European and Regional Studies Vol. 13, 2018

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae The scientific journal of Sapientia University publishes original papers and surveys in several areas of sciences written in English.

Information about each series can be found at the Internet address http://www.acta.sapientia.ro.

Editor-in-Chief László DÁVID ldavid@ms.sapientia.ro Zoltán KÁSA Laura NISTOR

Main Editorial Board András KELEMEN

Ágnes PETHŐ Emőd VERESS

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae European and Regional Studies Executive Editor Miklós BAKK (Sapientia University, Romania), bakk.miklos@kv.sapientia.ro Guest Editor László MARÁCZ (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) Editorial Board Gabriel ANDREESCU (National School of Political and Administrative Studies Bucharest, Romania) József BAYER (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary) Zoltán BERÉNYI (University of Debrecen, Hungary) Barna BODÓ (Sapientia University, Romania) Magdalena DEMBINSKA (Université de Montréal, Canada) Vasile DOCEA (West University, Timişoara, Romania) András A. GERGELY (Institute of Political Science, Budapest, Hungary) László GULYÁS (University of Szeged, Hungary) Radu LUPESCU (Sapientia University, Cluj/Kolozsvár, Romania) Christoph PAN (Volksgruppen Institut, Bozen, Italy) Erzsébet SZALAYNÉ SÁNDOR (University of Pécs, Hungary) István SZILÁGYI (University of Pécs, Hungary) Márton TONK (Sapientia University, Cluj/Kolozsvár, Romania)

Sapientia University

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ISSN 2066-639X http://www.acta.sapientia.ro

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

European and Regional Studies Volume 13, 2018

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania Scientia Publishing House

Contents Modern Capitals and Historical Peripheries Ferenc HÖRCHER City versus Village: Central European and American Perspectives . . . . . . . . 7 Gábor KOVÁCS City in Modern Cultural Criticism: Lewis Mumford and István Hajnal . . . . 11 Melinda HARLOV-CSORTÁN Heritagizing the Countryside in Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Urban Development László BAJNAI, Attila JÓZSA An Insight into Operational Urban Development in Hungary in the Light of Regulation-Based Urban Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Linguistic Nationalism – Language Rights Srđan M. JOVANOVIĆ The Discursive Creation of the ‘Montenegrin Language’ and Montenegrin Linguistic Nationalism in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Abhimanyu SHARMA Migration, Language Policies, and Language Rights in Luxembourg . . . . . . 87 Book Review Tibor TORÓ Post-Socialist Neoliberalism and the Ethnography of Uncertainty A Review of the Volume Brković, Čarna: Managing Ambiguity: How Clientelism, Citizenship and Power Shape Personhood in Bosnia and Herzegovina.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Modern Capitals and Historical Peripheries

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 7–10

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0001

City versus Village: Central European and American Perspectives Ferenc HÖRCHER

Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, The Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University email: horcher.ferenc@btk.ppke.hu

As part of its framework research programme The Intellectual History of the City conducted by its director, Ferenc Hörcher (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), an international conference took place at the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in October 2017 with the title Modern Capitals and Historical Peripheries – Central Europe from the Perspective of Contested Modernities.1 It was organized by Gábor Kovács (Hungarian academy of Sciences, Budapest) and Tomas Kačerauskas (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius) within a bilateral project supported by the Lithuanian and Hungarian Academies of Sciences, entitled Conceptions of ‘Creative City’ within Central Europe. Historical Images and Empirical Indices, in cooperation also with the Anglo-American Institute of the University of Debrecen represented by Ágnes Györke. In its Call for Papers, the aim of the Conference was formulated in the following way: ‘The planned conference is going to deal with the philosophical, historical, literary, and visual representations of the classical cultural dichotomy of urban centre versus the forgotten countryside in twentieth-century art, culture, and the humanities within an interdisciplinary framework.’ The accepted speakers’ papers tackled this issue from a variety of perspectives, ranging from the history of philosophy, the history of political thought to the different cultural studies, including literary and film studies. Here we present only two samples of these papers, revised for the present printed publication, offered as tasters in a somewhat random way of these exchanges of the exciting recapitulations and (re)constructions of the region’s past and present debates on modern urbanization processes and their advantages and/or misgivings. As the Conference took place in Budapest, the papers published below deal particularly with the intellectual history of Hungary, one concentrating on the Communist period of the country, while the other one is a comparative exercise, analysing a Hungarian and a contemporary North American author from the interwar period, in the context of the Spengler-inspired style of cultural criticism.

1

See the homepage of the Conference at the following link: https://peripheries.webnode.hu/.

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As I assume that the reading of the papers might profit from some background knowledge, let me first make an effort to try to demarcate the intellectual stake of the venture, and then shortly comment on the two papers themselves in a cursory way. As the conceptual opposition in the first part of the title of the conference (Modern Capitals and Historical Peripheries) suggests, the core idea of the organizers was to have a closer look at the deep-seated conflicts or, to put it in a milder way, the diversions of perceptions of metropolitan and rural areas within the Central and Eastern European intellectual history and public mentality, caused by a forced, belated, or simply unjustly one-sided modernization process.

The pattern is well-known: due to socio-political reasons, and in particular to top-down efforts of the central authorities, powers of material and intellectual progress were concentrated in metropolitan centres, while far-away or even nearby rural areas were left untouched by the slightest efforts or even ideas of reforming.

This dichotomy between the living standards, lifestyles, ways of thinking and forms of self-expression of populations of modernized capitals and innocent country-sides, lagging behind the former in all their major social, economic, and cultural markers, was a returning theme of the generations of intellectual commentators and social critics who were contemporaries of these shocking signs of unequal growth, or even unbridgeable schisms within particular political communities. Some of the witnesses to it saw in it a proof of Central Europe’s preserved innocence, which helped to save at least the rural regions from the social and political corruption of enforced industrialization, while others called for a speeding up of the process of urbanization to make up leeway. The conflict between the two types of explanation took the form of the opposition between Westernizers and nationalists (narodniks – zapadniks, populists – urbanites).

Just to give a single example, the legendary 20th-century Hungarian political thinker and politician, István Bibó, who – although himself an urban intellectual – stood quite close to what is translated to English as the movement of ‘populist’ writers (in Hungarian: népi írók mozgalma), claimed that what we witnessed here was an almost unavoidable part of The Miseries of East European Small States.2 On the other hand, new generations of the intellectual history of the region tend to warn to hold back from typically partisan discourses of belatedness: they claim that what distorts the historical reliability of this approach is nothing less than the misguided application of a foreign pattern to the historical process of the region.3 2 3

István Bibó. 2015. Miseries of East European Small States. In: István Bibó: The Art of Peacemaking: Political Essays. New Haven–London: Yale University Press. 130–180.

See for example: A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe, eds: Balázs Trencsényi, Maciej Janowski, Monika Baar, Maria Falina, Michal Kopecek. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. For an overview of the differences between the approaches of Western and Central European historians, see the present author’s paper: Ferenc Hörcher: The V4 Cooperation and the European Schism over the Migration Crisis: The History of Political Thought in the Service of Political Analysis. In: Fekete Balázs, Gárdos-Orosz Fruzsina (eds),

City versus Village: Central European and American Perspectives

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But is there an alternative to this approach? Here, new developments in intellectual history and cultural studies might offer helping hands and call attention to the weaknesses of a purely economic or social historical approach. As can be seen in the two papers below, different methodologies are available to tackle the issues in the various disciplines. Gábor Kovács’s paper is a proof that reliance on the comparative method still promises fruitful in intellectual history. He compares the often surprising similarities between the approaches of a Western and a Central European scholar of urbanization, namely that of the American urban theorist, Lewis Mumford, and of the Hungarian social historian, István Hajnal respectively. Melinda Harlov-Csortán, on the other hand, is conducting a research into the rising discipline of cultural heritage studies and approaches the issue of the conflict between urban and rural subcultures in Hungary from the point of view of a relatively new disciplinary background. Let us see what the two different approaches offer the reader.

Kovács is an expert of interwar intellectual history in Hungary, within a Central European (mainly German and Austro-Hungarian) historical background.

His hero, István Hajnal, is himself a recent invention of the canonizing effort of revisionist history writing in the Hungary of the transition period. Being both a social historian and a paleographer, Hajnal represented a rather eccentric form of historical writing. Reintroduced by László Lakatos, among others, in the early 80s, his output is bravely claimed to have ‘suddenly burst into public consciousness as an oeuvre comparable with and compatible with the Annales.’4 Although he became a corresponding member of the Academy in 1928, a full member in 1939, and was a professor of Modern History at Budapest University from 1930 to 1949, he represented a subcurrent in the interwar period and was put on the agenda of a renewed Hungarian historiography as an alternative to mainstream interand postwar authors in the 1980s. The novelty of the author of the paper we publish here is that Kovács discusses Hajnal’s views on the historical background to the famous interwar debate of Hungarian intellectuals between urbanites and populists first behind the background of the cultural pessimism of the influential German thinker, Oswald Spengler, and secondly comparing them to the critical discussion of the Megapolis by the American urban theorist, Lewis Mumford.

The rather telling similarities and dissimilarities between the three of them allow the non-Hungarian reader to gain an insight into the novelty and originality of the non-trivial Hungarian historian as a social critic. Also, Kovács hints at the fact that in spite of his intellectual milieu of Hajnal, which was not far away from the

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Central and Eastern European Socio-Political and Legal Transition Revisited. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH–Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2017. pp. 231–247 (Central and Eastern European Forum for Legal, Political, and Social Theory Yearbook).

Balázs Trencsényi and Péter Apor: Fine-Tuning the Polyphonic Past: Hungarian Historical Writing in the 1990s, in: Narratives Unbound. Historical Studies in Post-Communist Eastern Europe, eds. Sorin Antohi, Balázs Trencsényi, Péter Apor. Central European University Press, Budapest, New York, 2007, 1–100.

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populist writers, he achieved to paint a rather nuanced picture of the moral of the debate about the relevance of cities in European history.

The second paper is the work of a PhD candidate at the Atelier Department of European Social Sciences and Historiography, a university unit established with the Annales school in the mind of its founder in the 1990s.5 As opposed to a well-established disciplinary background in the case of the article by Kovács, Mrs Melinda Harlov-Csortán’s paper was written as a contribution to the newly emerging and by now rather fashionable discipline of (cultural) heritage studies, as its title already suggests. The author refers directly to the by now classic work of Lowenthal,6 which is claimed to lead to the establishment of this new discipline, in order to embed her work into its intended academic environment.

We can also learn from her title that the paper has a rather strong thesis, which is summarized by Harlov-Csortán in the introduction the following way: her topic is the ‘multifaceted transformation process, through which vernacular culture almost totally disappeared from Hungary and yet became a subject of research and positive evaluation, took place between the 1950s and 1980s.’ In other words, she presents two opposite tendencies: the social transformation, which led large portions of the rural population to move into urban areas or just simply adopt urbanite forms of life, contrasted with the new interest in the vernacular culture of the country, expressed by forms of heritagizing its objectified (tangible) monuments, including its vernacular architecture as well as its forms of self-expression in the genres of folk songs, folk dance, and handicraft. The strength of the paper is to use economic and political history as a background to a recapitulation of the reborn interest in folk art, which led to novel institutional arrangements, and the heritagizing efforts of the political and cultural elites of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s in communist Hungary to explain certain successes of the political elites of the 70s, which led, however, to a form of indirect rebellion against the regime by large segments of urban intellectual elites in the same time and later on.

The hope of publishing these essays together is to both raise awareness of the rich cultural traditions characteristic of this region and to differentiate competing discourses, cultural practices, and accepted ways of self-understanding within these cultural traditions. It also provides an opportunity for the reader to see how the recent methodological innovations within cultural studies modify the historical narratives of the region. Finally, it can also be seen as an argument to approach the region’s visions of its own past and present autonomously, without simply and indiscriminately applying the external standards of mainstream Western historical canons.

5 6

Atelier was founded by social and urban historian György Granasztói in 1988 and led by him until 2007.

David Lowenthal: The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 11–18

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0002

City in Modern Cultural Criticism: Lewis Mumford and István Hajnal Gábor KOVÁCS

Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, email: kovacs.gabor@btk.mta.hu Abstract. The critique of the city is an almost obligatory cliché of the 20thcentury cultural criticism. This paper offers a parallel critical analysis of the conceptions of American ecologist Lewis Mumford and Hungarian historian István Hajnal. They were contemporaries, and their approaches had been inspired by interwar cultural criticism. Mumford did not hate the city: it was, for him, the engine of history, a reservoir of cultural creativeness.

The theory of Hajnal, from many aspects, runs parallel with Mumford’s – moreover, the Hungarian historian gives a detailed theory on the types of European city. What connects them is an ecological approach.

