thus, villagers were not perplexed to have me arrive in their village to study "Narodopis"~rather it was quite flattering to have been selected, as it were, amongst many other possible villages. The interest of Slovak ethnologists is directly related to the very term used to depict their study. "Narodopis" literally means the writing of the nation and is used for the purpose of legitimizing the nation. Slovak ethnologists have functioned as the preservers of ethnidly. Slavec writes that the role of an ethnologist is to: "become a helper and innovator in the building up our homeland and in the social, economic, and political education of our people" (1991:220). Their work is akin to that ofBoasian students in my mind. They salvage a dying culture preserving it in the form of text, music, photc^aphs, 45

and material culture. A description of one of the most comprehensive ethnographic atlases produced by the Slovak Ethnology bistitute suffices here to demonstrate the wide variety and painstakingly detailed work of such scholars (See Figure 2.1). The atlas is divided into some five sections, each, of which is subdivided into categories aissodated with various aspects of cultural and social life. Every town and village is numb«^ and on all of the subsequent maps, one can find information on each village or town by finding the corresponding number, which quite accurately is depicted near the geographic location of the town or village. Various S3mibols are used to inform readers about the details of historical change for each town. The material culture and technology section, for example, contains maps which illustrate types of glass, pottery, and tool production. The finest details are depicted, such as the exact situation on a scythe for the left-hand wooden handle. There are twelve maps under the section on social culture which depict specific distinctions on eveiy aspect of women's folk costume. From looking at the map, one can tell that Kojsov women wear square aprons as opposed to pleated or round ones, that their shirts can be pleated or look like a dress, that the sleeves entail embroidery, and that the folk costume is still worn not only for religious holidays, but also during the normal weekday.^ A multitude of forms of folk culture are recorded in this atlas. The following table lists various aspects which have been the focus of Slovak study.

^Staruch wrote an entire dissertation on the Contemporary Slovak Folk Costume Tradition and its relation to ethnidty and the invention of culture (1990). Figure. 4.0 worn l^r village girls. 47

Figure 5.0 A List of Topics of Study by Slovak Ethnologists as Sho\«n in the Etnograficky Atlas of Slovakia (1990). Material Technology Tools for cultivation Harvest threahers Vineyard technology Fruit orchard technology Vegetable cultivation technology Animal Husbandry Technology Sheep Horse Cow Cow Ttiillf curd Cow milk Cheese Sheep cheese Manufactured Goods Blacksmithing Wood working Ceramics and glass Timber construction Tanner Textiles Grocery items Printing Press Business/Market Technology Transportation Technology Material Culture Food and Eating Habits Meal system Main Types of Food—grains Main Types of Food—vegetables Main Ty^s of Food-meats and fats Holiday Foods Beverages Clothing and Shoes Men's clothing Women's doting Headdresses Shoes Dwelling T^pes Well types Building types Gardens Fumitxire Folk architecture Cultural Organizations Village Organizations/Corporations Community organizations Agricultural organizations Feasts Family Organizations Life in the family Family Property Terminology In-Law and Family Relations 48

Family Celebratioiu Birthdays Weddings Funerals Holidays Calendar Customs Winter customs Spring and summer customs Agricultural customs Holidays and celebrations (religious)* World view Cosmology and meteorology views Fairy tales Fabricated Culture Folklore Historical folktales Folksongs Artistic Demonstrations Decorative demonstrations Plays Market and Bethlehem Play Play about Dorote Puppet theater Amateur theater Folkdance Men and Women's dance Chorovanie Kolesa Odzemky and Verbunky Ehttive Dance Novodobe Dance Wedding Dances Folkdance groups Musical Instruments \K^d instruments String instruments Rhythm instruments Music Groups

* Note that religious holidays and activities were not blatantly presented due to the stance of the Totalitarian Regime's on religious. 49

The Slovensky Narodopis, a journal published by the Ethnology Institute of Comenius Universily in Bratislava, also depicts this detailed approach to folk traditions. The publications of the ethnology institute are read most frequently by academics and specialists. However, the dissemination of knowledge gathered by these folk specialists plays an important role with Slovaks. Before 1989 there was a television show every Sunday afternoon on folklore and another on poetry. Many times when there is a break in television programming, the gap is filled with folklore songs and/or dancing. Before each holiday, even at present, "traditions" and "customs" of all kinds are broadcast. Usually a particular village and its folk traditions are the focus of a show. In the summer, there are nationally acclaimed folk dancing shows. Dance groups from villages and towns come and sport their folk costumes and show off their local dancing. Sometimes the dancing is accompanied by various dialogues describing customs from the village. There is a good deal of energy invested in the making and maintaining of folk customs. The folklore, folk customs, and folk costumes are broadcasted far and wide. A sense of pride for one's own village as well as a sense of appreciation for the "folk" nature of the past is the result The reason for the far reaching broadcasting of information about Slovak folkness is related very much to nationalism. Nationalistic movements in Central and Eastern Europe entailed not only the codifying of peasant languages (Brock, 1976) but also the development of a whole identity. The national identity of such nations came relatively late by Western European standards. As Anderson would remind us, the general growth in literaty, commerce, industry, communications and state machinery that marked the 50 nineteenth century in western Europe created powerful new impulses for vernacular linguistic unification within ds^nastic realm (1983:77). Slovakia has felt itself to be an oppressed nation, with a squelched language as is depicted in the title of Kirschbaum's book—A HiatnrvnfSlnvalciiir The StruyiHe fhr Survival (1995). Most intellectuals sensed that national identity most likely was very weak if even extant among the m^'ority of the illiterate community until after World War L A kind of philosophy which takes the purest forms of Slovakness seriously pervades the publications of the Matica slovenska, a large, well established and state operated organization whose sole purpose is to promote Slovak ethnicity^^ (Matica slovenska, 1996). Language purists look to the most unadulterated forms of their language, block foreign influences, and maintain that Hungarian and other languages should not be officially spoken within the bounds of Slovakia. Folk purists maintain that there are dying traditions which must be at least recorded, if not canonized, since the dissemination of technology and ideas certainly will soon destroy their production. In both language and folk purism, there is an ideology which holds that by proving our uniqueness, we are more Intimate. This legitimation process is closely related to the formation of the independent Slovak natioiL Slovak ethnologists are not only independent scholars. They are functionaries of this intricate web of national formation. Their responsibility- lies not only within academia but with the general population in the dissemination of thorough documentation of unique characteristics of their

^^^Matica Slovenska publishes a quarterly magazine, Slovensko, which has the main purpose of celebrating Slovakia and Slovakians. The most recent edition is not unique and includes articles whi^ demonstrate this point. Some of Slovensko'& articles includ^: Days of Foreign Slovaks 1996 (Slovaks who lived in Yugoslavia, Bomania, America and Austraidia among other nations celebrated their Slovak ethnicity); Top model Adritma Sklenarikova - Emissa^ of Beauty and Charm.', The Revitalized Beckoo Castle\ The Slovak Cultural Union in Argentina-, Personalities ofSlavixk Life Abroad', The Jewel of Slovak Birds. 51

narod (nationality). Their job is to research, record and romanticize the past. In the Ethnology Institute after tiie Revolution of1989 there was a good deal of diversity in research interests emerging. Not all are primarily and only concerned with Slovak culture and traditions. There is an abundance of interest in theoiy from abroad, of understanding wider issues, of dispelling myths that were formally institutionalized under the "totalitarian regime." But there is still a good deal of Slovak folk interest. There is still a very large role that the study of ethnology plajrs in the legitimization of Slovakia. It is within this framework that I was welcomed by scholars and villagers to conduct my research and fieldwork. Ethnographers in their recordings of details on differences between ethnicities reify essentialist characteristics of various "ethnic groups" and do more than create a nation of Slovaks. Their work entails distinguishing between villages and marking the boundaries of other ethnic groups. After discussion with Slovak ethnologists, however, it is dear that there is one set of characteristics which discriminate groups from one another. Language seems to be the most significant indicator of ethnicity. The discourse as to the ethnicity of Kojsov has been the source of some debate. It is thus a type of contested terrain like others in Eastern and Central Europe which is debated by scholars and outsiders more than by Kojsovers. Two features rate higher than any other in confounding the quandary. First, the village houses a Chi^k Catholic Church which is generally a symbol of Rusynian ethnicity. Second, many of its inhabitants do not have Slovak surnames, but rather "Russian" or "Rusyn" sounding names. These two characteristics alone are enough for some to consider Kojsov a Rusynian 52

Village. Villagers, however, identified themselves first of all as Slovak. Not a single villager identified him/herself as a Rusyn. I was startled when I was told that the church and last names were the definitive markers of ethnic identity. After dissecting this issue with Slovak ethnologists, it was decided that perhaps in the past Kbjsovers may have been Rusynian, however language became the key indicator. Kbjsovers do not speak a dialect of Rusynian. Rather, they speak a "Spis" regional dialect. Surnames and a Greek Catholic Church were deemed relics of the past, not key boundary markers for contemporary ethnic status. Interestingly, the characteristics so painstakingly researched by Slovak ethnologists such as folklore, folkdance, and folk costume never entered the dialogue. 53

5.4 Condusions It is my contentioii that I was welcomed to do Slovak ethnc^aphy in two ways, by those academically oriented and by those from the village. I was to be of assistance in promoting the "Big Tradition" of the Slovak nation abroad. I was also welcomed to do work in the "Little Tradition:" where a village that has not played a large role in ethnic studies was to come of age. Since there have been very few English language anthropological publications,^ my research was at times perceived as another way of legitimizing the nation. Althou^ this is not my goal, I do hoi)e for the sake of aU those who assisted me with this in mind that I will do justice in this regard. I was welcomed in the village of Eojsov because I studied a subject that quite frankly flattered them. Although I do not as a matter of course study "folk stuff," I was greeted at every turn with individuals who wanted to share their village folk crafts, songs, customs and traditions with me. I photographed old spinning wheels, old threshers, old buildings and old stufif in general. I was also invited to witness a whole host of folkcrafts and folk traditions (fimerals etc.) in the making. Although I have to admit I had very little interest in such traditions at the onset of my fieldwork, I cannot say the same is true today. I came to leam, frx>m the Kbjsovers themselves, just how important such traditions were in their village identity. I came to appreciate the role the villagers had ascribed for me. To a certain degree, I began to study that which

^ ^ Hie anthropologically oriented research concetning Slovaks in the United States includes Sckar's description (1948) of early twentieth-century Sovak-American wedding customs; Meyersteins's analysis (1959) of bilingualism among immigrant Slovaks in Bin^iamton, New Yoric; Steins' ethnohistorical and Freudian study (1972) of Slovak-American identity; Pollak's study (1973) of Slovak beliefs in witchcraft; and Alexander's book (1987) on Slov^ church commimities in Pittsburg 54 they wished. Both my ability to be flexible and to encompass the interests that Kojsovers had in displaj^ing^ their "identity", resulted in productive interviews. 55

6. CHAPTER THREE Methods

6.1 Introduction

The following chapter is a discussion of the various research methods employed in my quest for ethnographic information on life in a Slovak village and is made up of three sections. The first section includes a discussion of how I learned the Slovak language and conducted a pilot study with Slovak anthropologists fi:t)m the Ethnology Institute in Bratislava. Ethical issues and some problems I had in doing research in Slovakia will also be examined. Part n focuses on participant observation and I describe the time frame that I lived in the city and the village and my goals in these areas. Part Three wiU discuss in detail the surveys and surveying strategies used in the village. Both open-ended questions and closed-ended questions will be examined. A goal of this chapter, as in any discussion of research methods, will be to convince the reader that the methods employed to gather the research presented in subsequent chapters are valid, reliable, and therefore credible. 56

6^ Learning Slovak

Ethnographic work in Slovakia necessarily entails mastering the Slovak language. It is not the sort of field site where one can use English or hiring a translator is feasible. I dedicated one year of my graduate studies to learning the Slovak language. During Aiigust of 1991, I learned to speak Slovak in the Studia Academia Slovenska with more than a hundred other international students. This program was supported with a scholarship fi*om the Matica slovenska. During the month of September, I hired a private teacher in Bratislava, Slovakia to spend every weekday afternoon teaching me Slovak Although my teacher did not know a sin^^e word of English, she taught me enough Slovak so that I was able to communicate. My Slovak was still rudimentary at this point but slowly became proficient enough to conduct simple interviews during a pilot study. After having spent the fall in Slovakia, I received an IREX Fellowship to study in the Slavic Language Department at the University of Pittsburgh under the direction of Dr. Martin Votruba. At the University of Pittsburgh I was able to concentrate on ail aspects of Slovak language-grammar, writing, and reading. I took classes at all levels and in all areas of Slovak Studies. The year dedicated to learning Slovak seemed worthwhile. When I arrived in Slovakia in January of1993,1 had little trouble conducting interviews. At times I was not able to understand the older generation of Kojsov because they speak a strong village dialect. However, I was always able to ask individuals to repeat their answer or have a jnounger person 57

translate the older "Spis"^ dialect into standard Slovak^^ for me. ^ the village I met only one En^ish speaker, ayoungbri^t student who quickly became my good fiiend and an aid to my project. Otherwise I had to depend on my Slovak and my ability to ask questions again and again. Communicating during my fieldwork improved with time and was quite sufficient for the types of interviewing and surveying used.

^^Spis refers to the eastern SlovaJdan region whose capital dty is Spisska Nova Ves. Kojsov is a village within this region. Al^ou^ the dialect spoken in Kojsov is one of many in Spis, it is still characterized as a Spis dialect. Individuals interested in the intricacies of such dialects however would distinguish Kojsovian speech fitom the dialect spoken in the capital of the region, also called Spisska Nova Ves. ^^Standard Slovak refers to the official dialect which is taught systematically in all primary and secondary education. It is actually baaed on a central 9ovakian dialect. Even though the orthography was written late in the ninetemth century and three generations of learners have learned "Slovak", local dialects prevaiL Older villagers speak almost entirely in the village dialect. Mddle aged and younger villagers are ^le to speak in both village dialect and standard Slovak. 58

6^ Pilot Study

During the month of November, 19911 was invited to join eight ethnologists from the Narodopisny Ustav (Ethnology Institute) in Bratislava in a team effort to gather ethnographic material on eastern Slovakia. This pilot study was extremely important not only for developing my interests and potential dissertation project, but also because it exposed me to Slovak methods and theory in Anthropology. The Ethnology Institute is the research arm of the Comenius University Anthropology Department in Bratislava. Their style of research was quite foreign to my American anthropological training, yet our common quest for answers to questions about Slovak society united us. These ethnologists were asking questions about folklore, traditional architecture, folk dances, folk costumes, and folk crafts. They photographed folk groups at dances and tape-recorded the elderly reminiscing about the ways of the past. Each ethnologist was working on an independent topic-some of them had worked on such topics since the writing of their master's theses. Others only recently become interested in their subject. Each worked on topics that were rooted in the past~salvaging the remains of a dying peasantry and their rudimentary way of life. They had not only a nation to justify but a strong tradition in Slavic ethnology with which tliey had to contend. Their field methods did not include a lone fieldworker engaged in participant observation. They did their work in a group for short lengths of

^^Slovak folk culture has been the subject of research since the beginning of the nineteenth century (Urbancova, 1987). However, it was not until after World War n that the number of Slovak ethnographers increased significantly (Staruch, 1990). 59

time. They never moved into a village or lived along side the people they were studying. Rather they stayed in nearby towns, putting no family out of their way, staying in a hotel instead. Their studies did not involve many individuals but rather a few key informants who provided tiiem with rich description. This style of short term information gathering contradicted much of what I had learned. How would theyleam the realities of everyday life? How would they learn about local political structures and about household economics? How would they learn about daily interaction or real ethnic strife? I had to conclude, as they would also, they would not get inside—but they would certainly come to terms with their research questions and they would do it in a way that did not intrude upon the lives of those who they studied. They would do it openly and honestly and with a great deal of respect for those they studied. They would "preserve" the past—a goal which all seemed to agree was worthy. But their scrupulous insist on the details of village folk traditions had a history of its own and played a key role in their hope to justify and institutionalize the history of the Slovak people. Such is the role of a Slovak ethnologist.

l-^This is not to say that all Slovak ethnologists are undecetnin^ or lack critical analysis in their work. Tlieir studies are far fiom shallow. Rather ^e goal of their research is to create an elaborate and detailed analj^sis from a small sample, sometimes a few key informants. 60

6.4 Participant Observation^. The First Few Months

For the first month of fieldwork, from the end of January until the end of February, 1993 I was in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It was at this time that I made contacts with both the Ethnology Institute and the Ethnology Departm^t at Comenius University. My goal was to become familiar with their work and take some time to discuss my goals wiHi them. They were supporting my work so I felt it was absolutely necessary to establish a strong relationship with them. They were very helpful, especially Dr. Michael Kalavsky, Dr. Gabriella Kilianova, and the director of the institute. Dr. Dusan Ratica. I also had another goal in Bratislava. I wanted to determine the differences between Slovakia's largest dty, the capital at that, and the village in eastern Slovakia where I would live for six months. It would only be by living in the city, even if for only a few weeks, that I would come to absorb the real differences, both in perception and in fact, resulting from the independence of Slovakia. My time in Bratislava was spent gathering ij^ormation at the Ethnology Institute, the historical library, and by interviewing scholars. I spent a good deal of my time in Bratislava talking with people about how they felt about the independence movement This was the oily where the most powerfiil forces to "divorce" the Czech Republic were bom and raised and where there had been a street-party at midnight on January 1,1993, to celebrate the break-up of the Czechoslovak union. Many in Bratislava claimed discontent with their status of what they said was a colonialist role within the 61

imperial Czech Republic. Just as Bratislavan Slovaks had problems with Prague, so too would I find that Eastern Slovakians had a problem with Bratislavans. Many Bratislavans had quite a patronizing and patemaHstic view of those who did not live in Bratislava. As one man from KDsice said to me: "A i)erson from Bratislava is just the same as one frt)m Prague-there is no difference to me. One treats me poorly because I am &t)m Eastern Slovakia and the other badly because I am a Slovak." When I was not busy working or interviewing in Bratislava, I was exploring the city for evidence of more changes since the 1989 Velvet Revolution and my first visit in 1991. New stores had opened on every comer, new foreign food restaurants emerged throughout the old town, and many buildings were being reconstructed. There was an air of death to anything associated with socialism and new life for all things western. Communism had deteriorated any remnant of history fit)m before its era-synagogues, churches, and other places had been left to ruin for forty years. These edifices were finally being transformed into miu'estic historical monuments. Bratislava was a fashion statement, a testament to a kind of rebirth of all that was exciting is the state of Slovakia. Bratislava was looking newer and more chic than it had two years previous and I was sure such change was a covenant to the proximity Bratislava had with the west—not only geographically (Austria is only ten kilometers across the Danube) but also economically. It was my job to come to terms with these new changes. This titna in Bratislava allowed me to understand the economic and political discrepancies between those living in eastern Slovakia and those in the capital. The Revolution and the subsequent independence of Slovakia had very different meanings for peoples inhabiting 62 vastly different terrain. For as much as the Revolution had brought excitement and hope to Bratislava, it had brou^t detnm^it and despondency to many in Kojsov and others in eastern Slovakia. 63

6^ ParticiiMmt Observation—The Birth

From March throu^ May, 19931 lived in KosicewitJi my husband, John Field. Kosice is the second largest city in Slovakia and the largest dty in eastern Slovakia. It is also the dty where my daughter was bom. lam convinced that there was no better nor more difficult way to leam the meaning of life in a socialized economy—one based on the Russian model at any rate- than to give birth in a state hospital. Having a child in Slovakia I was sure, would allow me to establish a kind of rapimrt that would be inconceivable had I no children. To this day I am sure that I would have never come to know so intimately the strife that individuals eiqierienced on a day to day basis had I not experienced the maternity ward in the Kosice state hospital. I am also sure that I would have never learned so well exactly why many Slovaks are so passive to the forces around them. The state, I learned, controlled every single aspect of their lives, their children, their bodies, and to a great extent their minds. The story of the birth is a dissertation in itself. It was in a way my introduction to eastern Slovakia and without a doubt the single most important encoimter for my understanding of the complexity and cultural and social manifestations of a system whereby the state runs, quite simply, almost every aspect of social life. It was a place where I learned exactly why individuals do not rebel, why people wait and sit passively, and how complex a social institution must be in order for such obedience to transpire. In the hospital, I experienced exactly the degree to which the state owns individuals 64

and dictates to them their every need, responsibility, and rig^t. The hospital was also the place where I saw every-day-forms-of-resistance and where in the end I had to rebel myself. Let it suffice it to say that Hannah Joy Acheson-Field was bom to us a month early, taking us by surprise and happened to be in breach position. Because of this, it was dictated to me that she would necessarily be a cesarean section, news that struck me with a blow I never expected. I spent eight days of a living hell in a hospital with barely any food, (no fi*uit, vegetables, milk products, and barely any sources of protein). The water I was to drink was the color of rust and the sanitation in the hospital was fetid (one could tell who had been the last of the twenty two women on the wing to give birth because there would be drips oflochia on the floor leading to the filthy public restroom and back to her bed again). No family members were allowed into the maternity ward and there was one nurse on duty for twenty-two patients at once. Babies led a completely different existence from their mothers while in the hospital-I did not see my own for two days after birth. After eight very difficult da}^, my husband and I insisted that I go home instead of stajdng the "mandatory" ten days in the hospital. On the eighth day the first bill of sales for hospital procedures was written in our name—the prices I imagine were randomly figured as no one had any idea of the cost. During my entire stay in the hospital, I am convinced that I received the very best of care that the Kosice hospital had to offer—I was after all a foreigner. But this is the scariest thought for me. What I received for care was verging on malicious im'ustice with intent to maim. I can only wonder how much worse it is for Slovak women. Although this was an experience I would not like to 65 repeat, I would like to reiterate that my stay in the Slovak hospital contributed enormously to my own perception and understanding of how Slovak society works today. This ei^rience with a state-controlled institution answered the question that ached in the back of my mind—why dont Slovaks rebel? I now know why they do not rebel. The attempt would be so thoroughly e^diausting, so terrifying, and futile, that no one dares. After giving birth, John, Hannah, and I spent a few weeks in the city of Kosice recovering from the birth and experiendng first hand the cultural beliefs and behaviors with regard to one of the most integral parts of socialization—the caring of newborns. It was at this time that we came to know the joys of Figure 6.0 Photc^aph of Hannah, Passport Photo, Slovakia, 1993. 67

parenthood and the tribulations of new parents in Slovakia. Norms had to be upheld and values had to be considered and reconsidered. We would leam very well to hide our American baby rites from Slovaks as they uniformly insisted that we should be questioned at every turn. This was also an important episode in cultural understanding for us~one not to be overlooked in any description of methods. The participant observation that I "conducted" included the classic learning of another culture by the failure to perform in

culturally acceptable ways. We did not wrap Hannah correctly, feed Hannah correctly, bathe her correctly, or even lay her to rest correctly. We learned just how uniform cultural values were in Slovakia. For most attitudes pervaded age and space. The young and the old repeated the same manifestos to us in r^ard to baby care—in public, in private, among strangers and friends. It was inconceivable to think that the young, the old, and the middle age, regardless of where they lived, held fast to the same ideas about such things as infant feeding practices. However, we found out the hard way-by performing dififerently than the culturally acceptable norms that we were not only e^)osing people to a difierent way, but we were causing them to reconsider the very principles of their informal and formal education. This was very important for my fieldwork—to come to an understanding of the pervasiveness and imiformity of ideas.

l^Some of the most perpleziiig issues that were raised by everyone we encsountered were: 1. breast feeding, although universally taught in hospitals, is believed to be an insufBdent form of nutrition; 2. allowing babies to in any other position lying flat such as 1>ending" a baby into a sitting position, are seen as permanently linmagifig to infants' backs; 3. feeding baby's all the varieties of adult food by foum months old is most valuable; 4. babies need at least one bottle of sweetened 1>aby tea" every day. Such notions conflicted with our ideas on newborn care and thus we were constantly meeting conflict. We learned, however, just how universally agreed upon such ideas are. 68

6.6 Participant Ob8ervation~Mo¥i]ig to the Village

Soon after Hannah was bom we moved to the village where I would begin to work on the questions I came to research. Kojsov is only one hour by car from Ebsice or some thirty-six kilometers, so the move did not entail any real burden. We simply packed our bags and moved to the village. The housing for us had been previously arranged by a distant relative of mine who excelled at solving logistical problems for us. She arranged for us to pay $25.00 a month to rent a house that was very close to her own summer cottage. Although small in size, we had only two rooms, the house was pleasantly warm and sunny and was situated smack in the middle of the village-a location that was perfect for fieldwork. The house was long and narrow and dated to the 1920s and looked like a clone of most of the houses in the village. It was whitewashed and had several large windows in its two spacious rooms. The house lacked in conveniences which contributed to my experiencing the way of life for most villagers. We lacked hot water, a range to cook on, a toilet and bathtub or the like, and we had to pass by two other houses and two other families each time we ventured to the latrine. Privacy was an unknown concept in most respects but we found the experience of living in this house quite enjoyable and relatively conflict free. The location of the house was important for the b^inning of my fieldwork. It was essential that we lived alone in the beginning so that we would not be identified as simple extensions of the my distant relatives. We were also close enough to the center of town so that we met many people during their daily visits to the butcher, the grocery store, or on their way to 69

church. From our front window we watched the daily happenings of a small village. We strug^ed to find time for aU that we needed to do and as a result hired a nei^hor to do our laundry and cooked only on occasion as it entailed making a fire in the heavy cast iron wood stove to boil water. We did not live veiy differently from many in the village, save for the fact that we had no garden or pantry stocked with canned goods. We had to buy everything we ate- -a plan that seemed rather odd to most villagers. We were happy to skip large hot meals and substitute for them sandwiches and fi*esh fiadt. For child care, we had worked out the perfect solution. John watched Hflnnah while he sat and wrote his own dissertation in Geology and I went interviewing. By the time Hannah was hungry to breastfeed, I had gathered enough information so that either the person I was interviewing had no more time, or else I was drained of energy and needed a break fi*om the tiring work of listening in a foreign language. More times than one, John arrived across the village with a wailing Hannah after I had exhausted my energy during a four hour interview. I would escape to the peace of my home and contemplate the thingg I had learned. Hannah was a source of relief for myself and for people I interviewed. Because of Hannah we also had need to hire several villagers to do simple tjialcg for us— something that was greatly welcomed in a place where unemployment is rampant. 70

6.7 EgtabBahing Rapport

The first part of my research involved partiapant observation and what I would call an experimental stage of research. For the first month and a half of village fieldwork, Iobserved« introduced myself and myfamily to people, and told them what we were doing here in the village. This process, while it had no real end. or beginning, included, some formal interviews but mostly it included sorting out the categories of information that I wanted to gather and learning how to do it in a culturally acceptable manner. I had a great deal of help in this process information from a student who knew English and visited us on a daily basis. My distant relatives were also a great help by carefully describing to me how much every item had increased in cost since the Revolution. From these conversations, I was able to decipher exactly what foodstuffs were significant for the Kbjsovian diet and exactly which ones should be included in a more quantitative survey. Allowing the categories to emerge was a rewarding process. I evaluated my own questions and reevaluated them time and again to develop a survey. The survey contained questions on ideas, symbolic material culture associated with various ethnicities, household composition, production and consumption. 71

6.8 The Survey

The survey that was engineered firom the aforementioned work resulted in a five part questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered in two formats. The first format catered to villagers in Kbjsov and was the organizing mechanism for four hour long ethnographic interviews. The second format entailed editing the survey for other assistants to use. I hired three individuals to interview some twenty households fixim local towns. Most of the "town interviews" were conducted by assistants and consisted of closed-ended, questions appropriate for gathering quantitative data. Both sets of interviews used a convenience sampling technique. Attempting to gather a random sample was not feasible. The sample population and representativeness of the sample will be discussed in sections 3.8 and 3.9 of this chapter.

Part 1. The first part of the questionnaire was a survey of the household members, their ages, and their occupations. From section of the survey, I was able to investigate not only what kinds of emplo3anent individuals in the village worked at but also the variety of work and the degree of unemplojmient that existed. I was also able to come to terms with the variety of household types that exist in the village. This section led me to conclude that there were two distinct forms of households fiinctioning in Kbjsov, one being a fluctuating younger household consisting of a com'ugal pair

individuals who participated were introduced to the research and told they were free to ignore any question with which they felt uncomfortable. The individuals I interviewed were either volunteered directly or were reconunended to me as potential expert key informants. 72

and their extended family. The other consisted of elderly retired folk living in a sin^e generation household. A third type of household mig^t also be considered in Kojsov. Urbanites buy cottages in villages to use as vacation homes. I have excluded such households from my sample since they are weekend homes and the individuals who inhabit them are not considered part of the village community. These individuals live in the village for a few weeks out of the year but otherwise their "cottages" are closed and iminhabited. More on household composition will be discussed in chapter six.

Part 2. The second part of the survey consisted of asking people about the differences in prices of household utilities between 1989 and 1993. Electricity, wood, telephone, taxes, insurance, water, and other e^)enses that are associated with running a household were the fod. Results were important because they exposed bits of qualitative information on the various forms of heating, the supply of water, and the origin of other utilities and taxes. This section also revealed exactly how much prices have increased relative to income. The relative decrease in buying power will be discussed in chapter eight on household composition.

Parts. The third section ofthe survey was the richest in detail. This was the section where1 asked strictly closed-ended questions about the changes in consumption of groceries. This was the section that revealed some discrepancies between buying power of households b^ore 1989 and after 1993. People simply could not buy as much of the food they liked and as a result had quite significantly altered their diets: they were forced to buy cheaper, less 73

nutritious food. This is one of the main sources of fi*ustration from the Revolution. This section also helped research issues on household consumption discussed in chapter eight.

Part4k The fourth section of the survey consisted of open ended questions concerning individuals' interestinreprivatizingtheir family lands. Most of the individuals answered the questions in a rather uncomplicated, straightforward manner. With the exception of one individual, not a single family was interested in reclaiming the lands. This lack of interest in reprivatization will be discussed in chapter nine.

Part 5. The fifth section of the survey was a siirvey of the kitchen gardening activities. I was interested in finding out if there had been any significant increase in gardening to compensate for the decrease in purchasing groceries. I was also interested in gaining qualitative information on the role the garden played with the Kbjsovian diet in general and in gathering qualitative information about a wide variety of aspects of gardening.

Part 6. The sixth section of the survey concentrated on canning activities and the processing of gathered and cultivated food. This was one of the most ama/ing sections to me as it clearly demonstrated the work required, almost exclusively by women, to process various foodstuffs. This section also disclosed the skepticism most families felt for their future economic prospects. Canning was a measure against risk and an active method of coping with 74 uncertainly. Parts five and six of the survey facilitated research on household production discussed in chapter seven.

Part 7. The sev^th section of the survey collected information on village identity. For this section I developed open-ended questions designed to reveal how viUage identity was manifested. I asked people about their identity, and about the material culture which they possessed and believed to be related to their identity. For this section I would ask what items the people owned that were specific to Ebjsov-they would usually answer with many "folk" crafi; and/or folk production items which were "old". I also asked people whether or not they had a variety of folk items such as plates, ceramic pots, wooden tools, folklorist costumes and the like and if these items were specifically associated with Kojsov, with the region, or Slovakia as a whole. It was really quite amazing to see how many of the villagers identified themselves as "Kojsovians" first and foremost rather then "Slovaks". The total survey was both qualitative and quantitative. It was developed with the advise of many villagers after a good deal of research. 75

6.9 The Population

The entire population of Ebjsov consists of854 individual of which 441 are male and 413 are female. Roughly one-third of these individuals are retired, (271) another third are under the age of sixteen. These 854 people live in some 322 houses. The villagers are not evenly dispersed among these 322 houses. Rather the population of Kojsov is divided into two groups which reflect the household types discussed earlier. The first group consisted of young stem families or extended families which contained more than one generation, usually centered around a conjugal pair, their ofi^ring, and the couples' parents. The second group of Kojsovians were people who lived in single generation households and who for various reasons did not have extended family members living with them. The number of old women, living alone or with one other old related woman, was quite extraordinary. It is important to add that these two household appear to be two distinct categories~at least for this synchronic case study of Kojsov. However, it may be possible that the households, studied with a diachronic perspective, are actually two stages in a life (^'cle. An old women living alone in her own home today may have lived in the same house with her husband and children as well as her parents at a different point in time. Her husband and parents may have died and her children grown and moved to cities. A long term diachronic study of Kojsov might use different

^^Tliere are a total of356 houses in Kbjsov but 34 are uninhabited. 76

methods to explore the fluctuation in household composition. For the purposes of this case study, however, a synchronic study suffices. During the interviewing process it became apparent that K)jsovers did not live in an isolated void. The children of middle aged couples often lived in nearby towns and the cities of Kbsice, Prakovce, Levoca, Presov, or Spisska NovaVes. I decided to work on this third group of people who were in every way related to the village of Kojsov but who did not live within the village of Kojsov itself. These individuals live in nearby towns but have a significant relationship with individuals in Kojsov. There is a s3mibiotic relationship between people in the villages and those in towns: they trade goods, services, and capital with one another on a regular, sometimes daily, basis. I wanted to explore this relationship in more detail and also compare some of the household economic results from the viUage with those of the towns. These individuals were, in most cases, very closely related to people in Kbjsov, and many of them considered themselves to be "Kojsovians" since they had been bom and raised in Kbjsov even though they mi^t have moved away from the village many years before. The actual number of Kojsovians studied in my research numbers approximately 125 individuals living in some 36 households. I interviewed by men and women, althou^ due to demographics of the village, the older generation is represented for the most part by women. ^ Older women seemed to outlive older men at a ratio of nine to one. My interviews reflect this sexual discrepancy in mortality rate, ^terviews with extended families were conducted with both men and women. Certain aspects of the interview were addressed to the teenage population and youth such as their viewpoint on life in 77

an ^dependent Slovakia, life after Totalitarianism, views on minority, ethnic, and racial issues. With the ezception of weekenders, there were not groups fix)m the village which I attempted to exclude. I had a difficult time interviewing the Rom of the village. They seemed less interested in discussion with me. Wantingto avoid causing racial conflict, I did not pursue discussions with the Rom some 18 of whom reside within the confines of Kbjsov. 78

6.10 Representathreness I cannot claim that my sample justly represents a minority of the population, in eastern Slovakia. My sample however, taken from one village, forms a solid basis for case study analysis. The representativeness of my sample taken from the village population is quite hi^. While the survey sample was not random, and thus necessarily skewed to some degree, I feel that there are two characteristics of this village in Eastern Slovakia which make my work more representative than a social scientist mi^^t otherwise assume. First of all, under the totalitarian regime, social stratification was minimal. The new class of young rich entrepreneurs presently emerging in cities is virtually nonexistent in the viUage. Thus discussion on household consimiption and production is relatively homogeneous. Furthermore, my sample represents a type of probability sampling. The range of variation of characteristics of households do not greatly vary. Household consumption, production, composition, wages, types of food eaten, amount of land accessible, canning activity etc. are cdl associated with a minimal range of answers. Therefore, I can conclude that the households in my survey are quite representative of all the households in the viUage. Just as there were not many different types of households, so too the diet, gardening activity, and world views did not greatly fluctuate from interview to interview. Therefore, it is highly probable that my household surveys are representative of the entire population of households in Kbjsov.

