Zsófia Sivák

I have been interested in the situation of the Roma communities in Hungary for a long time. Initially I was focusing on the Roma groups living in the eastern part of the country, however recently I have decided to widen my research into a larger area and work with them in several parts of the country.

Currently the situation of the Roma ethnicity in Hungary is regarded mostly as a negative one due to the social prejudices and stereotypes, also as a result of the widespread common talk in the society. In my own experiences too, when it comes to the visual representation of the Roma community we are mostly shown their poverty and struggles, whereas some other -equally important and interesting- aspects of their lives are never represented. Such are their deeply rooted traditions, and particular values, customs, rites and rituals, many of which are still an integral part of their everyday life.

In my work I am documenting public and private Roma events, both in the capital and in the countryside. Contrary to the beliefs and prejudices these events are not about the lack of resources or the suffering and poverty. These occasions focus on their most important values: family life and belonging, with music, dancing and feasting coming to the forefront. In my work I am documenting public and private Roma events, both in the capital and in the countryside. Contrary to the beliefs and prejudices these events are not about the lack of resources or the suffering and poverty. These occasions focus on their most important values: family life and belonging, with music, dancing and feasting coming to the fore front.

Over the last year I have joined them in a wide range of events, from authentic Roma weddings to Roma farewell parties, as well as local cooking competitions or smaller Village Day celebrations.

These private often very close-knit family events have their own diverse but surprisingly strict rules, which can vary from family to family or depending on which group within the Roma ethnicity they belong to (olah, beas, rumongo), and also largely affected by how much traditions are kept alive in a certain community.

In a traditional Roma (olah) family everything has an important role, from the seating arrangements to the colors or clothing items which have strong symbolic meanings, even to the order of the drinks and meals as they are served at a celebratory event.

At these special occasions women and men bear very different rules: women look after the children and the food to be served, they are not allowed to drink alcohol and can only sit at the table to eat after the men have done so, or they are seated at a separate table. The men in the family celebrate together, usually without the women. They raise their glasses and propose toasts to good health, to the family, to happiness and the blessing of more children to come. Money also plays an important role at these celebrations; the men often have their musician play specially requested songs to their loved ones and pay some spectacular sums for it. Roma Cultural days, cooking fairs and Mayday celebrations, religious holidays are among the many other important special events in the Roma communities ‘life. At these events the otherwise strict traditions and rules are less emphasized yet the atmosphere is particular. I find the diverse audiences at these gatherings fascinating as they are so much less inhibited, freer and more colorful in their ways of entertainment than many other nationalities, especially compared to Hungarians.

After some initial disdain I was always completely accepted by the group, often treated as a family member. This openness and acceptance move my work to a different level, to a wider concept of examining and mapping human relationships, social interactions and shared experiences. The sociological aspect of the project is only a sideline. One of the most important factors for me is to become a valid and true participant of these events rather than an outsider documenting them.

The tavern, the pub was the defining and fundamental venue of provincial life for a long time. The pub was the place where the laborers threw back the cheapest kind of shots at dawn in order to gain strength for the daily sweat; the place where the retired policeman and firefighter met during the mornings to discuss the weekend’s football matches over a fröccs. It was the place where abandoned husbands could lean on the counter and whine about their problems that life is not worth a dime without a wife who left them on their own for good only a week ago. The pub was the place where no one asked you but someone always listened to you.

In the recent years several rural taverns had to close its doors permanently or had to transform themselves into something totally different, deprived from their original functions. In my photo series I am going to visit and photograph the pubs which are still in business in Heves county's settlements under the population of 3000 inhabitants.

I was born and raised in the county of my project, therefore my choice was a rather personal one. Heves county is located in the northeast part of Hungary, in the Northern Hungary region. It is composed of 107 villages, 3 towns and 11 cities. According to the census carried out in 2018 the population of the county is around 295.000 people, however the tendencies of the past years are showing a constant decrease of this number. The rural life as I know it has started to transform entirely due to the desolation of smaller settlements.

"In our country, and especially in peripheral and semi-peripheral regions, this atrophy is not the result of past decades. The anti-rural politics of nearly 40 years of state socialism, the extermination of traditional agricultural societies in villages via the forced establishment of agricultural cooperatives, and the processes of urbanization have caused enormous damage. The situation was further exacerbated by the loss of about one third of jobs during the change of regime. As a result, unemployment, which had not been formally existing before, has increased dramatically. Although decline naturally cannot be generalized over, there are well-prospering rural areas as well - a prevalence of hopelessness and lack of vision characterizes a significant part of our villages. In the case of many settlements the only reason we cannot say that its destiny will be depopulation and extinction is that misery there reproduces itself."

Besides finding the topic visually interesting and appealing, I can interpret pubs as a kind of pattern as well, through which intend in a way to demonstrate and illustrate the current state of Hungarian countryside together with the social class who lives here.

The current state of pubs is changing accordingly to the above mentioned process. Based on my brief interviews conducted with publicans everyone agreed on the fact that pub culture is decaying and slowly disappearing. There are several reasons that can be held accountable for these drastic changes, mainly the smoking ban on public indoor smoking (introduced in 2012); the banning of slot machines; the appearance and spread of tobacco shops and the expansion of the Internet. Furthermore the innkeepers listed the reducing number of pensioners and the youngsters who are going out in bigger cities among the problems as well.

It was also mentioned several times that people living in small villages can not afford to go to taverns anymore, instead they buy the liquor in shops and consume it at home. Most of the places are working as family businesses, nonetheless the offsprings do not take over the business in most cases, which leads to closure as well.

Reference: Tünde Bogdári, 2018: Társadalmi helyzetfeltárás Dél-Hevesben, Doctoral dissertation, Szent István University, p4