Keywords: Spengler, cultural criticism, parasite, engine, Mumford, Hajnal

Introduction: Oswald Spengler and His City Philosophy The history of modernity has been intertwined from the beginning with the motif of anti-urbanism. There is, of course, a long tradition of this aversion; antiurban sentiments were part and parcel of a cultural package containing different elements from bucolic Roman poetry to antique republicanism. Countryside rustic simplicity and ancient patriotic virtue were opposed to the urban viciousness and corruption; the story of Cincinnatus, the emblematic figure of the ancient martial Roman virtues who had been invited by the Roman Senate from his plough-stock to save the patria was a central image of this pre-modern antiurbanism. The modern version of this idea had been nourished by the tensions of the modern urbanization process having culminated in the second half of the 19th century. Anti-urban theories were particularly popular in the Central and Eastern European region where the urban centres–provinces opposition was burdened by ethnic tensions and social conflicts.

Oswald Spengler, the prophet of doom, is undoubtedly the best known antiurban thinker of modern cultural criticism. (On the Spenglerian theory, see:

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Farrenkopf 2001, Felken 1988, Hughes 1952, Koktanek 1968). He canalized the aversion to the city in his cultural morphology. His anti-urbanism, at the same time, is coloured by a deep ambivalence: city, on the one hand, is a vampire, a parasite sucking the blood of the countryside and, on the other hand, the city, in Spengler’s theory, is depicted by a lively and impressive metaphor: it is the scene where the history of mankind has begun (Kovács 2011a). Spengler uses an antithetical notion pair: eternal village – historically changing city. While the modern metropolis is one of the main targets of Spengler’s criticism, his aversion does not extend to the country town, the medieval and early modern baroque city of culture; the latter, in fact, is the scene where the flowers of Western or Faustian culture yield their autumnal heavy and beautiful crops from Michelangelo’s sculpture to the music of Mozart and Beethoven. This ambiguity turns into the opposition of soul (Seele) and spirit (Geist) and that of culture and civilization embodied in the contrast between Paris and Berlin. Spengler scourges the soulless metropolis; it is the terrain of cold inanimate rationalism and intellectualism and that of plutocracy concealed by the fig-leaf of parliamentarian democracy.

The pictures of Fritz Lang’s classical film Metropolis suggestively visualize Spengler’s conception on the stone-Colossus of megapolis. Berlin, on the other hand, represents the utmost achievements of European culture.

Mumford and Spengler in the Context of the Interwar Cultural Criticism The interwar decades meant a stressed period in the history of modern antiurbanism; the cultural criticism of the age was a theoretical response to the challenge of modernity crisis, whose first signs had already been reflected in the fin de siècle pessimistic public mood suggested by both the works and the selfreflections of contemporary intellectuals. Pessimism and resignation got a new impetus after the WWI crisis not only in Europe but on a global scale, including the USA. This paper offers a sketch of a comparative analysis of two thinkers who were the contemporaries of each other but were living in geographically and culturally distant locations: the American Lewis Mumford and the Hungarian István Hajnal. What connects them is their conception of city development flavoured by an ecologically sensitive pessimistic cultural critique. Lewis Mumford was one of the most prominent forefathers of ecological thought (Blake 1990, Kovács 2009, Kovács 2011b, Miller 1989); he labelled himself a generalist dealing with a wide spectrum of disciplines from the history of technics and civilizations to that of the city and city planning. He dedicated two lengthy books to this subject: The Culture of Cities (1938) and The City in History (1961).

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However, when compared to Central European, first of all German, Kulturpessimismus, American cultural criticism appears largely different. Lewis Mumford belonged to the first generation of American modernity criticism.

Albeit the American version had been inspired by European traditions, first of all by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, it grew out from a different cultural background. Randolph Bourne, Van Wycks Brooks, Waldo Frank, and Lewis Mumford, the group of young Americans, (Blake 1990) who had been socialized in the atmosphere of post-civil war America, refused the world of big business and large-scale industrialization, but their idea of grass-roots democracy stemmed from the traditions of American democratic populism. Their world view was coloured by the ideas of the intellectual movement of 19th-century American transcendentalism, including such influential authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.

They also shared the attitude of the turn-of-the-century American pragmatism, and a critical assimilation of the philosophy of John Dewey enriched their thought.

As we described above, Spengler outlined a characteristically German-type city philosophy imbued with metaphysics. In political terms, he massively attacked modern democracy, labelling it as a fig-leaf of plutocracy. City, for Spengler, was a fortress of the uprooted forces of modernity, a vampire sucking the blood of the countryside. This kind of metaphysical anti-urbanism was alien to the American thought. Mumford, the most renowned figure of his generation, was a missing link between the German and American versions of cultural criticism. His mother was of German origin, and Mumford himself did not only have a good command of German language but knew exceptionally well German culture and had first-hand information of contemporary German cultural criticism. At the same time, he definitely refused the Spenglerian kind of it. During the years of WWII, he wrote a critical essay on Spengler, in which he labelled the Spenglerian oeuvre ‘a morbid saga of barbarism’ and massively criticized his one-sidedness and fatalism: All intercourse with outside cultures is impossible: all carryovers from the past are for Spengler an illusion. The processes of self-repair, self-renewal, self-transcendence, which are as observable in cultures as in persons, were completely overlooked by Spengler. His many vital perceptions of the historic process served only one purpose which he kept steadfastly in view: as apology for barbarism. (Mumford 1973: 220)

A Closer Look at Mumford The conception of Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) of city development has been embedded in the framework of his historical philosophy and philosophical anthropology. A human being possesses two basic abilities: he is able to construct

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a new physical environment, a second nature, and to create cultural symbols, moral, and esthetical ideas. These abilities are based upon two prime instincts: will to power and a sense of order. The history of settlement forms begins in Neolithic times with the village. The city is an outcome of the urban revolution taking place in the valleys’ hydraulic civilizations and the region of the so-called Fertile Crescent, in the Near East. City, in the theory of Mumford, collects and synthesizes the cultural heritage of the past. It is both a magnet and a container (Mumford 1961: 9, 82–83). It attracts different customs, institutions, the segments of material and intellectual cultures remote in space and time, gathering them within its walls; its cultural creativeness is feeding on this many-coloured variety.

City is also a meeting place of foreigners. At the same time, there is an inherent ambivalence encoded in the structure of the city; it is a terrain of the simultaneous coexistence of openness and exclusiveness, cooperation and domination, the two basic social organizing methods of human society. Domination begets power, whose habitat is the citadel in the centre of the city, mostly built on a hilltop.

In ensuing historical periods, different city types emerge; they differ from each other from the aspect of social organizational method preferred by them. In an antique Greek polis and, first of all, in a medieval town, cooperation and social interdependence are able to check domination and power – communitas takes command over dominium.

This social and political arrangement is reflected in the physical infrastructure of the city: there is a striking contrast between the winding narrow streets of a medieval town and the straight boulevards of a Baroque city running into a central square; it is the contrast of organic development and mechanic construction devised by a sole planner-despot. The vista of the city is a faithful image of contemporary power relations. The Baroque city planner is in the same position in the field of planning as the Baroque ruler in the field of politics. But this spirit pervades the whole age: one of Mumford’s favourite quotations comes from Descartes who in his classical philosophical text, Discourse de la method, draws a parallel between the medieval, organically developed town and the new, rationally planned city, emphasizing the superiority of the latter over the randomly grown-up former. This conception, according to Mumford, is a typical expression of the intellectual hubris of modernity.

City, in the theory of Mumford, lives in a mutually beneficial relationship with its countryside: they together make a region. This relationship cannot be based on one-sided advantages enjoyed solely by the city to the detriment of its countryside.

As a consequence of an emphatically ecological approach, he sees the city and its environment as an ecological habitat; this starting-point explains his sharp critique exercised over the modern Megapolis; albeit it is a possessor of the best elements of the cultural heritage of human history, its exaggerated dimensions, its power concentration and the dominant mechanized way of life of mass existence

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prevent the complete utilization of this heritage. Modern Megapolis in its present form is an image and embodiment of the modern megamachine; this famous metaphor of Mumford refers to a civilization based upon a social organizing method using individuals as cogs in a gigantic machine: domination overwrites community, top-down built structures outplace small democratic bottom-up structures. What is needed, Mumford critically concludes, is the dismantling of power concentration and formless gigantism resulting only in a dysfunctional city life; the renewal of modern city needs radical decentralization: (…) when a city has reached the megapolitan stage, it is plainly on the downward path (…) Most of the existing world cities have become over-congested because they did have real advantages in international communication: they were the meeting points of transcontinental and transoceanic highways: often they possessed a superior inheritance of culture institutes, reaching back into a unique historic past. These advantages would remain even if the present mass-agglomerations of people were reduced to a cluster of inter-related cities, no one of which would have over fifty thousand people, nor the cluster have more than a million: what was once present only in an urban point is now available throughout a whole region. (Mumford 1938: 295–296)

A Closer Look at Hajnal In his sociology of history, Hungarian historian István Hajnal (1892–1956), a three years older contemporary of Mumford, was inspired by the wave of ecologically sensitive German cultural criticism, the relational sociology of Hans Freyer and contemporary French sociology, particularly of Emile Durkheim (Kovács 2016, Szirák 2008). Hajnal, similarly to Mumford, opposes vertical social relations based upon domination to horizontal ones based upon mutuality; these latter constitute the small circles of liberty superseded by impersonal-bureaucratic rational social organizing methods of modernity. The conception of Hajnal of city is embedded in a peculiar history of philosophy and a conservative philosophical anthropology. According to him, there are two social organizing methods in human societies: one of them is based upon customary social practices – in this case, human actions are determined by customs inherited from the previous generations. Another social organizing method is based upon individual rationality – in this case, human actions are regulated by the human mind not restricted by anything except for itself. These methods have been originated in two basic human abilities: the ability of objectification of the physical environment and that of thinking. The latter, Hajnal surprisingly argues,

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is not a special difference, the Aristotelian differentia specifica elevating human being above the animal kingdom; in his interpretation, this is a peculiar kind of animal instinct of subsistence. This ability serves the survival of the biological organism named human being: all other things are subordinated to this purpose; so, this generates an egoistic behaviour when a human being is driven by it and it does not respect anything else except for the organism itself. Nature and his/her human fellows are seen only as means to the end of self-subsistence.

The warranty of mutuality in human society is the complex of customary social organizing practices; they enforce the naked rationality striving to exploit nature and other human beings at any rate to conform to its human and physical environment. Customary social practices are embodied in customs and social institutions made by the human mind and physical objects made by the human hand. The European Middle Ages is in a unique position in the theory of Hajnal; it was not by chance, Hajnal points out, that the historical breakthrough to modernity took place in Europe. The customary social practices here have successfully moderated rational social practices without petrifying the social structure.

The European city was a product of this historical development; the argumentation of Hajnal runs parallel with that of Mumford. It is not the number of its inhabitants that is the real criterion of a city. Not every large agglomeration of people is a real city (Hajnal 1993). What makes a city is not the crowd swarming in the streets or its privileged position as a bureaucratic or power centre. It is the array of inner social, political constellations and the relation to its countryside which constitute the city. Medieval towns were small concerning the number of their inhabitants; they only had a few thousand dwellers: medieval Paris with its 100,000-strong population was an exception to the rule. Hajnal, again very similarly to Mumford, strongly emphasizes that the medieval town was a terrain of liberty embodied in group privileges ensured by customs and later sanctified in the written form of charters. The town as a whole, as a sociological reality, was a community in which social relations were based on mutuality; this did not mean, of course, social or political equality in the modern sense. On the contrary, it was a set of uneven social positions, but there was some kind of mutuality with the attitudes of give and take; modern liberty would not have emerged without these medieval antecedents – Hajnal emphasizes in his anti-Weberian historical philosophy. One-sided, exploitative conditions, including the human–human and the human–nature relationships, were not able to acquire a dominant position because of the customary social organizing methods assuring and maintaining mutuality in the inner life of the city and its cooperative relation to the countryside and natural environment.

The outstanding cultural creativity of the medieval city were rooted in the constellations of the above-mentioned factors.

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Hajnal, following the logic of contemporary cultural criticism, feels aversion to the overcrowded modern metropolis – from this respect, his standpoint is essentially the same as Mumford’s approach. Both thinkers were inspired by the patterns of the city critique of contemporary cultural criticism: the modern Megapolis, from this perspective, is a terrain of an alienated mechanic existence dissolving the bonds of community and degrading its inhabitants to lonely and faceless atoms in a gigantic beehive which enforces its environment to accept the megapolitan way of life as a sole option in modern times. Behind their ideas, of course, there are partly similar, partly different contexts. What is common to them both is the tradition of ecologically inspired modernity critique of the interwar German thought emphasizing the dichotomy of organic–mechanic.

Conclusions The commitment to the ecological standpoint is a common motif for both of them: in the case of Mumford, it is evidently at the centre of his thoughts. The city is not able to withdraw itself from the force of the ecological law which sanctions a living organism because that does not take into account the interests of other neighbouring organisms in their common habitat and overturns, by depletion of natural resources and pollution, the sensitive equilibrium of the ecosystem. In the case of Hajnal, the ecological approach is not an explicit theory, but it is a basic background supposition behind his thoughts.