Kojsov, there is only one household which might fall into the category of a newly rich entrepreneur. I interviewed individuals fiom this household, however, I was unable to gather information on houehold production, wages, consumption etc. Members of this household gave a particularly thorou^ account of political relationships inside the village. 79

The second reason that-I believe my sample is representative of households in Kbjsov is because I interviewed a relatively hi^ number of households and individuals in the village. Given that one third of the villagers consisted of children, I interviewed roughly one fifth of the inhabitants of the

village. Another factor influencing the representativeness of my research is based on the integrity of the interviews. I feel certain that the individuals with whom I had the opportunity to spefUc were excellent informants. For the most part, they were bright, helpful, hospitable and seemed readily available to aid me in my research on their village. Anyone who did not want to be involved, for any reason, was not forced to contribute to my study. As I mentioned earlier, the general respect for ethnographic study held by Slovaks contributed to my ability to conduct quality interviews. As a result, I trust my data and I believe that the individuals and families I interviewed equipped me with a strong case from which to make some generalizations about Kojsov. How representative is my case study about Kbjsov of a larger geographical area and greater Slovak population? Answering this question is difficult. Data on the reprivatization of land may well serve as the best indicator of the representativeness of Kojsov to larger Slovak society. As is discussed in chapter nine, only one household reclaimed family lands to use for agricultural activity. Thus the vast minority of Kbjsovers do not have interest in reprivatizing family lands or have behaved accordingly until the present. Approximately 30% of other towns and villages in the region of Spis behaved exactly this same way. Therefore, in terms of the discussion Part Three focusing on the reprivatization of land and the contemporary status of 80 peasants, I believe Kojsov to be representative of roughly thirty percent of the villages in the Spis r^on. I have every reason to suspect that other villages marked by a resurgence in family agricultural activity do not reflect the same motives and limitations I found in my research on Kojsov. One might further argue that Kojsov may be characteristic of other villages in eastern Slovakia that are located in districts with very high unemployment, have had access to tiny plots of land surrounding one's doorstep from which to grow a productive kitchen garden, that are relatively isolated, and that have a tendency to mnintfliTi a certain degree of traditionalism. Kojsov has no predominant feature distinguishing it from any other village except for the fact that my relatives originated here. Therefore, my case study may be far more representative than I am able to postulate here. 81

6.11 Problems in the Field

Doing any kind of ethnographic fieldwork in an ez-Communist country is bound to pose problems. I did not experience much difBcully with individuals in the village. However, I did encounter certain difficulties that had a good deal to do with being unaware of various cultural bdiefs and social norms. Iwas uncomfortable with the amount of alcohol consumption that was considered normal when conducting fieldwork. I was supposed to toast every event and visit with a shot of hard alcohol, usually vodka. If I had drunk all of the alcohol considered normal, I would have been tipsy through many of my interviews. Problems dealing with customs surrounding alcohol ranked among one of the biggest for my husband. He was pestered by neighbors to go drinking in the village pub. We no doubt seemed (stingy) and unMendly when my husband insisted on being left outside of the drinking circle. Having a small baby was considered an appropriate reason not to drink much, but insisting on not drinking at all was very difficult. Another difficulty we had was with the level of scrutiny by villagers of oiu* lifestyle. More of an emotional strain than anything else, the criticism especially of our parenting, created a stressful atmosphere. The amount of scrutiny we received by villagers of all ages in regards to our care of our newborn, our own health, our housekeeping, our food, etc. became a constant source of anxiety as well as a source of humor. We simply did not fit in and we would never fit in. Nothing we did went unnoticed Although tiring, this kind of social scrutiny opened many a door for me to conduct interviews, meet with the "criticizers", and many times discuss the very norms that were considered so 82

crucial to good, safe, clean living. Of course, we could not have asked for more thorou^ conversations on daily customs than we got via criticism of our own ways. In the classical ethnographic style, we learned about the culture of Kojsov by infracting its norms and pushing the limits of acceptable behavior. I cannot say I regret having experienced the great degree of scrutiny that we e3q)erienced for the entire length of stay we had in Slovakia. There are institutional difficulties that cannot be ignored when discussing the topic of problems in the field. I do not feel it would be constructive to the goals of the dissertation to list the copious institutional difficulties we encountered. Let it suffice to say that nearly any contact with a state sponsored or state operated institution necessarily entailed enormous amounts of time, energy and resources, not to mention patience. Within the village itself there were very few such institutions so we were able to work on a daily basis without interacting with corrupt bureaucrats. There are a few difficulties that I encountered during interviews which I have already mentioned in this chapter. Namely that people, mostly the elderly, did not care to speak about politics with me in any capacity. Many times I would skip an entire section of an interview if it became obvious that individuals did not feel comfortable talking about politics with me. The topics of contention were ones that would have been seriously problematic during the last regime. Talking about politics and poUticians would have had great potential to destroy lives in the years preceding 1989. It seems logical to think that many individuals would be hesitant to talk over their opinions with a complete stranger given that they had learned that they should never become involved in discussions, critical or not, of politicians. Risk tjildng had not been 83 in the villagers' best interest for years-and discussing politics had been considered some of the riskiest business around. Althou^ I shut off my tape- recorder and stopped note taking whenever my questions made someone uncomfortable, the gist I present of their ideas is no doubt infused with the results of my research on views about politics. Individuals' names and identities remain anonymous. Having had experience of ten months fieldwork in Slovakia, I feel that I would make some improvements. They are the kinds of improvements that are quite specific to doing fieldwork in this village. One thing I would do differently would be to offer services to each person with whom I interviewed. This is something that I did periodically for individuals who requested it but I did not offer for example, to write letters to American relatives, systematically. If I went back I would make this offer regularly. This type of trade I feel would enhance my ability to both meet new potential interviewees as well as offer a much needed service. Most people in Kbjsov have relatives in the United States with whom they have had various degrees of contact and correspondence. Not everyone has been able to correspond with their American relatives because of the language barrier. Writing letters would serve to fulfill my end of an informal, unspoken arrangement of reciprocal exchange. 84

6.12 Conclusions

This chapter has attempted to describe various methods that were employed in my research in a Slovak village in Eastern Slovakia. Study of the Slovak language and a pilot study with the Ethnology Institute in Bratislava gave me the initial skills needed to conduct independent fieldwork in Slovakia. Participant observation which included living in Bratislava for one month, giving birth in a state hospital, and living in the village was crucial to my understanding of life after the fall of communism. The establishment of positive rapport with villagers was aided by the overall respect that Slovaks have for ethnological study, the fact that I am distantly related to many in the village, the fact that we inhabited a house in the middle of the village, and the fact that I attempted to distance myself, at least initially from any family member in particular. The survey were not set before I began the research and I believe this helped immensely with the objectives of the research agenda. The fact that I spent a substantial amount of time within the village before organizing a detailed survey helped a great deal. By the time the survey had been constructed, I had a clear understanding about each topic within the survey and thus I was able to fashion appropriate questions. The survey gathered both qualitative and quantitative data among three portions of the Kbjsov's population, extended family households, single-generation households and households that were actually outside of the village. This research did not 85

include those who maintain only weekend or holiday cottages in the village as such households are associated with urbanites. The representativeness of the sample is discussed. The sample of households included in my survey are a good indication of all households in Kojsov. This statement can be backed by the fact that there was very little variation in response types thus the range of variation in my probability sample, is minimal, making the sample more likely to be representative of the greater population. The case study presented on Kojsov does not represent the mcgority of villages in the Spis region. Using the absolute percentage of households who privatized family lands as an indicator, Kojsov is only representative of some thirty percent of the villages in the Spis region. One might safely assume that Kojsov is representative of other rural villages in Eastern Slovakia with similar demographics, employment opportunities, and degree of geographical isolation. This chapter has also included problems in the field. The fieldwork associated with this dissertation was not plagued by any great problem nor hindered by problems associated with local or state politicians. On numerous occasions I had difficulty dealing with bureaucrats in cities. At the village level, the expectation that we would consume alcohol and the scrutiny of our baby care were two thorns in our side. However, such interaction, while fi*ustrating, had Uttle affect on the research. The following section on the history of Kojsov blends various research methods. Secondary sources are used to gather information on the political events which shaped the village. Ethnographic interviews complement these secondary sources and reveal how villagers have interpreted vast changes in the political economy, the dynamic status of the Slovak nation, and social revolutions. 87

7. CHAPTERFOUR Kojsov and a Centnxy of CSumffe

7.1 Introduction

Ondr^Petrov rose to greet us as we walled up into his yard. He knew who we were before he could clearly make us out as he had been planning for our visit. He was my great-grandfother's brother. Even though my own great-grandfother had died more than a decade ago, the resemblance to the man who stood before me was uncanny. I was walking up the front yard of a house my great- grandfother had walked up hundreds of times as a child and had ceased waUting up fwm the time he was nineteen. house was not in disarray after its long ago history of housing my great­ grandfather and his siblings, but rather firmly grounded, folly in use and not unique yet quite difforent for me from the other houses in the village. Before my eyes stood my great-grandfather's brother- -a fact that I attributed as much to waves of historical circumstances as varied ambitions. This man I imagined looked like his own great-grandfather might have looked some hundred years ago. I recognized immediately how different his life's path had been from his brother's. It is this history—the history that divided fomilies, anchoring some and liberating others, that I would like to discuss in this next chapter. It is a history that discloses a chronicleof my family, but also a history which exposes the story of a village and to a large extent, the history of a nation.

Uncle Ondrej, my great grandfather's last living brother, has inhabited Kojsov for the ninety-six years of his life. He was bom in 1900. During this time, he has witnessed enormous changes: the dissolution of the Austro- Hungarian Empire; the formation of a new nation nniting two separate yet similar peoples, Czechs and Slovaks; the demise of this new nation and the rise of fascism under Hitler during World War II; the emergence of one of the 88 world's most dogmatic fonns of socialism; eventually the demise of such totalitarianism and the creation of an independent democratic Slovakia. He has lived in a kingdom, a democraQr and a socialist nation. He has witnessed a failed Revolution in 1968, seen a successful Revolution in 1989, and now he has Figrue 7.0 Ondrej Petrov, age 93 (Photograph l^Andrej Petrov) Figure 7.1 Ondrej Petrov's House Figure 7.2 Maria and Ondrq Petrov circa 1940 92

witnessed the formation of an independent Slovak Republic. Despite these enormous political changes, life in villages, especially in remote villages like Kojsov, appear to have changed very little. Indeed some characteristics of the European village have withstood the tremors of enormous political and economic upheaval. Historically, European villages have had some defining characteristics that are alarmingly similar across the continent. Although Western Europe rid itself of serfdom some two hundred and fifty years before Eastern Europe, the kinds of villages that cross the terrain are relatively indistinct in some very significant wa3^. Sourthem reminds us:

"By the thirteenth century...the main features of village life were established as they were to exist for another five hundred years. Materially, there was probably remarkably little difference between ^e life of the peasant in the thirteenth century and in the village before it was transformed by modem mechanisms: the produce of the land had increased six fold or tenfold during these centuries, but very little of this increase went into the pocket or stomach of the individual peasant. Compared with the rest of the community, he remained immune fi'om new wants, or the means of satisfying them. (1953:74-74 cited in Anderson, 1971)

Despite this relative consistency in daily activity for many villagers, Slovakia has undergone tremendous changes in the twentieth century. Understanding the history of Slovakia is essential for imderstanding the succeeding chapters on household economy. The household economy does not, after all, fimction within a political and economic void. This chapter highlights the events that have profoundly influenced village life. For the purposes of organization, tJbis chapter will review the following periods: 93

1848>1918~Poverty, Emigratioii, Biags^arization 1919-1988~The First RepabUo-Prosperity, Capitalism 1939>1948~The Second World War-Fascism, Fear, Poverty 19^-1968~Socia]i8t Realism, Indiistrialixation, Collectivization, Frustration, Boredom, Passivity 1969~1989~Normalication 1988-1993—The Velvet Revolution—Hope, Independent Slovakia-Despair and Collective Forgetting 94

7^ 1848-1918~Poverty, BiGniiig, Emigratioii, Mags^uizatioii

In Kbjsov, as in most of eastern Slovakia, the period between 184S- 1918, was a period of extreme poverty. Over 1200 people inhabited Kojsov. 21 If this relatively large village population had had the opportunity to work in some sort of industry, the economy of Kbjsov would certainly not have been as dire as it was. But the economy at the time was characteristic of the same problems in the rest of the region. At this time destitute peasants from all over Europe began emigrating to the United States and Latin American coimtries. Magocsi states about a region some 40 kilometers from Kojsov: "The economic situation of the Presov Region declined simultaneously with national life. There was no industry in the region. Over 90 percent of the Rusyn population consisted of small-scale landholding peasants or farm workers, who lived in villages of less than 1,500 inhabitants. The precarious balance between a sufficient annual harvest and physical survival that had existed for decades was upset during the late nineteenth century. As a result of modernization in farming techniques, there was a decrease in the need for agrarian laborers. With no industrial sector to absorb surplus workers, and a demographic increase that put new pressures on already small landholdings, the economic status of the Presov Region worsened. These factors forced Rusyns to emigrate, in particular to the United States. The first incQviduals left in ^e late 1870s, and they were soon followed by a steadily increasin^y number of their friends and nei^bors. By 1914, an estimated 150,000 Rusyns had left Hungaiy, approximately half of these from the Presov Region" (1993:55).

One of the few work opportunities available for villagers was employment in mines. Gelnica, the closest town to Kojsov, had been an active mmmg

Tliis populatioii of 1200 is relative latge compared to the oontemporaiy population of 800. 95 center since the fourteenth century. Work in the mines was extremely dangerous and has been depicted (especially by Socialists) as involving near slave conditions (Odbor Kultury, 1993). As the mines declined in the region, Slovaks migrated to the United States and found jobs in the burgeoning mining industry. Faced with these dire conditions, Slovak peasants opted for one of several alternatives—seasonal work in other parts of the empire, work in the newly expanding factories, or emigration overseas. Between 1905 and 1914 an average of20,000 Slovaks annually emigrated to America (Ebpanic, 1986:37). Prominent in any history of Slovakia is the theme of the oppression of Slovaks by Magyars or Hungarians under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Magyarization refers to the program to denude the Slovak peasantry of their language and culture. The program included a number of cultural institutions whose aim was to deliberately acculturate Slovaks (VEDA, Vydavatelstvo Slovenskej Akademie Vied, 1986:42). The peas€uits were to leam Hungarian in schools and speak Hungarian in any formal affair. All administration posts were filled by Hungarians. Indeed one of the most oppressive measures taken was to force Slovaks to pray in Hungarian. This "prayer"~the Our Father said in Hungarian—mars the memories of many older Slovaks. The image is one that was repeated to me time and again when discussing contemporary language laws. ^ Economically Slovaks were oppressed, their poverty underscored by ethnic strain. Magyars controlled the fertile, southern agricultural regions in Slovakia (Northern Hungaiy) and Slovaks were held to the predominantly

^^Many Slovaks do not support the demands of the Hungarian minority living in Slovakia today. Tbey view the Hungarian "our father" as a symbol of some of the most invasive oppression and relate it to the Hungarian minority problems of contemporary society. If our grandparents had to pray in Hungarian, then why ^ould you have the rij^t to have street names in our Slovak state in your native language. 96

mountainous terrain, poor soil and small towns and villages. When Slovaks left for work in Budapest, they were stratified into the lowest pajdng jobs and such employment was often temporary (Kbpanic, 1986:38). Slovaks emphasize that they have survived 1000 years of Magjrar rule. The History of the "Struggle for Survival of Slovaks" is a common theme among Slovak and American historians (Kirschbaum, 1995; Seton-Watson, 1908). Even the Slovak National Anthem is based on the experience of Slovaks as an oppressed nation.

The Slovak National Anthem reads:

Nad Tatrou sa blyska, hromy divo b{ju Nad Tratrou sa blyska hromy divo byu, Zastav me sa bratia ved sa o ny stratia, Slovaci o ziju, Slovakci o ziju. To Slouensko nase postal dlho spalo ale blesky a hromy zbudzvju ho k tomo aby sa prebralo.

Over the Tatra mountains, lightening is flashing and thunder wildly roaring Lets halt brothers, and they will disappear Gose their power/they will pass/fade away) and Slovak people will be reviv^ Until now, our Slovak nation has been sleeping for a long time But the listening and the thunder are encouraging this awakening

This theme was perpetuated under Socialism. In the mining museum of Gelnica, for example, many a photo depicts the terrifying forms of pimishments that Slovak mine workers were forced to endure by their Hungarian lords. Such ethnic strife and disparity fueled Slovak pleas for nationhood and has been interpreted as a supporting cause for the formation of a new nation state. 97

7.3 1919-1938 The Fint Republic—Prosperity, Capitalism

Formal recognition of Hungarian oppression coincided with the Slovak national awakening. When the first world war resulted in the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slovakia, like many nations took advantage of the opportunity to create a separate independent state. Slovaks perceived a need for a more intimate relationship with a Slavic neighbor, a nation whose history paralleled their own, whose past reflected the same roots (the Great Moravian Empire) and a nation who would clearly empathize with the Slovak plea for autonomy and respect. In 1914, when Austria went to war on the side of Germany, the Czech and Slovak National movements formed an independent Czechoslovak state. The formation of a new state had come after years of national "awakening" and with a good deal of organization. By 1915 in the dty of Pittsburgh, the Czechoslovak nation declared their union. Slovak political leader Anton Stefanik joined Tomas Masaiyk and other Czech political leaders in Paris. A Czech National Council was created in 1916. Masaryk negotiated to commit the Allies (both Russia and the West) to the creation of an independent Czechoslovak state. In early October, 1918, the German and Austrian governments proposed peace negotiations. On October 18, Mtisar^ic issued a declaration of Czechoslovak independence. The Paris Peace Conference in January, 1919 approved the establishment of a Czechoslovak Republic which was to include the Bohemian IQngdom (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia), Slovakia, and Ruthenia (Nyrop: 1981:27). By 1920 the Treaty of Trianon had been established. Its role, along with the League of 98

Nations, was to protect minorities in the newly forming nations after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Galantai, 1992). On October 28,1918, Czechoslovakia was established and Tomas G. Masai^ became its first president. The Constitution of 1920 established local governments on the basis of extreme centralization. The Czech lands, Slovakia, and Ruthenia were divided into counties, each with its own government but were closely controlled by the central government. Only the lowest levels of government in local communities was completely elected and run by the local population. Czech and Slovak were to be the official languages of this nation. National minorities, however, were assured special protection: in districts where they constituted 20 percent of the population they were granted full freedom to use their language in everyday life, in schools, and in dealing with authorities. Although Slovakia became more industrialized during this period, only 56 percent of the industry in Slovakia was in Slovak hands. Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia had 39 percent of their populations working in industiy and thirty-one percent in agriculture. In Slovakia, industry employed only 17.1 percent of the population; 60.4 percent worked in agriculture and forestry (Nyrop,1981). This economic disparity of Slovakia fueled much agitation by Slovak nationalists. The union of Czechs and Slovaks into one nation did not end ethnic stratification and discrimination. Slovak nationalists were far fittm satisfied. By 1919 Andrej Hlinka, a CathoUc priest, had formed the Slovak Populist Party and b^an fitting for an autonomous Slovakia. His goal was to have more freedom for Slovakia within the Czechoslovak state rather than a completely independent Slovak Republic. Hlinkii desired professional and 99

administrative jobs associated with education in Slovakia be filled by Slovaks not by Czechs who were commonly imported for such roles. These jobs hpH been formerly filled by Hungarians (Nyrop, 1982:36-37). Many Slovaks perceived that Czechs had taken over exactly where Hungarians baH left off— as imperialists who oppressed a Slovak colony. 100

7.4 1939-1948 The Second World War

Hlinka's Populist Party not only aspired to cease ethnic stratification in the job market, but the party had a more reactionary wing led by Vojtech Tuka. From the early 1920s Tuka created secret ties with Austria, Hungary, and Hitler's National Socialists. He set up the Rodobrana (semimilitary imits) and published subversive literature. In 1936 Slovak Populists demanded a Czechoslovak alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, hi September 1938, the Slovak Populist Party received instructions from Hitler to press its demands for autonomy. On October 5,1938, with the acquescence of all Slovak parties except the Social Democrats, an autonomous Slovak government was formed under the rule of Josef Tiso.

"^tler scheduled a German invasion of Bohemia and Moravia for the morning of March 15,1939. In the interim he negotiated with Slovak Populists and with Hungary to prepare the dismemberment of the republic before the invasion. On March 14 the Slovak Diet convened and unanimously declared Slovak independence. Simultaneously, Hungarian troops entered the Carpatho-Ukraine and occupied it and eastern Slovakia in tiie ensuing days. On the morning of March 15, German troops entered Bohemia and Moravia without encountering resistance. On March 16, Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German Protectorate and an integral part of Greater Germany. Li 1939, Tiso was elect^ president of the newly created Slovak Republic. Tiso opposed the nazification of Slovak society and hoped instead to establish Slovakia as a Christian corporative state. His plans conflicted with those of Slovak reactionaries who were organized into the paramilitary Hlinka Guards (HG). The latter, led by Franz Kamasin, cooperated closely with the Nazi oriented ^rman minority. Nazi troops were stationed in Slovakia on Mardi 15,1939" (Nyrop,1982:37). 101

The conflict between Tiso and the radicals resulted in the Salzbuig Compromise concluded between Slovakia and the German Reich. A dual command between the Slovak Populist Party (Christian conservative) and the HG was established. The Reich appointed stormtrooper (Sturmabteilung~SA) leader Manfred von Killinger as German minister. The Slovak polity was then instituted which entailed severe discrimination toward the Jewish minority numbering 130,000 in the 1930 census. By September 1941 a Jewish code provided the legal foundation to eiqiropriate Jewish property and ultimately exterminate the Jewish population. The code was reinforced and between March and August of 1942 alone 56,000 Jews were forced to evacuate their homes, abandon their homeland, and were forced into concentration camps located in Poland and the Czech lands (Ibid.).^^ Both Czechs and Slovaks organized effective resistance movements. The Slovak youth turned increasingly against the Tiso regime (Nyrop, 1982:45-47).C>n May 5,1945, the Czech National uprising was staged in Prague. Some 30,000 Czech men and women battled for three days against 37,000-40,000 German troops backed by tanks and artillery. On May 8, the German Wehrmacht capitulated to the Allies. In the town of I&emnica, Slovakia, on September 15,1939 approximately 3,500 Slovak soldiers marched into the city. Members of the underground Slovak Revolutionary Youth set fire to machinery and factories, emptied the fuel tanks of locomotives, and eiq>loded munitions in warehouses.

23 £)ue to (tie (hut; Hungarian -Slovakian border changed during the war, some of the Jewish population firom the Kodse region survived the war. Hie mountain bordering Kojsov to the south marked the Hungarian northern border. Tbus the Jewish popualtion which lived in the dty of Kosice were forced to undergo laws by the Nazis in Hungary rather than in Slovakia. At any rate, the genodde of Jews during the Second Worid War in both Hungary and Slovakia was o^ous. 102

Kbjsovers were also active in this resistance movement. A distant relative explained to me more than (mce what had happ^ed in Kojsov during the second world war:

"TTiatchurch below is thesiteof fear fwm the Second World War. Truly a miracle saved all the men in Kojsov from a terrible death. Kojsov was one of the villages that actively aided in the partisan resistance in Slovakia. Kojaovers hid partisan soldiers within their homes, fid them, and were involved with the Partisans who hid in their village for at least two weeks. Kojsovska Hola (the mountain bordering the viJlage to the south) marked the Hungarian border during the war. Kosice and aU spots south of Kojsovska Hola (mountain) were part of Hungary during the war. After finding out about the assistance ^jsovers had beengivingthe partisans, the Germans and Slovak HG decide to take revenge on the village. There was an announcement that all men over the age of twelve were to come immediately to the church. It took all day to round up the men. My father happened to be out of the village on thatday: he had been in the next town working in the woods. But my brother, who was crippled, could not escape the alarm. He had to go down to the church and sit from morning until dusk. All the men and the church were to be bombed. The priest was quite clever and happened to previously have met the Slovak Mqfor of the HG who was in charge of the retaliation bombing. They had met in school somewhere in the Czech Republic. An act of fate saved them. The priest was able to convince this wicked mqjorthatthe men were really innocent, thatth^ had not been actively involved with the partisans, and were too passive to aid in the resistance movement. Somehow, the mqjor believed him and spared the men. We shook with terror to think that our fathers, uncles, brothers, andgrandfixthers sat in that church waiting to die. Vll never forget it as long as I Uve-what it was like taking all those people~th^ were all ready to die-just like that. The church is a symbol of a miracle to me. " Figure 8.0 The Greek Catholic Church in Kbjsov 104

7.5 1949-1968—The Emergence of Socialism: Socialist Realism, Industrializatioii, CoDectivizatioii, Frustration, Boredom, Passivity

The end of the war brou^t on a short period of chaos followed by a long period of communist rule. Element Gottwalt was elected prime minister in May 1946 as the Czechoslovak state was reunited. All property belonging to Nazi collaborators and people of German descent was confiscated without compensation. Their land was distributed among the peasants, and their industries-amounting to 16.4 percent of all Czechoslovak industries and employing 61.2 percent of the industrial labor force—were nationalized (Nyrop, 1982:46). After having appeared interested in strengthening ties with the west, Gottwalt was summoned to the Soviet Union. With Stalin's advice and support, Gottwalt staged a bogus reactionary plot complete with propaganda disseminated by communist agents, provocateurs, and the communist press. In January 1948, the communist-controlled Ministry of Interior proceeded to purge the Czechoslovak security police, substituting Communists for non-Communists. In February 1948 Czechoslovakia became a ''people's democracy" —the preliminary stage to socialism and ultimately communism. Stalinization, or brutal bureaucratic centralism, was imminent. Dissident elements, including religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, were purged from all levels of society. The ideological principles of Marxism- Leninism and "socialist realism" pervaded cultural and intellectual life. The entire educational system was submitted to state control. The economy was committed to comprehensive central planning and private ownership of land was forbidden (Ibid.). 105

Socialism altered village affairs in three ways: 1) collectivization of private property; 2)implementation of "socialist realism"; and 3) restrictions on the role of the church. Collectivization worked like a kind of sophisticated robbery in two phases. As Salzmann and Scheufl^* discuss in their ethnography of a Czech village, the changeover to cooperative farming took place in 1955, six years after the adoption in Czechoslovakia of the Unified Agricultural Cooperatives Act on February 23,1949. Initially villagers were forced to join a Phase I Cooperative-that is, they began to organize the main work in the fields on a collective basis and to pool vehicles and machineiy, but they did not plow up field boundaries or consolidate the farmland and livestock they owned. Then in 1960, the organization of the cooperative was changed to "Phase XT'. At this point private tenure of agricultural land was virtually abolished and joint production of crops and of livestock instituted (1974:50).

"Collectivization marked the beginning of Komarov's integration into the agroindustrial complex of the state-run national economy. The conversion fix)m individual private ownership to the unified agricultural cooperatives O'ednotne zemedelske druzstvo, or JZD) system of management brought about a distinct change in the life-st^de of the Komarov villagers as well as in the structure of the community as a whole. The transformation was not accomplished without some sharp pains. Seventeen years later, as of the beginning of 1973, the Komarov Unified Agricultural Cooperative and the cooperatives of some dozen other communities to the east and northeast were joined together to become the new, large Unified Agricultural Cooperative "Victorious February," commemorating February, 1948, when the Communist party emerged from a government^ crisis in complete control of Czechoslovi^a. The new consolidated cooperative, which also includes the Blata villages of Svinj^ and Zaluzi, is administered fix)m nearby Blastibor. In the official view, greater efficieni^ is e3q)ected to result fi:t)m this new arrcuogement, which will eliminate some duplication and promote partial specialization of individual villages" (1974:50). 106

Unlike Komarov, Kojsovers did not have the option of keeping all of their lands and possessions during the first phase. They were forced fi^m the early 1950s to abandon private property and surrender it to the cooperative farm. This can be described as the first phases and it was the hardest for villagers to accept. It meant giving up their lands to new communist authorities for the restructuring into collective drustvo farms. During this phase, households managed to maintain a very small amount of land on which they were able to farm for household consumption. By the early 1970s however, even these small parcels (no more than .25 hectare per household) had also been consolidated into collective's management and individuals were no longer able to use the land at will. Associated with collectivization was a significant dprlinp in number of individuals needed to work the land—large scale agriculture necessitated a transition, however slowly, to mechanized monocrop agriculture. Before collectivization, landholdings were relatively small with the vast m£uority of villagers owning less than one hectare. Only one individual owned more and was ofiBcially categorized as a "gazda" or landlord and he had 16 noncontiguous hectares. Although collectivization actually occurred in phases, individuals I interviewed discussed the collectivization in terms of a single event:

"I'll never ever forget the day that the Drustvo leaders came and took our property away from us. They took our lands and my mother's cow. They wanted the pigs too. We were all so sad. We didn't know what we would do for a living. It was terrible. They took our draft animals—horses and cows... and our plows. They stole our milking cows, everything we owned of any value. Worst of allth^ confiscated our family lands. My father had gone to America and worked very hard for a long tim^e to acquire these lanxls. We couldn't believe what was happening to us. Wetriedto 107

res»f. Noneofus cooperated at first. One. man actually resisted joining the collective. He refused to succumb to the wishes of the coU&Aive farm leaders. He kept insisting that he uxtuUL keep his farm and animals. They made him take the worst plots of land in the village. He was a strong man and resisted, but after a few years of harassment, he committed suicide.

In Kojsov, collectivization took the best lands (flattest, easily accessible) and unified them—ignoring the less desirable lands on hillsides that were not easily accessible by road. The second phase incorporated the Kojsov collective farm unit with two other local village units. The three village farms became managed by a central office. At this point, the rest of the village lands along hillsides were incorporated into the collective farms and individual households were left with only the small area of land directly siirrounding their houses. It is apparent today that collectivization had taken place in the village. Families have enclosed the tiny gardens around their houses with heavy iron fences. The gardens grow to the veiy edges of the yards. Collectivized farming has re-structured the arable land of KDJ'SOV. Hillsides lie fallow on one side, rocl^on another, and flat with alfalfa on the third. All three are the direct result of collective farming action. The second phase of collectivization meant that individuals in Kojsov would no longer be responsible for the collective farm in their village. Their "lands" would now be totally managed and maintained by a coUective unit—the result of administrative changes which united Kojsov with the other local villages. The first phase was relatively incomplete by comparison. People still maintained small amounts of land on the hillgidpg until 108

the late 1960s. For some villages this second phase was not complete until the 1970S.24 The second manner in which communism had a profound impact on the village was by virtue of its "socialist realist" campaign. Socialist realism accompanied a stringent effort to reduce the rural population. Peasants were strongly encouraged to move to the cities where they were employed in newly burgeoning industries. Emigration from Slovakia was no longer possible, but migration to the city took hold fast. Generally speaking, the constitution of the household was permanently transformed. The extended households that once worked farms soon became nuclear families interested less in village cooperative efforts in farming and more in industrial "progress". Socialist realism was the dogma that permeated society. It's essence, was that eveiyone would have equal access to social welfare. While one might argue that dissemination of social welfare was focused on the urbanites and party-members, clearly its impact on the countryside cannot be overlooked. Universal education meant that there would no longer be restrictions on education to any specific ethnic group or elite class of bourgeois. The overall affect was that more individuals from villages like Kojsov had primary education than ever before. Secondary and higher education also became possible. Medical benefits, child care, disability pensions, retirement pensions

^^The amount of time since the second phase of collectivization seems to be very much related to people's interest in reclaiming^ the land that was taken fiom them during both phases of collectivization. In villages where this second phase came very late into the 1970s, individuals appear mudi interested in taking ba^ their lands (Svec, 1995). In Kojsov where the second phase was completed by 1970, there is very little interest in reprivitization (See chapter nine). Hie r^tionship between the year in wUch the second phase of collectivization and interest in reprivatization would prove an interesting study. However, more research is needed to claim there is a positive correlation. 109

all functioned to secure villagers as well as urbanites. Kojsov villagers told me time again:

"Before the Revolution, we were taken care of. If we were sick, we knew we could trust the medical insurance to cover our health. Ifwebecamecrippled, we did not have to worry. From the time we were bom, until the day we died, we were taken care of. Everything was covered for us...J«Iow even if we die, no one cares."

