Attila Gábor Hunyadi

This volume of studies presents the relationship between society and state in 20th century Transylvania belonging since 1918 to Romania. The articles written mainly by Transylvanian historian, political scientist and anthropologist scholars, university lecturers present and emphasise the political, cultural and economic structure and self-organization of different entities of Transylvanian society - Hungarians, Romanians, Germans, Jews, political-cultural-economic elites, peasants and urban population - as a resistance against or adaptation towards state policies (centralization, assimilation, repression, censorship of culture, command on economic and ideological sphere) during the interwar and WWII period (1918-1944), as well as during the socialist regime (1945-1989).

A nyugat-európai szövetkezeti modellek sajátos módon adoptált és adaptált formákban, típusokban honosíttattak meg Kelet-Közép-Európa államaiban, így Magyarországon, majd Erdélyben is, mely 1918-20 között Románia részévé vált. Tanulmányunk néhány kutatás-módszertani kérdés mentén a magyar országos szövetkezeti intézmények kialakulását és modernizációban betöltött szerepét vázolja föl, kitérve olyan regionális szervezetekre is, amelyek központi szövetkezeti, valamint közigazgatási- minisztériumi kezdeményezésre alakultak meg egy gazdaságilag fejletlenebb régió modernizálása céljából, az ún. erdélyrészi (székelyföldi) régiófejlesztési akció keretében 100 évvel ezelőtt. Javaslatunk, hogy a gazdag múltú és sikeresnek bizonyult, ám sajnos 1945 után elsorvasztott polgári szövetkezeti mozgalmunk jelentőségét a mai szempontok, prioritások szerint inter- és multidiszciplinárisan közelítse meg a gazdaságtörténet, hiszen számos tanulság és máig hasznosítható következtetés vonható le a szövetkez...

The Western-European cooperative models were adopted ingeniously in the East-Central –European countries and were adapted to their specific social and economic contexts in different cooperative types and forms, thus in Hungary and Transylvania, the latter becoming part of Romania since 1918.

Our study presents along different research and methodological hypotheses the development of the country-wide cooperative institutions and their role in the modernization, emphasizing also those regional organizations, as well, which were constituted on the impetus of the central cooperative organs or on the initiative of the ministries and administration. These all aimed the modernization of the economically underdeveloped regions, e.g. the ministerial action (project) for the development of the Transylvanian (Szekler) region between 1902-1918.

We propose that the economic history should take an interdisciplinary approach when it presents the importance of the cooperative movement with its economically rich and geographically well extended, socially very dense network of cooperative, that unfortunately was nationalized after 1945. The reassessment of this great cooperative movement heritage gives us, in 2013, valuable examples of good practice, especially concerning the present CAP inside the European Union and the micro-regional development in Hungary, Romania and Transylvania.

This volume of studies presents the relationship between society and state in 20th century Transylvania belonging since 1918 to Romania. The articles written mainly by Transylvanian historian, political scientist and anthropologist scholars, university lecturers present and emphasise the political, cultural and economic structure and self-organization of different entities of Transylvanian society - Hungarians, Romanians, Germans, Jews, political-cultural-economic elites, peasants and urban population - as a resistance against or adaptation towards state policies (centralization, assimilation, repression, censorship of culture, command on economic and ideological sphere) during the interwar and WWII period (1918-1944), as well as during the socialist regime (1945-1989).

The French Agricultural Cooperatives appeared in the last decades of the 19th century as a remedy to the viticulture crises, than they regained importance after the 1929 financial crisis and were offered a role in implementing the European Recovery Program (Marshall plan) on local level, by constituting the so called CUMAs (Cooperative d'Utilisation Machines Agricoles). In the cadres of the CAP, in the EU, they play also an important role in the reform and reorientation of agriculture towards sustainable and ecological development. They also contribute to marketing guaranteeing the origin and quality of the products as the "Product of Bretagne" and the "Agriconfiance" marketing chains described in this article proved.

The French Agricultural Cooperatives appeared in the last decades of the 19th century as a remedy to the viticulture crises, than they regained importance after the 1929 financial crisis and were offered a role in implementing the European Recovery Program (Marshall plan) on local level, by constituting the so called CUMAs (Cooperative d'Utilisation Machines Agricoles). In the cadres of the CAP, in the EU, they play also an important role in the reform and reorientation of agriculture towards sustainable and ecological development. They also contribute to marketing guaranteeing the origin and quality of the products as the "Product of Bretagne" and the "Agriconfiance" marketing chains described in this article proved.

Seeds under the glow. This article commemorates pastor and community-developer Francis Balázs 60 years after his demise. Balázs, after studying in Oxford and Berkeley and having visited Kagawa, Tagore and Gandhi, wrote in Hungarian one of his books, "My journey around the world" in 1928, was the first community developer to establish a Rural development cooperative, called Aranyosszéki Vidékfejlesztő Szövetkezet in the early thirties, that integrated all the other types off cooperatives. Balázs published lot of articles in English, poems, tales and novels, sociological and cooperative development articles in the twenties and thirties. Unfortunately, he died early at 36 years old.

This collective volume was the result of an interdisciplinary research led by Attila Gábor Hunyadi with colleagues in the field of history, sociology, economics and law. After a foreword signed by Hunyadi, who also signed three articles and the annotated bibliography of the volume, there is a chapter with the history of cooperative networks in Transylvania, Hungary and Romania, as well as in other regions of Europe and the world. A chapter presents the different types of cooperatives, another chapter contains two articles signed by Szabó G. Gábor and Simon Sándor treating the cooperative model of business on the basis of Danish and Holland examples, then a law-legislation chapter presents the current legal context of cooperative development. Short biographies and a colored map were designed to illustrate the economic, financial and social importance of the cooperative movement in Transylvania, Romania, Hungary and in Europe.