However, the inner contexts are different: Mumford draws on the heterogeneous and many-coloured heritage of American anti-urbanism including democratic populism, the idea of farmer democracy coined by Jefferson, and the American transcendentalism of Walt Whitman and Emerson (White 1962). He refuses the city metaphysics of Oswald Spengler based on a fatalistic philosophy of history; Mumford is committed to the idea of the renewal of Megapolis on the basis of a regionally oriented city planning focusing on decentralization. Hungarian historian István Hajnal, whose ideas of the social role of peasantry stand close to the conception of the Hungarian Populist Movement of the interwar period, living in the interwar Central European reality, has been inspired by the contemporary Hungarian debates on the role of the newly emerging metropolis, Budapest.

However, Mumford and Hajnal do not suggest a return to the past – they know bucolic utopias are beyond the horizons of reality.

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References BLAKE, Casey Nelson. 1990. Beloved Community. The Cultural Criticism of Randolph Bourne, Van Wycks Brooks, Waldo Frank and Lewis Mumford.

Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press.

FARRENKOPF, John. 2001. Prophet of Decline. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

FELKEN, Detlef. 1988. Oswald Spengler. Konservativer Denker zwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck.

HAJNAL, István. 1993. Az európai város kialakulása [The Emergence of the European City]. In: Glatz, Ferenc (ed.), Technika, művelődés [Technology, Culture]. Budapest: História Kiadó–MTA Történettudományi Intézete. 205– 242.

HUGHES, Henry Stewart. 1952. Oswald Spengler. A Critical Estimate. New York: Scribner.

KOKTANEK, Anton Mirko. 1968: Oswald Spengler in seiner Zeit. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck.

KOVÁCS, Gábor. 2016. The Rise of Modernity: The Relation of Religion, Capitalism and Democracy in the European Context. In: Juhant, Janez–Žalec, Bojan (eds), Which Religion, What Ideology? The (Religious) Potentials for Peace and Violence. Münster: LIT Verlag. 97–103.

2011a. The Myth of the Wicked City in the Cultural Criticism of O. Spengler.

Limes: Cultural Regionalistics 4(1): 64–74.

2011b. A Short History of Modernity from “The Fable of the Bees to Brave New World”: Lewis Mumford and His Critique of Modernity. In: Juhant, J.–Žalec, B. (eds), Humanity after Selfish Prometheus: Changes of Dialogue and Ethics in a Technicized World. Münster: LIT Verlag. 201–208.

2009. A Forefather of Environmentalism – Lewis Mumford, the Critic of Technology and Civilization. Philobiblon 14: 249–255.

MUMFORD, Lewis. 1973. Interpretations and Forecasts: 1922–1972. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

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MILLER, Donald L. 1989. Lewis Mumford. A Life. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

SZIRÁK, Péter. 2008. Socialising Technology: The Archives of István Hajnal.

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WHITE, Morton–WHITE, Lucia. 1962. The Intellectual versus the City: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. Harvard University Press.

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 19–35

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0003

Heritagizing the Countryside in Hungary Melinda HARLOV-CSORTÁN

Junior Research Fellow at the Research Department for Social Integration and Social Policy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary email: Harlov-Csortan.Melinda@tk.mta.hu Abstract. For long decades in Hungary, not just the inhabitants and their lifestyles but the buildings of the villages were seen as outdated; only small details found their ways as decorative elements of representative architectural styles. A change in the evaluation happened in the second part of 20th century, which led to vivid academic and professional research, extensive popularity and support by the leading socialist power and the public. The paper focuses on the transformation of the built elements from the countryside to the centres, both physically and in their evaluation between World War II and 1989.

Keywords: vernacular architecture, Hungary, socialism, protection and peripheralization

Introduction Vernacular architecture plays an outstanding role in the Hungarian scholarly and cultural discourse and has a public role and prestige even today. The first UNESCO World Heritage site from Hungary is a village called Hollókő with its built and intangible heritage, which was also the very first internationally acknowledged set of vernacular architectures as well. Similarly, most of the nominated and accepted Hungarian intangible cultural heritage examples are outstanding practices or traditions within its folk culture.

Hungarian vernacular culture is well-documented and researched and widely popular within all social groups (especially in big cities), and its contemporary financial support is ensured and provided by the government. Even though the authentic settlements, the lifestyle, and the social category, which were the sources and elements of vernacular culture, have been transformed in Hungary, their modern interpretations as well as memories have been highly valued.

This multifaceted transformation process, through which vernacular culture almost totally disappeared from Hungary and yet became a subject of research

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and positive evaluation, took place between the 1950s and 1980s. That period can be called the golden age of vernacular monument and tradition protection.

In my paper, I try to investigate the diverse aspects of this continuum when the classical countryside died and at the same time, through memorization, it became an identity-forming value for the whole society. Even though the process is unquestionably part of a wider-scale historical, ideological, social, and economic history, my intention is to find out the actors, institutions, and intentions that transformed the otherwise degraded location, lifestyle, objects to value, and basis of pride. Due to the limited length of the paper, the following investigation concentrates on the built aspect of the vernacular heritage and its relocation both physically and in the mental map of the society from the periphery to the centre.

Theoretical Background Semioticians at Tartu School, Juri Lotman and Boris Uspensky, defined culture as the non-hereditary memory of the community, namely a memory that is not contained within the genes but within a symbolic system made out of prescriptions and contradictions, restrictions and conflict. This memory is disputed through social discourse and practices that occur between the institutionalized productions of meaning and the appropriations resulting from the use that the commons make of it (Lotman & Uspensky 1978: 211–232). Memory can be used by politics when a certain section and understanding of the past is aimed intentionally and in a biased way to be selected, stabilized, and ultimately neutralized. The result is a common past that must be preserved and commemorated; a past to be proud of and to be taken to one’s heart.1 Memory is thus a process rather than a result. It is mediated, negotiated, always redefined, interrupted, and resumed. It is also important to note that memories do not belong to a single time. They imply a confrontation sometimes dormant, a tense coexistence of disparate times. Thus, we better think of memory as a palimpsest and a collage, not as a linear narrative (Assmann 2011: 281–324).

Any place in its complex material, symbolic, and narrative aspects contains elements of earlier communities too, such as power relations, value systems, and identities. In this sense, all places carry memories due to their connections to human experiences (Gutiérrez 2011: 19–31). Focusing on these aspects, understanding a place in social studies has been enriched by adding the human perceiver aspect. How people construct and consume locations is the subject of analysis (Lefebvre 1991: 38–43). Place is not a neutral area any more, but it can define actual events taken place there and the possible social activities or use of 1

A single cliché-memory is derived from ‘common sense’ and closed in as much as it represents the authorized and canonical version of it.

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that spot, too. Heritagization is one of the most common realizations of cautious management, when a memory of the past is identified, selected, and preserved (Bendix 2009: 415–441) in a way that it is kept in the everyday life and to serve the contemporary community. Each place with its built structure has a different predisposition to being transformed. Some can be converted to many new uses, but thorough investigation is necessary in advance. The new usage unites past and present, assuming the respect for environment, historical memory, identity, and local culture as basic parameters in the final outcome of the spatial and architectural resolution (Marconi 1996: 7–32).

This cautious management has its own history which in the researched period went through a transformation. This can be best described as a shift from monumental and tangible perception of cultural heritage towards more anthropological, vernacular, and intangible understanding, towards pluralization of value (Cozzo 2015: 968–973). It may also be understood as a changed emphasis from the conservation of lost cultural traditions towards the protection of living cultures (Vahtikari 2013). Taking into account the link between national, local, and individual memories, identity constructions and a globalized context of heritage making mean both focus on the political exchanges and social use-value circulation of collective memories within the heritage sphere. It is essential to examine the criteria, devices, and values shared, appropriated, or contested by ‘cultural actors’, according to which a good might or might not enter the ‘cultural schemes’. The memory–identity–heritage–territory interplay needs also to be linked to the social diversity of the ‘heritage communities’, from academic and nation-state institutions to ordinary, non-academic structures taking care of the representations of the past (Hofer 1999: 136).

It is very important to keep in mind that heritage, as many scholars critically investigate (Jokilehto 2008 and Araoz 2011) and institutions deal with (such as UNESCO World Heritage Committee, European Commission via European Heritage label or the national units) today are different from the understanding and management in the research period. Even though numerous aims and practices can be stated in parallel with contemporary heritage notions, it was clearly monument protection under political leadership in those decades. It would lead to false implications if current requirements (such as participatory action and social inclusion) would be tested on the processes and management directions during the given time frame. Accordingly, the following investigation looks at the diverse actors and interpretations that realized the transformation leading to the elimination of classical lifestyle, living conditions, of the agricultural countryside, on the one hand, and to valuing it as an identity-forming aspect, a memory that can be visited and practised in the modern urban settings as well, on the other hand.

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Historical, Social, and Cultural Background World War II brought devastating loss to Hungary in terms of human resources and territories alike. Physical, infrastructural, economic, and ‘mental’ demolition, including immense territory and human loss, characterized the outcome.

According to the propaganda, the Soviets were liberating the country, but they stayed for approximately four decades. Their physical (military) presence and political influence, or rather control, led to the spread of the unchallengeable ideology of the Soviet Union. The researched forty years can be divided into two phases: the first phase was until 1956 – the harshly oppressive one-party system led by Mátyás Rákosi (Bencsik 2010: 215–248). The turning point was the 1956 Revolution. During the cruel punishment of the revolution that took approximately four years, more people were attacked, tortured, and killed than in the actual fights (Granville 1998). From the 1960s, a kind of consolidation of this ‘revenge’ was realized by the Hungarian political leader, János Kádár, who tried to find a certain balance between the control and requirements of the Soviet Union and the needs of the Hungarian people, mainly to prevent another revolution.

This led to a limited but existing freedom of the people. Foreign political changes also made the transformation process of the late 1980s possible, and it also led to the fall of the Soviet Union and to the end of its impact on the country. On 19th August 1989, the borders of the country were reopened to the West, and the first free democratic election took place on 25th March 1990 (Halmy 2014: 129–153).

Due to the communist ideology that preferred the working class and the industrial sector, the country underwent an immense social and economic transformation. As a top-down political-led intervention, de-peasantization (Kovách 2003: 41–67) took place throughout the researched four decades, a process fully accomplished by the 1990s. The process was realized via three major reforms (namely, the redistribution of lands, collective farming, and ‘modernization’) and constant control (Kovách 2012: 32–33). The expropriation of property was often justified by industrialization-related aims, and it also minimized the independence (both economic and psychological) of the given section of the society. The next phase of de-peasantization was the introduction of collective agriculture that was supposed to increase the living standards of the rural communities, but it was a traumatic change instead (Habuda 1998: 15–32).

Simultaneously, the establishment of numerous industrial activities under the name of modernization for social aims took place across the entire country. A chain of mining, energy, and heavy industrial production centres was initiated, which needed substantial human resources and led to social and settlement structural changes (Valuch 1988: 1–30).2 As a consequence, a huge segment of the rural population migrated to those newly industrialized cities and regions, 2

Both are still influencing the current situation of the country (Beluszky & Győri 1999: 1–30).

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and a similarly significant segment turned into commuters. Such change led, on the one hand, to a decrease in the number of population in smaller settlements and, on the other hand, to a significant increase in industrial cities (see Table 1).

However, the emerging housing and traffic necessities were not met in a timely manner. Moreover, there was a great economic crisis in the 1970s that worsened the situation. It blocked major projects as well as ongoing constructions. This led to numerous unprofessional realizations, rendered many architectural projects hazardous – having them demolished later on –, and adverse working conditions froze the documentation of monument buildings (Román 1993: 11–15).

Table 1. Population decrease of the micro-villages over the decades under review Year Total population of the settlements listed Total with the given intervals of inhabitant population numbers: of the microvillages Under 100 Between 100 Between 200 and 199 and 499 1949 27 488 79 714 458 386 565 588 1960 24 501 71 630 428 622 524 753 1970 18 914 58 039 364 210 441 163 1980 12 803 45 920 305 985 364 708 1990 8 803 35 648 254 689 299 140 2001 6 799 31 169 239 934 277 902 The population percentage of 2001 24.5% 39.1% 52.3% 49.1% in comparison to the 1949 data Source: Kovács 2004

The named social, economic, and urban transformation in socialist Hungary went along with the popularized idea that villages are rather obstacles of improvement, and their negative representation led to the lack of central support and role in local or regional infrastructure. Even a new type of house was introduced and promoted for people living in the countryside, which was supposed to provide better and modern lifestyle but which had nothing to do with the original and authentic architectures (Prakfalvi 2015: 285–301). The local leaders’ main objective was to obtain city status for their settlements despite the actual size, lifestyle, or infrastructural circumstances. Gaining city status became a political question rather than an actual improvement of urbanization processes (Vági 1982). That was visible also as extensive agricultural activities were carried out by the population of these new cities and even at the suburbs of the traditional cities like the capital, Budapest (Konrád Szelényi 1971: 19–35). In the second part

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of the researched period, the leadership allowed collective farmers to do extra economic activities for personal purposes, and the social support system was partly modified as well (Kovács 2014: 236–238). Accordingly, the life standards in many rural areas greatly improved, which led to the extensive differentiation among the local communities across the country. Moreover, a large segment of the population, who had already been working in the industrial sector, returned partially (in their free time) to certain agricultural activities for the allowed personal extra income (Enyedi 1984). As a consequence, a unification of lifestyles and life standards and the disappearance of classical rural social community and activities took place undoubtedly in Hungary (Szuhay 1996: 705–723).