Of aU socialist dogma, the denigration of religion had Hie most profound effect on the village. Socialist dogma maintained that "religion was the opiate of the masses" and people were discouraged from attending church services. For teachers and any other government ofiScials, attending church or any kind of religious fimction was forbidden. All religious holidays were celebrated but given new secularized meanings. Santa Clause (St. Mikaulas) was given the name Grandfather Frost, and wedding and funerals became rites performed by state functionaries. The Greek Catholic (Uniate Catholic) church in Kojsov was in fact closed for worship for eighteen years. The government replaced the more "radical" Greek Catholic Church with the Orthodox church. During this time Kojsovers prayed every Sunday in the cemetery. They maintained their Old Church Slavonic prayers and rituals and refused to accept the Orthodox church as their own. After eighteen years, a form of reconciliation with the government took place and a Greek Catholic Priest was allowed to return to the church again. Only some twenty individuals in the village chose to remain faithful to the Orthodox church after the reemergence of the Greek Catholic Church. Thus the earliest memories Kojsovers have of communism are of 110 religious oppression. For many, this was, and continues to be, the one aspect of socialist dogma and practice which cannot be reconciled. Ill

7.6 1969-1988 Normalization

Normalizatioa is a term which is used by historians to refer to the period of time after the 1968 Invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact countries. It usually refers to a period when all migor social and economic institutions were purged of leaders that subverted socialism.^ This enabled the party leadership to reimpose central control and thereby reverse the trend to "pluralization" initiated in 1967. The system was maintained by the continuous threat or actual application of punishment for nonconformist behavior. Universities, research institutes, and the entire educational spectrum of Czechoslovak society suffered. 2® The appointment of an extreme hard-liner as a minister of education brought about the wholesale dismissal of academic and administrative staff who had been active or shown sympathy with reform communism. Massive illegal emigration of the intelligentsia at this time resulted in a "brain drain". An estimated 170,000 illegal individuals emigrated

25 Fourteenth Congress of the CPC in 1971, the purge of leaders and all par^ members at every level involved in the reforms had been completed. The hard-line leadership elected at the congress established the completion of the primary organs of the party, which remained more or less unaltered for the subsequent two decades. The purges did not abate, however, but continued throughout the 19708. Though estimates vary, roughly half a million members, or one-third of the par^, either resigned, were expell^ or were "deleted." Of these about 65,000 to 70,000 represented expulsions fiiom the parly" (Wheaton and Kavon, 1992:7) Hie second element of normalization was strict control over the spread of ideas, involving a purge of all institutions engaged in the dissemination of knowledge and culture and espedally of those, mainly the media, that provided the framework for public discourse. Hie media, in fact, bec^e a mouthpiece for the regime, publicly proclaiming an ideology that helped to institutionalize and ritualize agreement and pubUc acts of compliance for the purpose of justifying the developments of normalization. Hie third factor was the regime's tendency to ignore mtjor structural economic weaknesses in favor of dealing with short-term economic problems. Hie effects on greater society were strong. Purging institutions of knowledge was detrimental for society. Its control on education and the arts resulted in a "cultural desert"(Wheaton and Kavan, 1992:3). 112

(Wheatnn and Kavon, 1992:8). Those who did not emigrate, retreated into the private sphere, usually the family. Indeed the lack of civil society provided an atmosphere that enhanced the isolated relationship individuals had with public life.

"The public reaction to the Soviet Invasion and Normalization was reflected in a mood of disillusionment and retreat into the private sphere, as captured in the contemporary term "inner emigration". A new preoccupation with country cottages as a "hobbjr" became a national weekend pcistime. These modest, mainly wooden structures represented not simply temporary flight from con£rontation with the ideological, but also a target for the meaningful investment of the work ethic that the public conspicuously failed to deliver in its economic performance during the week. The mushrooming of these "cottage reservations" attests to the debilitating effect of official ideology. On a more prosaic level, it also suggests widespread support for small-scale corruption in conditions of ofiKdal scarcity of building materials" (Ibid:9).

On a practical level, these small scale cottages are almost always the sites of small kitchen gardens whose role cannot be underestimated in a shortage economy (Rose and Tikhomirov, 1993; Acheson, 1993). More on the topic of kitchen gardens will follow in chapter seven, on household production. An ideology of "actually existing socialism," as the normalized regime described itself, r^oved the developmental aspect of the concept of socialism, and directly contradicted the Marxist notion of the decreasing importance of the state. Normalization was designed to underpin the central role of the state and provide some d^ree of crude legitimaQr for the system. The public did not accept the doctrine at all, althou£^ they conducted themselves publicly as if they did. The regime gained the nations' compliance with the rules it had laid down; in return, the people did not have to behave in 113

the way the ideology prescribed. For instance, citizens were not required to work hard and a blind eye was turned to their pilfering and stealing. This state of affairs generated a monumental moral corruption that left few untouched. The game of pretend and pretense was nicely captured in one of the slogans of the revolution in November 1989 in Brno:

The Seven Wonders of Czechoslovakia Everybody has a job. Although everybody has a job, nobody works. Although nobody works, the Plan is fulfilled up to 105 percent Although the Plan is fulfilled up to 105percent, there's nothing in the shops. Although there's nothing in the shops, we 've got enough of everything. Although we've got erMugh of everything, everybody steals. Although everybody steals, nothing ever goes missing anywhere. And the Eighth Wonder ofthe-World is that it has been working for forty-one years " (Cited from Wheaton and Kavan, 1992:10).

During my eiq)erience as an ethnographer in Kojsov, I did not have a difScult time understanding the degree to which "normalization" efforts had affected life in the village. It was not something that was unique to any geographical area in the countiy—villages were not exempt. The overwhelming trait that characterizes village Life during this phase of time was the decrease in civil society. Rather than attempt to e]q>lain what existed in the village, allow me to explain what was not there. The absence of any form of civil society was so pervasive it was hard to fathom. There were no community services, community clubs, community get-togethers or even folk festivals or any kind of gatherings that weren't family oriented. Yery few friends met and 114 very few individuals met at the krcma (local pubX>n a regular basis altiiough without a doubt this is the spot that highh'ghted male social activity in the village. Women rarely firequented the pub. Women at times met to talk across fences or in the street or mutter a few words to each other while waiting in lines at the local stores. Sometimes they would talk on the bus or on the way to work. Most socializing, however, took place in the form of family celebrations (e.g. birthdaj^, namedays etc.). A fimeral was a village social activity. At funerals I saw more people tt^ther, eating, drinking, laughing, ciying, and interacting than I saw anywhere else in our entire stay in Slovakia. Allow me to share a short segment of my fieldnotes written while I was contemplating the lack of civil society:

There is no buUetin board somewhere in the village where you may post things of general concern-Like "lost cat" or "Guitar lessons" or "Used bed for sale". There are no garage sales or selling of second hand goods anywhere. There is no village market where you may sell the surplus of vegetables i^m your garden. There is no other place to meet individuals than in their homes. There is not a baked-bean supper or the like, a brownie sale or a fundraising activity. Not even a child's lemon-aid stand. A council of seven officials meet to discuss various village affairs-such as the development of a irrigation or septic systems. But this group does not spoTisor a police man'sbaU. T^re is no volunteer fire department. There is no volunteer anything. The void of social activity, of collective help for anything other than agricultural exchanges, forentriepreneuriaL activity could not begreater. I am not alone in recognizing this lack of civil society. One women of forty-five years recounted to me how different life was when she was young. "All the girls in the village used to gather to sew and sir^ every evening. Itwasso much fun. Oh how wesang...andweknjew so mxmy village songs." When asked what has changed, the woman, like many others, could not put her finger on it. She said peoplejust 115

aren't interested in meeting together like th^ used to. They all stay home and watch TV and avoid each other.

Kin and family relationships to a great degree fulfill the vacuum left in village life from the extinction of civil society. One's family is responsible for one's well-being. If a mother comes into money, then so does her child. If a child gets rich then so do her parents. There is no exchange made without immediate thoughts of retribution and thoughts of redistribution. Entering into relationships of exchange is the fiber of society. No favor goes unmet without an equal exchange of a favor. At the same time, to be called "stingj^' is a terrible insult. Stingy and rich, even worse. The ideology of distribution of wealth and humility are highly valued. Greater discussion on kin, family, and other social contracts can be found in chapter nine. Before 1988 the state and the people of Czechoslovakia had a rather symbiotic relationship. A social contract between the Communist rulers and the ruled involved an implicit bargain wherein the govermnent provided reasonable standards of living and security in exchange for citizens refraining from activities threatening the stability of the regime. For instance, price levels of basic products had not changed significantly for twenty years, and the government supplied employment with a guaranteed income to every citizen eligible. During the work day, no great performance was required, vaiying degrees of pilfering, and doing private work on company time were e3q)ected. In return, the people on the whole acqmesced to the "normalization," not only by not engaging in activities expressing direct opposition to the regime but also by abstaining from activities eiq>ressing or generating attitudes that tended to undermine social conformity, hi practice, this led to the people's retreat into 116 the private sphere of relatively isolated family units and to the party's strict control of all public activily (Wheaton and Kavan, 1992:24). By 1988 there were two elements which helped opened the doors for change. One was the growing public concern for the environment. Green parties were established in both Prague and Bratislava (Smgdr, 1996:2). The ecology was an issue that did not directly threaten the state. The government was forced to recognize the existence of a severe problem in the area of pollution. In doing so, there was a shift in official philosophy from insisting that there were no problems to opening an avenue for dialogue on the considerable changes that needed to be made. Pollution became a metaphorical euphemism for the widespread corruption and inefficacy of the state (Wheaton and Kavan, 1992:25). The second force was the feeling of ideological freedom stemming directly from the changes in the Soviet Union. Gorbachov's Glasnost' (literally to give voice and translated into En^ish as "Openness") and Perestroika (re­ structuring). Both of these altered the previous sense of resignation and provided a stimulus for contemplating the opportunity for fundamental change. In essence, Czechs and Slovaks no longer needed to fear that pluralization of ideas would be met with Soviet tanks. In 1989, such thoughts were strengthened enormously by the far-reaching reforms taking place in Hungary, Poland, and eventually. East Germany. Despite police brutality, the number of anti-govemment demonstrations increased frx)m mid-1988, indicating that the policy of repression had not proved an effective deterrent. The first msyor public demonstration took place in Prague on August 21,1988 and commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. 117

On that day, 10,000 demonstrators marched through the center of Prague (Wheaton and Kavan, 1992:25). 118

7.7 1989-1993~The Velvet Revolutioii

The Velvet Revolution is the name given to the process that radically altered and redefined the role of Czechoslovakia. While many in Slovakia today might contend that what happened to their government was not "velvet" and does not qualify as a "revolution", one cannot deny that tremendous changes occurred due to the manifestations and demands of both dissidents like Vaclav Havel and students. The process began on November 17,1989 on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Jan Opletal^, a Czech dissident martyr. Demonstrators paraded through the streets in Prague and Bratislava and subverted the state controlled media. Students played a miyor role in the Revolution: some 80,000 across the country spread news of the revolution to outlying areas (1992:70). Both the film academy and university faculties and students played an important role in organizing the campaign by spreading 5,000 phot(^aphs of police brutalities nationwide attempting to stop the political manifestations in Prague. More than 200,000 people met, chanting slogans and carrying banners in the name of fi*eedom. Students and actors led

Jan C^letal was a student who was killed during the German occupation of the Czech Republic in 1939. The dea^ of this student has come to represent action against foreign domination and fascism. In this case, Adolf Hitler, angered by Czech resistance to the German occupation of rump Czechoslovakia, unleashed his Special 'Action Prague, during which nine student leaders were executed and a fiuther 1,200 university^ students transported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. All Czech universities were closed down and more than 1,000 teaching staff thrown out of woik. Tlie terrorizing of Czech jrouth and the soft^iing up of a significant part of the intelligentsia is remembered as another first step in the attempted denationalization and ultimate annihilaiton of Czech culture. These events are retained in the national consciousness by the annual act of homage to the memory of a young medical student. Jan Qpletal was fatally shot during an anti-German demonstration. His struggle embodied s^ung people's resistance to foreign occupation in general and to acts of Nazi persectution in particular (Wheaton and Kavan, 1992:41). 119

a national strike and announced a seven-point program of demands for change(1992:68). Dissident priests read a message from the Archbishop Tomasek appealing for a transformation of church-state relations^^ and a continued adherence to nonviolent means of change. Jan Ruml, cofounder of the undergroup newspaper Lidove Noviny spoke of the necessity for a free press. Perhaps one of the most significant contributions was that the citizens of Prague saw Vaclav Havel for the first time. Although his famous dissident work was well known among academics and human rights activists in the West, Havel's work was illegal and had not been exposed to the average person in Czechoslovakia. Havel was a symbolic leader of fi*eedomfix)m the state's oppression and soon became the president of the reformed Czechoslovak government. There is a marked difference between the role of the Velvet Revolution between urbanites and villagers. Li Kojsov I interviewed some one hundred individuals about the Revolution to leam about its meaning to them. I discovered that an end to Communism for villagers was simply a lot less significant and momentous than for city dwellers. In Kojsov, they heard the news through pamphlets and by word of mouth. Their visions did not get Austrian television like their fellow citizens in Bratislava and western Slovakia. They were not able to see the Revolution taking place in Prague and watch the hostile acts of the police against the very peaceful demonstrators. Villagers were restricted to broadcasts on the state controlled television. In short, they had a partial view of the Revolution and they ^q>erienced it for the most part vicariously through urban fiiends and families.

28 120

Some fieldnotes help to elaborate this urban-rural distinction. Despite the fact that these fieldnotes are focused on the viewpoints of teenage girls, I feel that they are quite indicative of the general experience of villagers to the Revolution.

I interviewed three young teenage girls in Kojsov today about the Revolution. They said that they couldn't really remember too much about it. It had happened only three years previous. I asked hoards of questions to rekindle their memories. Did their parents talk about it? Did they make any announcement after school? How did they initially find out about the Revolution ? Were they happy today that their country had experienced a Revolution? The girls answered me in ways that quite reflected the views of many with whom I spoke in the village. One girl told me that actually it hadn't been a Revobi tion at all since no great change has taken place. She said that the chcmges she and her family experience haven't been significant at all. They have simply consisted ofincreasing prices and unemployment. That was not the sign of a Revolution in her book. Another girl told me that she really could not renumber the Revolution. Ithadvery little meaning for her. She had nothing much to say about it. Having nothing much to say about political events in cities was characteristic of many in the village. The third girl told me that she was only thirteen when the Revolution occurred. She had been in school and she remembered the teacher seemed very happy. The girl explained that no one really understood the significance of the Revolution for a few months. People could not believe U meant permanent change. Those forbidden did not dare to b^n attending church immediately~it took months for them to baptize their almost grown children and return to church without hiding.

In the viUage, the most significant change resulting fi'om the Revolution was in regard to religion, hidividuals who worked in some capacity for the state finally had the opportunity to go back to church after years of hiding. The Revolution in the village meant fi^edom to pray. Other changes were in some 121 ways qmte peripheral. The kind of activity that was associated with the Revolution in cities did not diffuse into villages. The interviews in the village contrast greatly with a similar one I had with young teenagers in Bratislava. The stark contrast between these groups of students was revealing. In Bratislava the young students told me that I would never be capable of imagining the euphoria they felt when the Revolution occurred. They simply could not believe it themselves. They were active throughout the Revolution. They drove fitim village to village and handed out thousands of flyers and screamed fi*om their cars telling villagers of the good news. One young teenage boy told me:

"Julka^, my parents waited for the day when democracy would be restored from the day of the Soviet invasion. Every single day they waited. They never gave up hope. They watched their friends and other professionals, leave the country, sneak away and make a better life for themselves. They have friends in Switzerland, a doctor like my father, who makes ten times what my father does. My father hated communism—even if he was a party member. Eveiyone had to become a member if they wanted to increase their standard of living and if they wanted their children to succeed in school. You should have seen the Revolution. Even if you would have seen it, Julka, you would have never understood why we were so happy."

While many assume that the Revolution was a great end to a tired, dysfunctional regime, not ail agree, bi my fieldwork, the village i)erception of the "Velvet Revolution" contrasted greatly with that of many urbanites. Many were relieved at first and had a great deal of hope. However, by 1993 when I conducted my fieldwork, many were disillusioned.

29julka is my name in Slovak. 122

The Catholic Church became one of the few symbols of Uberation for many villagers. It also became one of the principle centers and symbols of the Revolution. Religion also undennined Communist power in its role as a cultural institution. It was the most specific embodiment of the national past and as such acted to return national identity to the people; they were once again a Catholic nation. Representatives of the church had a hi^ public profile in Citizens Forum, the most influential organization involved with the abdication of communist leaders. Finally, and most importantly for a view of the Revolution from the village persi)ective, overt participation of the church had a direct effect in mobilizing believers.

30"q;^ere was a strong cuirent of support for religious freedom before the revolution. As events unfolded, this crystallized into the public, political activity of practicing Catholics in small and medium-sized towns. Fewer than one^third of Czechoslovaks considn^d religious- freedom a m^jor problem, "most Czechs in these conditions attached national importance to religious festivals"(Weaton and Kavan, 1992:88). 123

7.8 1993—Present Independent Slovakia—Despair and Collective Foii^etting

After the Velvet Revolutioii until the present, both the Czech and Slovak Republics have entered a period of "transformation". This period has been referred to as the "post-communist era", the "end of socialism" and the "end of communism", "the beginning of capitalism", etc. None of the terms seem quite fitting given the broadness with which one can interpret terms like socialism, communism, capitalism, and democracy. Economic transformation entails altering the state controlled centralized economy to a more open market-oriented economy. Politically, the end of "socialism" in both republics has given rise to "democracies". The separation of the Czech and Slovak Republics occurred because of the different rates at which these two nations were able and/or willing to speed the transition. The Czechs and Slovaks had vastly different foreign influences to aid them in their transformation, and the fact that two political leaders from these republics were unwilling to n^;otiate their differences. To many Slovaks, especially Vladimir Meciar, the Slovak premier, the colonialistic attitude toward Slovaks by what he deemed the Imperialistic Czech Republic was no longer acceptable. From the view of many Czechs, most importantly Vaclav Klaus and Vaclav Havel, the swift economic reforms needed in the Czech Republic were hindered by "little brother's" backwardness and ine^)erience. The result was that a nation made up of what were considered two Slavic brothers (or sometimes referred to as a married couple, with Czechs 124

as the husband and Slovaks as the wife) divorced four years after the Velvet Revolution on January 1,1993. Without a referendum fi:t)m either Czechs or Slovaks, the leaders of the two countries convened and declared independence. N^otiation was impossible. The decision held since it was met with only meager resistance in peripheral cities (e.g. Kosice). The Slovak nation was now free to make its own decisions without a "big Russian brother" or an equally patronizing "big Czech husband". The absence of a referendum on the issue of independence was taken with the same apathy as the Soviet invasion in 1968. "We Slovaks are passive. We just do not fight." was a quote I heard repeatedly. Nationalistic stereotyping also served to agitate hostility between Czechs and Slovaks. Czechs were seen as more sophisticated, cosmopolitan, better educated, and less emotional. Slovaks by contrast are stereotyped as backward, provincial, ignorant, and prone to drinking hard alcohol. On the other hand, Slovak society is filled with a kind of ethnic self-antipathy. Time and again I heard Slovaks saying, "Czechs are educated and cultured. They are superior in many respects. We Slovaks are uneducated and passive but we work hard. We also drink a lot." Some Slovaks found it impossible to believe that krcmas (local pubs) are as packed in the Czech Republic as in Slovakia. Resentment due to economic discrepancies was prevalent. Twothirds of the gross national product (GNP) of Czechoslovakia was invested annually in Slovakia from the early 1970s until 1987, thou^ its population represented only one-quarter of Czechoslovakia. After the Revolution, the Czech Republic gained the vast mfu'crity of foreign investment From the Slovak point of view. 125

this heavy industry had a double-edged sword. One it caused a good deal of pollution and second it had set them up for an industrial nightmare upon the Revolution. One of the most tragic endings for the Slovaks was Havel's solution to what he considered a moral problem. Havel decided that fueling the world's arms race was immoral and closed down the arms industry. In doing so he put thousands of Slovak workers out of a job ovemi^t because most of the arms factories were in Slovakia, in eastern Slovakia, the restdts of this action were dire. Unemployment in Spis was at 33% in 1993 because of the closing of plants such as the arms factory in Pracovce, a town some 12 kilometers firom Kbjsov, On January 1,1993 a small celebration took place in the Slovak National Uprising Square in Bratislava. A few hundred people met to dance in the streets that day when Slovakia became an independent nation. While a few danced in Bratislava, many more felt a deep sorrow. Individuals expressed how they resented the fact that they did not have a vote. "Had there been a referendum, we would still be one nation," I heard many utter. At the same time disgruntled citizens of a new nation fretted about what the economic instability of a tiny inexperienced nation would have in store for them. Remarkably, however, no one rebelled. One of the most interesting aspects of my interviews had to do with the topicof life in a new republic. When asked the question, "How do you like living in a new Slovak nation?" individuals would inevitably answer the question exactly as if I had asked them, "How do you likft life since the Velvet Revolution?" There was no difference to them. In no way did they equate living in a new Republic as offering them more opportunity to shape their own future. 126

Instead they listed off grievances. Many of the complaints stemmed from their inability to Uve as they had before 1989 when they had, as they perceived, satisfactory economic stability. The Lidependence of Slovakia to them was part of a greater process-one with which they were not satisfied. 127

7.9 Conclusions

This chapter has served to set the stage for a fuller understanding of the decision making process of householders in Kojsov. The events of the past century have shaped the ethos of the village. While many aspects of village life endured these changes, villages were profoundly altered by Socialism. The effects of these changes are reflected in the following chapters on household composition, production, consumption, and on the status of peasants in Slovakia. 128

8. CHAPTERFIVE SUNDAY DINNER WITH THE KOVAC'S; AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE HOUSEHOLD

8.1 Introduction It is at mealtime that the nexus between the outside political economy and the workings of the household are most intimately intermingled. In Slovakia, mealtimes are the place where the profits of the work of both women and men are copiously displayed. Dinner is a pageant where the reapings from the garden and the proceeds &t)m hard formal labor collide and blend into a creation entirely cultural, and intrinsically historical. This chapter introduces the household by focusing on a typical Sunday in the village, specifically the midday meal. Food, drink, and conversation reveal the complexities of life in a new nation—the political upheaval that is involved with the formation of a new independent Slovakia; the ecumenical intolerance of inflation and unemployment in an imstable economy; the rampant unemployment, the dismay for the reemergence of class, and at times the hostile views toward others-other races and ethnicities. During the mealtime, one gains a sense of what family life is like, how household composition fluctuates, and how household production and consumption are manifested. 129

8^ Sundi^r Church Service

Unlike much of the peasant world, Sunday is a day when the public/private dichotomy is reversed among men and women in Kojsov. Sunday is a day when women prevail in public life and men stay at home. A Greek-Catholic church and women, like flocks of crows, gather into the two Sunday masses held at 8:30 and one at 10:30. A priest presides over the congregation but the room is filled with women at both masses. Older women fill the pews and the aisles with their bristly colored folk costumes. In other areas of what was Czechoslovakia, women wear such an outfit only in celebrating the past, but in Kojsov women wear some form of kroj on a daily basis^i. On Simday, however, they are proudly dressed in the multi-layered, hand-sewed, hand-woven and hand-embroidered colorfiil outfits-symbols of the village and its history. Like an accordion women line the center aisle of this old Greek Catholic church. When it is time to kneel, they expand in unison spreading to make room for their broad linen skirts to fall to the floor and when they rise again they fold up their line into half its size. Time and again they kneel and fold, with their line moving up and down the aisle with color and cloth. In Old Church Slavonic, women chant so loud the ceiling rings. The Greek Catholic responses and hynms are sung in a register deemed only appropriate for mass, a learned form of speech kept only for prayer, and especially prayer en masse on Simday. Rules for singing seem not to encompass a law for "too loud" nor "too high pitched." Sitting in the fi^ont, one

^ ^Staruch has written a dissertation discussing the role of the contemporary Slovak folk costume (ISSO.HUS costume primarily signifies age, occupaiton and regiond identity (38). 130 is nearly carried away with the radiating sound of these women, with a strength in their voices that no doubt reflects their pride for their traditions and their kroj. These women know the ways of Kojsov, the way it has been and the way it should always be. They dominate the mass as they dominate their kitchens. When the final benediction has been said liie women file out silently, speaking to no one. Leaving church is not a social occasion, it is a quiet resolute time when women are to go straight home, to assure, so goes the myth, that the benediction wiU be brou^t home to one's house, no one else's.

32 X ajQ Qot sure when this tradition of going straigt home from mass originated. It would not be surpirsing if it was the result of communism but it also wight pre-date communism. 131

8^ The Ethnography of Dmner

This chapter is a vignette of a topical Sunday dinner in Kojsov following chiirch services. Sunday dinner is the largest and most formal meal of the week. Typically, the whole family is together, including grown children who return to the village each weekend from their homes in the city. The preparation, the food, and the discussion serve as a metaphor for the many conflicts, struggles, and uncertainties arising in the village since the Revolution. Writing about a unexceptional dinner at Dasha and Milos's is a loaded exegesis about the way life is for people in Kojsov after the Revolution of 1989 and what this new way of life means for the villagers.

The Preparation

Dasha left church in a hurry. Along with most of the other Kojsov women, she needed to rush home to continue the preparation of the Sunday dinner. She would have it ready promptly at 1:00 p jn. There would be pork, which had been marinating in the refrigerator since the night before. It had been sliced, pounded and tediously tenderized. The pork would be stewed and served with gravy over Czech knedliky (dumplings) and along side some of Dasha's home-made sauerkraut. We would eat some berry compote to lighten the meal and then there would be desert. Dasha and her dau^ter Lubica 132 baked large cakes decorated with delicate home-made marshmallow. Later in the day we would have more cake and more herbal tea. John, my husband, and I relished having dinner with Dasha and her family. It was not only delicious, but Dasha and her husband Milos are relatives of mine. Milos is actually my paternal grandmother's first cousin. When we arrived, the dining room looked ready for the Sunday gathering that Dasha and Milos were accustomed to having. Each weekend their children came home to spend at least Sunday dinner, if not the entire weekend with their parents. This was not unique to this household but common throughout Slovakia. The dining room was set for the raid of youth. There were chairs taken from the formal dining room. They were dark and fragile in comparison to the heavy rustic wooden chairs of the formal set housed in the living room. The dining room had been thoughtfully derarated with old souvenirs of Kojsov's past. Himdred year old plates hand painted and hand thrown. A gigantic picture of Lubica, the youngest daughter, dressed in kroj, the traditional folk- costume, himg dominating the largest wall in the room. A fire place sat in the comer beckoning s/ani/ta (bacon) roasting, an activity that the family enjoyed during the winter. This dining room stood as an entry way, a hallway to the living room, kitchen, bathroom. Its walls were covered half-way with slats of pine while the top half of the walls were cold cement painted mint green. The dishes and other nostalgic paraphernalia gave any visitor the sense of pride these folks had for their village—Kojsov. The table was set. Two large beer bottles sat at one end of the table like conductors in an orchestra of food. Vodka had been poured into tiny crystal liqueur glasses at each adult's setting. A bowl, plate, and cutlery all colored the 133 table with their Czech blue onion motif. A white embroidered table cloth was underneath, adding a sense of formality to the otherwise simple room. A pitcher of raspberry syrup mixed with tap water waited at the opposite end of the table. I eyed it covetously. That would be my drink. Iwasanursing mother who fought to keep my intake of liquids high and free from alcohol. I was also always thirsting in a land where people do not drink plain water as a matter of custom, but instead, drink plenty of spirits. In the kitchen Dasha was working fervently. She had every burner on the stove covered with one if not two layers of pots. lids were scattered everywhere and two daui^ter-in-laws stood nearby ready to be put to work at an instant's notice. Dinner was nearly prepared. Lubica, Dasha's daughter, ran here and there; she was the definitive aid to her mother. Her place was well above those of the daughter-in-laws. Lubica pranced about getting a spoon here or a serving knife there. At clean-up time, Lubica would be chief-of- staff in charge of all the other women in the kitchen, while her mother would rest in the sitting room. The men of the household were nowhere to be seen. They kept themselves well occupied but with the nearing of dinner they started to hover around the kitchen door to smell the intoxicating aroma of good food. Traditionally, men do not cook in Slovakia. There is a sharp division between the work of men and women to this day. Even in the formal labor market, there is a strong division between work deemed appropriate for women and work supposedly better for men. But around the house, cooking, cleaning, c£iring for and educating children, shopping, sewing, feeding domestic animals, gardening and the processing of garden proceeds is exclusively the work of 134

women. Men perform some of the more heavy tasks associated with the outdoors and maintenance of the home such as laying cement, mowing hay, and chopping wood. I had already oflfered my services in the kitchen but I was treated many times as a guest. Today I remained in the hallway with the men since Dasha had assured me that there was nothing I could do in the kitchen. However, in minutes she called out to me to fetch some preserves to eat with the dinner. The dining room where we were waiting was located just outside of the kitchen door and sat on top of the basement. A summer kitchen, root cellar, a workshop, and garage were contained in the basement. We exited by a door leading downstairs from the dining room and carefully crept down the hand- woven woolen rugs which lay across the stairs, dangerously loose and covering the red-painted concrete. At the foot of the stairs and to the left was a dark damp room where some 700jars of canned goods and sjniips sat waiting to be chosen for a day in the dining room. There were blueberries, cherries, apricots, to be served with whipped cream. Canned sliced apples and cherries by the scores to be used in spice cakes sat on the next shelf. There were cans of meat hidden away for a day when the family could no longer find meat at the market price. My favorite were the jars of pickles soured with Slovakian pickling salt. There were jams and jellies made from red and black currents, raspberries, and blackberries. All of these jars represented hours of tedious work for Dasha. The jars of red and black current jelly and syrup meant that she had spent a lifetime cultivating the current bushes which lined her fi^int yard. She had picked the ripe berries by hand, cleaned them, and processed them for canning. 135

Then she had strained them, added sugar-lots of sugar-and sealed the canning jars for their boiling and basking. Each jar in itself represented tedious labor -for it is impossible to buy jars in Slovakia. Jars are not produced in factories for canning, despite the msgority of women who use them this way. One must first buy a full jar (considered pricey not to mention mysterious and risl^r since one never knows what is inside). A good woman cans her own vegetables, fiiiits, and berries so she is sure that the quality is supremely fit for her family. Dfisha's canning closet was particularly exciting for me since she had penciled in the numbers of jars she had canned in the previous years. The industriousness never ceased to amaze me-30 jars in 1988, 45 in 1989, and then huge amounts—300 in 1990 and up to 460 in 1993. To Dasha, canning activity was one means of defying risk, each can good represented a tiny bit of security.^ My husband and I lusted after these can-goods but we dared not eat them at will. For Dasha used them very sparin^y. There were even jars of cherries that were a year old. Each of the jars was treasured and considered a small token of security in a risky world of unexpected politics and economy. Down the hall a door led to the summer kitchen—a fascinating room for any ethnographer. For it was in this room that all of the reapings fi:t)m the garden took a new form, shape, and color. %re a wood-stove dominated the comer. Huge pots of hdUtsky (the Slovak national dish) would bubble here every Saturday and feed ten people at a time. Carrots would be cleaned and left to dry as were potatoes, parsnips, kohlrabi, and all other root-crops cultivated in the family garden. Even horseradish would make its way into this

Chapter seven includes a detailed discussion on canning activi^ in Kojsov. 136 kitchen and become transformed into a luscious treat. The Summer kitchen was Dasha's room. Its very name, the summer kitchen, denoted feminine domination here. Women were all welcomed but men were made to feel a bit awkward in this room. John, my husband, was invited in to witness the arduous task of kalusky scraping. He stayed only long enough to have a photo taken. He faked a smile and feigned knowledge of the proper way to scrape halusky. He held a halusky board in one hand and a knife in the other with a glob of dough resting on the top. "%ld it over the water, slide a small portion of the board in the boiling pot to wet the board and slither your dough into a paper thin sheet, scrape it faster and faster into tiny dumplings," instructed Dasha. John bowed away and retreated to the door. Of course, all the women in the household would take a turn at scraping dumplings here, cheating with a spaetzle sieve would be inconceivable. Halusky making in the summer kitchen was a ritual as exciting as Christmas for me. Halusky made with finely grated home grown potatoes, steamed into tender little dumplings is served in four different ways. Brymove halusky is the Slovak national dish. It was the staple for large family since the introduction of the potato centuries ago^ and it continues to be the focal point of many of a meal in the countryside to this day. Bryma is aged sheep cheese. Fried bacon, grease and all, is poured over the top of this cheese and potato dumpling mixture. After a quick stir, it is served immediately. Brynzove halusky means Slovakia and Slovakia means brymove halusky. Halusky does however, take other forms, namely with milk curd, cabbage and sauerkraut. These forms are

3'^Potatoes are by far the most commonly eaten food in Slovakia. Incidentally, they were unknown to the nation before the seventeenth century. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century had the potato made its way as the favorite of Slovakian crops (Chury, 1993). 137

not as symbolic of the Slovak peasanthood like the sheep cheese version. But we were not ealdnghalusf^ on this Sunday. That is Saturday's tradition. That is a fingal meal— one of tradition, of the countryside, and one that women take great pride in preparing. It is never served on Sunday. Sunday is reserved for meat today as it has been since Dasha can remember. Meat is a metaphor of toug^ times. As we shall see in the next chapter, meat is one of the foods that is too expensive for villagers to consimie as often as they might like. This kitchen is the working kitchen —no one made false pretense and decorated it. Whole families lived in their summer kitchens (that is-during the summer) in some houses and older women in others never vacated the simimer kitchen at all. If there was a part of the new houses in the village that were remnants of a past life, it was the summer kitchen, with all its activity, steam, and aroma. Cottage cheese would be made here, cakes would be baked, and if ever there was a wedding to cook for you can bet the traditional wheel sized cakes would be baked in summer kitchens and distributed all over the village. An important element of the simimer kitchen is its instant connection with the outside world. At Dasha's house, a door led outside abruptly to the fresh air of Kojsov. Wheel barrows of produce could enter this section of the house without much difficulty. Kone had cows, milk could be poured, used, and stored in this room. In the summ^, such doors were left open, beckoning a few flies and alluring the cool breezes of ^jsoVs rocl^r mountains. After retrieving the preserves for Dasha, we sat down to eat and took our vodka toast. It burned down my throat. The meal would begin with soup. Soup is the first course of any noon-time meal in Slovakia, and for that matter for most of the Slavic nations. The soup should alwa}^ be served 138

e»:eedin^yhot. Hot soup is good soup. This particular soup was common in most of Slovakia. It was made fi:t>m the finest of ingredients straight finm Dasha's kitchen garden. Carrots, parsnip, and kohlrabi had been pulled and left clean in the root cellar for several weeks already. They had been chopped small and simmered long. Soup ingredients were not the only things grovm in Dasha's garden. As we wiU see in chapter seven, the kitchen garden plays an important role for people in Kojsov as it does for others who live in "shortage economies". This particular soup is not complete without reliance on some sort of sinimal for its stock. My grandmother in Maine makes it with beef but many times it is made fi'om pork or h^ in Kojsov. Today it was eaten with hen. The hen is representative of the awkward, degenerative market system in Slovakia today. While privatization of previously state owned and operated firms is the goal of the government, market sj^tems are so set in previous methods that new privately owned firms, have little or no means of exporting their goods if they are not hitched up with old market structures. Consider the history of the hen in our soup this Sunday: The hen was bought frozen at the tiny butcher's shop in Kojsov. Dasha was lucl^ to get a hen, fi*ozen or not, because many times there are no hens in stock at the butcher's shop. Another huge and inconvenient problem is that the Kojsov's butcher shop is open on a sporadic basis~one is lucky to find the shop open at all, regardless of the signs posted on the door stating the shop should be open fourteen hours a week. It is now owned by a private entrepreneur and fiiend who bou^t the local grocery store, the fruit and vegetable shop, and the butcher's shop. He sells pork products, beef products. 139 and poultay. Althou^ the hen Dasha bought had been bred and raised on the hill some 200 feet from the center of Kbjsov in the agricultural collective, the hen had been shipped, to the region's capital Spisska Nova Ves. In Spisska Nova Ves, the hen had been slaughtered, stripped, cleaned, and frozen. Then it had been redistributed to the regions village stores. One could not buy a fresh hen directly from the collective farm. One could not purchase any product directly fit)m the collective farm in Kojsov or fix)m any of the other neighboring village collective units. No matter how close in distance, no matter how much money one had, and no matter how closely one was related to workers in the collective, drcimiventing the centralized market system was impossible. There was a centralized transportation and marketing system still intact four years after the Revolution. There simply was no way to alter or obstruct this inef&cient and cumbersome marketing structure. One could not buy a fi:«sh hen at all. The hen in the soup this Sunday, then, is a symbol of an antiquated economic marketing structure that remains unaltered, for reasons much likft the resistance to change in other spheres of the economy. Althou^ private ownership of all firms is the goal of the government, supplying entrepreneurs with a flexible, reactive, or even proactive market structure seems to be one of the most arduous tasks in Slovakia. If one accepts the government's plea to privatize, to take back one's previously confiscated business and property, one cannot be certain that there will be a place, a way or a will to sell his/her goods such as a hen. Noodles were also served with the soup. Noodles stand for the hard tedious labor that women perform on a daily basis for the reproduction of the 140

labor power^ and the continuity of the household. Noodles, like most of the staple ingredients to Slovak village recipes, are made from scratch with ingredients that are almost always available in the village. Simple ingredients served in a variety of time-consuming ways were common fare here. In this case, the noodles would begin as a tough mixture of flour and eggs. The dough would be kneaded and rolled almost as thin as paper. After a half an hour of mixing and rolling, Dasha would then spend another fifteen minutes cutting the noodles into tiny three millimeter strips. The fresh cut noodles would then be set aside, speckled with flour, two hours until they had become firm. Dasha dressed and went to church during this time. Later the noodles would be boiled in a great pot of boiling water. Minutes later they would be ladled out and rinsed with cold water then stacked high in a bowl until lunch. They would not be cooked with the soup but served along side the soup, cold, and added to each bowl in a heap to the satisfaction of each diner. Noodles were not unique in their time-constmiing method of preparation. Noodles were like many other main courses made straight frx)m scratch. Yeast dumplings served with powdered chocolate, butter, and sugar, a common weekday lunch, took similar amounts of time to prepare. HaUtsky certainly tops the list, taking more than an hour and a half from start to fiinish. Potato pancakes took just as long since the frying of one cake after another meant many minutes bent over a frying pan. The village itself had a specialty starch food made first by boiling potatoes, then mashing them, then adding flour and mimng it until it was stiff, then cooking the entire mixture in a big pot again until it turned into a kind of potato porridge. Most of these dishes, like the noodles, meant hours of

^^Luxton refers to domestic work of women as on of the most important and necessary labor processes of industrial capitalist society. Women repnxluce both the "means of existence" and "human beings themselves" (1980). 141 commitment to the kitchen for women. As families are faced with inflation, unemployment and general finandal instability, women compensate working more in the domestic sphere. Homemade noodles, after all, are relatively cheap in terms of money. They are esqiensive in terms of labor.

