Lengyel, Eszter will explore forms of work related to the sphere of privatized gardening (háztáji). Her work, thus, will address one of the most important fields of the second economy in rural communities. She will focus on how work was organized in these family-run plots and how it was related to the agricultural cooperatives that often provided technology and resources (Fél-Hofer, Ö. Kovács, Varga, Iordachi et al). She will explore the Trans-Danubian region (especially villages of the district of Kapuvár, e.g. Hövej and Öntésmajor), which has hitherto only rarely been studied by historians of socialist agriculture. Her work will focus in particular on the morality of different types of work, including passivity and subversion in the collective farms and privatized gardening, and she will consider which types of activities were accepted or rejected.
The primary sources for her research include the local documents of the agricultural cooperatives, archival documents of the County of Győr-Moson-Sopron and the District of Kapuvár, e.g. documents of the Department of Agriculture and reports of Convocation, as well as the local press and oral history sources.
Keywords: agricultural work, collective farm, second economy, privatized gardening, Transdanubia