Along these lines, in the late 1960s and 1970s, an unprecedented attention was paid to the Hungarian (within and outside the contemporary borders of the country) folk culture mostly among university students. The named young generation studied, researched, practised, and taught each other not just dance steps/moves but songs, traditions, and behaviours as well.3 Many writers share the idea that this popularity was due to its representation of an indirect testimony against the political system or as a way of escaping from the constant pressure of top-down ideology that overloaded all aspects of life in that period.4 People who attended these events formulated a community with a strong group identity. The possible existence and the overall success of the dance-house movement can be understood by the above described political easing process of the 1960s and 1970s.

Numerous folk bands, dance groups, and dedicated places have been established for the practice of folk music, dance, and traditions. Members of this movement visited the villages and tried to document and learn the exact presentation methods. They thought that the identical characters, group individuality make the folk culture unique, and with thorough documentation and learning it can be saved and transferred to the next generation and to the cities (Perlstein 1982: 48–53). This social movement, especially in the big cities of Hungary, indirectly supported, helped, and motivated the scholarly research of folk culture, but the political control and the strict ideological direction made it impossible to bring about a real change in the methodology and the message of most academic works.

Moreover traditionally (since the 19th century), there are groups of poets, authors, and other literary personalities who have been focusing on the vernacular art for inspiration and as the authentic and original source of any kind of Hungarian culture. They look at the method, style, and forms alike, but these 3

4

The same objective still exists when the educational practice has become an intangible heritage acknowledged by UNESCO. In 1.a. Background and Rationale of the Nomination Form, it states: ‘conveying norms and patterns of inter-/intra-community communication/behaviour through traditional forms of expression (folk dance, music and poetry) while encouraging creativity’, http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00011&Art18=00515, (last accessed on: 5/03/2018).

Such views can be read in: Zelnik 2012. See also Vincze 2011.

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individuals were also the voices of the silent community, and with their artworks they target all those transformations that may have been difficult to analyse as academic research (Juhász 1986: 103–105). Some actors look for mysticism and archaic language and forms (such as István Sinka) (Pomogáts 1987), while others use more sociological or anthropological approach (such as Sándor Csoóri) and emphasize those questions in their work. Many literary critics believe that by the disappearance of the social unit the so-called ‘folk authors’ as a category have been eliminated as well. Those authors who chose vernacular life as the subject of their artworks moved together with the community to the cities and found new topics about the same communities and individuals (Radnóti 1993: 107–110).

Either way, the vernacular culture and their very human issues have been on the literary agenda and hence are moved from the periphery to the centre of the readers’ attention as well.

Academic and Professional Re-evaluation of the Disappearing Villages The study of folk culture, just as every aspect of life, was influenced by the Soviet ideology – accordingly, politicized messages, Marxist ideologies, and the adoption of the Soviet ethnographic findings were among the required new steps and directions for the Hungarian scholars. It was especially difficult as before World War II nationalistic ideology was expected to be served by the same academic discipline and its representatives. The previous institution system was restructured, and many professionals were sent away to various less influential organizations. Even though the contemporary changes in the society and the intensive transformation of the Hungarian economy from a mainly agricultural character to a more industrial country provided rich opportunities to study, but the scholars of folk culture were allowed to conduct only such research that served the political messages of the leadership.5 Accordingly, the traumas, the loss of a social group and its culture could not be documented.

After the dramatic years of the late 1950s, a kind of qualitative boom could be detected in many areas of the researched discipline. Institution-wise, the Ethnography Institute was established in 1967, among others, while one of the most outstanding collection works, the editing of an encyclopaedia started in 1969.

Folk culture research was combined with urban historical studies, which provided a new location (the city) for investigations besides villages and agricultural fields (Létay 1996: 315–324). Besides these drastic and positive changes, the political and the strict ideological control still existed and made it impossible to reach a real change in the methodology and the message of most academic works.

5

An example for the ideologically influenced research: Kardos 1954.

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Exceptions can only be found in the case of smaller projects that focused on smaller communities or settlements and involved a group of researchers and local sources (such as museums, archives). In these cases, new directions and methods as well as more complex investigations could be realized. Later on, Western examples and new notions could reach the Hungarian scholarly world as well, and the folklorist movement of the 1970s had a belated impact on the Hungarian research methodologies and directions as well (Paládi-Kovács 1990).

Despite this high level of variety of origins, intentions, and results, one scholarly aspect was realized which fruitfully influenced the future of the research. It was the notion of chronology and the acknowledged change through time in this field as well. Accordingly, not just the old, or even ancient, products, songs were evaluated but the current state of folk culture came to be researched and analysed as well.

Similarly, due to the increasing variety of research, the amount of collected data and documented materials were extremely high despite the risk, difficulties, and often changing status of the researched territories and communities (Barabás 1971: 331–344). At a time when the existence of a nation is questioned, comparative studies are requested that lead to the greater knowledge of the surrounding countries as well as of the minorities within the society. That happened in Hungary as well when the various minorities were researched to reveal the uniqueness of the Hungarian folk culture that incorporated those findings.

Monument protection started at the end of the 19th century in Hungary, while the acknowledgement of protecting vernacular architecture was expressed in law as early as 1949. During the first period, control over scholarly and professional work, especially field research, was also a very strong one, which meant limited possibilities and rights as well. It was always due to thorough and highly politicized decision-making that research could be conducted. From the idea at the local level through numerous requests for approval on several stages to the final authorization by the relevant central office of the Party, the route was clearly propagandistic and political (Foote, Tóth, Árvay 2001: 138–163).

Legal protection and guidelines had been established and ensured by the 1960s, which made it possible not only to protect the given architecture, its immediate surrounding but also to recognize the relevance of the group of buildings or of the whole settlement structures that individually might not be as valuable but their coexistence represents value (Barcza 1978: 35–43). Especially this type of protection made it possible to save street views and even whole settlements of vernacular architectures. Due to housing shortages, valuable buildings were modified with cheap materials, quick fixes, and unprofessional techniques or were overused and demolished (Román 1972: 315–329).

The nation-wide institutional system of monument protection was established and operated successfully in the Socialist time (Tilinger 1978: 19–26). Unlike in other neighbouring countries, in Hungary, monument protection was the task of

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the Ministry of Construction – hence professionals could assist the projects from realizing the need for the accomplishment of the building process. However, renovations or protection projects were accepted many times not due to professional and scholarly decisions but based on political factors such as the propaganda potentials of the given task. Accordingly, the envisaged complexity of the research and documentation often could not be realized (Kecskés 1979: 69–70). Moreover, many participants evaluated (in retrospective interviews) the institutional system to be highly bureaucratic, hence slow and inefficient (Tompai 1978: 29–34).

Monument protection in general and especially in the cases of vernacular heritage examples was an interdisciplinary and cooperative task. Every assignment required the teamwork of ethnographers, art historians, architects, archaeologists, and others to understand, document, preserve, and protect the given example.

During the second part of the socialist past, numerous instances of international cooperation and events took place both within the Comecon countries and with the West. For instance, vernacular architecture protection and the establishment of unified tools and methods within the Eastern Bloc were initiated by Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. The fourth meeting took place in Budapest and Szombathely in 1977 (Román 1971: 275–301). The third general assembly of ICOMOS, the professional supporting committee of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, was organized in Budapest in 1972, and it was an outstanding success with approximately 400 participants. Over ten excursions and a similar amount of receptions and other cultural programmes were organized for the guests with which not just the image of Hungary was supposed to be formulated (after the 1956 revolution and the international reactions to it) but also an appraisal of the ‘Socialist society and the accomplished works within that system’ (Román 1971: 301).

Ferenc Mendele (1934–1994) was an Ybl-Award-winning architect, conservationist, and the former director of the National Inspectorate of Historic Monuments. He believed and adopted the ideology that every contemporary function that is necessary in a settlement has to be present within the monument buildings. Along these lines, extra elements that were added later to a monument have not been counted as mistakes or as negative impact on authenticity. For example, a Hopper window was added to the roof of a house that originally served as the post office in a village. Later, this building became a post museum and hostel, and to fulfil these functions the Hopper window seemed plausible. Part of the justification for the newly added element was that it had an authentic look from the outside as a garret window made of tin (Mendele 1969: 201–211). Such tendencies became generally adopted across the centralized nation-wide monument protection institution system as a typical realization of top-down socialist control.

As a result of the academic and monument protection objectives and results, the national ethnographic museology was established and a network of institutions was formed that incorporated collections at regional and local museums, smaller-

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sized museums dedicated solely to folk culture. A unique system of complex protection was formed in situ, which incorporated a single house or a group of original, authentic houses with their equipment in numerous settlements (Gráfik 1997: 19–45). These buildings called ‘tájházak’ in Hungarian, or Regional Houses in English, serve as showcases, where not just the history and the character of the local folk culture can be exhibited but educational and entertainment programmes can be organized as well. Accordingly, these were intended as archives, museums, and social places as well but are not moved to the centre but stayed in the countryside, on the periphery. Only in the early 2000s did these initiatives join a nation-wide network, and as a system it is now proposed as a future nominee for the UNESCO World Heritage list. After regional examples (such as in Zalaegerszeg), a nation-wide open-air museum, which has collected, preserved, researched, and promoted Hungarian folk culture in Szentendre, was established near to the capital during the researched period in the 1960s.

Accordingly, examples of vernacular architecture became subjects of cultural representations across the country both in major cities and small settlements.

Political Support for the Heritagization Process There have been numerous obstacles in protecting heritage in the socialist period of Hungary. Due to the political circumstances and directives of the period, the state first had to buy up the buildings in order to be able to protect them, for instance, by listing them as monuments. In the latter case, the regulations cut down the quantitative requirements in order to categorize more and more vernacular heritage examples as state-protected architectures (Tóth 1999: 153–174). Another supporting methodology was to provide extensive financial support and instructions for the owners. The support varied from an annual maintenance fee to a one-time reconstruction cost, which was a significantly higher amount (Barcza 1977: 25–35).

The protected monument buildings went through a functional transformation due to the ‘socialist monument policy’ that was prevalent at the time (Merényi 1972: 11). It was envisioned that the conserved monuments would become a venue for cultural educational tasks of socialism. Recognized values, such as community, hard work, and simplicity, could be studied on the spot, at the objects of the vernacular heritage. The natural surroundings were protected also in order to save the traditional agricultural methods, if they were still in use. Moreover, vernacular culture was adapted to numerous political aims such as in the rhetoric fight against the class enemy, the so-called kulaks (Csurgó 2007: 90–103).

The original and preserved houses were transformed into museums, motels, artist residencies, and weekend houses. Hence, the main target groups who were attracted to use these transformed buildings were the tourists, pioneer

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groups, and artists. So, the public from the centres were encouraged to visit these cultural and recreational spots in the peripheries. Another feature of the socialist ideology can be identified in the Hungarian vernacular heritage management of the time, and it was the overemphasis of social belonging in contrast to the ethnic or national one. In this way, Serbian architectural heritage in Szentendre, the Palócz heritage of Hollókő, and the German vernacular heritage of Fertőtáj (the region of Neusiedlersee) were the very first nationally protected vernacular heritage examples in Hungary (Fejérdy 1988: 12–14).

Vernacular heritage was popularized in the media as well but from another perspective. Television shows, radio programmes, and print media examples were created to change the general perception of the past from seeing old buildings and practices as useless and shameful to their positive evaluations and protection (mainly due to the country’s economic situation and incapability to continuously establish new buildings and cities). For instance, the Folklore of the Hungarians was published by the main scholarly publishing house that ensured the increased status of the research subject as well. Not just among the academic circles but within the wider audience too folk culture became tempting and popular (Balassa & Ortutay 1980: 662–664). One of the most successful initiatives started in 1977 titled Regions, Ages, and Museums. This was a network organization on the one hand that united important cultural sites all over the country, advertised them with series of publications, but, on the other hand, it was a national competition as well by which the public was urged to explore local heritage all over the country.6 There were televised talent shows as well for popularizing various segments of folk culture. In these programmes, viewers were informed about the given region and the represented heritage as well. An example for this aim was the participation of the female choir from Hollókő at this competition, whose ultimate success played a role in the heritage protectionists’ aim to make it the first UNESCO World Heritage site of Hungary (Mezősiné Kozák 2001: 121). The National Monument and Museum Month in 1977 was another project that drew attention, among others, to the vernacular heritage with the support of politics (Román 1987: 453). These few examples represent well the success of the political and propagandistic support that turned vernacular culture into a valuable asset in Hungary during the socialist period.