The Family

Each of us had a bowl of hot soup ladled out from a huge tureen from the head of the table. First Lubica ladled out a bowl of soup for her sister-in-law, on her left Vierka. Vierka had arrived with her Sunday best on but had changed into "house clothes" soon upon arrived. She now looked comfortable in a faded pair of stretch pants and a very large sweatshirt. £[atka, her 15 month old daughter, bounced on her knee. Katka was a huge baby and looked about the size of one of my three year old nephews. She also had impeccable manners for a one year old and for a child that suffered terribly frt)m unpredictable allergies. Vlado sat next to his wife Vierka. He is the second son of Dasha and Milos. Vlado was clad in "houseclothes" having changed out of his gray dress pants and chic Italian shirt. Vlado was unemployed at the time. Ifehad worked at an arms factory in Prakovce along with thousands of other men and women. Vlado eiq)lained to me more than once:

"When Havel came into power and promised to quit supplying the world with armaments, it meant that Slovaks would si^fer. Czechs produced very few of those arms. But here in Slovakia, tank and weapons factories employed thousands of people. We made tanks where I worked but Havel closed down t£ie whole factoiy. Of course, this was a moral act on ^vel's part~I can understand that. But to simply close down factories, without having anything with which to substitute our produ(^on was ludicrous. The whole town of Prakovce is out of work now." 142

Vlado was one of many that discussed opportunities in the United States with me. Unfortunately, I had no contact for him in the United States. I wished I did. Olga sat to the left of Michael. She was a young woman with dark hair and huge dark eyes. Although she never wore make-up, she was also an Avon lady in Kosice. She lived with her husband Mchael, Dasha's oldest son. Olga had been employed with the largest state-run department store before and after the Bevolution. Howev^, when taking h^ year long maternity leave with her daughter Andrejka, she learned unofficially yet effectively that she had lost her job as a clerk. K-Mart had bought the old department store and was applying some Western concepts of good business. Overemployment, a characteristic of a socialist society with zero unemployment, was not one of them. 01ga,likemanyothers,hadtogo. She did not plan on returning to work until her child was three saiyway. At three, Andrejka, would be permitted to enter the "kindergarten", materska skola, the state run school for three-to-five year old children. But now she planned to return to work. Olga's husband was actually the "Avon lady" on paper, but Olga's new job would be to try out capitalism door-to-door. Although Avon products were extremely e3q)ensive by Slovak standards, the products were also of veiy high quality~as far as cosmetics go. So, Olga quietly made her way through a list of friends and neighbors and started a small Avon business. She claimed more than once to me, rmjust not cut out for this". She felt odd and ridiculous asking people if they would like to buy make-up when she knew many of them hardly had 143

enougb money to keep their families alive. She knew the products were over­ priced and she knew that many people still believed that working for a private company, western as it might be, was immoral. Making a profit off of the comimon person was still considered improper. Olga apologetically sold Avon and the whole time reminded the potential dient that she knew the products were overpriced and that she knew they might not be interested. Michael, the real Avon lady, was not so meek. He was bold and brash and happy to seU. He considered selling Avon to his neighbors a service— ofifering them something they had never had the opportunity to buy before. Michael was the only one in the younger generation sitting around the dinner table who was formally employed and he loved the fi'eedom of the Revolution. He lives in the city and has taken advantage of opportunity that has crossed his path to capitalize on new businesses, and new entrepreneurial activities. Olga and Mchael believe that life will be better in just a short time—maybe in ten years. Michael works for a foreign-owned company: he is an assistant manager to a place that makes clothing for eiqrart to a western European country. Sometimes he delivers the textiles to western Europe himself, other times he drives his boss to the closest international airport in Budapest.

Michael spends his da}^ fixing machinery and winning errands. He does a good job of it and his factory has been very successful until now. In addition to his generous paycheck which is somewhere around twice the average pay for workers in Slovakia, Afichael also earns the right to take some of the imperfect goods to sell or provide gifts for his family and fiiends. Michael's hard work does not stop in the factory. He also has plans for his own business. A company that offers a new kind of private service to Kosice. He is making, from scratch, 144

his own weightliflang equipment Onhis short two week vacation he arrived in Kojsov with enough crude iron pipes to outfit an entire gym with equipment. He welded and crafted. When we left Slovakia, Michael had only a few more parts to place together before having the entire complex assembled. He was looking for a place to house the equipment and open a small wpighriifting center. At 10 crowns (thirty>three U.S. cents) Milos, Michael's father, sat at the head of the table. He was still a fairly devoted communist—that is, as devoted as a villager and teacher could be in the face of a changing world. Milos had been bom in Kojsov and was the second son of parents from Kojsov. ECs mother had given birth to seven children, five daughters, all of whom died soon after birth, and two sons. MQos's older brother had been crippled at birth and passed away two years ago in 1991. IhGlos was healthy and successful. Milos could not stand die changes the Revolution brought. He hated to see the emergence of a wealthy class who kept getting richer, a fact which to him was intrinsically and undoubtedly related to the poor getting poorer. It was just the sort of thing that he had seen as a child and watched become abolished as an adult under socialism. Under socialism, he had become educated, worked as a teacher, and earned the equivalent of a master's degree before he was fifty. Milos had worked for twenty years as a school teacher in a city one hundred kilometers north of Kojsov. He had moved back aft;er he had completed the construction of a new house on land he had acquired fi*om his mother's connections. The house was thirteen years old now and in fine shape. Milos had taken a job at the museum in Gelnica and now he was the headmaster at a nature school. 145

The nature school was were used during the "totalitarian" regime (as he called Socialism) to improve the quality of life for dty children. Classrooms of children along with their teachers would come for a two week stint to live in a more natural environment—to the village for a breath of fresh air and a walk in the woods. Milos was an administrator of a school that might soon be closed. The costs of running a school that was not a necessity under severe economic conditions were getting too high to justify keeping the school open. The costs already had to be incurred by charging each child rather than having the state fiiUy finance the school. More and more, parents were not able to pay for the luxuiy of the "nature school" and Milos was scared to lose his school and his job. In a constant state of tension, Milos took each day at a time. He subscribed to Pravda which had been the communist newspaper before 1989 and after which had taken a leftist slant He believed today was the worst of times since he was a small child. He could not tolerate the injustices and uncertainties that were befalling his nation. He simply could not support capitalism.

The Conversation

As the hot soup, was served, John and I politely asked for lots of vegetables. We were starving for vegetables by the end of our stay in Slovakia. People in general ate them far less often than we do customarily in contemporary America. We would then eat in silence, savoring each last bite and making eye>contact with our friends and relatives. It was Sunday, a day to 146

be with the family. Aday to rdish in private life and to ignore the fastidious pace of all things changing outside. The only tension we sensed was between Milos and his oldest son Michael. Olga gave him a look of disapproval when he coerced his father into an argument. The disapproval was for good reason because Slovaks do not talk when they eat-not in schools, not in ofiSces, and not at the Sunday dinner table. Several reasons for this seemingly anti-social behavior have been eiq)lained to me. Of course, we, as Americans were quick to find out our own habit of conversing throughout a meal was inappropriate. This was one of the hfirdest customs to break for myself. How odd it seemed to sit with a gathering of people and not speak. But this is the custom. Its latent function is to hinder communication, bonding, and sociability at the office and workplace. The rule forbidding speaking and eating at the same time stifles laughter and joking for children in cafeterias. This rule is implicitly a testimony of communism I am sure, although its antecedents may well precede the communist rule. For surely, the avid fear of speaking for what ever cultural taboo or reason does hinder socializing, fun, and argument for that matter. I believe it is a subject worth noting for those who match conversational analysis with political economy. For Slovaks, speaking and eating are two separate spheres of activities. Mixing the two is taboo. Conversation is fair game between servings and after dinner, when everyone retires into the living room for tea. Otherwise, children, the old, and the in-between do not speak while a plate offood is in fi;Y)nt of them. As Dasha explained it, dinner time is a time for peace, it is not a time for debate—especially about politics. She knew her son and husband well and their furious attempts to convince the other to change their points of view. 147

However, on this Sunday these customs would not be upheld as Michael provoked his father. "The Revolution was the best thing^ that ever happened to us. If you are smart and not lazy, you can do anything today. You have to be willing to work though. Communism taught people to be lazy—that was one of its greatest faults-and also taught people how to cheat from their workplaces and bosses. It was terrible." Milos, was not about to let this provocation pass unadulterated— especially in front of Americans who needed to understand the benefits of the "way it was before 1989". "Totalitarianism", he began, "had some unfortunate consequences. It's true that some people got la^ at work. But it had many more benefits than the horrible system has today. Everybody was equal, we could all eat, go to school, our children could all go to university if they studied hard." Olga winced. She knew the debate was being rekindled and may not stop for hours. Dasha frowned. This was not appropriate conversation for Sunday dinner or any other meal at anytime. However, there was no stopping them now. Michael inteijected, "OK father, you know that everyone did not have equal access to the University. You know that having parents in the communist peuiy gave some people an unfair advantage over others. If it was so great then why did you give up your membership to the communist party immediately after the Revolution?" "Of course, the old system had some problems," Milos answered, "but that just doesnt make up for the advantages it gave everyone. Now there are 148

Stupid, idiots who only think about themselves and who just want to get rich fast." Dasha jumped in, "Yes those people who just want to make a profit on evers^Mng are disgusting. They are disgusting people, they buy something for one cheap decent price and then they sell it here to the people for a much higher price. They make a profit on everything they sell. It is immoral." "Immoral was the past!" Michael retorted. "Lnmoral was when you joined the communist party just so you could keep your job and be teachers. Immoral was when you didnt go to church, the thiTig 3^u love the most Mother, because you would have lost your job if you had gone, even once! That is immorality." I broke in here, no longer able to withstand the speaking taboos and having noticed that no one else seemed to be following the rules either. "Dasha, you couldnt go to church at all under socialism?" "Julka, I couldn't go to the church or I would have lost my job. I could not be a teacher and be religious. Teachers were the ultimate servants of the state. I don't know why. But we couldnt go. All those old women who work in the forest or in the collective farm, they always went to church. They always were religious and didn't stop for anything. But I was yoimg and if I wanted to keep myjob, I had to abide by the socialist doctrine. That is just the way it was." "Yes, Mother," Michael continued, "they forced you to abandon the most important thing in your whole life. And if you wanted to become the head of the kindergarten, you had to do eveiything they told you. Give up the thing most dear to you. And the second news of the Revolution came, you and Lubica 149

Started nmning to church every chance you got. That's what socialism did for you. Do you want it back the way it was. Mother?" "That is impossible today. Dont ask such ridiculous questions. Julka dont believe that it was as bad as you hear in the news. There was good too- before. We all had a job. That was the most important thing. We could all eat and we all had a place to live. Today, there are people who are homeless and many people cant afford anj^thing to eat. The prices are so hi^ right now! Until now, we have been fortunate enou|^ to still eat good meals and buy our dinners at the work/school cafeterias, but you know that a lot of people can't pay for that anymore. The quality of the food we can afford to feed the children at school is so much worse than it was." Milos agreed with Dasha, his wife of some thirty years. "Of course Julka and John know this because they eat it too. You've seen it Julka. There are watery soups and no meat. Before we only served one "weak" meal a week and now there are two or three. It is awfiil. We don't even know if well be able to keep the nature school open at all and they have already closed down the baby nurseries on a national level. What's next, Mchael, all of the schools? Then only the rich will be able to get a decent education! Is that what you want? Look at Vlado and Vierka, they are both tmemplo}^. Vierka, a frail young woman of 23 sat next to Vlado. She agreed with Milos. It was families like her own that were suffering. Her husband had lost his job three months ago. He had been employed since his vocational school graduation five years previous. He worked as a machine operator. As Vlado e^lained it, his job used to be a joke. Every fifteen minutes he stood up, changed around a piece of equipment which took him about two seconds, and 150

then sat down again. He read the newspaper and many books on the job. He laughed as he ^qilained what he did to John. Vierka didnt find it humorous. His job had fed them. She was sad tJiat they would not have any more children until Vlado had a secure job. Vierka had been woiking as a clerk at a local shopping center. Like Olga, she received notice that her position had been terminated when she took maternity leave. This seemed to be a common trend in ecistem Slovakia. Women who left their jobs to take advantage of the state sponsored maternity leave simply found out that their job had dissolved. The results of the new surge in unemployment had a tremendous affect in the countryside. New jobs are now associated with private enterprise. Private enterprise does not mingle with villages, it is the hobnobs in the cities that reap the benefits of this investment. Vierka was a women facing a grave situation. She is young, has very few skills and lives in a small village that was almost totally built upon the arms factory. She does not have land on which to fall, or even a tiny kitchen garden. She simply depends on her extended family ties for food and money in times of crisis. She and Vlado both worked in the potato fields doing seasonal labor for two weeks during the fall. They made the equivalent of one months average salary (3,000 crowns, about $100.00 US) between the two of them and they also came home with ten 50 kilo sacks of potatoes which they traded, gave away and sold to family members and neighbors. They had the advantage of selling their potatoes cheaper than the market price. Bampant fears of shortages of potatoes and other staples, made selling the potatoes easy for Vlado and Vierka. But the season is short and the exchanges are limited. 151

The Main Course

We had all finished our soup. Lubica jumped up with Olga fast behind her. Dasha had already disappeared into the kitchen and they were well on their way to having the main course served before I could offer my help. Lubica passed around plates of food, served on Dasha's finest. The food captivated us. Each plate had a carefiilly placed slice of roasted pork, three slices of homemade Czech yeast dumplings and a large dab of homemade sauerkraut. The cranberries John and I had taken finm the root cellar downstairs were served in a pretty dish. The meal was typical in fare, cost, and custom. Many families in Slovakia were probably eating the same meal at this same hour. Each item on oiu- plates represented a huge amount of work for Dasha. The meat, one kilo in tot£il, now cost an entire day's wages—one hundred crowns—the equivalent for a middle class family in the United States would be $66.00. Before 1989 one Idlo of meat was only 30 crowns or 1/3 of a day's work still high by American standards at $20.00 for a little more than two pounds of meat. The meat also represented standing in line and waiting. The butcher's shop in Kojsov had been privatized last year, but its doors were nearly always locked. The butcher did have competition in Kojsov. A truck arrived once a week to sell meat at a cheaper price than the butcher. The meat truck sold it cheaper because it was the butcher's supplier. When the meat truck curived each week, an announcement would be heard over the village's speaker system. "The meat truck has arrived" would be beUowed for even the most Histant. of houses to 152 hear. Then a list of prices would beckon poor villagers to the village center to attempt to bargain with the meatsellers. Standing in line here was the only social gathering in Kojsov save for the church. Here information would be swapped, prices would be compared, and a lot of complaining would disillusion even the most optimistic of villagers. Inflation was ov^bearing. Women with high cholesterol and high blood pressure who had been warned not to eat too much meat would opt for low-quality sausage because the price was so much more reasonable. The meat also represented a new market structure and all the confusion associated with it Like the hen that Dasha had bought firozen for the soup, the meat had to be marketed through simple, centralized marketing systems. The collective farms which produced meat products had their own institutionalized transportation ^rstem, shops, and infrastructure. The collectives, like other centrally planned economic structures, had been failing to produce a profit for years. The crumbling of the Czechoslovak state meant an end to subsidies that supported the deeply indebted meat industry. The government's answer was to sponsor privatization of everything—including butcher shops and the meat market. With little time for premeditated, careful planning these privatized markets were only partially effective in reaching people, and competition was at a rudimentaiy level. Chaos predominated. The meat market was taken advantage of by those with iTiaight. and the willingness to take risks. However, for the nuyority of the population it meant higher prices and a reduction of meat in the diet (See chapter ei^t for details). The knedliky dumplings served on this day represent another face of Slovak society. That is—the dumplings are inherently Czech. The yeast 153

dumpling is part of the national Czech dish and means to Czechs what halusky means to Slovaks. This dinner by including this Czech staple signified the union of Czechs and Slovaks, into one nation—sharing for the last ninety years their history and traditions. They shared almost identical languages, a common government, an army, a currenQr and banking s3^stem. To many they were one people. The fact that an exchange which sent Slovak 3^ung men to do their compulsory military service in the Czech lands and the Czech soldiers to Slovakia meant that many families were formed and forged with kin relations. Almost all Slovaks are now related to Czechs, and most have eaten, many on a weekly basis, the Czech dmnpling. We were also eating sauerkraut today. The sauerkraut is one of the most practical uses of cabbage—a crop that is fit particularly well in a land where winter vegetables are hard buy. Cabbages, when bought in season, are bought by the huge sack fiill, 100 kilos at a time, and they are transformed into kysla kapusta (sauerkraut) in bathtubs all over Slovakia. Sauerkraut entails a great deal of work for the Slovak family. First you line your bathtub with huge sheets of thick plastic. Then, with a huge grater made of wood that fits across the width of your bathtub, you must grate cabbages, a head a time, into the tub until it fills up-mound by mound. In Dasha's case, this meant over 200 pounds of cabbage. In order to fill up that tub with grated cabbage, every member of the family had to grate until llieir arms, back, and thighs could work no more. The grating is kind ofa rowing-like activity. Itisgrueling, but the most laborious part is done in a single Saturday, ^one is IucIq^ and the cabbage is good, you will be blessed with the proceeds for a year to come. 154

After the cabbage is grated into particles, you must salt down the whole mixture. Dont skimp on the salt—it is in this process that the water is removed and drained from the cabbage. One must wait four to five hours until the salt has had time to do its chemical process releasing water at which time the tub will miraculously appear to be full of water. You next strain the cabbage by wringing double-fisted handfuls and load the sauerkraut vessel/barrel/ceramic pot layer by layer. On each layer, a many spices are sprinkled including salt, whole clean stalks of dill, allspice, and peppercorns. The first layer is the most important. On this layer, whole cabbage leaves will be used to line the ceramic pot. Then a fii^shly picked apple, a piece of rye bread, and a bunch of grapes will be added in hopes of turning the piles of cabbage into a delicious treat over the next sev^al weeks and months As prices rise in the village, households are forced to buy less or buy in bulk when the prices are low. They are forced to increasingly depend on the fruits of their own labor to survive in an unstable economy. 155

8.4 CONCLUSIONS

This ethnographic introduction to the household has described how a Sunday dinner includes many symbols of change in the post-communist household of rural Slovakia. Noodles, knedlikyy and sauerkraut represented intensive labor. The soup characterizes the profits and importance of the kitchen garden. Halusky is in no uncertain terms a sign of national identity while the hen and meat are a sign of an antiquated centralized market. KmdlUty^ the Czech national dish of dumplings still served proudly in Slovakia, demonstrates a reluctance of Slovaks to abandon their 90 year relationship with the Czech Republic. The sauerkraut illustrates the thrifty family endeavors that help survive in rough times. The family's conversations show the great discrepancies in opinion that exist r^arding^ the Revolution, the future, communism and capitalism. These differences are intricately tied to the dialectics of urban/rural relationships as well as the young and the old. This chapter has also served to portray how a household expands every weekend into an extended family and collapses during the workweek, a topic explored in the next chapter on household composition. Figure 9.0 A Typical House from the Period after Socialism 157

9. CHAPTERSIX HouseholdCQmpositioii

9.1 Introduction

One assumption about villages in Eastern Europe is that villages are presently void of families and are inhabited almost exclusively by the elderly. This transition is thouj^t to have occurred with the a massive rural-urban demographic shift. It is also assumed that shift has been accompanied by the end of the "family farm" (Salzmann and Scheufler, 1974:49,62). My fieldwork demonstrates that this is a far too simplistic description of both rural households and family farms in Kbjsov. Chapter seven focuses on the family farm and household production. This chapter investigates the composition of households in Kojsov. Describing households is not simple. Confounding the matter is the fact that many village households change face on a weekly basis waxing and waning to the demands of the industrial economy. Furthermore, the dynamics of the family are related to social contract between parents and their children. Thus although children may officially live in cities, their return to home satisfies the needs of their village parents with house and gardening projects. Careful analysis of the family reveals that actual household composition actually contains productive gardening families and potentially "farm families." 158

9J2 The Household as an Analytic Category

The nomendatuie "household" used as an analytical category for social anal3^is invites criticism. Embedded within the notion of the "household" is an all too western, culturally bound, term that tries to describe a certain kind of institutional, "family" oriented, network of kin (Wilk, 1989; Clark, 1989). In doing so, there is the intrinsic problem of imposing a label on a group of historically and socially dynamic living beings. One need not look far to find the enormous complexity in western households let alone in the non-westem "house". Perhaps "household" is too specific, too vague, or too simplistic, to be applied at random to other ways of living, especially non-westem ways (Clark, 1989). For economic anthropologists it is not by chance that this term has become so readily employed. In economic terms it is true that a greater density of goods and services are exchanged under the "household roof than in any other loci in any given society. It would indeed seem ridiculous to count the psychological, emotional, financial, nutritional, and educational, "goods" exchanged between children and their parents and vise versa. In physical form the household taken literally usually encompasses all those who "the house holds" or who live under one roof. A superficial glance at such a broad label seems unproblematic but such an ei^lanation does not accoimt for the vicissitudes a household experiences waning and waxing sometimes on a weekly basis. The household economy is not stagnant but rather dynamic, fluctuating as its members move, migrate, urbanize, and return. Remittances, although often unreported or undereported, are a 159

substantial component to many a household economy worldwide. Hence, even for the economic anthropologist, "household" is an oversimplification that has not gone unscrutinized (Barlett, 1989). Netting in his groundbreaking article on the family farm believes household are a socially recognized domestic group whose members usually share a residence and both organize and cany on a range of production, consimiption, inheritance, and reproductive activities whose specific contents varies by society, state in the life cycle, and economic status" (1989:231). The emotional, psychological, and social behavior of those within a household many times construct the basis for which children are reared and adults prosper— albeit some children and some adults more than others. The dynamics of inequality within the household have also been recently contemplated (Clark, 1989; Hart, 1992; Weismantel, 1989). For many, household is an "emic" reality. Weismantel in a study on the Zimibagua of the Andes points out that households have slippeiy boundaries but in the case of Weismantel's research the household is not merely an anal3^cal construct-the Zumbagua themselves consider it to be at the center of domestic life and the foundation of society"(1989:56).. In the Slovak case, because of the history of communist bureaucratic organization a household is not only "emic" but also "etic" in the mind of the Slovak villager. It is a label that has been cast so strongly fi^)m without, firom the government, that nearly all forms of social service support are allotted by hous^olds. This is ironic given that the family was considered to be just a leftover institution firom pre- socialist da3^ that was to be phased out (See Funk and Mueller, et al., 1993). However, even on the village level, bureaucrats not only counted every 160

inhabitant in each house, but also, their ages, their place of employment, their retired, their invalids, their war heroes, their children, their mothers, their fathers, and so on. Before I left Slovakia th^re was a new document issued collecting information on every piece of property owned within the household- livestock, furniture, appliances and the relative worth of each. Li Slovakia it is under one roof that rations from the state are transfixed or collected. Households to the state are not arbitrary abstracted ideals—they are a reality that are taken at a macro scale and are the founding blocks for the state hierarchy. This fact is taken seriously by villagers that I interviewed. When asking simply, "Who is a member of 3rour household?", I was answered as honestly and thoughtfully as if I had asked "how many feet do you have?" Households were not a vague category to Kojsovers. They were a simple discrete fact, a datum-however incomplete to any anthropologist. Any and all definitions of a household, by virtue of the imposition of an arbitrary analytical category onto a group of socializing people, do not reckon with the fact that the term is abstract in nature and therefore entails some degree of confusion. Household, in short, is a term which has great potential to impair clarity in describing human behavior and society. However mystifying the term may be, I feel that it is not possible to avoid using "household" either. For my purposes, a "household" if taken to mean the widest flexibility in physical dimension and make-up, where a "family" most heavily interacts- that is under one roof-does exist in the Slovak village. The household is a building block of the economy and of economic anthropology. The fact that the communist government has been defining and redefining the "household" makes asking Kojsovians about household economy 161 an amazingly rudimentaiy task. A simple portrait of a nuclear family however would never capture the true nature of "the household" in Kbjsov. Household, ultimately, is a term fi*om which the European ethnographer, especially one dealing in post-communist world, cannot quite get away with and at the same time cannot get away from. 162

9^ Households in Kojsov Households in Kojsov fluctuate, and change in dimension hence, the typical Kojsov household is a challenge to describe. Any attempt to come to any hard and fast guideline in such a definition would surely cause great analytical problems and pose serious flaws in ethnography. In Kojsov a household is generally accounted for by associating household members with a specific house. That is to say that a house takes on a particular kind of personality of its own regardless who lives in it. Long after its original inhabitants have moved out or died, the house itself continues to be called by the original owner's name. The house ofmygreatandura" must be the generic name of this type of particular store. Later I found out that the name people used for this store was the same sis used for any house—the store happened to be located in a building that once housed the Bandura family. In the sense that a household is related to a particular house is not a very complex matter even if tlie inhabitants change from time to time. The "establishment" of a household is enigmatic. Most of the households in the village actually have not been recently started or ended—they are continuous corporal bodies. Admittedly, 163

there are several examples of old women who had lived alone for years and whose death caused a complete "end" to a household. There are also several new houses in which new families have moved to Kojsov-but these are on the very outskirts oftown and only used as a summer cottage. Otherwise the intercomiections between houses and families are so intertwined, unknotting them for description would be a dissertation in itself. For the purposes of this dissertation such efforts would seem fruitless as the goal is to use the household as a tool to understand greater happenings rather than to come to a determinative comprehension of the webbing of the family and kinship. In order to get a clearer picture of the dynamics of the Kojsov household let us look at an example. The LeskoVs inhabit a large old farmstead. Most of their activities take place in a newer house built sometime in the 1960s which is attached to an older home forming an "L". This leaves a front yard open for use as a driveway, play-yard, wood chopping alley, and social gathering spot. Their house and courtyard together make up what is known as "at Kovac's"^^. There is a bam for two cows enclosing the yard on another side and finally a gate and fence close off the whole complex from the road to the front. Living arrangements in this house would not make much sense to someone with the norms of suburban America. The Kojsovians would seem to live crowded in many instances but for their own purposes and spatial norms, these houses are quite spacious and even considered relatively lavish- especially by Slovak urban standards. The newer building in the rear houses a fifty-five year old woman and her husband. We will call it Maria's house for the sake of clarity. Her twenty-^^t year old daughter, her dauj^ter's husband

Eovac is a fictitious name. 164

and their three young children ages seven, six, and two also live in the newer house. This daughter considers her mother's house her home as well, she is not in transition or looking for alternative living arrangements and has three sons. Two of them are older *h«n her daughter and have married and moved out of the village and into their own households in nearby towns. Two of Maria's grandsons come to live in Kojsov with her because their parents both work and have long commuting times. These boys, ages ten and eleven, inhabit the household during the work-week attending the local school and then on weekends they return to a town some thirty miles away. There is another member of the family, the youngest son of the fifty year old woman. He also lives here in the household even though he is twenty-three and works full-time in a nearby town. He has not married and has no children. Until last year, this household also contained a mother who passed away. Like many old people in Kojsov, she lived a4iacent to her daughter and did not live a separate existence &om her offspring. The old woman inhabited the older home on the side of the courtyard but she ate with the larger family, gardened, and reaped harvests for the Ifirger family and depended on the larger family for all of her needs outside the village both medically and in general. Thus Maria's household shifts on a weekly basis. It contains two retired grandparents, a mother who stays home and is subsidized by maternity leave, a father and a son both of whom work outside the village at the train station. During the week there are five children present, her daughter's three children and her son's two sons. On the weekend the son's children return home to the town to be with their parents. During an av^age workweek Maria feeds ten people at dinnertime. On the weekends and vacation times Maria's house contains only eight people. 165

During large holidays like Christmas, the household contains sixteen people. Until last year Maria's mother could be added to the list making the house a four generational, complicated knot. When considering financial obligations Maria and her husband have toward their children, it is essential to avoid assuming North American standards as a norm, hi Kojsov, as in most of Slovakia, a parent's role as a financial provider for a child does not end upon the marriage of the child or at a time when a child moves out of the parent's household. Financially, a child is dependent on her or his parents until death. Not only at Christmas time is Maria expected to dole out large quantities of presents, but all year long. If children need to go to school, Maria will most likely help out financially, Maria's family goes on vacation, Maria will most likely pitch in money for the trip. ff^Maria's grandson needs new karate equipment, swimming gear, or other t^pe of recreational needs many times she will pick up the tab. Gh'andparents, like parents, are active in supporting the youth. Old people often say, "What do I need? I am old. Everything I have I give to my children...they are young and need to see the world and leam." It would not be accurate to state that all parents are as generous as others, but it is clear that parents are not firee of their parental duties until they enter their graves. Residence patterns do not follow a strict rule set by cultural norms. Both parents are eiqiected to want their newly wedded children and unmarried children to inhabit their homes. In one family a recently married nmn and his wife lived with his parents. He did migrant work in the Czech lands, leaving his wife alone with the in-laws for two weeks each month. However it is not the norm for newlyweds to join the residence of the husband's father. Households 166

are neither patrilocal nor matrilocal. Rather, establishing a new household seems contingent on the ability of parents to help the newly married couple. They may live in a room of the parents home for some years until they can set up a new residence in a nearby town. They mayjust as easily decide to wait for years to inhabit the domicile of a deceased relative or until a close family member gives permission to build a new house. New houses however, are the rare case rather than the norm. The shortage of housing in the Slovak Republic forces newlyweds to adhere to their parents for financial support. On weekends households in Ebjsov changes drastically. Children from villages must travel to towns or cities for their technical or college preparatory training. These children, along with children in university or trade school, come home each weekend. Indeed school dormitories virtually close down on the weekends in the whole of Slovakia. Grown "children" who live and work in cities also come home with their own children for the weekend. It is not rare to see a household expand three fold on the weekends—every weekend all year long. Slavka, Ladislav, and their son form one household in Kojsov during the week but on the weekend Ladislav's brothers, their wives and children all come to stay in the same house. The household expands from three individuals to ten and Slavka and her in-laws budget tightly around these visits from the extended family. Children receive large sums of money from their parents until death rather than until a young adult forms her or his own household. The notion "if one's parents are wealthy than the children are also wealthy" although fitting many times here, is much more applicable in Slovakia. An example of this is the statement "everything for one's children". It was not uncommon for me to 167

find a family who experienced the new consumer variety due to the Revolution by looking at the new "toys" parents had bought for their children. OneKosice (urban) mother told me that she and her husband had saved for a year to buy her son a computer, another year for a dirt bike. Another couple from the village sent their teen-age children to Spain and France while they could not afford a trip for themselves. Less well to do parents still spent relatively huge sums of money on their children while they went without. Older generations spent substantial amounts of money on their children on a regular basis. Money and gifts were not the only form of commitment to children, older women were very often the primary care takers of their grandchildren. It was not imcommon to see children living with their grandparents or visiting them for vast periods of time on a daily basis. This is the mother's responsibility and her commitment to her children does not end upon her child's marriage, rather she takes on more family members and can look to them to supply physical Ifibor for herself as well. To put it in transactional terms, there is a much thicker density of exchanges in Kbjsov than in most North American households. These exchanges take the form of gifts of money, presents, food, v^etables from the village gardens, work, child-care, knowledge about child- care and of course ph3rsical affection, ^useholds in Kojsov are flexible and shift not only throughout the day and week but throufi^ut the life (^e of its members. Households are the fim'iig ground of family ties and responsibilities. While these responsibilities are greater than in many north American households, they are not of the same fabric that held the family farm together for generations in the past Today children are socialized to avoid working on the farm, the garden, and with the domestic animals. The vast mtu'ority of 168 children graduate from at least a technical college with a vocational degree. The vocation does not include "home economics and/or family farming". Rather the degrees are split by gender with boys concentrating in mechanical skills and girls in secretarial training. Since there are no other family businesses at the time for children to inherit and leam to run, children are forced out of the household to make a living. Both jwungmen and women are eiqiected to work, village women often take a three year maternity leave for each child they rear. However, it is expected that women will return to work when the children enter school between ages three and six. 169

