On diverging roads? Patterns of territorial development in the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border zone (1910 – 1941)

Abstract

On diverging roads? Patterns of territorial development in the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border zone (1910 -1941) The paper investigates the transformation of territorial development disparities in the Hungarian-Czechoslovak border zone (the former territory of Esztergom and Komárom counties) from 1910 until 1941, based on a settlement-level quantitative database. In order to interpret statistical data, quantitative data analysis was integrated with a rural restructuring approach. Changes in the role of the state, economy and local societies are investigated in line with a multidimensional development index. Since the river Danube constituted the new state border from 1920, local societies were formed by different state policies: while the Hungarian government did not intend to change the land concentration, the Czechoslovak state carried out a rather radical land reform in order to dissolve large estates and promote agricultural smallholders (predominantly those belonging to the Czech and Slovak ethnicities). Changes in the multidimensional development index show that the level of land concentration and local characteristics of economic production (the ratio of non-agricultural population) can be consi-dered as decisive factors both in 1910 and 1941.