Results and Conclusions One example for ensuring the continuous existence of vernacular heritage (when its social group was disappearing) was realized by transforming the function of 6

For the history of the movement that became an institute, see: http://www.tkme.hu/tortenetunk/ (last accessed on: 5/03/2018).

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the protected vernacular buildings and transmitting them to the geographical and mental centre of the society. Besides the destroyed settlements after World War II, the ideological and political oppression that characterized all aspects of life was the major problem. All these circumstances were even more threatening for vernacular heritage elements as not just the related economic and social segments (hence the owners and users) fainted away but also the technical, material, and structural deterioration was faster-paced regarding this type of tangible heritage (Szász & Szigetvári 1976). All in all, the future of vernacular tangible heritage seemed to be a dark and short one. On the other hand, rural images came to be seen worth protecting by the political regime; hence they were intensively popularized among the general public through media and public events. The clichés about the life style of the rural society, such as being healthy and strong or hard-working, are characteristics that also suited well contemporary political propaganda. That is the reason why with certain and definite limitations it was possible to academically and professionally protect the disappearing rural social unit and its lifestyle. Accordingly, in the context of dealing with the Soviet period, it is important how the issue of vernacular culture is articulated and presented to the community by the various actors (Forest & Johnson 2011: 269–288). In the researched time frame, vernacular heritage and its management, for instance, by monument protectionists served ideological aims as well besides the cultural, architectural, and public policy issues that all played a role in the success story (Barcza 1977). As Lowenthal describes, our contemporary time is justified by the past and by recognizing vanished or oppressed values. He sees the past as being integral both to individual and communal representations of identity and their connotations of providing human existence with meaning, purpose, and value (Lowenthal 1985). The reminiscences and events of the past are raw materials which are commodified for contemporary consumption (Ashworth 1991). That is why in the researched period the disappearing social unit and lifestyle through their representative built relics could be reactivated at new locations to serve new purposes. Reactions to political and social changes were difficult in the case of these examples as the ‘traditional’ glorification of the past could not be done due to the (at least) questionable evaluation of the actors and events (e.g. the same leadership supported and eliminated the researched tangible elements).

Accordingly, it is very important how the issue of such reminiscences of the past is articulated and presented to the community via the various actors, management instruments, or interpretation narratives. The article looked at this reinterpretation process that took place while physically and mentally transmitting vernacular architecture from the periphery to the centres. The process was realized by numerous actors and several factors and could result in the reevaluation and survival of vernacular culture, while the rural areas went through a dramatic change and the earlier agricultural population has disappeared.

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Urban Development

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 39–64

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0004

An Insight into Operational Urban Development in Hungary in the Light of Regulation-Based Urban Development László BAJNAI

National University of Public Service, Doctoral School of Public Administration Sciences, 1083 Budapest, Ludovika Sq. 2.

Senior Research Fellow email: bajnai.laszlo@uni-nke.hu

Attila JÓZSA

National University of Public Service, Doctoral School of Public Administration Sciences, 1083 Budapest, Ludovika Sq. 2.

PhD student email: attila@sapientia.ro Abstract. An operational urban development relying on the structured cooperation of the public and private sectors is indispensable to purposefully address the challenges posed by sustainable development. Its evolution in Hungary may serve as inspiration for other countries as well. In the period preceding the regime change, it underwent a much more significant disruption as compared to regulation-based urban development. Afterwards, its methods, procedures, and instruments suitable for use in a democratic rule-of-law state and under market economy conditions had to be rebuilt from scratch. For this to happen, two external factors provided assistance: the French–Hungarian urban development cooperation and the EU. As a result, we could witness the successful development of the methods as well as of the conceptual, strategic, and operational planning tools forming a coherent system of operational urban development planning carried through with the public sector’s physical intervention into the urban tissue.

Keywords and phrases: urbanization, urban tissue, integrated settlement development strategy, action area plan, urban development company

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1. Introduction – Operational and Regulation-Based Urban Development in Hungary and Europe Results of recent studies reporting on research on settlement development (Mohai 2018) indicate that identifying the distinct but complementary and closely interconnected activities of regulation-based and operational urban development as well as the conscious and professional application of its methods and toolbox are the elements that form the basis of a conscious and purposeful urban development able to properly address the urbanization challenges of an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable development. Regulationbased urban development functions according to an established and effective practice all over Europe. However, that is not necessarily true in all cases when it comes to operational urban development (Merlin–Choay 2010: 804–805), whose post-1990 evolution in Hungary shows that an established practice and toolbox of an efficient operational urban development functioning in accordance with regulation-based urban development can be adopted in a former socialist country as well. At the same time, in the light of the experience accumulated in Hungary, research call attention to the fact that in respect of settlement development competencies a better understanding and knowledge of the essence, operating mechanisms, methodology, and instruments of operational urban development is of utmost priority. Therefore, this topic might be interesting for other former socialist countries too.

In order to gain a proper understanding of the issues addressed in the present study, providing the definition of certain key concepts in the sense meant to be used in our study would be in place prior to a more detailed discussion of the subject matter. ‘“Urban development” stands for the creation of a new or renewed piece pertaining to the urban tissue. Within that, the creation of a renewed piece pertaining to the urban tissue is termed as “urban rehabilitation”’ (Bajnai 2009).

‘The urban tissue is the ensemble of buildings and built spaces consisting of buildings, the physical framework of the life and functioning of the local society – the material carrier of urban life’ (Bajnai 2009).

Planned settlement development disposes of two large sets of instruments that are distinct but at the same time interrelated and in close interaction (Lacaze 1995): regulation-based and operational urban development.

Regulation-based urban development imposes obligations, and, by establishing and enforcing local construction and settlement planning regulations related to shaping the urban tissue, it keeps within the right channels and provides proper guidelines for construction activities initiated by individuals and organizations of the society aimed at shaping the urban tissue, and it does so for the sake of

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public interest and the common good. Regulation instruments do not only impose restrictions but also open up possibilities for development. In order for some of the possibilities created through the instruments of regulation-based urban development to be utilized, private actors’ market-driven construction activity is a sufficient condition, whereas the active contribution of the public sector to the realization of physical interventions targeting, through the safeguarding of public interests, the creation of a new or renewed piece pertaining to the urban tissue is a prerequisite for some other options to be exploited. In this latter case, we can speak of operational urban/settlement development.

Operational urban development is an urban development, an urban planning that takes place with the public sector’s active involvement and physical – development-oriented – intervention by way of construction work in pursuance of ideas expressed by the public sector as well as of objectives set out in approved concepts and strategies (Bajnai 2018).

Figure 1. Present-day planning tools and correlations in Hungary’s regulation-based urban development and operational urban development

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Similarly to France, there are two types of urban development and urban planning processes, methods, and instruments in Hungary that ensure urban development, i.e. the creation of a new or renewed piece of the urban tissue: operational and regulation-based urban development. In Hungary, the four decades of state socialist era ended by way of regime change carried forward, albeit with significant breaks, the work experience of regulation-based urban development with regard to the professional methodology and urban architectural theoretical background of establishing urban-planning objectives and facilitating their achievement with urban-planning regulations (Perényi 1976: 144–180).

These major breaks were consequent upon the 1949 elimination of market economy and constitutionality. This, however, did not imply doing away with the practice of the urban planning profession at high standards (Fátay 2011); what is more, studies indicate that several benefits of the former civil legislation were successfully retained in the legislation on urban development and building affairs (Völgyesi 2009). There was a more radical break in terms of operational urban development. By definition, the urban construction and development activities carried out during the state socialist decades may also be considered operational urban development. Substantively, however, operational urban development activities performed in the absence of market economy and a democratic rule of law are in no sense on a par with such activities performed in the presence of the aforementioned circumstances. Consequently, following the regime change, this professional and scientific field had to be entirely rebuilt from scratch. This process got under way at once from the year 1991, it received a powerful boost with the 1992 signing of the Association Agreement between Hungary and the European Communities, and by the 2004 EU accession it had already yielded a highly useful and established operational urban development toolkit. This toolkit got integrated into the policy guidelines on operational urban development instruments as well as into the urban development practices implemented with EU and government support. All of these are enormous accomplishments when compared to the situation on the ground confronted in 1990 by the then established National Building Authority of the government carrying through the regime change, placed in charge of urban development, urban planning, and building affairs. Despite the results, however, a complete reconstruction of the professional experience as well as of the scientific and theoretical background concerning operational urban development has not yet been fully implemented.

While adopting the instruments of regulation-based urban development has now long been a common practice employed to a high standard and in accordance with its intended purpose, when it comes to the proper and professional application of the operational urban development toolbox, much remains to be done in terms of awareness raising/education and filling the knowledge gaps, wherefore substantial further progress is needed in order to improve efficiency. The research work,

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the methodology and education development activities carried out in Hungary, in particular within the framework of the National University of Public Service during the past four years, serving as the background of the present study, seek to promote this essential development. At the same time, even if we could take pride in having achieved full maturity in terms of the professional and scientific field of operational urban development, tasks arising from addressing the new challenges of urbanization (Topalov, Coudroy de Lille, Depaule, Marin 2010: 1243–1248) would still call for further measures to be taken.

Considering the state of affairs as outlined above, Hungary does not represent an isolated case within the European Union. Therefore, it might be interesting for professionals and scientists of other European countries as well to grow familiar with operational urban development in Hungary, drawing a parallel with regulation-based urban development, given that the public sector’s operational and regulatory urban development activities performed simultaneously are an essential feature of EU Member States, with certain differences according to the local socio-economic and political specificities. Yet another similarity can be found upon a closer look at the major break that occurred in the operational urban development during the state socialist era in the former socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Yet, the approaches and practices existing in the United Kingdom are markedly different from those present in the continental countries of the European Union. The reason for this is the island nation’s different historical, social, economic, and political evolution and, consequently, the diverging development of its systems of public and private law by comparison with the legal system of mainland Europe (Booth, Breuillard, Fraser, Paris 2007).

This does not rule out the public sector’s long-standing significant operational urban development activities in the United Kingdom, quite the contrary in fact (Heinz 1994). Consequent upon the historical development process of the continental legal system being radically different from its English counterpart, the marked distinctions between the property rights effective in the United Kingdom and those in continental Europe result in a situation where in the context of the continental legal and political system entirely different approaches, methods, instruments, and practices have evolved and are functioning effectively in the field of urban development as compared to their English variants (Booth, Breuillard, Fraser, Paris 2007). Therefore, the British toolbox can be adopted with extreme difficulties in the continental context. Within the continental legal system and the legal toolkit of urban planning, the French approach, practice, and legislation of urban development and planning has a particular importance and impact. Taking this train of thought even further, the divergent historical development processes of the social, economic evolution and political transformations taking place in each continental EU Member State yielded substantial differences and diverse solutions even within this context. Among other things, this accounts for the lack

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of EU legislative harmonization needs, parallel to the integration process, aimed at harmonizing the legal area of what we may call in Hungary the legal system of urban development, urban planning, and building affairs while in France falls under the Code de l’Urbanisme (Jegouzo 1992) – Urban Planning Code. Romania has several legislative measures governing the legal bases of regional development, which in most cases were conceived under the principle of complementarity. The first act containing such measures was Act No 50/1991, which foresaw the need for regional development documents in case of urban development plans. Act No 350/2001 was born in the spirit of diversification of needs and of preparation for the country’s integration into the EU. This Act clearly specifies a number of points on the document types required for the various regional development plans.

Thus, for instance, the following acts are intrinsic to the National Plan of Regional Development: Act No 71/1996 on traffic routes, Act No 171/1997 on water, Act No 152/2000 on protected areas, on settlement network Act No 351/2001, and Act No 575/2001 on natural risk areas (Benedek 2006).

In this context, gaining insight into the instruments and practices of regulationbased and operational urban development in Hungary can be interesting on many levels for the reasons outlined below.

Overall, besides the German culture and Italy, it was probably the French culture that had the most decisive impact (Granasztói 1980) on the cultural development of Hungary in the past millennium, from the reform spreading out from Cluny and renewing the mediaeval Catholic Church and from the ‘Latin’ hospes playing a crucial role in urban development, through the Age of Enlightenment and the 1870– 1914 building of Budapest (Siklóssy 1931), the modern capital of Hungary, all the way to the 20th-century modern visual arts, architecture, and urban planning. From this cultural context has the practice of operational and regulation-based urban development, entwined together, emerged in Hungary. Speaking in physical and architectural terms, the spatial model was first of all provided by France as for the regulation-based and operational urban development methods and instruments.