9.4 Fotir-iypes of Households in. Kojsov

Despite the opaque picture I have painted of fluctuating households, my field research has demonstrated that four basic types of households exist in Kojsov: These households can be broadly characterized by the types of families they contain. Thus, nuclear families, extended families, and elderly families constitute the types that live in houses, year-round in Kojsov. There are a number of houses that are owned by vacationers. The fourth type, vacationers' households, have been excluded from my resetuvh since they are inhabited by urban dwellers who live the vast mfuority of the year in cities. Vacationers are not considered "Kbjsovers" by themselves or by the inhabitants of Kojsov. They may spend a few weeks in the summer and perhaps a few weekends during the rest of the year in the village but they in no way constitute a significant village "famil}^'. They are not officially Kojsovers in records, do not carry on their daily activities in the village, and do not contribute to the local economy at any significant level. Many times they even "import" goods and groceries when they vacation. Kojsov's nuclear families, extended families, and elderly families should be understood as integrally related and in some ways, especially when examining household budgets, extremely difficult to differentiate. Of these households, nuclear families and extended families are clearly the most difficult to demarcate. other words, while one nuclear family consisting of say a mother, father, and two children may appear to live in the their own household. 170

they can be considered extended because of the close proximity and close relationship to grandparents. Younger households do not function isolated from their parents. Thus every nuclear family in the village can be clumped into an extended household. Grandparents eat with the family, contribute to the nuclear family's household budget, and provide childcare and other forms of labor. A grandmother's house may seem to be distinct from outward appearances as it may be situated across the street or across a courtyard, but in actually, under these two roofe lives one extended family household. Extended families consisting of more than one generation, usually children, middle aged workers, and grandparents, constitute 57 percent of the households in Kojsov. Retired elderly households differ significantly from the extended family households. They consist of elderly individuals who cannot be considered "connected" in any way to a younger household. Since everyone in the village is related at various levels, it is safe to say that liiese individuals do not live completely away frt>m their kin and relatives. However, their day-to-day activities and household economics do not reflect the extended family household. They have their own kitchen gardens, incomes, and spend family celebrations within their own household. The circumstances that lead to the creation of the retired elderly household which is quite independent from any yoimger family are varied. Some consist of women who never married and live alone or in sister pairs. Others consist of a married couple that never had children. Still others consist of elderly women whose children live in cities and who have relatively little contact with their children. The retired elderly households constitutes some 43 percent of the households in Kojsov. If our 171

goal is to understand the household economy in the case of rural Slovakia, typologizing households necessitates a sj^chronic account. some cases the elderly households I describe may be interpreted as phases of the life cycle, rather than a permanent family type. 172

9^ The Extended Family as a Household T^jrpe

The large multi-generatioiial, extended family exemplified by the Leskov's is one category of household in Kojsov. It usually expands on the weekends and contracts during the weekdays. The weekend expansion is not a trivial event but one on which the entire budget and household economy depend. In general, this household type contains more than one generation and has at least one conjugal pair and their children at its base. Often grandchildren and grandparents reside in the same home. Grandparents sometimes live in a domicile very close by, often in an older dwelling. Of those interviewed, formally and extensively, thirteen out of twenty- two can be considered extended families or 57 percent of the sample. This is quite representative of the households in the village. ^ my surveys, there were a total of 43 individuals inhabiting households of the "extended" family type. Ofthese individuals, children under the age offifteen made up 12%ofthe sample; teenagers and young adults between the ages of 15 and 21 made up 21%; parents ages 22-45 made up 37% of the sample; those between the ages 46-and above made up 30% of the households in this category. The employment of individuals in Kojsov can be seen by studying the surveyed households. Among those employed, there were two teachers, (one with the equivalent of a master's degree, PhJDr.), four train workers, two collective farm workers, two professional engineers, two salesclerks, one nurse, one soldier, and two woodworkers. There were also four elderly retired folk, two 173 women on maternity leave (which last up to three years for each child) and two university students. There were ten individuals who were officially unemployed. Thus in my sample, ten out of thirty-two or 31 percent of potential workers were unemployed. Given that the unemployment rate in the region of Spis was at 33% at this time, my sample is representative of the larger r^on. Only one individual was self-employed; he worked as a house painter and seemed to have quite enough business to get by. 6.6 The Elderiy Retired HouBehold

The second type of household found in Kojsov consists most often of older women or more rarely an older couple. This household type, for various reasons, does not have a younger generation of household members associated with their weekly goings on. Often, such households are made up of widows or unmarried sisters. An example of this type of household is illustrated by my great grandfather's sister Terezia who was 86 when I visited Kojsov for the first time in 1991. Terezia never married and lived in her mother and father's house until her death in April, 1993. She lived alone in a dark cottage with white-washed walls, few windows and even fewer doors. There were two rooms in the house, although I am certain she lived most of her life in only one of the rooms. This room was a kitchen and living room which was equipped simply and amply with all the equipment she needed—a couch which she used as a bed, a sink with cold running water and a large tile covered brick stove which served for heat and cooking. I am sure that this is the way my aunt lived despite visiting her only once, because her way of life was the same as all of the elderly women and men living alone. Although I have described her life as utterly simple, it was not boring. Social relations in Kojsov can be described as anything but dull. Aunt Terezia, first lived with her mother until her mother died. Sometime later she moved in with her widowed sister. When t-hi's sister passed away she was left alone for several years. She lived this way until the winter before her death when one of her nephews took her in because she could 175

no longer take care of herself and because he was her closest living relative in Kojsov. Social norms dictated he take her in and he did not resist. Aunt Terezia lived like many of the "elderly". Her living alone and only with her sister was nothing odd in Kcgsov—it is indeed quite common even to this day. My sm^eys verify this fact. Of those surveyed nine of twenty-two or 41 percent of the households fit this category. In some ways, it is surprising that only 41 percent of the survey constituted elderly households since the stereotype of Slovak villages maintains that no one but old people live in villages. At any rate, 41 percent is a good indication that indeed a large portion of the village's households are composed of retired individuals. In my sample, all but one of the elderly interviewed were women. One individual was age sixty, five were between the ages 61 and 70; 4 were between the ages 71-80 and one was 81 years old. All of the individuals in this household category were retired and with the es»ption of one individual, their sole income came fi^m government retirement checks. One of the retired women had a twenty-nine year old daughter officially included in her household but the daughter actually lived in Western Europe. Surely her mother's income is increased by remittances fix)m her daughter. Only one of these households included two living spouses. The couple was included in the elderly type of household because they have no children and they are both living off retirement checks. All of the individuals in this category were previously "laborers" in or around the village when they were of working age. 176

9.7 Households from Town

Hous^olds of the third type of household are related in some way to Kojsov but are actually located outside of the village. In attempting to interview famiUes in Kbjsov, I ran into many others who wanted to participate in the survey. A sister visiting firom out of town or a daughter whose mother still lived in the village. I hired a young woman to conduct several surveys for me and she found herself wanting to survey individuals fi*om town as well. Finally, I decided to conduct a set of interviews outside of Kbjsov and use the interviews as a control or a group of households that do not reveal as much about life in the village as they do about life in the town. After conducting several interviews, I became aware that the connection between the viUage and other nearby towns was very close. Ijgnoring townspeople who were very often in Kojsov was like avoiding a whole segment of Kbjsov's activity. Although I did not originally intend to interview people from the local towns, I foimd such interviews enlightening. I was also able to capture the differences in household economies between the village and town, thus increasing my understanding of life in a viUage. The villager's household economy most differs frt)m that of the townspeople because of the former's access to land. Villagers use the land directly around their houses, in their yards. In towns, households depend on rented plots of land and other family members who live in villages for their produce. Afinnich describes a similar relationship between Slovenian rural and 177 urban households whereby the later are dependent on the former for fuiline (swine butcherinfir) (1991). Thirteen in-depth surveys fixnised on households from towns. Individuals representing their households on the survey were interviewed in Kojsov or were recommended to me directly by a relative in Kbjsov. The town questionnaires, in general, were less complete than those of the village. Since I hired someone else to gather the data, I was not able to follow up on the surveys. Thus the town surveys are mostly relevant to quantitative household questions. Questions on the reprivatization of land were skipped systematically since such questions would have been highly inappropriate in most instances. Most individuals in towns have little access to land and could not reijrivatize. In these interviews, I found that there were far fewer elderly households. Only one household was entirely made up of retirees, and only one other household had a retiree living with the family. The other households were made up of a couple with their children—in essence, nuclear families. In the town 27 percent of household members were children under the age of fourteen; 21 percent were teenagers and young adults under the age of 21; 34 percent were parents between the ages of22-45; 1 household or 3 percent and only 4 individuals or 14 percent were over the age of sixty. It is interesting that only one individual under the age of sixty lived alone. She was a divorced women whose children had gone to live in their independent households. During her interview she felt it necessary to stress the fact that she in fact was not an "old maid" but rather that she had lived in a nuclear household until three years ago. Other unmarried women lived in the home of their parents. All of 178 the men were married before the age of thirty in this sample, thus there were no "old bachelors" living with parents or independently. The employment in the town was much more diverse than found in the village sample. Of twenty three potential workers, only four or 17 percent were officially unemployed. Of those employed, one was a dental hygienist, nine were blue collar workers, one was a truck driver, two worked in cafeteria staff members, two were teachers, one was a manager, one was a doctor, and one was a nurse. There was also a single entrepreneur involved in establishing his own private business. Given that the population is much greater in nearby towns, and that the sample discussed above was from varied towns, there is no reason to believe that the information is representative of towns as a whole when compared to villages. However, the town interviews are notable since they represent the types of work and individuals with which village families afSliate. The other factor that is interesting is that very few elderly individuals were in the interviews from towns. Again it is not clear if the sample is representative of the town in general, that there are indeed far fewer elderly living in the towns or if this is just a reflection of the sample taken. 179

9^ VacatioiiCTsinKojsov

To say that Kbjsov was made up of households of families and old women is not exactly accurate. There are also a fair share of households that are considered vacation cottages for people from the surrounding cities. Lideed finding a cozy spot somewhere in the countryside is a national goal of Slovaks. This fourth type of household is one which is difficult to quantify. The vacation cottages are typically older houses, some of them renovated. Often these houses are simply inherited, the home of parents of children who migrated to cities for work and/or education. Other times, such homes were purchased by

"outsiders" who have no familial connection to Kbjsov. Such individuals are weekenders who visit the village on holidays. I did not include this household type in my survey since the actual residence of such individuals is not in the village but rather in the city. Furthermore, these households do not accurately reflect the household economy of the village. 180

9.9 Condusioiis

A synchronic account of households as depicted firom. surveys demonstrates that two types of households exist in Kojsov today. One type is highly flexible, changes in size every weekend, and includes a conjugal pair, their offspring, their grandchildren, and at least one of their own parents. While any of these relations mi^t be appropriate members of a household, usually only three generations inhabit one household at one time. The second type of household actually constitutes a later phase in the life cycle—a widowed women living alone or with other women. Men die younger than women and therefore the vast majority of elderly households are inhabited by women. The third type of household included in this chapter stems from some questionnaires conducted on individuals who do not inhabit Kojsov, a village, but rather nearby towns. This sample is far from representative of typical town households yet it certainly demonstrates the close relationship such households maintain with those of the village. The fourth type of house (which is described but is not part of this study) is the "vacation cottage" which urbanites buy and renovate solely for vacations. Within the village, the dynamics of the household are more complex than simple statistics show. The extended-family household, is rich with social obligations of both parents to their children and children to their parents. This chapter on household composition is significant because it destroys the myth that only the elderly live in viUages. My research demonstrates that over half of the village households consist of extended families. The extended family is a 181 potential source of labor on which to build family farms. As we shall see in the proceeding chapters, howev^, other variables factor into reasons why reprivatization has not taken place in Kojsov. The nesd; chapter explores household production. Anotho* assumption one might make in regard to reprivatization is that knowledge of farming must precede interest to reprivatize. ^Kbjsovers have not displayed a readiness to reprivatize family lands, then perhaps it is because they lack the farming aldlls needed to return to a subsistence-based economy, the nesct chapter disproves this assumption. Kojsovers are impressive productive farmers. Figure 10.0 Gatheiixig Mushrooms. 183

10. CHAPTER SEVEN Houaehold Producticm

10.1 Introductioii

This chapter will demonstrate that villagers in Kbjsov have maintained an enormous amount of knowledge and practical skill of traditional peasant farming. The household production of Kbjsovers esffimplifies a degree of self- sufficiency that can be associated with a "family farm"(Netting, 1989:221). The "family farm" in this case includes the fruits of family labor specifically in gardening, animal husbandry, gathering, and p-flnniTig activities. I explore such farming comparing the two household types discussed earlier—the extended family and the elderly household. Data from surveys on towns is also contrasted. The chapter b^;ins with a section describing the sexual division of labor. This sexual division of labor demonstrates the variety of labor performed by each sex and more importantly underlines how traditional work of men and women has persevered through time. Gardening, flnimfll husbandly, gathering activity and canning are next described. This chapter concludes by offering some analysis of the relationship between some of the variables presented. Does gardening productivity increase when parcel size increases? Is there a relative increase or decrease in household production when the size of the family is greater or smaller? Does production change in households with varied incomes? Does the sex of household members correlate to increases or decreases in production? Each of the questions will be postulated after a thorough description of household production. 184

10^ The Sexual Dmsion of Labor

A description of the sexual division of labor is helpful to an understanding of the type of labor needed to run a contemporary viUage farm. Families work together in developing gardens. In general, the heavier workload is performed by men and boys, or male relatives. Women take care of the cultivation, weeding, and harvesting of crops. Women are also responsible for the processing of harvested food (e.g. preserving of firuit, etc.). Children are not encouraged to garden so they can focus on schoolwork or play. It is remarkable how well Salzmann and Scheufler description of the sexual division of labor fi:t)m a late nineteenth century Czech village still accurately describe responsibilities in Kojsov today. The following table is constructed from their description.

Men's taaka 1. all the basic tasks associated with the cultivation of the fields; preparing the soil, plowing, harrowing, fertUizmg, plowing under) sowing, reaping, plowing under stubble, bringing crops home finm the fields, and t^sh&ig. 2. Ibe basic tasks associated with culttvating meadows and growing fodder plants; preparing the soil, fertilizing, sowing, hajnnaking, and ha^esting the fodder plants; 3. the basic tasks associated with the tending of livestock; cleaning of stables and cowsheds, including the removal of dimg, as well as the treatment of animals for diseases and iqjuries; 4. the maintenance and repair of farm implements and the manufacture of some of the simple tools or their parts; for example, the care of handles, scjrthe cradles, and swiples, the resetting of lealiier binding on flails, and the lite, unless the woik required was too specialized; 5. the repair of utility buildings and living quarters and their furnishings, unless the services of specialized craftsmen were required. 6. subsidiary activities; beekeeping, rabbit raising, pigeon breeding, fish­ farming and maintenance of pond 185

7. work in the woods if the farmer's land included a forested area or if he purchased standing timber; 8. cuttingofpeatandtendingoffirmttrees 9. assistance with the upkeep of the household; large purchases, white wsohing of structural surfaces, and painting of woodwork; 10. haiiling of loads for nei^ihors without horses or for the forest management;

Women'$ taaks 1. the preparation of meals and the upkeep of the household, including cleaning and shopping, and the care of the childrai; 2. the basic tasks associated with the care of livestock: the milking of cows as well as helping with the cleaning of stables, the tending of poultry and pigs, and the handling of milk and the production of dairy items; 3. the manufacture and repair of clothes, linens, and textile furnishings by sewing, crocheting, knitting, and the like, and their decoration with embroidery or appUqud: until the 1880s, the spinning of vegetable and animal fibers (flax, hemp, and wool) and the basic activities associated with the cultivation of flax and hemp. 4. the tending of vegetable and flower gardens; the plucking of geese and ducks and the stripping of feathers; and assistance wi^ assorted tasks around the farmstead; 5. auxiliary tasks, e.g. turning and drying of hay and fodder plants and helping to carry them to the farmyt^; 6. organization and supervision of the work done by the female help in the domains under her supervision; 7. representation in community social, cultural, and religious activities analogous to those involving the farmer, particularly in legal proceedings such as inheritance matters and the like (1974:39-40).

With the exception of tasks that are spedaUy associated with large tracts of private or commoii property (i.e. cultivating meadows and the hauling of loads for neighbors without horses or for the forest management) the sexual division described above is very similar to the division of labor in contemporary Slovakia. Differences stem from the fact that during communism, both men and women managed far less land and were forced to take on the added responsibility of industrial work. Both men and women seem to be more involved in gathering various foodstuff as well. Thus in addition to the 186

aforementioned list, both sexes take on work outside the home. Children are educated and cared for from age three on by the state. Thus women's child care responsibilities are lessened to some d^ree.^*^ The sexual division of labor has not shifted relative to women's entrance into the work force. As more women work outside the home, men have not taken on tasks associated with women e.g. men do not wash, iron or care for clothing, cook, dean, or care for children. On the same note, urban women do not share men's household tasks. However at the village level, many of the jobs associated with men are performed by women. For example, mowing fields with a scythe is a man's job however, cooperative labor by neighbors during the mowing season does not exclude women. Quite the contrary, women along side men mow neighbors lawns. Describing the sexual division of labor exposes the vast array of tasks related to farming. Such labor may have decreased to some degree as the need to manage family lands decreases however the continuity of much of the traditional sexual division of labor has persisted throughout the twentieth century..

37c}jjld care responsibilities often shift to grandmothers after the grandmother retires. Men, even grandfathers, are very rarely responsible for children. 187

10.3 Gardening

Every household in the village is associated with gardening activity. These gardens are found directly outside the doorstep of every home in Kojsov. As stated in chapter four, the collectivizatioa process stripped Kbjsovers of their small, non-contiguous parcels of land. By 1974 Phase II of the collectivization had ensured that the village collective farm would be centralized and managed with collective farming operations from two other villages. This was a final step in separating Kbjsovers fit>m association with both common property and collectively managed property. At present, the hillsides around Kojsov are void of the varied colors, textures, and shapes associated with the past's diversified plots. Small noncontiguous parcels owned by individual families are now huge fields. Sheep graze on one hillside, grass grows wildly and unkempt on {mother, and one large field is maintained by the collective farm the JRD (Jednote Rolnice Druzstuo) or United Farmers Cooperative. Despite the loss of land, gardening activity is ubiquitous in Kojsov as in much of eastern Europe. During the summer every yard is covered with various crops, trellised by beans, and abounding with produce. These "kitchen gardens" play a large role in feeding the family throu^out much of the year. Given the interdependence of village with family members in nearby towns and cities, such village kitchen gardens provide much of the produce given to relatives or children in urban centers. Rose has demonstrated that even though two-thirds to three-quarters of East Europeans now live in urban 188

areas, they nonetheless grow food for their own consumption (1993:4). Furthermore, East European households are not forced to choose between being food producers or industrial or service workers; Hiey can be both, working in a factory or office for mtmey and growing food on a subsistence basis (Ibid.). Rose surveyed households in Eastern Europe and found that official statistics regarding the parentage of the population who work as fiiU-time fanners were not conclusive evidence of who grows food.

TABLE 1: Eastern European Countries and Their Involvement in Food Production

Bulgaria CSFR Poland Russian cities (% all respondents) Grows some food 62 70 48 72 living in rural areas 32 22 38 26 Employed in agriculture 18 13 28 13 Sources: Who Grows food: CSPP State/Market data files: Individuals who grow food on their own land or help Mends and relatives. Russian figures for cities only. Employed in agriculture, living in rural areas: Marer et al., 1992:56,58), except Russia calciHated from World Bank (1992:306).

Of great importance to this dissertation is a point that Rose makes: "Living in a shortage economy forces individuals to grow their own food whenever possible. On a priori ground poverty is one potential determinant of food production; people who have difficulty in making ends meet may rely upon their own resources rather than buy food in the market"(1994:5). Rose found that 57 percent of Czechoslovaks grew food on their own land. Given the limitations of land, one can rest assured that the amount of land per household is extremely small, less than half an hectare. Rose points 189

out that the great nuyorily of food producers are not fanners. In Czechoslovakia fifiy-one percent of those growing fix)d are not officially employed in agriculture. Furthermore, in a difforaitiated modem economy like Great Britain or the United States, people either grow food as a full-time job, or they do not grow food at all. However, in a stressful society with a shortage economy we would expect most people growing food to do so as one among a numb^ of economic activities on which their household relies, hi eastern Europe two-fiiirds of households grow food on a part-time basis and growing food is not taken lightly by urban-dwellers, hi Slovakia lika other Eastern European nations, kitchen gardens are prolific both in villages and in urban plots surrounding cities (Acheson, 1993). Rose points out that in both Czechoslovakia and Poland a small msyority find it easy to grow food, because a plot of ground is literally on their doorstep. Kojsov is just such a place where cultivating a plot of ground outside one's doorstep is possible. A typical garden in Kojsov is no larger than one's yeu'd, approximating between seven meters squared and fifteen meters squared. Gkirdens are always enclosed by either wooden or metal fences and beans often line this boundary. The gardens are not consolidated into one large "garden" but sometimes are scattered around the house often with one main area. Some kitchen gardens do not appear next to the house of the individuals who care fbr it but rather consist of plots firom affiliated kin—a grandfather who is too old to farm or a yard that one's mother inherited. Gardens are difficult to measure because they are not located in the same place, as a unified whole. Rather than attempting to measure gardening activity by total area of land, my survej^ recorded numbers of culturally identified hriadok, a relatively short. 190

wide row. These hriadoks form small mounds of soil, usually square or rectangular in shape and measure between one to one and a half square meters. Usually, one type of vegetable is grown in each hriadok. Fertilization of gardens is done through the manure of domesticated animals and pests are controlled for the most part by intercropping. Gardens in Kojsov, to my knowledge, are free of commercial pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. Distead intensive labor keep the gardens productive year after year. In Kojsov, an extended family garden on average, consists of: nineteen hriadoks of potatoes; two hriadoks of carrots; one hriadok of parsnips; one hriadok of onions; two hriadoks of kohlrabi, and lots of heads of lettuce sprinkled throughout the yard (Table 7.2). The potatoes, carrots, parsnips, kohlrabi, and onions are indispensable for soup as described in chapter five. Garlic is used with meats or to make sausage. The beans are dried and later used in cream soups. Lettuce is cooked with soured milk and bacon in a soup or fed to rabbits. In addition to the previously mentioned vegetables, strawberries, peppers, cucumbers, melon, and squash are scattered throughout gardens in the village. Most people avoid these crops as they do not grow well in the cool mountain climate. Given the reliance Kbjsovers have on the food grown in these gardens, people for the most part, plant crops they know will succeed. Herbs, in particular chives, thyme, and dill, are also interspersed throughout the gardens of Kojsov. Chives are used in cooking and thyme {jnatarina duska) is used in tea. Dill is used in canning^, especially pickles. A number of fruit trees are also found in the typical Kojsov yard. Apple, cherry, plum, and pear trees are most common. Many houses also have 191

several red and black currant bushes, gooseberry bushes, and sometimes raspberry plants. My surv^ d^onstrate that the fruit trees are quite prolific (See Tables 7.2,7.3, and 7.4). Extended family household totals reveal that 141.7 kilograms of fruit are produced from an average of 10.9 trees per household (Table 7St). The most common tree is apple, averaging three trees per household. Apples trees were also the most prolific, producing an average of fifty kilograms per household. Some households recorded as much as 400 kilograms of apples from five trees. Red currant, black currant and gooseberry were relatively uncommon in the village, averaging only 1,2.2, and 0.3 bushes, respectively. The interviews on gardening were conducted with women. Village women are excellent at estimating the weight because they often weigh their produce. This is not true of the townswomen who often had not considered the weights of their produce until I asked them. Villagers, by contrast, knew immediately and had committed the weights of their produce to memory. Women of the village were aware of how many hriadoks of each crop were planted and the length of time during the ensuing year that the v^;etables would last They are in charge of the canning, the root cellar, and the pantry of their households. They were, in short, authorities on the information I asked them. These tables demonstrate that people in Kbjsov are very active, productive farmers. Their gardens reflect their diets and food preferences. Many individuals informed me that Kbjsov is not an ideal place for gardening. They recognized the cold climate, the short growing season, and the rocky sloped hillsides as limiting factors. Despite these n^ative traits, households 192

are able to produce ^ormous amounts of food. In Kojsov, extended family households produced an average of more than 430 Irilngramg of vegetables (90% being potatoes) and about 94 kilograms of fruit (See Table 7.2). More than forty percent of the vegetables grown last until spring; some last all year. Vegetables grown most often, also last the longest. Thus, more energy anrf hriadoks are dedicated to the crops that will help the family survive through the winter. For the most part, individuals eat what they grow anrf subsidize their diets with market vegetables only when the prices are right. 193

10.4 Subsidiziiis the Garden

Ebjsov was not an optimal growing place for vegetables such as cabbage. Thus sauerkraut was made firom store-bought cabbage and is an example of subsidizing the garden when the market price is low. Cabbage is bought in the fall or late summer when the price falls drastically. At times the cabbage was bought from independent newly forming vegetable producers who came to Kojsov and sell their vegetables from the back of their truck cheaper than the market price. Families in Kojsov would capitalize on this and working together, under a woman's direction, produce sauerkraut for the winter. Peppers and tomatoes are also bought during the summer and preserved in sauces and calamadu, a green pepper and tomato preserve often eaten with eggs, bread, or stewed with meat. Cabbage and potatoes are eaten in huge quantities. Many families work in the agricultural "brigade" and are paid in potatoes, cabbage, and sometimes carrots. Many individuals work in a brigade during the fall for a few days to two weeks to help supply seasonal labor to large agricultural cooperatives in return for a winter's supply of food. Often, such individuals are able to earn enough in kind that they can distribute potatoes to their family members, friends, or use in trade. The unemployed individuals I met all took a turn in the potato brigade to support themselves. In 1989 ten hours of work (one full agricultural day) paid twenty vrecias or 1000 kilograms of potatoes. Li 1993, however, the pay for a days work in the brigade had decreased approximately by one half. That is a full days work paid 500 kilograms of potatoes. Villagers needed to work 194 exactly twice as long as they did before 1989 in order to stock up a ye€u*'s supply of potatoes. Most individuals work more than necessary for their own household supply required since a surplus of potatoes could be used to "give" to relatives or friends. 195

Table 2: Garden Production in Kojsov for Village Extended Families Vegetable/fi*uit #hnadok produce aveJcg length of time lasts

potatoes 19.0 356.6 kg 5.8 mo. carrots 2.0 11.5 kg 7.6 mo. peursnips 1.6 5.3 kg 6.8 mo. kohlrabi 2.0 13.0 kg 6.0 mo. onions 1.1 6.5 leg 5.0 mo. geurlic 1.0 2.8 kg 7.0 mo. becins 0.9 3.0 kg 5.4 mo. beet 0.4 7.0 kg 2.5 mo. cabbage 0.8 12.0 kg 1.0 mo. kcd.e 0.2 .3 kg .5 mo. lettuce 1.5 4.1 kg 1.1 mo. squash 0.5 1.3 kg .7 mo. s trawberries 0.5 1.9 kg .8 mo. tomatoes 5. 0 pleUltS 3.5 kg 1.4 mo. peppers 0.3 1.0 kg 1.0 mo. cucumbers 0.5 .6 kg 1.0 mo. Total 37.3 430.4 kg 64.2 •o.

Trees: apple 3.0 98.0 kg 4.8 mo. cherry 1.3 10.0 kg 2.5 mo. plums 2.0 15.2 kg 2.3 mo. peeurs 1.1 12.4 kg 1.9 mo.* red current 1.0 3.6 kg 2.6 mo.* black current 2.2 2.1 kg 3.0 mo.* gooseberry 0.3 0.4 kg 0.1 mo.* Total 10.9 141.7 kg 17.2 no. n=14 households * denotes preservation in the form of canned goods, jams, or syrups. 196

10.5 Gardening Household Type

Tables 7.2,7.3, and 7.4 distinguish between the gardening activities of the three household t^pes described in the previous chapter. It is important to repeat that while the households in Kojsov, both attended family and elderly, may actually be quite representative of the village, the households included in the town are not necessarily representative of towns in general. Thus Table 7.4 on towns should be used loosely for comparative purposes. However, this incomplete table of town gardening activity still allows us to consider some of the real differences between living in small towns and villages. For example, there is some animal husbandry going on in towns, but not nearly the amount seen in villages (See Table 7.5) hi general, gardens associated with towns had a greater variety of crops (e.g., there were more beans, peas, beets, strawberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers than found in the village). Also, the people in towns in this survey consume their produce much faster than those in the village. In general, the elderly of Kojsov had much less variety in crop type, focusing on crops that were sure to produce well. Consequently, their production surpassed that of the town. Comparing the cumulative length of time that the vegetables potentially last, the villagers had garden vegetables for 64.2 months while the villagers had their food for only 50.1 months. Of course, we know that families do not eat their v^etables sequentially rather they eat them in combinations. Thus this data should not be misconstrued as representing the amount of timt* villagers had vegetables, rather for comparative purposes the data shows the 197

aggregate number of months that villagers reported vegetables lasted. A hypothetical example exemplifies this point. A family who stated their potatoes lasted twelve months, their carrots lasted ten months, and their kohlrabi lasted for ten months would be said to have produced vegetables for a total of 32 months. It is clear however, that this family consumed these vegetables in ten months to a year. Comparing canning totals is quite interesting (See Table 7.7). The average number of jars for each household was taken for Kojsov extended families, Kojsov elderly, and the town. The survey recorded canning activity for two years, 1993 and 1992. Recording for two years was necessary because the household canning schedule and activities are often managed on a two year cycle. A woman might can one hundred jars of pears one year and the family will take two years to eat them all. Thus she will forfeit canning more pears in the second year and opt to gather and can some alternative firuit. The canned goods recorded on the surveys consisted of: blueberry pears pork cranberry red currents homemade mustard raspberry black currents homemade ketchup tomato/pepper sauce blackberries apricots pickled cabbage gooseberries wild mushrooms cherries grapes plums pickles (pickled cucumbers) 198

There was a marked increase in canning activity since the Revolution for some women interviewed. An trample of canning increase is demonstrated below:

Table 3: Canning Activity fixKm One Root Cellar 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 Total Jars: 42 46 100 442 378*

*At the time of gatheting this data, the camung season was not over. I would therefore expect the total number of cans to equal or surpass the number in 1992 it.

Although this increase was not noted in every household, it certainly indicates a specific response to household stress. Most women informed me that they had increased the amount of preserving after the Revolution in 1989 although the msyority could not tell me exactly how many jars they canned before and after. The example above is taken directly off one woman's pantry door where she was making yearly notations on her own canning activity. The elderly preserve much less of their food. Adding the averages of two years of canning demonstrates that the women in elderly households canned a mere 68.7 cans of goods while women in town families canned 235.9jars. In the extended families of Kojsov women canned 423jars (Table 6). 199

Table 4: Garden Ptoductioii in Kojaov for the Village Eldnly Vegetable^hiit #hriadok produce ave^ length of time lasts potatoes 7.3 189 .kg 8.5 mo. Ceurrots 2.1 7.0 kg 9.5 mo. petrsnlps 1.6 6.8 kg 9.8 mo. kohlrabi 1.0 8.0 kg 9.5 mo. onions 0.6 4.5 kg 5.0 mo. garlic 1.3 1.7 kg 9.0 mo. beans 1.5 2.4 kg 8.0 mo. beet 0.0 0.0 kg 0.0 mo. cabbage 0.1 0.6 kg 0.1 mo. kale 0.0 0.0 kg 0.0 mo. lettuce 0.6 3.6 kg 0.6 mo. squash 0.1 1.3 kg 0.8 mo. strawberries 0.0 0.0 kg 0.0 mo. tomatoes 0.8 0.7 kg 0.3 mo. peppers 0.3 0.1 kg 0.1 mo. cucumbers 0.0 0.0 kg 0.0 mo. Total 17.3 225.7 kg 61.2 ao.

Trees: apple 2.3 30.3 kg 5.5 mo. cherry 3.8 6.4 kg 1.9 mo. plums 2.3 16.4 kg 4.1 mo. pear 0.9 12.5 kg 3.4 mo. red current 0.0 0.0 kg 0.0 mo. black current 0.6 0.3 kg 0.8 mo. gooseberry 0.0 0.0 kg 0.0 mo.

Total 9.9 65.9 kg 15.7 ao. n=9 200

Table S: Garden Productioii in Local Towns**

Vegetable/fruit #hriadok produce ave^ length, of time lasts potatoes 5.0 37.0 leg 2.3 mo. carrots 1.5 12.7 leg 4.0 mo. parsnips 2.8 11.8 leg 5.0 mo. kohlrabi 1.0 5.0 leg 3.3 mo. onion 1.9 8.2 leg 5.6 mo. garlic 0.5 1.1 leg 3.6 mo. becuis 2.9 3.6 leg 4.6 mo. peas 0.3 0.4 leg 0.4 mo. beet 0.5 3.9 leg 3.9 mo. cabbage 0.8 2.9 leg 0.9 mo. kale 0.2 0.3 leg 0.5 mo. lettuce 1.5 4.1 leg 1.1 mo. squash 0.4 6.6 leg 1.8 mo. stravriDerries 2.9 9.7 leg 4.3 mo. tomatoes 1.4 11.0 kg 4.2 mo. peppers 0.3 0.4 leg 0.4 mo. cucumbers 1.3 15.5 leg 4.2 mo. • o H Total 25.2 137.2 kg ill no.

Trees: apple 2.6 49.1 leg 2.8 mo. cherry 9.1 46.4 kg 4.5 mo. plums 0.1 9.5 leg 2.9 mo. pear 0.8 16.4 leg 0.9 mo. red current 2.8 2.5 leg 4.5 mo. black cxirrent 1.5 1.6 leg 2.1 mo. gooseberry 1.1 1.7 leg 2.8 mo. Total 18.0 127.2 kg 20.5 no. n=13

** The tcUale demonstrates the amount of produce toim households grew in their gardens. The geurdens eure most likely not in the yard of the town dwellers but rather grown in small plots of land on the outskirts of town. 201

Table 6: Animal Husbandry in 1983 Household lype Kojsov Kojsov Town Families Elderly

Pig 2.6 0.4 0.4 Sheep 2.9 0.1 0.9 Rabbit: 4.0 3.3 2.5 Geese 1.1 0.4 0.0 Cow 0.7 0.1 0.1 Hen 7.7 1.4 3.7 Ouck 0.3 0.9 0.0 Turkey 1.6 0.0 0.9 0 n 0 i Total • 20.9 6.6 households Note that, nnmhprs are averages.

Table?: Canning Activily for 1993 and 1992 Canning Totals Kojsov Kojsov Toim^ Family KIderiy

1993 199.0 jars 33.8 jars 97.0 jars

1992 224.0 jeuTS 34.9 jars 138.9 jars Total 423.0jar8 68.7jars 235.9jars 202

10.6 Animal Husbandry

Villagers are proficient at raising domestic animals. On average, extended family households in Kojsov had 20.9 domesticated animals, excluding cats and dogs (Table 5). The number of domesticated animals for both town households and the Kojsov elderly were significantly less at 8.5 and 6.6 respectively. Animal husbandry, unlike gardening, demonstrated a small d^ree of specialization. For example, one household had twenty turkeys while only one other house in the village had turkeys at all. Another household bred pigs and had a total of 16 pigs at the time of the survey. This particular household had an extremely small garden due to very poor sandy soil. To compensate, they specialized in hogs and traded meat and piglets to neighbors. They never had a shortage of vegetables since many neighbors were willing to trade vegetables and fruits for meat and pi^ets. Still a third household had eighteen sheep which were used fw wool and another household had thirty rabbits. Each of these households had several other anifnnla but not as many as the animal in which they specialized. Many of the animnlg associated with the Kbjsov "farm" comes from averaging of hens into the total number of domesticated animals. With one exception every household in the survey had hens, some as many as eighteen. According to my informants, none of the animals were bred for money alone. In other words, while some specialization may have occurred, there was not an intent to create a large farm. Rather each family raised domestic animals to contribute to the subsistence of the household economy and perhaps to trade with neighbors. Such trade relations and social contracts will be discussed in chapter nine. 203

Like gardening, animal-husbandiy is done by means of intensive family labor. Animals are fed with household table scraps (hogs), hay from local fields (cows), commeal (hens), and other available types of fodder. Pig food makes an outstanding example of intensive labor. Pigs are fed table scraps mis^ with nettles. The nettles are gathered fresh from the hillsides, usually by men. The nettles are carried in a large hand-made linen doth which when worn appropriately creates the holding place for huge amounts of grass or herbs. The nettles are carried home, allowed to dry in the summer sim, and then stored in a dry bin for the winter months. The nettles are cut and mixed with the moist pig slop on a daily basis. Such nettles are so healthy, so they say, that pigs in the village do not need antibiotics or other medicines used in industrialized complexes. Cows also entail a good deal of labor. Cows must be taken out to the village pasture once or twice a day. Before communism, the villagers spoke of how the cows would all roam home together from the lower valley of the village upon hearing a bell. Today, however, each cow owner must take his/her cow out to pasture independently. The animals produce a variety of goods and foods for villagers. Below is a descriptive list of the proceeds from domestic animals: 1) Pigs supply families with pork, bacon, sausage (ikZo6asy),and lard. One average pig supplies the family with 180 kilograms of meat and pork products per year. The meat is frozen and eaten in stews or goulashes. The lard is used for cooking, baking and frying in all t^'pes of food and used as a spread on bread. A family with three pigs can count on at least 500 kg of meat, bacon, and lard. Piglets can be bought for between 1,600-1,700 crowns. Before the revolution a 204

piglet cost 600 crowns. A full grown pig today costs 6,500 crowns (^proximately $215 U.S. dollars). 2) Sheep are raised for meat and wool. Some families specifically raise the sheep for meat at Christmas. Others keep sheep for the wool. The wool is sheered and brou^t to the town for processing and dying. A few wom^ still sheer their own sheep, process the wool, spin it into yam, and knit—a most impressive process to witness. The meat from sheep is much less than from pigs at about 30 kg per sheep. In 1993 a lamb cost 400 crowns. This is a four fold increase from before the revolution when lambs cost only 100 crowns. 3) Rabbits were bred by individuals in the village and in the town. One rabbit supplies approximately two kilograms of meat. Rabbit skin was also dried and used by villagers. 4) Geese were quite common in the village and were used strictly for their down feathers. The feathers were used to make perinas (pufifblankets) and pillows. Eight kilograms of feathers are needed for one perina and two kilograms of feathers are needed to make one pillow. Geese may also be eaten at Christmas. Geese live an average of ten years and can be plucked every seven to eight weeks. 5) Cows are non-existent in towns and rare in the viUage. However they are very productive for households that manage them. A cow can supply a family with fifteen liters of milk a day or some 450 liters per month. This milk can be sold or traded with neighbors on a daily basis for 8 crowns a liter (about 30 U.S. cents). This is an excellent price given that store bought milk was 16

is appropriate to give two down puff blankets and six pillows at the wedding of one's child. 205

crowns/liter in 1993. Milk was used for cooking but also to make ^vorocA (curd) for halusky, the Slovak national dish described in chapter five. 6) Hens were the most commonly found domesticated animal in all three household types (Table 5). On average in the village, households had 7.7 hens. The productivity of hens varies greatly. The majority of Kojsovers stated that their hens almost all year round laid one egg per day per hen Gess during the extreme winter). This means that the typical household accimiulated about 230 eggs a month. These eg^ were a fundamental part of the Kojsover's diet. They were used in baking, boiled for weekend breakfasts, Med for dinners, and eaten with a mixture of fiied wild miishrooms and lard. Eggs were a staple and their household production was relatively often subsidized with eggs bought from stores (See chapter eight). 7) Turkey was not typical fare for most households. Listead a few families specialized in turkeys (not necessarily to use them for selling but more likely for household subsistence). Small turkeys could be purchased for 140 crowns a piece when they weigh one kilogram. Turkey meat is often purchased at the store proving that it is a culturally desirable form of protein, even if it is not commonly part of the Kojsov "farm". 206

10.7 Gathering Activity

In Kojsov, as in other parts of Slovakia, families spend a good deal of their leisure time in pursuit of gathering food. Collecting berries is a common pastime for both men and women during the summer months. Blueberries and cranberries were competitively collected during July and August. The cranberries, still green, would be carefully picked on top of Kojsovska Hola, the highest mountain above Kojsov. Individuals would then take the berries home and place then in a large wooden trou^ to ripen in the sun. Blueberries grew on the slopes of the hillsides in the village as well as on the mountain tops. Villagers fiercely gathered blueberries. Other berries gathered include raspberries and blackberries. Most berries were preserved for the winter. However, raspberry juice is sometimes mixed with a good deal of sugar to make syrup. Such syrups are important in a land where people do not drink plain water. Mushroom collecting is also a gathering activity. Walking in the woods to gather mushrooms was the favorite pastime of many villagers. They treated such walks as genuine treasure hunts. A kilo of dried mushrooms in the city cost 1,000 crowns (one third of a monthly earning). While not many villagers actually sold mushrooms to urbanites, they were used as gifts and eaten by the viUagers on many festive occasions including Christmas. The favorite mushrooms gathered in Kojsov consist of dubaky (bolites); hreznaky (bolites) and bedla vysoka. People also collect and eat kur,podpinky, chanterelles, and champions. The year we were in Kojsov was an exceptionally 207

lucrative year for mushroom collectors. Many families bragged that they had the largest collection of mushrooms in years, resulting in many fine meals and one kilo of dried mushrooms to last throughout the winter months. IhKojsov, herbal tea made up a very large portion of the liquids consumed by households. Teas were made fi^m a variety of herbs which are gathered on a regular basis. Tea is made fi:t>m the following herbs:

Thyme Nettles Raspberry leaves Mint Parsley Strawberry leaves Black Current Horsetail Anise Rosehip Blueberry leaves Elderberry Chamomile Cranberry leaves Yarrow Dandelion Birch leaves Speedwell

In addition to drinking the teas, most individuals are aware of varied usages of such plants. Sweet chamomile tea was fed to infants and very young children to supply them with energy (fi^m the sugar), reduce colic and quiet upset stomachs. Anise tea was used to relieve constipation. Nettle tea was used to clean the blood. Thyme was used for a variety of ailments and overall good health. 208

10.8 Disciission

In researching various aspects of household production one is left with a multitude of questions some of which can be deliberated while others demand thorough research to properly answer. One of the most pressing issues necessitating further analysis is the subject of productivity and the various factors which influence households in their ability to produce. One question worthy of analysis relates relative land size to productivity. Does gardening increase with more land? This is a difScult question to answer since my field survey did not contain concrete measurements for the size of parcels managed by each household. Althou^ I attempted to gather this information on nmnerous occasions, I was not able to convince viUagers that giving me exact measurements was necessary nor was I able to have villagers show me their entire gardens. One might speculate that villagers resisted the idea of displaying the land to which they had access. Perhaps such avoidance behavior was a form of miscommunication and was related to a need to hide access to land. Villagers may have also assumed that the size of their gardens would not be truly of interest to an anthropologist. As I described in chapter two, villagers perceived my work to consist more of gathering information about folk culture then the dynamics of household production. However difi&cult it was to gather concrete measurements which would assist analyzing the relationship between accessibility to land and productivity, I can postulate, with some evidence, that there is relatively little correlation between land size and increased productivity. 209

In Kojsov, the one housdiold which had absolutely no access to arable land fanned pigs and traded a good deal with nei^ibors. Their cultivation of vegetables was minuscule-they had only patches of chives. Their yard, sandy from residues from the nearby brook, was adequate for keeping animals. Of all the houses I interviewed this was the only case where a garden was not prominently displayed and where surveys did not reveal considerable production. Production of one aspect of the family farm decreased in this one case however, in its production of animal husbandry this household made out satisfactorily. I feel fairly confident that the size of the arable land was relatively equal across other households—that is it was confined to the size of the yards surroimding their houses. Before 1970 when Phase II, the final phase of agriculture collectivization took place, investigating such a question might have unearthed some real variation. Despite the fact that villagers may have wanted to hide some small amount of land, my best estimate is that none had access to more than half a hectare anywhere in the village. Indeed most had significantly less. Therefore the relationship of arable land to household productivity is insubstantial. A second question one might postulate is: Does production increase or decrease when the size of the family is bigger or smaller? The evidence fi-om my surveys, as has been presented, demonstrates that indeed larger households do produce substantially more-extended family households are much more productive than elderly households. When scrutinizing the data, and exploring the relationship between productivity and household composition, one must consider the number of "weekend" household members. As described in chapter six, households are not stagnant entities, but change significantly in 210

size sometimes on a weekly basis. Garden production is intimately related to extended family members and is no doubt dependent on the return of children to their parents' village homes on the weekrads. Extended family households which doubled in size on the weekends produced approximately 25% more than those whose members did not double on the weekends. Again, such an average is dubious since even households whose apparent family members inhabit the household are related to many within the village. Village kin ties are pervasive and therefore so is the need to produce for one's neighbor, aunt, old father, niece with newborn child, etc. Another question that can be explored in relation to household production is its relationship to household earnings. One might suspect that households with more earnings, produce less. Such households may rely more on the urban market and may not produce as much as poorer households. Rose after ball pointed out that poverty has increased the need of East Europeans to produce food for their own subsistence. If this is the case, then is the inverse true? Mig^t villagers who earn more produce less? Remarkably, the data from my research demonstrates that those who earn more produce as much if not slightly more than poorer households. Four of the most productive households, with two or three incomes and no imemployment produce an amount equal to those who are inflicted by unemployment and complained of severe poverty. This fact presumably can be attributed to a bottleneck in productivity on the land accessible to villagers in Kojsov. Kojsovers have hit a ceiling in gardening given space, soil fertility, and technological ability. One might assume therefore, especially for poorer households, that reprivatizing household land maybe an attractive idea. 211

Richer household mig^t also be interested since they have slightly more and therefore slig^itly less risk. However, we shall see in fthapter ninA that- reprivatization has not been a choice for either relatively poor or relatively rich households. 212

10.9 Condusioiis

The evid^ce presoited in this diapter illustrates how Slovak villagers in Kojsov are productive, knowledgeable gardeners. Such knowledge in Kojsov challenges the ethnographic research put forth by Salzmann and Scheufler in 1974 in their ethnography of a Czech village. They state: The recent changes in the status of the primary food producers have brought about corresponding shifts in the Czech lexicon. The term sedlak ^peasant' has simply fallen into disuse, and the peasantry, both as a class and as a repository of traditional values, have virtually disappeared fix>m the scene " (1974:62). The same cannot be said for Slovaks. As this chapter has demonstrated, villagers in Kojsov have maintained a tremendous knowledge of traditional farming methods. This is proven by their ability and willingness to produce vegetables, domestic animals products, and canned goods. Despite the fact that individuals have been forced to work as dictated under Socialism, their need for garden produce has not decreased. They have continued a tradition and responded to a shortage economy. As suggested by the increased canning activity, individuals have also reacted to the burden of new economic and political instability. One might assume that as individuals have maintained the skill and willingness to farm and have been subject to rising unemployment and inflation, their interest in increasing their ability to farm- to stabilize their household economy, and perhaps to make a profit-is contingent on their willingness to privatize their family lands. The subsequent chapters address these two issues: the dynamics of household consumption and the interest or lack thereof to reprivatization by Kbjsovers. 213

la demoDStrating the e£fective farming practices of Kbjsovers, this chapter necessarily contributes to an understanding of the status of contemporary East European peasants. The status of peasants will be the focus of chapter ten. This chapter which elucidates liie status of the family farm is the basis for further discourse on the process of decollectivization and reprivatizatioa of land in chapter nine. 214

11. CHAPTER EIGHT "We Havent Eaten Fried Cheese Since the ReTolation" Household Consumption

11.1 Introduction

"We haven't eaten fried cheese since the Revolution one woman exclaimed to me during a conversation about life after 1989 in Slovakia. She mntinued, as if she amazed even herselfwith the realization..." We haven't bought any new clothes for threeyears and we can barely afford the price ofthebustogototown. That'show life is for us. It is very difficult and it's getting worse and worse. "

Upon interviewing people in Kojsov about life after the Revolution, one of the themes that inevitably emerged in our conversations was the problem of inflation. When asking individuals about how they liked life after the Revolution, most would take the opportunity to complain about how prices for everything they consume have increased. It was remarkable how these individuals, especially women, were keenly aware of the price of every good consumed before the Revolution in 1989 and at the present, 1993. Although I did not intend to collect exact prices of items consumed by the household, I was greeted at every turn with such information. The inflation, as described to me in detail, by villagers, is intrinsically related to the villagers' perception of life in a post-Revolutionary, post-communist, newly independent state. life is, to be blunt, very hard. Inflation is intolerable and this describes the bulk of frustration experienced by individuals in the rural "ex-Eastem Bloc". This 215 chapter illustrates exactly how much, inflation has occurred and why it is so intolerable for the villagers. What is the impactof having to pay more than double the price for the vast mcgority of groceries? What is the impact on households of having to pay five times the price you paid previously for cheese, cabbage, rice, vinegar and salt? How does life change? How does one's diet and nutrition change? How does the household budget change? How does one interpret the meaning of this change? Answering these questions helps understand some of the most fundamental queries on the impact of the larger political economy on villagers. 216

11.2 Increases in the Price of Groceries: A List of Household Commodities and Th^ Usages

Table 8.3 is a list of grocery items bou^t on a regular basis and how they have changed in price since the Revolution. Individuals, especially women, were able to sj'StematicaUy quote the prices on goods before 1989 and after the Revolution. Their accuracy was astounding. If there is any bias in the table, it stems from the fact that villager women at times bought cheaper than average goods. For example, laundry detergent is quoted in 1993 as costing 43 crowns. I was not able to find laundry soap for cheaper than 50 crowns. (Note that I too was on the look out for cheap prices even though the laimdry detCTgent was the equivalent of $1.50 U.S.) I attribute this difference to the ability of village women to shop extremely thriftily and efficiently. Just as during communism, if one saw a "good" product on the market, one did not buy one of the items but rather one stocked up immediately—usually taking extras for neighbors or family members. A sign of the communist era was empty store shelves. As any good economist knows, one should not look on the shelves of stores to see what was available to individuals, one should go directly to the pantries of women—where stockpiles of food sat waiting. Lideed, even to this day, some ptmtries look more appealing and diverse than most store shelves. Tables 8.3 and 8.7 demonstrates the price increases that villagers pay for their basic groceries. It is this very information that was considered to be so intolerable for villagers. Of particular interest is the fact that each of the twenty-four items on the grocery list had increased in price, and among those 217

increases eight items, or 33 percent, doubled in price; five items, or 21 percent tripled in price; and nine items, or 37.5 percent, were four to five times more espensive than before 1989. Only two items (eight p^ent) on the list did not increase in price significantly. Dicreases in salary have not kept pace with inflation (See Table 8.2 and 8.4). While men's salaries and elderly pensions have increased significantly, the average wages of working women that I interviewed have remained relatively stagnant increasing fi-om 2,365 crowns to 2,394 crowns. Averaging the wages of women reveals that many women are unemployed and very few have significantly increased wages. Men's incomes however, increased fi'om 2,835 to 3,868 crowns or by 71%. These increases pale in comparison to the triple-digit inflation of the most basic goods. Such wage increases for the employed villagers do help offset the inflationary pressures, but growing xinemployment in the village means that many individuals are experiencing a simultaneous loss in wages while prices increase. Before the Revolution, everyone was guaranteed a job, but in 1993 16% of the villagers were unemployed (Table 8.3). Many individuals feel uncertain that their jobs will be continued in a land where the overemplojonent of the recent communist past is seriously threatened. During the ten month period of our fieldwork, one village woman had been fired cmd rehired twice firom the same job. Her job had also changed fi*om fiill-time to part-time during that same period. By the time we left, she had been forced into an early retirement. Her husband also feared for a lack of job security. Many of his colleagues had been fired and he has been shifted to three different cities to work. Given the uncertainty everyone feels 218 for their job, one can understand the great fear and trepidation that greets every price increase. 219

11.3 Comparison, ofa Fixed Basket of Consumer Goods

One method of comparing relative prices is to examine a basket of household consumer goods bou^t on a monthly basis and compare buying power of these goods from 1989 to 1993 given wage increases during the same period of time. The goods in this case will be divided as: a) the total amount spent on food; b) the total amount spent on housing including taxes and utilities and c) the total amount spent on lunches at the wor^lace. Each of these items were siuveyed and the data used is specifically firom the survey. At times the survey was incomplete. For example, by recording the number of loaves of bread bought, I forfeited asking more complicated questions in regard to piu'chasing food items that were "like bread" such as roUs, pastries, etc. Thus the data is not absolutely complete and does not attempt to record eveiy crown spent in a month, rather its goal is to demonstrate the relative decline in purchasing power. The amoimt spent on food is averaged frt>m all the households surveyed and included adjustment for the goods of which households buy less in 1993 compared with 1989. For example, most households buy less meat in 1993 than they did in 1989. Thus the price spent on meat is relative to this new purchasing behavior. It does not account for what individuals would Hke to buy if they could or if they had the same buying power they did in 1989, rather what they actually buy. Thus substitution for dieaper goods is intrinsically calculated. Housing is also calculated relatively. Therefore, if households use more wood than coal in 1993, the price recorded reflects thia difference. 220

Housing in the village does not include a mortgage payment or the equivalent since individuals surveyed stated that they do not pay on a monthly basis for their homes. Many of the homes have been in the familyfor many years and others were able to pay off their mortgage relatively quickly. The increased price for lunches at the worlq)lace is one of the most burdensome increases for families since such lunches were heavily subsidized by the state and close to free before 1989. In 1993 the price increased dramatically for those who work and all students. The price of lunches does not affect the village elderly since they are retired and do not have lunch at a workplace. Thus lunches are an indicator of one of the real differences for families and the elderly. Comparing the percentages of incomes spent to buy the fixed basket of goods between 1989 and 1993 elucidates the impact of inflation on households. Table 8.2 calculates the total amoimt spent on the fixed basket of goods in relation to wages (Table 8.3). According to this data one sees that the extended Kojsov family increased its spending on food, housing and lunches fix)m 51 percent of total household income to 75 percent of total household income in 1993. The elderly households spent 51 percent of their income on the fixed basket in 1989 and 54 percent in 1993. The effect of inflation appears to have had a much more serious effect on the extended family household where almost an extra 25 percent of the household income is spent to buy the basket of goods on a monthly basis. How do households cope with such inflation? 221

11.4 Strat^ies for Coping a Decrease in. Bnjiiig Power

The price increases and inflation indicated above means that the buying power of Kojsovers has decreased substantially despite the fact that the elderly appear to be relatively unaffected. What is interesting is the way that this decrease in buying power is dealt with in the household. Table 8.7 demonstrates the difference in consumption patterns between 1989 and 1993. The decision making represented in this table explains much about the current quality of life for Kojsovers. For varying reasons price increases have resulted in an increase in consumption of some items, decretises in others, while the consumption of some items has remained unchanged. Flour, oil and salt are products for which there is little change or an actual increase in consumption despite increases in price. Oil was one of only two grocery items which had only a sli^t increase (less than double) in price. Thus for oil, the consumption level remained relatively stable. Flour increased more than double in price and yet villagers purchased only slightly less. The consumption of salt, which increased in price five fold, ironically did not decrease. The reason for this lack of change in consumption of flour and salt is directly related to the enormously large increase in sugar consumption by villagers from an average of seven kilograms a month in 1989 to twenty-one kilograms in 1993. Both salt and sugar are necessary in the preservation of foodstuffs for the winter. Salt is needed for sauerkraut. Sugar is necessary for the increased canning offiruit and berries and preserve making. Asdescribedin chapter seven the practice of canning has increased since 1989. Flour is 222

needed to make up for the increase in baking. Women told me that one of the greatest changes their fiunilies had experienced was that they could no longer bring home little treats from the market after work for their children or for themselves. The newly introduced "Snicker's Bars" were far to e^qiensive at 20 crowns (.60 U.S. cents) each and the price of cookies had increased tremendously. Thus, women found themselves baking more often. One household of older women told me that they had returned to the old tradition of baking bread on a weekly basis. Baking activity was an attempt to substitute goods that were outpridng the buying power of households. Hence the relative equal consumption of flour, oil, and salt and the increase in sugar between 1989 and 1993 despite the large increase in price. Bread represents a different type of decision making process. Although a few elderly women bake their own bread now, bread consumption remained relatively equal for village families, elderly households, and townsfolk despite the fact that the price increased more than two fold since 1989 (Table 8.5). Bread is a staple of the Slovak diet. Considered more than just food, bread is the essence of the Slovak people. A common ritual throu^out Slovakia is to present guests with a loaf of bread and salt. This ritual is as sacred to Slovak culture as the bread is itself. Many complained most vehemently about the increases in the price of bread. It was as if they were afhud they would not be able to buy bread at all if the prices kept rising, and this was truly intolerable. Thus bread consumption, a tradition in itself and a symbol of well-being, did not decline after 1989. Bread represents an item that can not be substituted no matter what the cost. The cheap price of bread before 1989 meant that bread did not have to be baked at home, saving enormous amounts of time for 223

women. Now, while some families have begun to bake bread again, the vast mfio'ority just bear the brunt of ihe increased price. The consumption of meat, chicken, cheese, biynza (aged sheep cheese), and milk, all sources of protein, has significantly decreased in the Kbjsovian diet in response to the price increases. As the title of this chapters alludes, the decrease in ability to buy such products was very difficult. Some families substituted for the loss of such products by purchasing pigs, buying tnillc from neighbors, and substituting hard cheese for soft cheese spread. However, for most, these were products that they simply could not consume as often as they were accustomed. As one young man explained to me in regard to Sunday dinner at his parent's house: You should hwjB seen how much food we hxid every Sunday. There was every kind of meat. My mother didn'tjust cook one type of meat but three or four, braised pork with gravy, baked chicken, fried pork cutlets, stewed beef. Then there were potatoes, and vegetables andpickles....all you could eat. When we left the table on Sundays, we would roll out of our chairs... we were so full. That's whenweknewwhatfullmeant. Today...unfi)rtunately....wedon'teatlikethat. We are lucky if my mother gives us one type of meat and its usually rabbit which I personally hate since it has more bones than meat. She keeps her canned goods locked up withal^ and counts everything we eat. Itissadnow. Ihopeitwill get better soon. Meat is a symbol of social status and overall well-being. When the school stopped serving meat everyday to children, substituting starch-based for meat-based dishes, individuals commented on the poor qualily of the food and pitied the children. When we ate dinner at individuals' houses and were not 224

given meat, which happened on occasion, we were later informed by others that it was impolite not to serve guests meat. When villagers asked us how we survived without a pantry full of canned goods, we answered that we ate "spa^etti and tomato sauce"( We survived on this meal for about half of the meals in Slovakia). For this, we were ridiculed., in fun, but nevertheless, ridiculed. Meat is a powerful symbol, as it is in many places in the world, for status, prestige and, in Kojsov, overall well-being. The decreased ability of villagers to buy meat, as with other goods not purchased as often today, Has caused much consternation. Other methods of coping with price increases include working on the brigade to decrease the need to buy potatoes at the market price and to subsidize those already grown in the garden (See chapter seven). 225

11.5 Condnsioiis

This chapter has succinctly depicted the changes in prices of groceiy items bought on a regular basis by Kojsovers. The reason that this information could be so accurately portrayed is because of the role such price changes have in explaining the difficulty in times-women and men tfllk about such price increases constantly. The goal of the chapter was to supply the reader with empiric€d evidence demonstrating why many in villages find life after the Revolution difficult. In short, the very high inflation of prices for basic necessities, the threat of unemploym^t and the relatively low wage increases make for a dire situation. The next chapter will identify and analyze potential entrepreneurial activity to remedy this situation. If the situation is so dire, as villagers say it is, then can we expect to see a shift in behavior which would show an active role in lessening the burden. After all, the Revolution does not just mean decreased buying power. It also freed the path for individuals to open private businesses and capitalize on the new democracy. In villages, as has been mentioned in the previous chapters, an opportunity to reprivatize family lands and become involved in the decollectivization process is an option. The next chapter is concerned primarily with this issue. TABLES: Fixed Basket of Goods Ehctended Families EMeriy Total spent 1989 1993 1989 1993 a) Food 1673.91 3550.59 631.39 1432.98 b) Housing 427.30 876.00 113.60 287.00 c) Lunches 385.20 929.00 0.00 0.00

TOTAL 2486.41 5355.59 744.99 1719.98

TABLE 9: Percentage of bicome Spent on Fixed Basket 1989 % Spent (Fixed Bamkmt/Incomte) Families (2486.41/4884.4) 51 t Elderly ( 744.99/1362.5) 54 % 1993 % Spent Families (5355.59/7118) 75 % Elderly (1719.98/2550) 67 % TABLE 10: Inflation in Grocexy Prices A. Items with. Slii^t Increase ITEM 5/1989 5/1993 Oil (1) 16.5 22.0 Co£fee(100g) 8.0 10.0 B. Items that Doubled in Price ITEM 5/1989 5/1993 Chicken (kg)21.0 57.0 Mea-b (kg) 46.0 120.0 Flour (kg) 4.5 9.8 Sugar (kg) 7.0 19.0 Bread (loaf) 6.0 16.0 Butter(kus) 10.0 23.0 Eggs (kus) 1.0 2.5 Dishdeterg(1)9.0 22.0 C. Items that Tripled in Price ITEM 5/1989 5/1993 Brynza (kg) 20.0 67.0 Alcohol (1) 34.0 104.0 Soap 4.0 15.0 Bacon (kg) 9.0 30.0 Onions (kg) 4.5 15.0 D. Items that Quadruple in Price ITEM 5/1989 5/1993 Milk (1) 2.0 9.0 Beer (1) 2.5 10.0 LaundSoap 10.0 43.5 Potatoes(kg) 0.5 2.0 D. Items that Increased Five+Times ITEM 5/1989 5/1993 Salt (kg) 1.5 11.0 Cabbage (kg) 0.8 4.4 Cheese (kg) 18.0 100.0 Rice (kg) 2.0 19.0 Vinegar (1) 2.4 12.0 228

TABLE 11: CSiaiiges in Household Income Betiveen 1989 and 1993^^ 1989 1993 Men Women Household Men Women Hoosehold VILLAGE 2835 2365 4884.4 3868 2394 7118 ELDERLY 1800 1300 1362.5 2900 2500 2550 TOTAL AVE^IS 1833 msjL 3384 2447

TABLE 12: Unemplosrment and Retirement* Rate In Kojsov 1993 Men Women Total Retired 7.0% 27.0% 27.1% Maternity Leave 5.0% 5.0% Unemployment 7.0% 9.0% 16.0%

Total 14.0 % 41% 56.7%

^INCLODES BOTH RETIREMENT FOR OLD AGE AND DISABILITY

TABLE 13: Other Expenses Village Families Retired 1989 1993 1989 1993 Limch++ 385.2 929.0 0.0 0.0 Taxes 7.7 23.1 6.5 16.0 Insurance 33.1 76.7 3.2 6.1 Utilities 386.5 776.2 103.9 264.9

-H-price per month. Lunch is the largest meal of the day for most Slovaks, cind during the work treek it is traditionally eaten at work in a cafeteria. The price of lunch before the Revolution %ras extremely cheap (Between 6—15 crowns) as it was subsidized by the goveminent.

^^ote that the fact that there is more than one male or female living in many households making the total household income very diCRerent from any simple addition of the male and female averages. 229

TABLE 14: Change in Grocerjr Consumption

Item $/i989 5/1993 kg/VlUage kg/Elderly kg/Town Yeeir: Price Price 1989 1993 1989 1993 1989 1993 chicken (kg)21.0 57.0 4.5 2.0 1.9 1.4 3.0 2.4 Meat (kg) 46.0 120.0 6.0 4.2 3.1 2.0 6.4 5.6 Salt (kg) 1.5 11.0 1.2 1.3 0.7 0.6 1.3 1.3 Brynza (kg) 20.0 67.0 14.8 6.2 2.1 1.7 16.0 7.5 Cabbage*rka) 0.8 4.4 43.5. 40.0 23.0 14.0 102.1 60.4 Cheese (kg) 18.0 100.0 1.7 0.6 2.2 2.5 1.0 0.8 Rice (kg) 2.0 19.0 2.7 3.6 1.2 0.7 1.7 1.6 Flour (kg) 9.6 4.5 8.1 9.4 5.6 4.2 6.1 7.3 Sugeu: (kg) 7.0 19.0 8.1 8.1 3.8 3.2 4.0 4.0 Bread (loaf) 6.0 16.0 16.8 15.3 4.6 4.0 17.3 16.2 Milk (1) 2.0 9.0 44.8 37.0 20.6 14.8 25.7 20.1 Butter(kus)+10.0 23.0 8.8 7.4 3.5 2.7 9.1 6.0 Eggs (kus) 1.0 2.5 100.0 83.8 40.4 28.2 70.8 61.4 Vinegar (1) 2.4 12.0 7.2 7.0 1.6 1.5 5.3 5.0 Oil fl» 16.5 22.0 4.7 4.5 2.1 2.1 5.8 5.0 Coffee(lOOg) 8.0 10.0 7.9 5.8 0.6 0.5 10.0 7.0 Beer^O (.51) 2.5 9.6 31.6 12.9 5.6 1.3 10.9 7.2 Alcohol (1) 34.0 100.0 4.0 2.9 1.8 0.5 1.6 1.2 LaundSoap** 10.0 43.5 5.4 5.5 2.0 1.6 3.4 3.1 Soao 4.0 15.0 5.0 4.7 1.4 1.2 4.3 3.8 Dishdeterg(1)9.0 22.0 1.8 1.5 0.7 0.8 2.4 2.0 Bacon (kg) 9.0 30.0 Households produce own Onions (kg) 4.5 15.0 ft ft ft Potatoes(kg) 0.5 2.0 ft ft ft

indicates that the Item is measured by the piece or box.

^^According to my survey, beer consumptioa has significantly decreased fivm an average of 31.6 half liter bottles to 12.9 half liter bottles per household per month. Hie fact that beer is not considered a significant part of the diet may explain the decrease in beer consumption. Individuals had to allot their money to goods that benefited the family more. However, I have absolutely no reason to believe that I attained accurate ixiformation on alcohol consumption many households. This lack of trust in my data on this particular topic stems from the fact that alcohol consumption is very high and thus may le^ individuals to conceal the truth as to their actual beer consumption. My surveying la^ed tiiangulation on this topic and therefore leads me to suspect that the numbers presented here are not very reliable. I did not attempt to attain accurate information about alcohol consumption simply because of the negative connotations associated with drinking alcohol. Alcoholic is no doubt wide spread in the village and so is the social sanctions against it. Since my research did not entail alcoholism as its primary function, I decided to k^p questions about it limited. It is important to state that many do not consume any alcohol in the village and even more individuals consume very little on special occasions. Hie elderly women in my surveys most likely did not misinform me as many of them are completely "abstinenka" or lead alcohol free lives. 230

12. CHAFTERNINE Reprivatiziiiif Land in Bojso v

"Political power may change hands overnight, economic and social life may soon follow, but people's personalities, shaped by the communist regimes ^ey lived under, are slower to change. Their characters have so deeply incorporated a particular set of values, a way of thinking and ofperceiving the world, that exorcising this way of being Intake an unforseeable length of time" (Drakulic, 1993ami).