This cultural and professional influence lived on in its own way in the period between the two world wars but even during the subsequent forty-year period (Perényi 1967) of state socialism. After the regime change, the value-creating activities of the Hungarian–French cooperation could once again prevail in the process of European integration. As a result, following a 42-year forced interruption in practising operational urban development under constitutional conditions, rebuilding the instruments of Hungarian operational urban development took place within a democratic constitutional framework in the context of European integration, owing to the French–Hungarian cooperation of building affairs and urban development. In the context of a cultural background showing a high similarity index in addition to the unique characteristics, they managed to incorporate the operational urban development methodology and instruments used in one of the

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most developed EU countries and founding Member States and adapt them to the situation in Hungary despite the differing conditions in terms of local legal and regulatory capabilities – even though not in its full richness, scope, and depth but, in their essentials, to a significant degree and, above all, fully operational. In other countries, it did not go off this way; not even in states with a much stronger cultural and historical affinity than the Hungarian–French relations. The cases of Romania and Poland, for instance, are no exceptions to this ‘rule’, where throughout history much stronger ties have been established with France than Hungary has ever had.

What could explain this state of affairs and can the public sector’s conscious and operational urban development activities be interpreted on a similar footing as in France or Hungary? Attempting to answer the question raised in the light of the Hungarian case study might provide an opportunity for producing some intriguing studies, whose drawing up, however, would go far beyond the framework of this study. A further interesting insight could be obtained from coming to grips with the results in Hungary produced upon the successful implementation of the advanced Western European instruments of operational urban development in the conditions prevailing in the former socialist country joining the EU in the year 2004. What sort of difficulties were involved in this process? In what terms can we still speak of considerable reserves as for the successfully domesticated, advanced European toolbox? A proper inspection might help professionals of other countries to arrive at findings with the potential to benefit their own scientific and professional methodology as well as urban development toolbox. Their feedbacks could support scientific reasoning related to urban development and promote the development of the methodology and instruments in Hungary and the rest of the European countries. Thereby, the European scientific and professional community specialized on urban planning, regulation-based and operational urban development can grow intellectually and carry out their urban development activities with greater efficiency in the service of the common good.

Obviously, it would take us well beyond the confines of this study to address all issues raised in connection with this topic. Besides, that would have us embarked on an impossible mission as further detailed research are required to be done, on the one hand, and treating the extensive, complicated, and diversified topic in all of its complexity would far exceed the limits of the present publication, on the other. It is equally impossible to provide full details of the Hungarian situation, methodology, and instruments of operational urban development, which represent the narrower topic of this study. Again, that would effectively break the confines of the study since, fortunately, several thousand pages of specialized literature and reference works are at our disposal in this respect, whose full summary would assume a much lengthier work.

Consequently, the study at hand restricts itself to presenting for the wider European public the key findings on the history of operational urban development

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in Hungary, its typical approaches, practice, methodology, instruments, results, problems, and challenges for further development – all in the belief that it would contribute to the further development of an established European scientific and professional cooperation.

2. Instruments of Operational and Regulation-Based Urban Development in Hungary 2.1. A Comprehensive Analysis of Instruments of Regulation-Based Urban Development In order to analyse the situation of operational urban development in the light of regulation-based urban development, an overview of the latter topic must be provided at first.

2.1.1. Historical Background Similarly to other European countries (Claval 2014: 274), traditions of regulationbased urban development in Hungary (Nagy 2005: 345) go back to the Middle Ages. In the modern sense, considering the emergence and implementation of regulations providing for the entire city, the years between 1870 and 1948 meant the first momentous period when the urbanization of the capital (Siklóssy 1931) as well as of the provincial towns (Meggyesi 2009) took place.

This development continued at unabated speed in the 1948–1990 period of state socialism too (Granasztói 1976). The rebirth of rule-of-law state and democracy provided scope for the emergence of the present-day practice and legislation of urban development starting from the year 1990.

2.1.2. Legislation Currently, the two most fundamental laws in force directly regulating urban development and urban planning are: – Act No CLXXXIX of 2011 on Local Governments in Hungary, – Act No LXXVIII of 1997 on the formation and protection of built environment Regarding the rest of the laws, the Regional Development Act on drawing up the regional development and land-use (briefly put: spatial) plans plays the most essential role in shaping the overall urban development.

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Pursuant to the laws cited above, the responsibility of urban development falls to local governments.

At the level of secondary legislations, the following two legal provisions address directly urban development and urban planning: – the Országos Településrendezési és Építésügyi Követelmények (OTÉK) [National Settlement Planning and Construction Requirements] setting the national normative rules of settlement planning and construction, having its regulations included in a government decree; – Government Decree No 314/2012 (XI. 8.) on the settlement development concept, integrated settlement development strategy, and certain further issues of building affairs.

The aforementioned laws and government decrees regulate the – conceptual, strategic, and regulatory – framing and adoption of urban development plans at the substantive and procedural levels.

The constituent parts of Government Decree No 314 regarding the content and elaboration of Integrated Settlement Development Strategy (hereinafter ISDS; in Hungarian ITS – Integrált Településfejlesztési Stratégia) are defined by the policy guidelines. Besides ISDS, these guidelines include the definitions of basic notions and refer to drafting of action area plans as well as founding and operating urban development companies indispensable for the implementation of ISDS in medium-sized and large cities. The relevant parts considering the action area plans were explicitly incorporated into the ISDS-related substantive requirements of the Government Decree. Guidelines on urban development companies also prevail, though in an indirect manner – in a government-decreelevel regulation on ISDS. A legislation concerning directly ATT and urban development companies is yet to be formulated.

In the legal landscape outlined above, the central organizations of the state are able to guide municipal urban development and planning within the framework of the activities described below: – first of all, integrated in the adoption process, through the inspection and verification of urban development and urban planning plans in terms of their compliance with legislations and to examine whether they substantively fit into the national- and county-level spatial plans. It is taken as a given that the regulation-based and operational urban development and planning activities of local governments must be in conformity with the land-use plans drawn up based on spatial development concepts and programmes, which aim at aligning and enforcing the national as well as regional interests. These are as follows: national-level, priority regional, and county-level spatial plans.

– on the other hand, through the selection of urban development projects realized under the sponsorship of the European Union and the government

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and through the fulfilment of authority functions managing the preparation and implementation of these programmes.

The regulations to be enforced by regulation-based urban development upon forming the urban tissue of a given settlement as well as the regulatory framework of operational urban development are currently defined by two hierarchically overlapping planning instruments of the regulation-based urban development and planning. These instruments, termed as settlement planning instruments in the Hungarian terminology, are as follows: – settlement structure plan; – regulatory plan, which is an annex to the local construction regulations (a legal text, the written form of the regulations, including a description of urban planning and construction rules).

2.1.3. The Settlement Development Concept The settlement structure plan is defined by the settlement development concept, which is a document of local urban policy and urban development, formulating the town’s vision and its overall long-term and far-sighted urban development goals (for 15 years ahead or for an even longer term as regards certain elements of its content). It systematizes the local government’s urban development decisions covering the settlement’s administrative area and facilitates the coordinated realization thereof. Both the settlement structure plan and the integrated settlement development strategy build upon the settlement development concept.

2.1.4. The Settlement Structure Plan The settlement structure plan designates intended land-use zones and defines the types of principal activities. It contains the land-use plan and, based on the decisions set out in the settlement’s development concept, outlines long-term (15–20-year) land-use objectives to be pursued as well as infrastructure networks, which will determine the settlement’s structure. The settlement structure plan covers the environmental factors affecting land-use (undermining; soil contamination; flood, inland water, erosion, and landslide hazard; seismicity, etc.) as well as the protected areas. The settlement structure plan always has to be drawn up with reference to the entire administrative area of the settlement and has to be updated at least once every ten years. The development of the regulatory plan and of local construction regulations is based on the settlement structure plan, which performs an indispensable function not only as the basis of local construction regulations and regulatory plan that define the binding provisions for settlement planning and construction but as a document establishing the spatial, physical, and development potential of the town. In this sense, it serves

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as the core document of operational urban development just as of regulationbased urban development.

The settlement structure plan should specify in particular: – administrative areas and peripheries; – lands intended as well as those not intended for development and their division (land-use units); – technical infrastructure networks determining the settlements structure (main routes, collectors, public utility main lines, main elements of communications network); – settlement- and district-level public parks as well as green areas of various categories; – protected areas, areas designed to be protected (by virtue of this plan), and protection areas, which can be represented according to the scale of the plan; – areas selected for rehabilitation and areas with functions intended to be altered.

2.1.5. Local Construction Regulations and the Regulatory Plan Local construction regulations contain provisions for construction laid down in a regulation by the municipal council. The regulatory plan annexed to that Regulation displays on the blueprint provisions difficult to specify in the wording of the legislative text.

– The regulatory plan can be worked out either for the administrative area of the settlement or, separately, for each end every compartment thereof – at least of a size of a block of lots.

– A regulatory plan shall be drafted in each of the cases below: - areas to be newly developed or that will undergo substantial modifications; - areas requiring particular attention in terms of natural conditions, settlement structure, construction, architectural heritage, or intended purpose/function; - in any other case where this is necessary in order to ensure compliance with local construction policies.

– The regulatory plan shall be consistent with the approved settlement structure plan – should a necessity for specific derogations arise, the settlement structure plan must be amended in advance.

– The regulatory plan shall be visualized on a scale map, including the necessary horizontal and height indications as well as other required data, in such a way that its specifications be amenable to clear interpretation in terms of the individual plots, construction sites, and public areas alike.

– The regulatory plan shall include the following: - demarcation of administrative areas and peripheries (with administrative boundaries);

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- lands intended as well as those not intended for development and the demarcation of the compartments within them; - separation of the individual compartments within public spaces and of other areas; - areas serving various functions (public roads, public squares, public parks, etc.) within public spaces; - provisions for creating and building up plots, building plots, and lands within areas not classified as public space; - protected areas, areas designed to be protected, protection areas, and buildings within the different compartments; - elements of infrastructure networks and buildings that require regulatory action; - demarcation of compartments affected by the application of specific legal institutions.

– Local construction regulations and the associated regulatory plan should be used together.

The professional and substantive requirements of urban planning and management plans are laid down in an implementing regulation of the Law on the formation and protection of built environment, namely Government Decree No 253/1997 on national settlement planning and construction requirements (OTÉK). OTÉK comprises several chapters and seven annexes. Urban planning is discussed in Chapter I – ‘General Provisions’, Chapter II – ‘Settlement Planning Requirements’, and the provisions of Chapter III. Chapter I defines those supporting industry-specific work areas of the settlement structure plan, the local construction regulations, and the regulatory plan which must be made mandatory.

Chapter II of OTÉK establishes the land-use opportunities to be utilized by local governments when planning how to use the settlement’s administrative area according to their needs. Lands basically fall into two categories, namely: lands intended and not intended for development. A further division of these categories according to their primary purpose ranks residential, mixed-use, commercial, recreational, and special areas among lands intended for development, while among lands not intended for development we can find transport spaces, areas for the placement of public utilities, communications areas, green areas, forest lands, agricultural lands, water management areas, semi-natural areas, and special areas not intended for development. Areas sharing the same function should be listed under the same land-use category.

Within each land-use category, OTÉK also provides for the building types and the conditions of their placement on a given type of land. In the case of lands intended for development, the permitted maximum levels (floor area density, maximum coverage of built-up area, building height, minimum green space area) of construction use and of site coverage are summarized in a separate table.

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Land-use units should be divided into public spaces and other spaces as well as so-called development zones (in case of lands intended for development) and zones (in case of lands not intended for development). The number of zones that can be determined is discretionary. Their numbers and the provisions assigned to them should be adjusted to local conditions and needs as well as to the actions to be undertaken while also having in sight the application criterion. OTÉK provides only for the minimum required content of development zones and zones, which, therefore, can be subject to expansion if necessary.

Chapter III discusses the general and specific provisions for the placement of buildings. Thus, for instance, it covers: development conditions; the methods of development; provisions for front, side, and rear yard; minimum distance between buildings; protection areas; public spaces; placement of vehicles; public utilities.

A further essential element is the paragraph, which gives local governments the option to apply regulations that differ from certain OTÉK provisions. Local governments can establish requirements at any time that are more stringent than the ones laid down in chapters II–III. Based on OTÉK, regarding the development zones of areas to be newly developed or that will undergo substantial modifications, at least the following should be defined: – minimum size of plot that can be covered; – location of the building on the plot; – permitted maximum coverage of built-up area (size of the area that can be occupied by buildings); – permitted maximum building height; – the level of public utilities consistent with the prescribed conditions of development; – minimum size of green area; – permissible limits for land-use, emissions, pollution, and environmental impact; – buildings below ground level.

For development zones and zones, the following may be defined: – exclusivity and limitations of use; – the minimum width and depth of the plots, minimum building height, and architectural character features in order to preserve or create specific local features; – other specifications for building long linear engineering structures and their pertaining engineering structures; – maximum height of the building.

The local construction regulations and the associated regulatory plan are established in a regulation by the municipal council; accordingly, its provisions are binding on everyone.

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Urban development plans should be drawn up by design engineers with appropriate designing qualifications. Designing qualification can be obtained by building engineers, civil engineers, horticultural and landscape architects, and urban systems engineers upon the completion of various conditions. Considering the organizational framework, the drafting of urban development plans may take place in mayor’s offices and publicly or privately owned agencies.