12.1 The taUeat blade of grass is the first to be cut: Collectivistic Ideology

One Sunday when interviewing an extended family in Kojsov members of the family attempted to summarize their position under communism. They explained to me that under their old "totah'tarian" regime individuals who attempted to "get ahead" were deemed untrustworthy. In a metaphor they all understood, one man said, "the tallest blade of grass was the first to be cut." This meant to them that anyone attempting to make better for himself or herself was doing two things. One, they were running the risk of being perceived of having motives to steal their superior's job. The second problem was that they were competing with their co-workers thus attempting to gain favor inadvertently (and unnecessarily) at the expense of their peers. To my American understanding, the blade of grass that stands the tallest is more productive in its growth, it is proud, strai^t, and should be rewarded. When 231

Slovak villagers told me their contrary opinion, I was forced to scrutimze this notion they took for granted. These individuals were describing a kind of ethos that I would soon leam pervaded much of their thinking and guided their behavior in the post-communist era. Cutting the tallest blade was truly foreigntome—indeed I thought in tmns of allowing the poorly rooted, half dying short stubs of grass waste away and that the tallest blades surly would be reinforcedinsome way for their efficacy and good quality. Throu^time, I learned that individuals on this particular Sunday were explaining to me a grass metaphor which summarized the ethos of the village. It was within this conception that I came to understand much behavior in Kojsov with regard to the reprivatization of land. The grass metaphor explained more than just a few coincidental behaviors. It was a fimdamental concept needed to understand villagers, their behaviors, values, and norms. Competition, small and large, and individuality, however subtle, were not enviable traits. Slovak villagers maintained a particular system of behefe whereby initiative, individuality, and personal achievement where traits deemed unworthy because they directly contradict the more desired "collective equality". Such equality is based on a set of assumptions about distributing wealth among many rather than to only those with initiative and a fervid intolerance for those who do not abide by such an ethos. Such cultural beliefe, however, do more than just negate competitiveness, they also prioritize the distribution of wealth and the dissemination power. This ideology was pervasive in "household decision­ making" and in village social mores in generaL 232

123 Reprivatisation

Understanding the effort to avoid emerging as "the tallest blade of grass" does much to iUuminate the lack of interest in reprivatizing family lands in Kojsov. Other economic and social factors also play a role in restricting Kojsovers from reclaiming their £sunily lands. Such issues will be discussed after the following discussion of reprivatization in Spis. The chapter begins with an overview of the rdationship of Slovaks with their land. Next, I will simunarize the campaign to reprivatize land as presented by Slovak land reformers and policymakers. The third section of this chapter is ethnographic in nature and presents four interviews. Each interview represents a case study of an individual's interpretation and behavior with regard to the reprivatization of land. The first interview is the most typical of the vast m^'ority of Kojsovers. In Kojsov, only two individuals both living in one household reclaimed a tiny parcel of land (0.1 hectare). The extremely small interest in private farming in Kojsov is representative of some 31% of towns and villages in the region of Spis. The interview with those who reprivatized is second. My goal is to reveal various reasons that the two main household types of Kojsovers have resisted taking back family lands and contrast them Mrith two farmers from other villages who have recently taken back their land. Interviews three and four are interesting for comparative purposes. They help explain what makes some individuals want to privately farm and others avoid entrepreneurial activity. Both are typical, in 60% of the villages and towns in Spis, individuals have reacted more positively to the campaigns to reprivatize. 233

12.3 An Overview of Land Reform in Slovakia

By the end of the nineteenth century the families of Paify, Coburg, Andrasy, Zichy, and the Archbishop of Ostrihom^ were the largest landowners in Slovakia. Landowners with more than 100 hectares owned 50^1 % and those with over 500 hectares owned 36.4 % of the land. Despite the fact that these few landowners legally owned large estates, the vast mtgorily of Slovaks owned tiny fragmented parcels. The vast minority of Slovak peasants had land measuring between 0.5-5.0 hectares owned by 53.65 % of all peasants and which constituted a mere 14.34 % of the total arable land in Slovakia. Slovak peasants suffered from a shortage of land. After the formation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 these large estates were divided. This land reform included dividing the land between Slovak farmers and Czech legionnaires. The 'T)evelopment" or modernization of Slovak agriculture was beginning, however production in Bohemia increased by 32 percent between 1914 and after the land reform. In Slovakia production increased by only 18 percent during this same period. In terms of technical equipment Slovaks were behind Bohemia (Czechs) by fifty to seventy years (Hrasko, 1992:38). This discrepancy between Slovaks and Czechs continued during the period of World War 11 or the first independent Slovak state between 1939 and 1945. The Slovak countryside was poor, technically undeveloped, and suffered 6vm unemployment. People looked for a future in emigration. After the war, in the years 1945-1948, the principle "the soil belongs to

Palfy family owned more than 105,000 hectares; the Coburgs owned 83,000 hectares; the Andrasy owned 79,000 hectares; the 2Schy and Foi;^ each owne 21,000 and the archbishop owned 47,000 hectares. 234 everybody" was promulgated. The second land r^orm divided the primarily non-Slovak land of the landlords among ftoners and the landless and coincided with a period of ardent industrialization. New industries provided employment opportunities for rural people and resulted in massive migration of villagers to cities. In 1950 only 38.8 percent of the population was employed in agriculture and forestry, and by 1970 the number had decreased to twenty percent. At this same time, new agricultural cooperatives were established. Very few individuals entered these new cooperatives voluntarily— many farmers owning land were esposed to hard political and ideological pressures promoting these cooperatives. They were coerced into giving up thdr rights to own private land. This process was filled with tragedies to individuals and families and was hidden under the political rhetoric and census laws by the communist regime. These cooperatives were not established according to the example of the Russian kolchoz (cooperatives). In Slovakia they were established as subjects of private law—a collective of private farmers. Only after the law of 1959 were these cooperatives proclaimed to be subjects of public law. In the year 1949 there were some 1.2 million farmers but by the year 1989 there were only 633 cooperatives. By the end of the 1970s, interference and manipulation of these agricultural cooperatives by the state bureaucraQr resulted in the formation of huge and dysfunctional cooperative enterprises. With the help of lai^ state subsidies such agronomists managed to realize a program of food self- sufficienQT for the nation. Food consumption in 1988 reached 3,473 calories per person per day. 1,172 calories of this was derived fi'om flnimq] products. (The Federal Republic of Germany had at this time 3,476 calories of food 235 consumption.) (Hrasko, 1992:38). However after the Velvet Revolution and present economic strife and the caloric intake of Slovaks has dropped from 3,473 calories per day to only 2,320 calories per day. This has resulted in both lowered nutrition and much dissatis&ction. Many professional agronomists made their careers on these farms and a large scientific and research base was established. Workers in these cooperatives enjoyed a relatively stable existence. They had a privileged use of the cooperative land giving them access to agricultural produce not accessible to those who did not work on the cooperative. It is important to note that while the term collective farm has been used to describe village farming activity, one should not assume that the collective farm ran as a "collective" with all members having equal say in decisions and with all members contributing labor. It was, rather, a business which hired a relatively small number of individuals to work blue collar labor and even fewer professional agronomists in to administer the farm. Thus a collective farm transformed through time, beginning as a unit whereby individuals contributed labor (and although not voluntarily, their land and draft animals). Li 1950, the entire village of Kojsov was to one degree or another, involved in the transformation of agriculture, worked in the collective, and gained from the collective's yearly proceeds, in kind or in actual payment. By die time I arrive in Kojsov only eig^t villagers worked fiill-time in the collective. The collective farm had been consolidated with the collective farms in two other villages and the whole organization was administered in a nearby town by agronomists. Individuals in Kojsov no longer gained from the collective, little to no say about what was grown, how many worked, or what the collective produced. It 236

was, in effect, a business run Iqr "outside". Thus the collective farm in Kojsov had little to nothing in commcm with, for example, an ejido in Mexico or a IQbbutz in Israel. It was, therefore, a collective farm in name only. The first economic reform after the November Revolution in 1989 was focused on the reinstatement of market principles. This rdbrm had to meet the needs of a population in which nutrition is falling due to the fnflatinn of prices and decreased buying power of individuals. Reforming agriculture also entails reinstating the values necessary to run entrepreneurial businesses, to take risks. Given the history of Slovak agriculture, we should not eiq)ect to see the reemergence of family farms as a type of transplant fi*om western Europe. Rather these forty years will have an impact on forming new locally driven farms that meet the needs of a culture who lived forty years under Totalitarianism. 237

12.4 The Privatizatioii Campaign in. Spis

The process of "repiivatizmg" family lands in Slovakia was far firom simple however, the later phase of reprivatization in the end of1993 reflected an increased difSculty than in the beginning of the year. Politicians firom urban centers had a romantic view of reprivatizing lands. The transformation of land, as Havel once claimed, would change the face of the countryside from one dominated by monotonous agro-industrial collective farms into a landscape of colorful heterogeneous family-owned and managed plots. The new landscape would coincide with rise to the individual nature of each viUage. One would not travel the length of Czechoslovakia and see generic viUages, cloned, lacking any discernible individuality. By contrast, one would see private shops, colorful and cheerful, selling the locally grown vegetables and fruits of village gardens, and milk from local farmhouses. The fields would be checkered with colors of green in various stages of intensive cultivation. Czechoslovakia, to Havel, would become a land which he had known as a very small child. The country needed only to wipe itself clean of its recent history and start again where it had left off in 1949. The transformation was to take hold immediately, individuals and families were to become productive farmers with some initial assistance frx)m the state. They were automatically to understand the ris^ behavior associated with independent farming and become true entrepreneurs. The great need of Slovakia to use its agricultural land to feeds its people necessitated it seemed to politicians t^t all land to be returned to its original function, for agricultural production. This plan was to take effect despite the fact that such farmers would have skipped forty years of industrialized 238 farming, take back land that had decline in quality, and there despite there being no marketing structure for which to sell their goods. The entrepreneur needed to be more than a risk taker, he or she needed to be a damn fool. When I arrived in Kbjsov in 1993, the process of reprivatization had been in full swing for one year. By January 1993, villagers were to have decided whether or not they would reprivatize family lands. The process was far from simple, it seemed that the one year period simply was not enough for politicians kept extending the period of time for individuals to reclaim their famiiys land. By the time we left in November of1993, it was still possible for families to reclaim their land at the Podzemkovy Urad (Land Office) in Spisska Nova Ves, the capital of the province of Spis however, the process had become increasingly difficult. The initial period of privatization was markedly more simple both fi*om the point of view of those processing the land privatization in district administrative offices and villagers. In January, 1993, one simply had to go to the Podzemkovy Urad (County Land Administrative Office), declare an interest in land, and prove ownership rights. Given that both villagers and government officials have access to information on this land, the process was not as complicated as it might seem. The fee was minimal and in January, there were incentives such as bank loans and even John Deere tractors distributed to those who showed a genuine interest in reprivatizing family lands. Tractors and loans were some of the perks that went to those who were open to innovation and responded quickly. The reclaiming of family lands during the early stages of reprivatization could be made a relatively smooth process. Given that forty years had passed. 239

the households of the past that were associated with specific plots of land had been transfonned. Children had moved to cities to take advantages of socialist industrialization. Older family members had died or become too old to take an interest in traditional fanning. Despite the fact that the old^ generations swore they remembered exactly where their family's land began and ended, traditional markers had been removed, trees had been bulldozed, fields were not as clearly demarcated as before. Despite these problems, individuals who responded quickly, were able to overcome any barriers and b^in farming independently of collective and state farms by the summer of 1993. A general shift in education level and attitude also had an impact on a household's willingness to respond to government incentives. The Socialist period was one of improvement in literacy, and "modemily" as constructed by the Socialist doctrine, did not entail keeping the youth in villages working on farms. Farming, especially family fanning became the aspirations of very few individuals, associated with the backwcu^, antiquated past. Thus new farmers, needed to maintain a particular kind, of mindset. Those who wanted to farm would be able to qualify for the land of their grandparents or parents. In the early stages, this land reclaiming was facilitated by the philosophy of the government—privatization is necessary for a smooth and efficient transformation fi!t)m a socialist centrally controlled market to a capitalist privately controlled economy. A number of restrictions however, were placed on the land reclaimed. Foremost was the fact that villagers had to use the land for agricultural purposes. One could not reclaim land and build a restaurant or allow the land to sit for several years until the equity increased and sell the land for a profit. One also could not cultivate it 240

one year and allow it to remain fallow the next Annual crop production was one of the restrictions. As one collective farm manager explained to me:

"We do not live in a country like you do in America with vast amounts of land. Every bit ofour arable land is needed to feed our people. Ifprivate entrepreneurs are willing to help feed the nation, they have every rig^t to have their land back."

The process from the point of the view of Kojsovers was not attractive. It was assumed by politicians that villagers would want their land back to farm as full-time peasants rather than part-time peas€mt workers. This simple romantic view of such politicians is reviewed by ffideckel. He states that in order to understand the nature and significance of privatization we need to delve beneath the very diiOTerent meanings of the process as conceived in the West and lived in the East.

"Western development agencies, on one hand, consider agricultural privatization more as an end point of a process, i.e., the operation of a full-fledged system of private agricultural production (World Bank, 1992), but pay less attention to the manner by which it unfold. Li particular, issues that develop in communities after land has been privatized are disr^arded except as they impact on the amortization of aid del^ Furthermore, reflected through the rose-colored haze of end-of-communism triumphalism. Western observers tend to consider East European privatization a universal good because it is thought a necessaiy concomitant of a free market, a harbinger of civil society and democratic politics, and one more factor easing the adversarial relations of Hie Cold War" (Kideckel, 1995:47).

When Westerners note the problems with the decoUectivization process, they consider them as temporary and more a condition left over from the imrealistic economic relations and practices of the now-defimct socialist 241 states. For Western institutions and individuals involved in the distribution of aid to East Europe, it is simply a matter of developing the right mix of laws and policies for privatization to succeed in unmitigated fashion. Western programs also tend to ignore local any national differences and emphasize the large-scale trans-national similarities. To Eastern Europeans who must live with the consequences of schemes ofken contrived elsewhere, privatization is more of a process than a result and, as such, is recognized as the snarled web it really is. Privatization is not cost- free but rather entails a great number of compromises and contradictory decision making. The later period of privatization has been increasin^y complicated. By the end of my stay in Kojsov, I was informed that the fee alone to reprivatize one's family lands was 3,000 crowns—about the equivalent of one month's salary. Other fees were also required—one to document the land in the Geodeziu (administrative office), another for the formulation of a legal document for the Podzemlu)va Kniha (Official land documentation records). One would also have to make several trips to the provincial capital, Spisska Nova Ves, wait in lines, and this of course would involved withstanding the new price increases in public transportation, gasoline, etc. The third aspect of tiie process was to make a formal petition for the family land through the agricultural collective farm. At the beginning ofthe year, this final request was handled quickly so as to efficiently initiate private farming. Howev^, as time went on this later phase took one full year to retain family lands. No amount of money or interest could accelerate the process. Thus if one wanted to farm one's legally rightful family lands, one would have to undergo the entire process 242 one year in advance of the year land was desired. Li effect, the later stages of reprivatization appeared to have been contrived in order to obscure the process, to retard the reprivatization, and in order to allow for the mayimmn amount of time for collective farm leaders to maintain control over land. la this later phase, it appeared that time was needed to measure the land, determine fix)m exactly where in the village fields a family's land would be returned. All of this had been performed extremely quickly during the initial phases of the reprivatization. Indeed, the sheer increase in the numbers of individuals requesting the return of family lands may explain some of the lag in administrative response time. However, more likely, the administrative offices, as well as the collective farm leaders encountered increased difficulty themselves. Factions emerged as one might anticipate with any social organization undergoing increased scarcity of prime resources and colossal transition. Such factions surely argued over the methods in which to form a market infrastructure to aid private farmers. Were such farmers to compete directly with collective farms? Or were they to be subsidized so as to promote private farming and disadvantage coUectivized agriculture? Were state and collective farms to share, sell, or in some way supply access to centrally controlled distribution centers, cars, trucks, tractors, and combines? How were private fanners to market their food? Collective farms had been completely centrally administered. A chicken raised on the collective farm in Kbjsov was only killed and cleaned in Kojsov. It was shipped to a processing factory to be cut and frozen. Then another centrally controlled trucking service would bring the chickens to be distributed to all of the regional grocery stores. Perhaps, weeks 243

later the same chicken would arrive backin.Kojsov, packaged and frozen and in no way distinguishable from any chicken from the other chicken farms in the region. The markets were also centrally controlled. Private markets had only recently emerged in Kojsov an in the nation as a whole. The entire process of privatization was in is infani^. The problems brought on by this nascent infrastructure cannot be understated. The lag in response to reprivatize surely has to do with the lack of interest by many villagers as welL In Kojsov, the concern about the cost of reprivatization was i)ervasive. The cost took two forms in the minds of villagers I interviewed. First of all, there was the actual expense tliat households would incur when venturing into any form of entrepreneurial activity. Given the inflation of prices discussed in chapter eight and the panic and fear associated with each new increase in price, it is understandable that Kojsovers did not feel they had the wherewithal to create a new business or a family farm. Secondly, though there was another cost of which villagers were very aware. The social cost of becoming an entrepreneur was v^y high. As I demonstrate in the following set of interviews, villagers do not hold capitalists, entrepreneurs, or the rich in high esteem. The results of village envy was enacted by sabotaging crops.^ Villagers view those interested in reprivatizing family lands as pot^tially rich n^ghbors. The collective identity addressed in the beginning of this chapter had a great impact on individuals in restraining them from acting on any impulse to become an entrepreneur. Thus one of the costs of reprivatization is a social cost. The threat of creating public discord, of becoming isolated and the victim of much gossip.

^^asary (1995:17) also notes that jealousy and destruction of crops owned by private farmers recently occurred in post-Socialist Hungary. 244

Other reasons for not privatizmg in Kbjsov are demonstrated below in interview#!. In Kogsov themes emerged in my interviews. At times such themes contradicted one another. For example, when speaking with younger households, individuals told me that they mi^t be able to reprivatize but that older generations of people were too old. Since there were so many elderly folk in the village, this e^lains why there is so little privatization. Ironically, it was a wife and husband in their late sixties who reprivatized land in Kojsov. The elderly households very often told me that the reason for so little interest in reprivatization was that young people do not know how to work the land and that young people do not have any interest. One young man, contradicted this when he stated that it was the elderly who had no understanding of contemporary farming methods and who would not be able to farm land properly. Thus one of the most common responses to my question: Do you want to reclaim your family lands? was: "Why? Who would farm the land." It did not appear that anyone was willing to farm the land reclaimed. A second theme that emerged when asking this same question was that the land had been destroyed by the collective and communists. One man said: "Why would we take back that land? It was beautiful and arable before the communists destroyed it. Now we cannot farm it. It has huge rocks and shrubs all through it. We would not be getting the same land we gave back. We would be acquiring terrible land. We cant work with that" Thus the land in the village was viewed as destroyed, polluted by collectivization. It was not the same quality land their families had managed some forty years earlier. As we shall see in the following interview, the costs, both fimmmiil and social, the lack of anyone to farm, and the "destruction of the land" were the 245 three most predominant reasons given for the lack of interest among Kojsovers for reprivatization. 246

12^ Interview#! The Most Representative Kojsov Response to the PrivatizationCampaign

This interview takes place on the steps of a member ofKojsov's community. A woman aged 36, her mother, aged 56, and her son aged 18 are all present for the interview. Her husband is at work at the train station and her father passed away three years ago. The young womxm is a student at a technical school in Spisska Nova Ves. The general tone of this interview was fairly relaxed although at times they get frustrated when I keep asking them questions about land. They act like everything they say is blatantly obvious. There is no question in their minds about their responses. I am not presenting them with any new form of information just facilitating them in re-confirming their ideas about life after the faU ofcommunism-that is they have an opportunity to complain to me about financial problems.

On to the Interview— Q: What are your names and ages? A; My name is Maria ^ova and I am aged 36, this is my mother she is 56 and this is my son Marek who is 18.^^ Q: Do you remember where your family's property was located? A: Not exactly...over there and over there (she points to two hillsides). Her mother interrupts and starts listing off the names of the parcels of land. Q: (I address the grandmother) So you do remember where the land was?

All the names in the interviews presented have been changed to protect the identity of actual informants. 247

A: Every piece. I have a piece of paper with the names written down. We used to work so hard on the fields. My paimts put their whole lives into fanning. It was such a different lifesl^e. m never forget the day when the communist appointees knocked at my door. I was only eight at the time, but my parents were so upset. They fought and argued with the officials ...but we knew there was no use fighting. They had ways to get us to comply. My parents were forced to give up seven parcels of land, our cow, two pigs, our horse and even the cart we used to get back and forth from the fields. You cannot imagine how sad my parents were. My mother's father had gone all the way to America at the turn of the century to buy that land. Each little parcel looked like nothing...but it was ours and we knew how to make it work for us. It fed us...our big family. Wedidnthavealot but you should have seen how beautiful the hillsides were. And the aroma of the fields.. I still miss it. Some people were able to keep growing a garden in special fields but even that was stopped by the early 1970s. Life used to be so different. We all went out into the fields to help each other. And we knew so many songs that we would sing...all the young girls ...together on the hillsides. My brother used to sleep on the hiUtop and with the sheep. Life wasnt easy, but it had its good things. The smeU of the fields is what I miss the most. Q: Would you like to reclaim the land with the new reprivatization laws taking place right now? A: Who would farm it? Mydaughterwouldnt wantaaythingtodo withit lam too old... I could nev^ get to the places I used to go to work the land. My health is bad. My husband might have wanted to takp back the land...he was crazy. 248

Butnotme. What would I do with it? Do you think he would want to inherit it? (She points to her grandson.) Hergrandaoncontimies'. Julka, I have a lot to do and stay here in the village and farm, my parents land is not what I would like to do. Socialism helped us to getridofthatwayoflife. It was too hard. They were too poor. Why would I want to live a like that. His grandmother interrupts: ^ would not know how to farm anything anyway. He hasnt grown up with it like I did. A few years ago when I was younger I might have liked to take back that land but not anymore. I am too old. Who would inherit it? Who would work it? Q; If you did take back that land, would it be the exact same land that you gave up? A: Yes. It would be the same fields from my childhood. But they have ruined those fields. They didnt used to look like they look now. Now they are a mess. Those fields are ruined. We owned beautiful fields on top of the mountain too. Do you think those looked the same as they did now? No. They are ruined too. Why would I want to fix the mess they created? They took my parents beautiful fields, they ruined them, and now they want us to clean up their mess. Not me. Q: Do you know of anyone who is reprivatizing their lands here? A; No. No one here wants their lands back. They ruined them, who would want them back?

The interview continues with them teUing me about price inflation. 249

Kojsovers did not behave as Havel predicted and dreamed. Kbjsovers have not altered the face of the countryside since the Revolution in 1989. Li fact, in the region of Spis data gathered from the Podzemhovy Urad Gand management office) demonstrates that two individuals in Kojsov reclaimed only .1 hectares of land. Ethnographic research showed that both of these individuals live in the same household. As Interview number two demonstrates, these individuals were unique in Kojsov. They maintain many of the beliefs that one might assume would characterize those who take back land. They feel a great aflSnity for their family land and they also are interested in rebelling against the communist system. However, they do not rebel by resisting reprivatization as most of the villagers do, they do this as their parent's generation would have-by taking back land that was "stolen" from them under the totalitarian system. The data from the Podzemhovy Urad is interesting for analysis of Kojsov and other villages involved with reclaiming lands (see Table 9.1). It indicates that there is great variation in the number of individuals from villages and towns who reprivatize land as well as great variation in the amount reclaimed. Individuals fivm relatively larger cities are sometimes interested in reprivatizing lands e.g. both Levoca and Spisska Nova Ves are relatively large cities where 122 and 40 inhabitants have reclaimed land. By contrast, Gelnica, Margecany and &ompachy are cities with similar populations and yet only two, one, and three individuals respectively reclaimed lands. On the other hand, some very small villages the size of Kojsov, with similar geographic 250 environments show more interest in reprivatization. Such is the case in Ml3mky where one individual claimed ahnost 97 hectares and in Slovin^ where 49 individuals reclaimed a total of twenty-two hectares. Without further study however, I cannot ascertain the reason for such variation. What is obvious from the data is that Kojsov's lack of interest is characteristic of 23 of the 75 (or 31%) towns and villages listed. In such locales, five or fewer individuals claimed land less than five hectares of land. Kbjsov can safely be taken as a representative village for some 30% of villages in the Spis region. 251

Table 15: Reolalming Land in the Plro viace of Spig as of Sept. 1993

Xeira •o. Claiai.B9 AwmUmi R«eIaiB«d XadlT: 1. Amutovce 2.1639 3 0.7213 2. Baldovce 44.1491 27 1.6352 3. Bebarovce 5.3564 11 0.4869 4. Betlanovce 221.4802 16 13,8425 5. Bljacovce* 6. Bratovce* 7. Buglovee 85.7175 28 3.0613 8. Bystrany 4.3052 14 1.0218 9. Demisovce 10.6848 3 3.5616 lO.Dlhe Straze 18.7277 13 1.4405 ll.Dolasy 5.5327 15 .3688 12.Daoiaiiovce 41.3080 20 2.0654 13.Dravce 20.9068 9 2.3229 14.Dafarava 1.0000 2 0,5000 IS.Gelnlca 4.1354 2 2.0677 16.Granc-Petrovce 17.4903 13 1.3454 IT.Harakovce 1.3684 1 1.3684 18.Baricbovce 15.5007 23 0.6739 19.Helcmnnovee 0.3736 1 0.3736 20.Hraclova* 21.Hincovce 32.0062 31 1.0325 22.Hnilcik* 23.Hnn.ec 26.0851 3 8.6950 24.HrsJsusice 39.9601 38 1.0515 25.Hrisovce 2.7576 31 .0889 26.Chrast n/H. 4.6669 3 1.5623 27.Illasovce 49.7411 34 1.4629 28.Jablcsiov 15.1390 4 0.0242 29.Ja]clovce 0.9220 5 0.1844 30.Jaiiini]c 19.1226 18 1.0624 31.Kalava* 32.Katun* 33.Klcov 8.6819 14 0.6201 34.Ko-isov 0.1010 2 0.0505 35 .Kolincrvce 0.3780 1 0.3780 36.Klaknava 5.3326 19 0.2806 37.K:roaipachy 1.1380 3 0.3793 38.Kurimaziy 6.6965 16 0.4185 39.LetaiK3Vce 40.6074 71 0.5719 40.Lieskovany 27.1191 34 0.7976 41.Levoca 124.7891 122 1.0229 42.Lucka 42.5455 22 1.9338 43 .ttargecaziy 0.3295 1 0.3295 44.Harkusovce 51.4542 40 1.2864 45.Mate jovce 4.5949 U 0.4178 46.Mlyn]cy 96.9000 1 96.9000 47.Mni3eJc n/H.* 48.Nalepkovo 55.7394 15 3.7159 49.Neraesany 37.9199 29 1.3075 50 .N.Reptkse* Sl.Odorin 19.6836 37 0.5319 52.0lcnava 41.6882 67 0.6222 53.01sa:vi<;a 13.0087 2 6.5000 54.01savka 17.4695 33 0.5294 55.Ordzoviany 15.2661 8 1.9023 56.Pavlany 0.8901 1 0.8901 57.Folanovce 13.4672 7 1.9233 5 8.Fongracovce 6.8362 14 0.4883 59.PQrac 0.2000 1 0.2000 SO.Prakovce* Sl.Slchnaya* 63.Slactvina 17.2581 17 1.0152 64.Slovinl7 22.5068 49 0.4593 65.Snu7.wny 22.3603 30 0.7453 66.S&iolnik 2.3464 1 2.3464 67.Smol.Hata* 68.Sp.Hrhov 74.5557 42 1.7751 69.Sp.Hrusov 19.9220 27 0.7378 TO.Sp.N.Ves 55.2515 40 1.3813 71.Sp.Fodfaradie 49.6463 56 0.8865 72.Sp.St:vrto]c 82.5014 29 2.8448 73.Sp.Tcmaaovce 8.0250 U 0.7295 74.Sp.Vlachy 52.0398 53 0.1982 75.Stara Voda* 76.Studenec 32.7008 15 2.18005 77.Svedlar* 78.TeplicJca 58.3299 59 0.9886 79.TorysJcy* SO.Ohorna 0.2435 1 0.2435 Sl.Uloza 8.8810 23 0.3861 82.V.Fol]anar* 83.VitJcovce 5.7157 16 0.3572 84-Vojkovce 1.9838 1 1.9838 85.V.Repase 1.6290 3 0.5430 86.V.Slavkov 5.6110 5 1.1222 87.Zavada 21.7119 23 0.9439 88.Zavad]ca 83.4997 71 1.1761 89.Za]carovce 0.2714 2 0.1357 90.Zehra 3.2940 3 1.0980

Tonar. 1,963.7329 1,516 1.2953

Data for this chart was gathered from the Fodzendcovy D^rad in Spisaka Nova Ves. *Infonnation for towns was not available 253

12.6 Interview# 2 A Anomaloiis Household The Sole Private Farmer of Kojsov

bi Kojsov, interest in reclaiming family lands to be used for a family farm is extremely limited. Only two individuals, a husband and wife, aged 75 and 68 respectively, reclaimed 0.1 hectares (one aro) of land. Interviewing this household reinforced some of the notions I had gained firom others who reprivatized. The interview began with a conversation about collectivization. He tells me that yes, indeed, in 1952 the drustvo took all his family owned: two horses, a cow, and land. He was one of four sons in a typical family that depended on subsistence agriculture for their meager survival. The famUy lost three hectares of land, half of which was used for cultivation and the other half was used as a meadow for domestic animal grazing.

On to the Interview...

Q: Do you know exactly where those three hectares of land were? A: Yes. The names of the plots are called: podkuty, hano^ fUary, stara put, bocna put, podladich, stredna luky, zadne zaharady, predne zahriady, brest and mecfzi hola. (Michael showed me a piece of paper where each of the names had been written down.) We used to feed the animals off the land. Horses were fed oats and pigs nettles. We were able to avoid giving up our pigs to the drustvo —my parents butchered them and turned them into sausage before the drustvo could get 254

them. They only took living animals not meat. So the people killed/butchered the animals and saved the meat. Th^took land from the biggest landowners first and then fix)m others. For example, people who had twenty hectares were the first to get their land confiscated and then us. But here in Kbjsov, no one had that much land. Only a few families had five or six hectares so as a village, we were not forced to give up land right away. It came soon enough though. They got us to give up our land without a lot of violence. But there was a threat that was repeated often enough. It was said that whoever would not give up their land would be kidnapped during the night and taken five villages away, killed, and left there—and that's why people gave up their land. It actually happened to someone. Q: How much land did they take from your family? A: All we had. (He {wints to the paper where he has the names of fields listed.) Q: How much land did you get to keep? A: About 100 meters (10 aro) -just the land directly around our house. Not even half a hectare. Q: Was that enough for you to have a decent garden for the last three decades? A; No, it was not enough. {This question was answered by Terezia, Michaels wife who proceeds to tell me about the collectivization process.) Q: What did you do with the land they left your family—these ten aro? A: We planted vegetables -so that we'd have some to eat. In the past if we didnt grow our food it would have been much more difficult to get enough to eat. Canned goods were often not available in stores and it was a lot tougher to gather berries like people do today. The mountain was different then-there were hardly any blueberries like there are today. It was different 255 because abnost every family in the village had fields on top of the mountain. We would grow hay and cut it and dry it for the winter. We used to walk all the way up the mountain and cut hay twice a summer. At that time we used to be able to get only two or three liters of blackberries—not tons of blueberries like today. Now I get ten to twenty liters of blueberries. You should have seen them all! Q: What happened to the land th^ took fromyou? A: They took aU the land everyone. At that time, the land in the village was all broken up into tiny little plots of land. They took it all and the object was to put it aU together and create a lai^e uniform mass of land. Then they began cultivating this massive piece of land and ignored the centuiy-old divisions. Today these old fields are all ruined. (She says this with disgust). They had no idea what to do with the peripheral land they had taken fi:x)m people. The land that didnt not conveni^tly fit into the industrialized agricultural plains grew over with trees, bushes, aTid grass. It was the kind of land that grew only hay that had to be cut by hand (with a sithe). Tractors wouldn't make it on those hillsides. In the past men used to do that work for ten crowns a day ~ women for only 2.5 crowns. Q: Why did men get so much more than women? A: There was a difference in the work load. Q: How much land do you have now? A: At the moment actually nothing. But we have ofiBciaUy applied to receive a small portion of our family land back. Q: Didyou have any choice on which fields would be returned to you? 256

A: No. The exact land that we had before we cannot get back. We have to go to the land administrative office in Spisska Nova Ves and they will redistribute the land back— but it wont be ^cactly the same fields. We are going to have to pay a legal fee. We heard that the legal fee costs 10,000 crowns. That's a year's earnings. Who can afford that? The way it worked in the very early days of collectivization was that the Drustvo allowed us to keep a little bit of our land as long as we worked a certain number of days for the drustvo we got to keep a tiny parcel of land, a meadow, and some land for a garden. We wanted our nephew to build a house on one of the meadows but they wont let us have that piece of land back now especially to build a house. So, our nephew cannot build a house there and he has no place to build. Q: Where do you think your nephew wUl end up building? A: Well we arent sure if they will give us this land back or not. That was five years ago. Then the Revolution came and now we dont even have the garden. Q: Do you prefer democracy or communism ? A: Democracy is better. Before the (Velvet) Revolution and before communism altogether was reaUy the best. People had their land, cows, hens, there was meat to buy, and we had all that we needed and that was the best. Then socialism came and they took everything fi'om people. We even had to give up milk everyday. Before communism the only thing we had to give the state were taxes for our land—never millf or eggs. Then the drustvo came and they just took everything. Even milk, for every cow we owned, we had to give the state 300 liters of milk per year. From one hen we had to give something like 200-500 eggs. If you had pigs you had to give up a specific amount of lard 257

too. At the time of coUectivizatioii in the late 1950s, they even took linen and fixTs (pelts). Michael agrees with his wife at this point. He states: Democracy is better than communism. DemocraQr is freedom and communism was no good. Today is better than before the Revolution but if it were the way it was in the past-brfore any of this— that was the best Q: Do you think your graTuichUdren would be interested in farming? A: Well look at them. They know how to garden, my granddaughter has sheep and she gets wool from it. Wool now costs 140 crowns for a kilo and she makes 35 kilos all by herself. Before if you had sheep you would sheer it and sell the wool and have some money. You could make coats etc. and even make woolen pants and clothing. Ithinkmy grand daughter would want the family land back. Q: If you could, then, would you reclaim all of the family land orjust part of it? A: Well it is not possible to just go and farm it now—they let the land sit and sit and sit... and now it is all overgrown with trees and other brush. But I think we would take back the land if we could but now the land is in such horrible condition. The Drustvo destroyed the land. Our grandparents had beautifiil lands, they farmed it by horse and by hand. Now they want us to take the land back. Now it is a mess because no one took care of it, your know...worked it and tilled it. And now they want us to take it all back but we told them well take it back if you give it back to us the way it was when you took it! Now we dont have any horses or cows like we used to have and we don't have tractors either. Only he drustvo has tractors —they dont have any horses Hke there used to be. All of this leads to a messy situation. Nothing is clear. 258

Q: If someone came and said that they had horses for you to borrow, rent and that you could have allyour land back would you take them up on it? A: Yes! Of course—Are you aware that in the places where there is flat land- not like here where we have hilly fields—people have taken all their land back and are farming it. Q: Do you know how much the taxes are on land here? A: For one hectare, it is about 200 crowns a year. Q: How much land have they already given back to you? A: Hardly anything, about .2 hectares or 2 aro. It is located near the cross on the southern edge of town. Q: How many people have taken back their land there? A: Not many. Just a few. We heard that maybe twenty people are going to take back a little land like this—for their gardening needs. Q: Now, ifyour father had seven children, do you need to divide up your land like this? A: Yes, the whole village is like this. All divided up. Thestoryofour landis that I had a grandmother who went to America. She came back before the Second World War in 1914. Her husband went and fought in the First World War and never came back. Then she remarried for the second time and he had four kids already and then they had my mother. When she came back from America she bought the land about which we are referring. And then all five of her children divided it up between themselves. All five of these children now need her to sign a document stating that she gave them the land. There are fourteen sections of my grandmother's land. Anyway, all of tbia land was taken by communists and then all the people who used to make a living off this 259 land had to go work in factories in dties. Then they destroyed the fields. They made new factories and all the people who had nothing to do since they didnt have their land, they all had to go and work in these factories. For example, one factory made something like clocks and the next one would make textiles. And then at the beginning of this phase in our history people did not earn money, just paper vouchers. Sometimes they took home the manufactured product. And what is interesting is that with socialism people quit working. They would show up for work, drink coffee, read a magazine, they did not do quality work. The Russians took advantage of us, the Poles took advantage of us, and people began to trade the manufactured products fix)m their factories— you trade me this and m give you that. And then all was destroyed. And no one got crowns for payment Q: Back to the question-ifyou could vote socialism back would you ? A No! All of us a say no. Democracy is of course, better. Nothing about socialism was good. Well what did socialism do? It started giving i)eople money and then destroyed the exchange rate. The young people do not know how to work at alL They are completely lazy~they dont know how to work. Before, when parents had land, kids knew how to work the land. Each person worked on their land. Now nothing—the drustvo took the land and there are brigades but most young people do not know how to work. These young people now do not know how to make a way of life without the state. These young people cannot work-they are unemployed and they get 2,700 crowns as unemployment compensation and if they took a crummy job they would get only 1,700 crowns so, of course, they will not go work for this. Socialism wanted to show that socialism was better than capitalism. They wanted to 260 show that capitalism is only about money. K* someone was in the communist party they had everything—they could go to good universities—even if th^ were stupid and that is how our engineers and doctors are—they are not the smartest people they are the people related to the party. So our health system is declined and failed and our economic system are such failures. That way of doing things was taught to the young people and that is all they know. We have to pay our doctor 1000 or 1400 crowns a month for protec^io/z/corruption. At this point the interview is over. Michael and his wife offer John and myself a shot of vodka. They tell me the usual, "Drink up and your baby will sleep better." I decline.

I -» t H f-t- t «• M 4 M t H M M M < » f f •< I M f 4 f I t M ^ H I « » t M H M I I t > +-H- 261

12.7 Iiiterview#3 A Private Fanner Lmng in Spis

The foliowingr excerpt is a transcriptioiL of an interview with a private fanner from a village outside of Kbjsov. Ks name and village have been changed to protect his privacy. I will csdl him Vlado throughout the interview. I have every reason to believe that he is quite a typical farmer who has recently had the opportunity to reclaim his family's lands in the Spis region. His answers to interview questions were short and blimt. It is obvious that he was secretive and/or uncomfortable talking about his future plans for his farm. After the interview, he told me that he fears that other villagers wiU destroy his property out of jealousy. He has chosen secrecy as one method of limiting the chances of hindering his success and lessening jealousy. I get the feeling that he is constantly trying to limit the amount of rope that potentially could be used to hang him. Despite his curtness, he showed us his newly acquired land and he seemed quite proud of it. The land was made up of two non-contiguous parcels, some sixteen hectares in total. The land had been bequeathed to him through his father, the l^pal heir. Fieldnotes: My overall impression of this interview is that this is someone I would like to follow up on. It was very interesting to see the happiness and joy this young man had when discussing his ambition for firming. It was great to see the beginnings of a new farm. He was very secretive-he would not tell me much about the land he had nor the land he rented. He was also evasive about how much or how many carrots or other vegetables hegrew let alone how much money 262

ke had made. His secrecy are indicative of a relatively successful year and thus a need to hide his business from local villagers. As weshaUsee in the next interview,jealousy can be acted out via the sabotagingof farms. He told meoff the tape that his goal is probably to continue with a milk farm and specialize in dairy. It was certain that he wanted thatpUm to remain a secret. Participant observation in Kojsov demonstrated exactly what motive he had in being so secretive. It is as if villagers will be damned if anyone is going to get ahead of anyone else and that is that.

On to the Interview... Q: What is your name and where do you live? A: My name is Vlado Molak and the village I live in is in the region of Spis^. Q: How much land did you take back from the drustvo (collective farm)? A: Four hectares as my own land last year and then this past year I rented eleven hectares. In 1992 we successfully reclaimed 16.5 hectares and now in 1993 we have this 16.5 hectares. Q: Are you the only one in this village that reclaimed so much land? A: Hardly anyone wants their land back like me. A few might wantjust a little for example, half a hectare to grow potatoes on or one hectare for vegetables or something but no one else claimed back so much. One man took back 30-40 aro (.3-.4 hectare) but they are members of the drustvo and the drustvo will help them with this land by giving them use of tractors, etc. Q: Wm the drustvo help you out like this also?

^ Names and inforamtion have been changed to protect the privacy of this infonnant. 263

A: Right now we dont need any help. We have a tractor from the govmiment as of 1989. Q: Do you hire workers to fielpyou? A: No, we do evers'thing. Q: What do you grow? A: Almost anything that grows—vegetables. Q: Could you give me a breakdown of what you produce? A: Those things are not interesting. Q: How did you inherit this land? A: All 16.5 hectares was the land of my grandfather who has passed away. Q: How much land would you say is actually needed by a family to live independently from their land only? A: When we began to work some of our land starting in 1989 people laughed at us. They thought it was fiinny ...Uke you work all day in the drustvo and then come home and work some more on your own land. But now that I have more land they are not laughing anymore. Q: What did you think of the Revolution ? A: It was a kind of terrible joke Revolution Because those who were bosses are still there. The name changed but all the old commimists are still in power. Q: You mentioned that you workfivm morning until night now. Do you have any help from your brothers or others? A: When its necessary then they help out. Q: So when they help out, they are helping you out-because it is legally your land Right? 264

A: Yes. Q: Inthevillagewherewearelwing,oneoftherectaonspeoplesaythattheydo not want to reclaim their land because it is a lot of work. Is that true? A: That is true. Q: So you must not be the lazy kind? A: Right. Q: Why is it that you wanted to take back your family lands? What is the difference between you and others with the same age and education ? A: The first and biggest difference is that I am willing to work hard. Thatisthe biggest difference, the second thing is that I have an interest in fanning and the third thing is that I want to make some money. Q: Are you going to sell your vegetables? A: We sold ninety percent of the vegetables we grew this year and I plan on building a house with that money. Q: What kinds of animals do you have on your farm? A; All kinds? {He is very very hesitant to give me any numbers at all. Later he showed me that he has 28 pigs, 50 hens, 28 chicken, no sheep. One needs a lot of land and can'tget much for the wool—it doesn't pay off to do sheep. Before the revolution he had about seven sheep butnow it isn^t profitable—it wasn't then either but now he can think about mxikingprofit He has seven rabbits and three cows.) Q: How much milk do you get from these? A: I don't teU anyone how much milk I get. I make enough for the family and sell quite a bit. Q: Doyou take thecows to pasture on your own land or on the village land? 265

A: On our own land. They graze on one and a half hectares of land. Q: How muchlanddoyou use for other vegetables? A: The potatoes are growing on 1.5 hectares of land. We dont use much for carrots -just enough for our own family. The same goes for parsnips, kohlrabi, onions, and cabbage. Q; Do you think that you would like to buy more land or get more land by some other means? A: I dont think so but it is quite possible. The land is better ifit is contiguous with the original plot I have now. Q: If I am a person who wants my land back—what do I need to do to get it? what is the process? A: At the beginning of this process it was not very complicated but now it is getting very complicated. The fees and taxes are higher. Until now everything was owned by the state, it was state property. But to get your land, the first thing you would have to do is go to the podzemkovy knihu (Official Land Documentation Records). Then you sign a paper and there is some paperwork and 3^u have to pay a fee. Q: How much time does it take for this process to go through? A: Well, in the beginning the price was very low and now they saw that people really want more and more land and the prices have increased. . Q: How much are these fees? A: I dont know for sure but one list is about 100-120 crowns. Now the price has increased to 3,000 crowns. Then again at the Geodeziu (administrative office) we must also pay a fee. They will formulate a document that is put into the Podzemfujva Kniha (oflSdal land documentation records). The office is 266

located in Spisska Nova Ves, the regional capital, so you have to take a day off from work to get aU of tiiis done. The third thing is to make a fonnal petition/application for your land at the agricultural collective fann. You have to put in this request/iapplication one year ahead of the year in which you want to b^in using your land. Then the land is measured etc. You have to give them a long time to measure the land/lot for you. For example, if you want land this year you have to put in your petition for it last year. The Podzemkovy Urad actually does the measuring for you. They do not give you back exactly the same land that your grandparents had —the size/measurement wiU be accurate but the actual site where the land is located may be different. Q: Did the people at the collective farm want you to take the land'? Did they facilitate this? A: Well, they have to. Q: Did you study farming or agriculture at aU in school? A: No, I studied machines in a kind of technical secondary school. That training helps now with machinery. Q: Would you say that it is very difficult for a person who doesn't know anything about farming to begin to farm here? A: K" a person wants to do it and they put their mind to it they can do it. Q: Many old folks in Kdjsov have told me that young people are notcapableof learning to farm. A: Well it is difficult to go to school and leam it—it would take years to get into school. Q: Where do you get information on fertilizer, pesticides, and other information like this? 267

A: There is going to be a State infonnation school. But until now there is no "extension service" here. At this point, Vlado's father, a man of some fifty years enters the conversation, ffis fa&er states tiiat they do not have everything they need to farm yet. They are missing one important machine-a combine—piece of machinery Q:When was it better? Now or before the Revolution? A: Now—things are fi«er~for everything. We had forty years when the state owned eveiything and now I will be fifty years old. Q: Do you remember how it was before socialism when everyone had their own land? Was it better then? A: I would say things are better now. It was poorer before socialism and we didnt have technology like now (e.g. tractors) but it was better before. Q: How was it to work on your family's farm? Do you remember? A: Well I am from a different village. In 1976 the land was taken by the collective farm. Now only one person has reclaimed their land back. Now more than that because all the young people dont want it back. Everything is destroyed from what it was like before. Here the land was taken 1958—a lot earlier than in the other village. One man reclaimed his land th^e. His name isZ . He took back land and so did his wife. Youngpeopledont want their land back but my son is different. I always worked for agriculture and I taught bim many things. Whatever he doesn't know I help him. Plus my son has a real interest in agriculture and that is the key. The father is a beekeeper and makes honey for sale. 4 H t »4 M t t i I I M M I l»l M I M t * m « M m t »« M

aStJjjta aytjo sjutys^no at/^ uo sppif sjy puv stwyoityo puv sSid sjy sn pamoys 9jj -uunf sryjounof v uo sn ^oof opoy^ uaym pspuB ormcuajm syx cnou vuT^ V dn jjvfs joSumij t> 9ifTjui Of pjo oat 9jv 9jdoad pjo 9yz puv auay ajdoadSuno^ mstj auo Bj3y$

3STmoaq st ptw] Ji9yf yooq }ou op sjdodd BJOW uosuaj 9yj^ jfooq puvj Jtdy) J9S Of aiup Suoj V ^tpn fou ptp z% ztyyi Sutftms iCj sama^uoo uaypjJ s, optri/^ •poqfucnojno cnojSuvo 9cn mouStnypCiaaa ifoof ^ayf—tusipnoosSttunp Sutyfou —saofi^od V V9aafau~s98ncy Jtayf punojv ttspuvSKup v 9any tisca^^tiprp 9ido9d aJ9ff \aosfag uijam v sumaio^yStauc^^jivi Knq zcnivyfjno tmodf) JaduMox)ii3Aas iCaaoui;^in9i{:^sasiBin3[i^ :y ^iCaaoii 's88a '3[i.iiu ono^ inag—iCauom ^om 33[Bm noX op naijM :b

89? 269

12^ Interview Number #4--A Private Farmer From Outside of Spis

The following interview is an excerpt taken from a transcription of an interview with a private farmer from the Kosice district (as opposed to the Spis district). In this case the main difference in reclaiming lands is directly related to the geography of the land. Land in the area south of Kosice, just north of the Hungarian border is extremely flat and suitable for the large scale iadustrialized agriculture. This type of land contrasts greatly with the billy slopes of Kojsov. As a result of this the size of parcels reclaimed area significantly larger. In the case below, one man decided to reclaim the land of his father, and it happened to be a rather significant amount—some sixty hectares. The way I met this farmer is telling of the predicament in which private farmers find themselves. I met the farmer though his wife and son who go from village to village in their family-owned truck selling potatoes and other types of vegetables. Given the lack of marketing structure in which to sell one's produce, this particular family was forced to sell independenUy. In Kojsov, they worked out of the back of their truck and sold aU one Monday. When I learned that these individuals were running a private family farm, I immediately began to inquire about their operation. They invited me to visit their farm and I took them up on their opportunity. I was not the first to interview them. A host of Belgian journalists had already produced stories on reprivatization in Slovakia using the Solnik family*^ as a model.

45Not their real names. 270

Since I had arrange this particular interview with the woman and her son, I assumed that I would mostly be interviewing them. However, I soon found that the wife and son would be quieted by the husband / father who was enthused to tell me about their farm. Janho, spoke non-stop to us. His oldest son and wife— who I met selling potatoes in the vULage were present at the interview but stayed far to the sidelines of the interview. We had a wonderful time with this family. After the interview, he took us out for a tour of his property in his truck. He had reclaimed some sixty acres of land. The land was not completely contiguous but broken up into three large tracks. People had sabotaged his crops rej^atedJy by stealing large quantities of his crop as well as destroying fields, lleamed about the harmful affects of village jealousy fh)m this interview in a way that I had not been able to in Kojsov. Since no one in Kojsov had reprivatized enough land to become a productive farmer, I had not experienced the affects of jealousy, the maintaining of the social order and coUectivistic ideology. This proved once again the overall influence that jealousy, envy, and rivalry have on the actual production level of a farmer. He was a tall blade of grass being mowed by villagers at every turn. Onto the interview.^ Q: How much land have you reprivatized'? A: Just a little over sixty hectares. It was the land of my mother's father's and my father's father. I have always wanted to farm this land. I really couldnt believe it when the Revolution took place. I knew immediately what I was going to do. Fortunately my family has been able to help us. Mywife works as hard as I do and my son is my ri^t hand man. I have to oversee the workers you cannot trust them. 271

Q: Why can't you trust them? A: I cant trust them because I really dont know who my friends are in this village. Ihave lived here aU my life and reclaiming my land and trying to do something with it has caused me to make a lot of enemies. You would think that some of these people, at least a few, would respect me for trying to do them a favor. I give work to these people when they have none. Eveiyone is getting fired from their state run jobs, and I hire people here so they can put food on their tables. I even pay them in kind sometimes—with vegetables. At any rate I always sell my produce below the market price in the dties. You would think that it is really obvious— that I could be seen as someone who helps people—by hiring them and by selling them vegetables at a cheaper price than they get at the market. But that is not at all how people here see me. Most of the time they wont speak to me or my family now. They just dont respect my operation-no matter how much hard woric we put into it. They have destroyed my fields and stolen about five hectares of vegetables in all this year. I had to spend a lot of money getting a ni^t watchman who does nothing but guards my fields every night. It is terrible. Really, it is just terrible. At least I am greeted more kindly in the other villages when I go to sell potatoes because they know well sell them good potatoes cheaply. Happiness is when a person has his healtii and what they need to do their work—technical stuff. Until now the state has helped out the private farmer to a degree and we hope that it will continue. Q: Where is your land located? A: Here on the side... around the village. Wellgoseeit. Q: Are the parcels contiguous? 272

A: No, I have land in various places. Q: Have you even had the opportunity to wUyour produce to a state sponsored officixd market? A: Not this year, but I have heard that this is suppose to come shortly. lam not holding my breath. We dont have a stable or secure market. Understand? The state wont buy back our proceeds. For example, right now I have cabbage and I dont have any place to sdl it. I have to lower the price very low so it will sell. It's not like in America or Germany wh«*e if I grow a crop the state will subsidize it. For example, I have kohlrabi. I dont know what Fm going to do with it. I have to find some, some ,some market to sell it. And the s£ime for carrots and parsnips. Q: Can you seU any in Hungary? (His property is only minutes from the Hungarian border.) A: That would be hard. Hungarians have their own produce. This is a real problem—selling our goods. The state does not buy up our goods like in Germany and the U.S. You understand? Q: Given all the pilfering and sabotaging you are experiencing do you think it was worth it to privatize your family^s land? A: Absolutely. I am happy to work hard and I hope to have a lot more success in the future. I dont see how it could get worse.... 273

12.9 Conchisioiis This chapter has described the reprivatization process in Ebjsov. A description of this process has demonstrated that reprivatization is far more complex than western economists and romanticizing politicians once assumed. Kojsov is an interesting case in point. This village, like some 31% of other villages in the region of Spis, is characteristic of an overall lag in reclaiming family lands. VOlag^^, with the exception of two individuals, refuse to adopt the state sponsored reprivatization campaign. They claim to have few individuals willing to work the land and that the quality of the land has been destroyed by collective farming. short, the land that was "collectivized" by communists is nothing like the land their parents owned and managed. As Gerald Creed (1995:35) writes about the point of view of Bulgarian villagers, decollectivization is perceived more like collectivization than one might assume. Post-socialist land restitution was a reprise of communist coUectivization-an old song in a new voice. Both programs were attempts by the state to force villagers into radically different agricultural arrangements. "Collectivization was an attack by communists in the name of a proletarian working class; decollectivization was an attack by urban intellectuals in the name of western oriented capitalist entrepreneurs." hi Kojsov, no statement could be truer—villagers avoided reprivatizing land despite variation in household composition, income, savings, access to capital, and ability to effectively farm. Reprivatization was a new tune to an old song and the villagers in Kbjsov were not about to start singing. 274

13. CHAPTER TEN Conclusions

"One of the most interesting phenomena that observers have noted is the contradiction between the momentous poliUcal changes of regime and the far slower pace of actual social and economic transformation" (Vasary, 1995:9).

This dissertation was an ethnographic investigation of village life in esistem Slovakia after the fall of communism in 1989 and after Slovakia became an independent Republic in 1993. In order to understand the impact of economic and political chaos on villagers, the household economy was used as the point of analysis. By analyzing household composition, production, and consumption patterns, this research described actual behavior played out by villagers in an attempt to cope with life in post-Communist Slovakia. A goal of this dissertation was to come to terms with the disinterest of Kojsovers in reprivatizing land. Chapters on household consumption, production, and consumption showed respectively that households consist of extended family members who work together; that households are capable of producing a great deal of food for their own subsistence; and that households buying power has decreased due to the burden of inflation coupled to high imemployment and wages that do not equal rate of inflation. Given these circumstances plus the fact that 60 percent of other towns and villages in the r^on of Spis have reprivatized land, one mi^t expect Kojsovers to foUow suit. After all, they have maintained the extended family, the knowledge, skills, and 275

they have a great need to compensate their present earnings. However, Ebjsov, like some 30% of all the villages and towns in Spis demonstrates an extreme lack of interest in reprivatization of family lands. This dissertation gives several reasons for this namely that the costs are too high. The actual fitnandal burden is one type of cost and the social burden is another. Villagers simply to not have the capital to take the risks needed to foster real entrepreneurial behavior. Villagers are also keenly aware of a cultural more which maintains that capitalism, entrepreneurs, and the rich are negative. A good villager attempts to maintain a fair degree of egalitarianism, a collective spirit rather than one of individuality and competitiveness. Thus these two reasons defy the intentions and plans of politicians such as Vaclav Havel and economists associated with the World Bank. This dissertation sheds some lig^t on the complexity of the reprivatization process. It demonstrates the motives for resisting to the top- down administrative prt^am for restructuring the countiyside. Villagers in Kojsov, are a case study in resistance, and show that the process is far fiivm simple. The reprivatization process forces villagers to examine their attachment to their family lands. It also requires villagers to assess the value of hard work, autonomy, and control over one's labor. Reprivatizing land demands individuals and households legitimize ag^culture, the family farm anri land-ownership as valuable modes of existence. Assessing the value of family lands and the potential to farm them necessarily entails making value judgments about the statuses of fanning, family farms and peasants in generaL 276

However, Communisin was to have ended the chapter on European peasants (Franklin 1969). For some fortyyears, individuals have listened to the rhetoric which has not supported any form of family farming—not as entrepreneurs and not as peasants, bistead the state actively promoted a "romantic vision of the peasantry" as symbols of the nation, their tools, signs legitimizing ethnicity. Peasants internalized the n^ative representations of traditional peasant life promoted under Socialism and hold vivid memories of the hardships of that life (Vasary, 1995:13). A precise definition of what exactly peasant attitudes are is somewhat problematic, but it seems to include elements of a general nature, independent from farming itself, and of relevance to any other productive endeavor. Determining a precise definition of the peasantry in Slovakia is also problematic. Individuals who intensively cultivate their land, live and assist in extended family groupings, and whose economic and political situation has not left them with little more than the reapings of their own kitchen gardens and some unstable underpaid emplo3nnent, are resisting taking up rights to the very means of production that has historically been their mainstay-land. Are Kbjsovers peasants? According to Shanin's definition, which satisfactorily incorporates peasant-workers and part-time farmers, the answer is yes. Kojsovers are peasants. The peasants of Kojsov in Kearney's words, are a type of peasant who are powerfully disruptive of the classic structure of peasants as a social categoiy. Kojsovers threaten the epistemological and political bases of peasantry. "For the invention of the peasant was an attempt not only to contain troublesome new types of others that have come into the purview of anthropology at mid-centuiy but also to preserve the basic 277

Structure of classic anthropology in a historical period that is inexorably dissolving it. Peasants are—categorically— an imperfect social type for modem sensibilities" (Kearney, 1996:5). Thus it is very probable that small scale farming will continue to develop, however, such development will not "progress" towards some romantic re-creation of the former traditional lifestyle, but toward new forms articulated at the local level and appropriate to conditions today. Kojsovers will not reprivatize until the barriers, both social and economic, are replaced with structural and ideological support. Their passivity demands the centralized economy react. Otherwise, they wiU proceed with caution in this most post- Socialist era. 278

14. REFERENCES

Acheson, Julianna 1993 The Slovak Gtchm Garden. Poster session given at the 92nd Meeting of American Anthropology Association) Washington, D.C.

Agh,A. 1992 "The Year of STurcutral Stalemate." in MOPE, pp. 17-35. Budapest.

Alexander, June (]h-anatir 1987 Thp Tminiyrflnt Church and f!nTniniinitv: Pittsburyh's Slovak

Catholics and Luthftrans, 1880-1915. Pittshxireh: Pittsburgh Press.

Anderson, Benedict 1983 TmayineH CnminiiTiities London: Verson.

Anderson, Robert T. 1971 Traditional Europe: A Studv in Anthropology and Historv Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc.

Barlett, Peggy F. 1989 "Litroduction: Dimensions and Dilemmas of Householding" in The Household Economy edited bv Richard R. Wilk. Boulder Westview Press. 279

Brock, IVCchael 1976 The Slovak Natinnul AwakAniwyr Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Critchfield, Richard 1994 Villagera: Values. Altered lives. New York: Doubleday.

Cheal, David 1989 "Stategies of Resource Management in Household Economies: Moral Economy or Political Economy?" in The Household Economy: Reconsidering nomestic Mode of Production, ed. by Richard R. Wilk. BouldenWes-tview Press.

Chury, Slavko 1993 'Testovanie a Choroby Zemiakov v Liptove v Polovici 19. Storocia V Zrkadle Archivneho Materialu" (The Cultivation and Disease of Potatoes in Liptov in the second half of the Nineteenth Century in Archival Material" in Slovenskv Narodopis: 1:41. Bratislava.

Clark, Grada 1989 "Separation Between Trading and home for Asante Women in Kumasi Central Market, Ghana" in The Household Economy: the Domestic Mode of Production, ed. by Richard R. Wilk. BouldenWes^view Press. 280

Creed, Gerald W. 1995 "An Old Song in a New Voice: DecoUectLvization in Bulgaria" in East European CnTnmiiTnfiffg? Stniyylp fnr Rulfltir^ in TiirhnlAnt

Times hvDavid A, Kideckel, Boulder: Westview Press.

Drakulic', Slavenka 1993 How We Survived CnmimmiOTn ^nd Ev^n New York: HarperCollins.

Franklin, S.H. 1969 The European Peasantry: The Final Phase. London: Methuen.

F\ink, Nanette and Magda Mueller 1993 Gender Politics and Post-Communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the Former Sodet Union. New York: Routledge.

Galantai, Jozsef 1992 Trianon and the Protection of Bnrfflppat- Corvina Books.

Hann, C. M. 1993 "From Production to Property: Decollectivization and the Family-Land Relationship in Contemporary Hungary." in Man 28:1-22.

Hart, Gillian 281

1992 "Imagined Unities: Constructions of'The household'in Economic Theory" in TTnH^rgtanHiTur Rcnnnmic Process edited bvSutti Ortiz and Susan Lees. New York: Lanham.

Havel, Vaclav 1992 Riimmftr Meditations. New York: Vintage Books. ilrasko, Vlado 1992 "Bytostna Spatost s Podou" (Substantial Union with the Soil) in Slovensko. Martin, Matica slovenska. Jan.-Feb. Vol. 1:37-39.

Jurkovic, Dusan 1908 "Slovak Popular Art" in Seton-Watson.

Kearney, AGchael 1996 Rprnnfff>p«:iiali>ing fht^ Peasantry: Anthropology in Global Perspective. Boulder: Westview Press.

Kideckel, David A. ed. 1995 Tgflst r^f^mTHVinTties: the Struggle for Balance in Turbulent Times. Boulder Westview Press.

Kideckel, David A. 1995 "Two bddents on the Plains in southern Transylvania: Pitfalls of Privatization in a Romanian Community" in 282

East European the Struggle for Balance in Turbulent Titneft- Boulden Westview Press.

Kopanic, Michael 1986 Industrial Trade Unions in Snvalria, 1918-1929. Dissertation at Universtiy of Pittsburgh.

Kirschbaum, Stanislav J. 1995 The Riatnrv of Slovalcifl- Thft Struyyle for Survival St Martin's Press.

Luxton,M^ 1980 More than a Labour of Love: Three Generations of Women's Work in the Home. Oshawa, Ontario: Women's Educational Press.

Magocsi, Paul Robert 1993 The Rusvn.«^ of Slovakia: An Historical Survey. New York: Columbia University Press.

Matica slovenska 1995 Slovensko. VoL 3 Martin, Slovakia.

Marer, Paul; Arvay, Janos; O'connor, John; Schrenk, Martin; and Swanson, Daniel, 283

1992 TTistnripallvPlflTififfH F^nnomies: a Guide to the Data. Washington DC: World Bank.

Minnich, Robert G. 1991 "The Gift of Kbline" and the Articulation of Identiy in Slovene Peasant Society" in Stockholm, Sweden, Vol. 21.

Meyerstein, GoldiePiroch 1959 Selected Problems of Bilingiialigm Among Tmtniyrant filnvalca. Ph.D. dissertation: University of Michigan.

Narodpisny Ustav 1990 Etnnyrafickv Atlas Slovenska. Bratislava: Veda, Vydavatelstvo SAV.

Nemcik, Jozef ONV, Odbor Kultury, Spisska Nova Ves.

Netting, Robert McC 1989 "Smallholders, Householders, Freeholders: Why the Family Farm Works WEU Worldwide" in Wilk. 284

Netting, Robert R. Wilk and El Amould (eds.X Households: comparative and ffistorical Studies of the Domestic €hroupd. Berkele}^ Univ^^lyof California Press.

Nyrop, Richard F. 1981 Czechoslovalq'a- A Study Washington D.C.:U.S. Government Printing OflBce.

Odbor, Kultury, 1993 Spisska Nova Ves. Slovak Republic.

Olsen, M. EL G. 1986 "Authority and conflict in Slavonian Households: The Effect of Social Environment on Intra-Household Processes" in Wilk et. al.

Pollak, Janet Sue

1973 A studv of Slovak Witch BeliefsJh.d. Dissertation. Rutgers Universily, New Brunswick.

Rose, Richard and EvgenyTikhomirov 1993 Who Grows Food in Eastern Europe? Studies in Public Policy Number 209. Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow GIDQEI, Scotland. 285

Rosebeny, William 1989 Anthropologies and ^stories: Essaysinculture, History, and Political Economy. New Brunswick: Rutgers iiniversity Press.

Rychlik, Jan. 1993 Tozemkova Reforma na Slovensku v Rokoch 1945-1950" in HistorickvCasopis. 41. 4: 394-413.

Salzmann, Zdenek and Vladimir Scheufler 1974 Komorov: A Czech Farming Village. New York: Holt, rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Seckar, Alvena 1948 "Slovak WpHding in NPW VnrkFnlklnre Ouarterlvr 3:189-204.

Seton-Watson, R.W.

1908 Racial Problems in Hnnyarv. New York: Howard Fertig. (Reprinted in 1972.)

Scott, James 1985 Weapons of WA^I^; Evervdav Forms of Peifgj^T^t. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Shanin,T. 286

1990 Pffipi'ng Peasants. Oxford: Blackwell.

Shepard-Hu^es, Nanpy 1993 American AntrhopologicalMeetingsSouthem,R.W. 1953 Mflh'pg of the Middle Ages. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Slavec, liigrid 1991 "Slovenian Ethnology Between the Past and the Present" in EthnnlnyiaSranriiTiflvicfl. Stockholm,Sweden. Vol.21.

Sntydr, Edward 1996 "The Mill and the Spring: Identity, Ideology and Historical Reconstruction in Slovakia's Environmental Movement". Paper presented at the 95th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropology Association in San Franciscom, November 20-24,1996.

Staruch, Sally K. Ballog 1990 The Contemnorarav Slovak folk Cog*iini*» TrnHition: Ethnicitv and the Invention of Culture. PhJ). Dissffltation, University of Massachussetts.

—1983 "The role of the Matica slovenska in the collection and preservation of Slovak Ethnogaphy". Paper presented at the American Association 287

or the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 16th annual meeting. Kansas City, Mb.

Stein, Howard 1972 An Igthnn-Historic Studv of Slovak-American Identity. Ph.d. Dissertation. University of Pittsburg.

Svec, Christopher 1995 Personal Communication. Pittsburg, Pa.

Urbancova, Viera 1987 Slnvfttiaka Etnngrflfia v 19. Storocii (Slovak Ethnography in the 19th Century) Martin: Matica Slovenska.

Vasary, Ildiko 1995 "Labyrinths of Freedom: An Agricultural Community in Post- Socialist Hungary" in East European rnmmnnities: The Struggle for Balance in Turbulent TSWIPS hv David A, Kidflckel, Boulder: Westview Press.

VEDA, Vydavatelstvo Slovenskej Akademie Vied 1986 Deiinv Slovenska IV (od Kbnca 19. Stor. do roku 1918) (Slovak Kstoiy: IV From the end of the 19th century to the year 1918) Bratislava. 288

Vsetecka, Jiri a Kbl. 1990 Rok na Ceakoslovensko 1989. Prague: Academia.

Weismantel, M.J. 1989 "Making Breakfast and Raising Babies: The Zumbagua Household as Constituted Process" in The Household Economy: Reconsidering the Domestic Mode of Production, ed. by Richard R. Wilk. Boulder: Westyiew Press.

Wilk, Richard R. 1989 "Decision Making and Resource Flows within the Household: Beyond the Black Box" in The Household Economy: Reconsidering the Domestic Mode of Production, ed. hv Richard R. Wilk. Boulden Westyiew Press.

Weaton, Bernard and ZdenekKavan 1992 The Velvet Revolution Boulder: Westview Press.

Wolf, Eric 1966. Englewood Qifis, NJ: Prentice HalL

World Bank 1990 An Agricultural Strategy for Poland: Renort of the Polish EurnpeflT^ rnniTnimitv. WnrlH Ranlr Task Fnrrft. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. 289

1992 Sfaitiatir.al States of the Former USSR. Washington DC World Bank Studies of Economies in Transformation Number 3.