If we attempted to briefly summarize the aforementioned, we could conclude that regulation-based urban development has a significant and continuous professional tradition.

However, certain issues must be mentioned, which are the following: – strategic planning problems in terms of economic sociology and development and their impact on the flexibility and rigidity of the urban structure plan, – the content of urban development plans in terms of timing, – governing urban development and urban planning activities as well as harmonizing them between settlements and towns.

Besides fine achievements, there are many more problems in the field of operational urban development.

2.2. Operational Urban Development Operational urban development, just as regulation-based urban development, dates back many centuries. The difference between them, and also the main source of the problems, lies in the less continuous and therefore less evident tradition of the former when compared to its regulation-based counterpart.

The state socialist, centrally planned economic system of the period between 1948 and 1990, lacking constitutionality, democracy, and market economy, caused a more perceptible fault-line in the theoretical background, methods, and instruments of operational urban development than it did in the case of regulation-based urban development.

2.2.1. Historical Background Interestingly, the practice of operational urban development in Hungary looks back on a much longer history than regulation-based urban development. The mediaeval practice of building the French fortified towns, the bastides, as well as of establishing the polders of the Netherlands and filling them with settlements supports the hypothesis that other European countries had similar trends (Merlin 2002).

The subject of the present paper, however, is studying operational urban development in Hungary, whose history reveals the following highly significant milestones:

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– The first great era of operational urban development was the period of building new fortified towns in the second half of the 13th century, following the Mongol invasion. This is when the royal city of Buda (the predecessor of today’s Castle District) was born of political will in a short time (Zolnai 1981).

– In the golden age of the emerging field of urban planning, a period defined by the Metropolitan Council of Public Works in Budapest – 1870–1948 – represented the great era of operational urban development: - 1870–1914: the development of Budapest (Preisich 2004) as a modern global city – on the Pest side mostly, in a homogeneous manner, to the strip surrounding the Grand Boulevard (Nagykörút) from the outside and to the City Park (Városliget), with three new bridges across the Danube; creating the current structure of major provincial towns (Borbíró–Valló 1956); - development of new districts both in Pest and Buda, launching the construction of two new Danube bridges; the first stage of reconstruction after the war (Harrer 1941).

– 1948–1990: the termination of the Metropolitan Council of Public Works in charge of the urban planning activities of Budapest and the state socialist regime’s coming to power resulted in a four-decade-long interruption in the use of democratic constitutional and market economy instruments and methods of operational urban development in Budapest and in Hungary.

– 1990: the year when the rule-of-law state, democracy, and market economy are reborn; the instruments and methods of the communist regime disappeared at once or were rendered inapplicable in the field of operational urban development.

Restoring the methodology and instruments used in the period of 1870–1948 would have been impossible in that time amongst the social, economic, cultural, and political conditions radically changed over time.

2.2.2. Main Features of the Operational Urban Development Restructured after the Regime Change In the field of operational urban development, the basic responsibilities and competences are subject to legislation in Hungary (local government law and the law on the formation and protection of built environment, as we have presented it in the case of regulation-based urban development). Nonetheless, these laws do not regulate all existing aspects of methodology and instruments of operational urban development that can be applied under market economy conditions. In the meantime, regarding operational urban development too, the politics and public thinking, just as the thinking and attitude of the professional society of 1990–2000, was dominated by the view that the market is all-powerful and it provides solution for everything: it is sufficient for local governments to draw up urban development plans as investors will bring them to realization. This

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general perspective was changed by Hungary’s 2004 accession to the European Union and the fact that concurrently, already from the previous year – 2003 –, the EU provided significant amounts of non-refundable financial support for the implementation of urban development actions, and it has also made it clear in its communications that urban development and rehabilitation are considered a matter of the public sector. Expenditure of significant amounts of EU as well as of Hungarian state funds to financially support local urban development actions could not have taken place should the machinery of the EU have not found a workable operational urban development methodology and toolbox in 2003 which had been created despite an ultra-liberal context and which had made possible in both metropolitan and small-town conditions – even in the stark absence of a supportive legal and state development finance institutional background – the implementation of viable urban development actions for municipalities. The development of the said proven methodology and toolbox, in cooperation with the Municipality of District IX of Budapest and Caisse des Dépôts, originated in the 1992 establishment of SEM IX Urban Development Co. Ltd (SEM IX Városfejlesztő Zrt) and its urban development activities.

By the turn of the millennium, in addition to the physical transformation of the urban tissue, the professionals of SEM IX Urban Development Co. Ltd and URBAN DEVELOPMENT Co. Private Ltd. had finished the work that was necessary to develop and to have a version of the French methodology and toolbox adopted – used by the SEMs (Jegouzo 1992: 505) in the implementation of the ZACs (Zone d’Aménagement Concerté) (Jegouzo 1992: 934–946) and supported by laws and state development finance institutions – that can be put into action on the ground amongst the Hungarian legal, regulatory, and economic conditions and without supporting laws and institutions (Bajnai 2007).

In parallel, until 2004, SEM IX Urban Development Co. Ltd had accomplished a full-depth rehabilitation of one-third of the 73-ha Ferencváros action area with a total population of 20,000. Many of these results were already clearly visible in 1997, when upon their activities the development holding of Caisse des Dépôts in collaboration with professionals on the management and the panel of experts of SEM IX Urban Development Co. Ltd established SCET Hongrie Co. Ltd, now known as Urban Development Co. Private Ltd (in Hungarian: Városfejlesztés Zrt.) In the year 1999, SCET Hongrie Co. Ltd founded the country’s very first urban development company outside Budapest in the county town of Zalaegerszeg and then, in 2001, the first small-town company of this kind, again in the Western Transdanubia region, this time in Mosonmagyaróvár. In the period of EU accession, both urban development companies implemented urban development actions that were worth billions and were based on urban development action plans drawn up by SCET Hongrie Co. Ltd .

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Based on the aforementioned local results, from the year 2003, the methodology and toolbox developed by Urban Development Co. Private Ltd. and SEM IX gradually became more and more incorporated into the system of policy guidelines on the use of urban rehabilitation supports. As the most recent milestone of this process, NFGM published its policy guidelines in 2009, entitled ‘Városfejlesztési kézikönyv’ (hereinafter: Handbook on Urban Development), whose chapters on urban development action plans and companies put down and recommend for adoption the methodology and instruments developed by the Urban Development Co. Private Ltd. (Aczél–Bajnai 2009) in the course of the process outlined above.

This Handbook is the professional basis of the parts concerning the ISDS and ATT of Government Decree No 314/2012 (XI. 8.).

The key element of operational urban development is to define the urban development action area in the ISDS as well as to draw up within the framework of the urban development action plan the complex urban development action aimed at the transformation of the urban tissue. This is the basis upon which the urban development action is implemented by the municipality’s urban development company in the name and on the account of the local government with the structured cooperation of the public and private sectors. The main constituent elements of this process are as follows: – The local government draws up a complex urban development action plan for the complex urban development action area in the spirit of structured cooperation with the public and private sectors, wherein it defines the following in a coherent system: - the urban development operations of the public sector and their expenditure; - the property development options of the private sector, which are created by the public sector and sold for real estate development companies together with the direct municipal urban development revenues that can be realized from them; - duration and timing of the urban development action.

– The complex urban development action plan underlying the implementation as well as its annual plans and the annual reports on the implementation are approved by the municipal council.

– The local government establishes an urban development company for the implementation of the urban development action and other urban development actions included in the ISDS. – The urban development company concludes a detailed planning and implementation agreement with the local government on the implementation of the approved urban development action.

– The agreement between the company and the local government specifies that the company shall implement the urban development action plan in the name and on the account of the local government and defines the practice of monitoring

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by and reporting to the local government as well as the detailed planning and implementation tasks specific to the given action.

There is currently a 100% municipal ownership, although semi-public companies (SEM – Société d’économie Mixte) show a number of advantages compared to this in terms of efficiency and professionalism. The legal form of the cooperation between the company and the local government resembles most the case of the French ‘mandat’ (mandate). The legislation in Hungary does not include concession in the field of urban development nor does ‘mandat’ exist at the level of legislation, but as a separate category the concrete construction can be modelled fairly well with the set of instruments civil law has at its disposal.

There have been four periods since 2003 when EU grants were allocated. In the guidelines for applicants, the methodology of urban development action plans was incorporated already in the first period (2003–2004), which continued in the second period (2004–2006). In the third (2007–2013) and fourth (2014–) periods, the guidelines for applicants strongly recommended and in certain cases made compulsory the establishment of urban development companies and the planning of action area plans for the implementation of the supported urban development actions. On the national level, the EU and the Hungarian state appropriated approx. 25 billion HUF in the first period, approx. 50 billion HUF in the second period, and approx. 100 billion HUF (there is no accurate data on this latter amount) in the third period for funding the implementation of municipal urban development projects. The EU and the Hungarian state appropriated more than 1,000 billion HUF in the fourth period to support the implementation of local settlement development projects based on the ISDS and the Action Area Plans.

The third period of funding led to the establishment of more than 50 local urban development companies (no exact data available).

The implementation of the supported projects was not the sole purpose fuelling the establishment of urban development companies. Their scope of responsibility also includes the implementation of those other urban development actions that are present in the towns’ Integrated Urban Development Strategies (hereinafter IUDS; in Hungarian IVS – Integrált Városfejlesztési Stratégia). IUDS is a new kind of plan, now known as ISDS, which came to be introduced by the government in the year 2007 based on the Leipzig Charter (Barta 2009).

The Law on the formation and protection of built environment defined ISDS as an implementation-oriented development document with a medium-term perspective (7–8 years). Therefore, ISDS puts forward an operational urban development strategy as opposed to the conceptual vision of development conceived in the perspective of a 15–20-year timespan.

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2.2.3. Legislation and Policy Guidelines on Operational Urban Development Unlike in the case of regulation-based urban development, there is not a distinct, comprehensive, and detailed legislation in Hungary on operational urban development, its planning and implementation methodology and instruments.

In this sense, there is certainly significant growth potential for (legal) regulation in Hungary. To set a good example of a comprehensive, distinct, extensive, and detailed regulation, we should appeal to the French regulation of operational urban development, wherein planning instruments and procedures (such as a joint development zone [ZAC]) are all statutory just as the methods and instruments of implementation (expropriation, land acquisition at a fixed/imposed price, semi-public companies [Société d’Économie Mixte, SEM], concession, mandate [mandat], etc.) managed and controlled by the public sector.

State guidelines coming from the highest level, distinct from the regulationbased urban development, concerning all the planning and implementation instruments developed so far in the established Hungarian practice of operational urban development are included in the policy guidelines put forward in the ‘Handbook on Urban Development’ (Aczél, Bajnai, Lunk, Wachter, Somogyi, Gerőházi 2009) published by the Ministry of National Development and Economy (NFGM) in 2009, resulting from the work of an experts’ group. On the part of the Ministry for National Development and Economy, State Secretary Dr Péter Szaló and Principal Advisor Gyöngyi Jármi were in charge of directing the work. Policy guidelines include the above definitions of urban development and urban tissue as well as guidelines on how to draw up and what to include in the integrated settlement (at that time: urban) development strategy and in the complex urban development action plan (at that time: action area plan), while also covering the establishment and operation of urban development companies. This toolbox is much narrower in scope than the one adopted in France. Due to the absence of other legal backgrounds and financial instruments, it lacks, for example, two methods of market-based financing and implementation: the instruments of concession and mandate (mandat). At the same time, experience has shown, and it turned out to be true already before the EU accession (2004), that under proper market conditions – which also existed in Hungary – it was highly workable, while legal constructions (concession, authorization, ZAC) (Jegouzo 1992) missing on the legislative level could be replaced by occasional contractual arrangements under civil law as well as by planning procedures and contents (complex urban development action plan) organized according to the French model (ZAC).

Among the already mentioned constituent elements of policy guidelines, the provisions for the formulation and content of the integrated settlement development strategy have since then become the subject of regulations under

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Government Decree 314/2012 (XI. 8.). This legislative requirement also contains reference to the preparation of action area plans in accordance with the strategiclevel approach, but it fails to include explicit rules on the preparation of complex urban development plans and action area plans. The current regulatory situation provides relatively favourable conditions for operational urban development.

Recent studies suggest that the general regulation of urban planning in Hungary, too, took place at a much later point in time than the development of an established practice (Mohai 2018). On the other hand, the well-functioning legal instruments (similarly to the European example) for urban development procedures under the forms of concession and authorization (mandat) as well as the establishment of the necessary state development finance institutional background, a preferential state development credit scheme – ensured in France by the country’s state development finance institution, the Caisse des Dépots et Consignations – could considerably boost the efficiency of operational urban development.

2.2.4. Integrated Settlement Development Strategy The integrated settlement development strategy is a system of objectives and the interventions necessary for the implementation thereof, serving as a bridge between the settlement development concept and the operational urban development plans.

The core document of operational urban development is the strategy formulating medium-term, 7–10-year urban development objectives that the local government intends to achieve through the interventions planned within the framework of that strategy.

With a view to the systematic, complex transformation of the urban tissue, the strategic-level presentation of developments to be implemented in the different action areas and in symbiosis with network (e.g. transport) developments is of paramount importance among the planned interventions. This provides the basis for local governments to build up a comprehensive picture of the system of planned urban development actions and interventions so that it can exploit the advantages deriving from the synergies of their implementation.

During the planning stage of the interventions, the duty falls to ISDS to forecast the various potential urban development actions in the perspective as well as with the methods of operational urban development actions (Bajnai 2007) and to provide both a technical and a financial overview thereof. Within the scope of available knowledge and with a preliminary and indicative nature, the transformation of the urban tissue and the associated financial parameters must be outlined according to the depth and accuracy of datasets and information available at the time of formulating the strategy. Ideally, in terms of the 7–10-year timeframe planned in the ISDS regarding the urban development actions to be

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implemented by the local government, action areas may be demarcated, while the characteristics of their urban tissue, the major lines of its transformation, and the financial parameters thereof will be presented – all consistent with the logic of operational urban development planning.

Consequently, ISDS is an implementation-oriented urban development document with a medium-term perspective. Its permanent constituent elements are as follows: – background study, – definition of strategic objectives, – specification of the instruments and interventions necessary for the implementation of the strategy.

The variable constituent elements are: a desegregation plan and programme for potential cases involving segregation issues that might occur in the town and that can be redressed by way of an anti-segregation approach; a coordinated draft plan of social and physical interventions appropriate for the social dimension of urban development that can be defined in a given social and economic environment.

Strategic goals define those developments that in the context of specific physical, social, and economic conditions are appropriate to be implemented in pursuance of the general objectives of urban development so that (a) the urban tissue can make up a beautiful, healthy, convenient-to-use, that is, wellfunctioning built urban environment, (b) the process and outcome of settlement development can address the challenges of sustainable development (Hamman 2008), and (c) it can meet the requirements specified in the Fundamental Law of Hungary as well as the objectives derivable therefrom.

In line with the above, the plan of interventions serving the implementation specifically focuses on interventions in the physical reality of the town, the urban tissue, carried out by way of construction work.

The background study and the definition of the strategic target system devotes considerable space to the social life of the town, the functioning of local economy, and their connection with the town’s physical reality so that the interventions formulated in the strategy can contribute in the most effective way possible to the betterment of the settlement’s social life and economic functioning by applying changes to the physical framework.

It follows from the above key definitions of urban development that interventions serving the implementation are mostly territorial in nature as urban development means, by definition, the creation of a new or renewed piece pertaining to the urban tissue.

The urban area demarcated for the planning and implementation of territorial interventions is the action area. The coordinated, complex, goal- and implementation-oriented urban development set of operations to be carried out with predefined parameters on the action area is the urban development action,

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whose plan is the complex urban development action plan, that is, the action area plan, as it figures in the terminology of government decrees and policy guidelines.

The definition of interventions planned within the context of ISDS comprises the summarized presentation of the urban development actions planned on the different action areas as well as the coordinated draft financial plan thereof.

Speaking at the level of ISDS, this is essentially the preliminary and indicative projection, done with adequate depth and substance, of the information available at the time of strategy formulation, i.e. of the complex settlement development action plan drawn up on the action area – the action area plan.

The projection of urban development actions drawn up on action areas is complemented by the presentation of planned developments, relevant for the settlement as a whole, to be carried out outside the action areas. Most often, these are developments that constitute a network from a technical or functional point of view, or the elements thereof.

There is a single typical case that can be defined in general terms where interventions planned within ISDS are not only aimed directly at the transformation of the town’s physical reality. This is the case of social urban rehabilitation. The social dimension of this kind of rehabilitation has a wide scope of interpretation according to the social and economic situation of the given town. During social urban rehabilitation, a simultaneous, coordinated intervention takes place into the physical reality of the town, the urban tissue, and into the life of the people who live within the physical framework of the urban tissue subject to construction interventions.

The urban development action plan for social urban rehabilitation realizes a coordinated projection of the direct, helping, social interventions into the people’s lives, aiming to benefit their social, economic, and cultural integration as well as to promote their upward mobility. One of the possible instruments of social urban rehabilitation in Hungary is the implementation of a desegregation programme, which can be used with great efficiency among certain circumstances in cases of segregation. In such a case, the desegregation programme is a key constituent element of ISDS as the intervention scheme at the service of social urban rehabilitation.

2.2.5. Action Area Plan: The Plan of the Complex Urban Development Action The action area plan is the deployment plan of the previously presented urban development action, the silver thread of implementation (Bajnai 2007). On the one hand, it forecasts the pursued complex target condition, while it maps the operational urban development actions to be implemented in its pursuance, on the other hand.

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The only way for the public sector to create a new or renewed piece of the town as the result of operational urban development – the complex target condition of urbanization (Cerdá 2013) – leads through its cooperation with the private business sector (Martinand 1993). The public sector’s active participation in the implementation of its own urban development visions presupposes its capability to develop partnerships with the private sector, whose contribution and investment hold the promise of full implementation concerning its own urban development concepts (Heinz 1994: 16).

First, a situation analysis is performed that examines the existing state of affairs with a view to the feasibility of the planned action. Given the underlying concepts and inherences of urban development, the examination addresses those relevant feasibility issues that arise from the very nature of development according to the study on settlement development management.

Achieving the desired urban quality as a result of development requires in a significant number of cases a specific urban planning preparation in the urban architectural and development sense of the term. The Operational Urban Development Concept [Operatív Városfejlesztési Koncepció] (Bajnai 2007), or the Programme, breaks down the urban development plan, as well as the preparatory urban planning schemes drawn up for the deepening and concretization thereof, into interventions, projects that stand for the different elements of the implementation process. Based on the examination, those interventions are defined in this work phase that the local government and its partners have foreseen for implementation in the period projected in the action plan so that, with the physical, socio-economic, and environmental regeneration of the demarcated action area forming a coherent structure, they can create the new or renewed piece pertaining to the urban tissue in accordance with the target condition as projected in the urban planning concept.

As a rule, urban development actions to be implemented by the public sector are investments that – while acting as creators of new values themselves – encourage the private sector and other partners as well to participate in the development process and make investments. In cases of social urban rehabilitation, the essential feature of the said operations is that they stand for interventions aiming at balancing social inequalities.

The following must be defined in consistency with the management and development plans: (a) the functions of the new and renewed development that can be implemented by exploiting building opportunities created during the implementation of the development action and (b) the floor area of the new buildings that can be built.

This momentum is an integral part of urban development action planning since the building site created as a result of the public sector’s development operations is the real estate product, whose sale, economically speaking, is the basic objective

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and purpose of the implementation of operational urban development, for which the settlement development concept, the integrated settlement development strategy, the settlement structure plan, and the regulatory plan have paved the way.

This urban development product visualized in the action area plan – the marketable building land – will represent the subject of promotion activities of the marketing and investment done as part of city marketing towards the implementation of the project. From the projected market value of this product can then the sale price of the building land be derived. The price of properties awaiting sale is determined by the specificities of construction potential. According to the presented correlations, the proposed scheme of development that can be implemented by the private sector will determine, during the implementation of the urban development action, the direct urban development revenue realizable from the sale of the building lands to be created.

To receive feedbacks on changes in market as well as boundary conditions, the regular, at least annual, updating of action area plans is an essential requirement for all types of urban development actions. However, the greater degree of flexibility demanded by the specific nature of urban development actions aiming at developing new industrial areas as well as by their specificity calling for an increased flexibility, and their rather hard-to-predict technical aspects direct our attention to the even greater significance of feedbacks and updates in terms of these developments than in the case of urban rehabilitation developments.

Therefore, updating the action area plans for industrial areas might become necessary more than once per year and may be an indispensable operation upon the generation of different larger investments.

The financial plan for the action area plan is the financial mapping of the implementation of the operational urban development concept – the public and private sectors’ development programme –, and so it is shaped therewith in an iterative manner, as drawing up the budget has repercussions on technical solutions, which in turn have an effect on the projects of investors and property developers buying up the building lands, thus on the anticipated revenues, and vice versa. Consequently, the financial plan is not a simple cost calculation – as an investment programme in the traditional sense – but a financial scenario developed with the coordination of costs and resources, presenting the financing conditions that make the development action possible.

The comprehensive financial plan for the implementation of the urban development action presents the final outcome of the action. In addition, it is also essential to present the timing of the action, in annual segments. This will project in annual breakdown the urban development expenses of the urban development action, its direct urban development revenue, and, accordingly, the amount of municipal budget contribution necessary for the implementation of the action. The non-refundable financial supports reduce the necessary amount of

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municipal budget contribution. The financial scenario shows when mobilization of additional funds becomes necessary and when releasable funds are formed.

Further, the financial scenario will also give a clear perspective of the budget lines to be assigned to the municipal account.

3. Conclusions Following the regime change (1990) and before the EU accession (2004), Hungary succeeded in adapting and introducing an established practice, methodology, and toolbox at the service of planning and implementing the operational urban development. This set of instruments has also been at the service of developments realized with EU and government support since 2004.

The existence of this toolbox significantly enhances the ability of the country to carry out such complex, long-lasting series of interventions as part of urban development projects, and do so consciously and according to the plan, that are qualified to counteract the adverse effects of global climate change and to address the challenges posed by sustainable development.

The impact and effectiveness of the available instruments can be further enhanced by introducing such legal institutions, financing facilities, and preferential state development credit schemes of which there are some good examples all over Europe.

The example of Hungary could be of interest to other socialist states as well.

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BAJNAI, L. 2018. A fenntartható városfejlesztés. In: Fejezetek a városfejlesztésből I. Budapest: Scolar.

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BARTA, Gy. 2009. Integrált városfejlesztési stratégia: a városfejlesztés megújítása.

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BENEDEK, József (2006). Területfejlesztés és regionális fejlődés [Settlement Development and Regional Development]. Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană BOOTH, P.–BREUILLARD, M.–FRASER, C.–PARIS, D. 2007. Aménagement et urbanisme en France et en Grande-Bretagne. Paris: L’Harmattan.

BORBÍRÓ, V.–VALLÓ, I. 1956. Győr városépítéstörténete. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

FÁTAY, T. 2011. Győr. Városépítés és városrendezés 1945 és 1986 között. Győr: Galgóczi Erzsébet Városi Könyvtár.

GRANASZTÓI, Gy. 1980. A középkori magyar város. Budapest: Gondolat.

GRANASZTÓI, P. 1976. Városaink sorsa. Budapest: Magvető.

HAMMAN, P. (ed.). 2008. Penser le développement durable urbain: regards croisés. Paris: L’Harmattan.

HARRER, F. 1941. A fővárosi közmunkák tanácsa 1930–1940. Budapest: Atheneum.

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Budapest: Műszaki Könyvkiadó.

1967. A korszerű város. Budapest: Műszaki Könyvkiadó.

PREISICH, G. Budapest városépítésének története. Budapest: TERC. SIKLÓSSY, L. 1931. A Fővárosi Közmunkák Tanácsa története. Hogyan épült fel Budapest? Budapest: Fővárosi Közmunkák Tanácsa.

ZOLNAI, L. 1981. A budai vár. Budapest: Gondolat.

Linguistic Nationalism – Language Rights

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 67–86

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0005

The Discursive Creation of the ‘Montenegrin Language’ and Montenegrin Linguistic Nationalism in the 21st Century Srđan M. JOVANOVIĆ Lund University email: Srdjan.jovanovic@kom.lu.se

Abstract. The Serbo-Croatian language was but one of the casualties of the wars of the Yugoslav secession, as it was discursively forcefully split into first two, then three, and recently four allegedly separate languages. The first line of division was promoted by Serbian and Croatian nationalist linguists during the early nineties, soon to be followed by the invention of a standalone Bosnian language, even though contemporary linguistics agrees that SerboCroatian, with its regional varieties (as a standardized polycentric language), is a single language. Coming late into the fray, nationally-minded linguists from Montenegro achieved the state-driven proclamation of Montenegrin as a separate language to be in official use within the state only in 2007.

Backed by the state, a coterie of nationalist literary theorists and linguists started discursively promoting Montenegrin in academic and public spaces, mostly via the dubious quasi-academic journal titled Lingua Montenegrina.

This article explores the manners in which Montenegrin nationalist linguists discursively created what they dub to be a language entirely separate from all variants of Serbo-Croatian, which are mostly contained in encomiastic texts about key nationalists, attempts to classify several allophones and phonemes as well as to assert the purported primordial character of the language.

Keywords: Serbo-Croatian, Montenegrin, construction, linguistic nationalism

Montenegro,

discursive

With the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars of the Yugoslav secession, the sociolinguistic situation within the new-founded states in which Serbo-Croatian was and is used as the native tongue of the majority of the population (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro) has changed profoundly. All four states – all four national groups – led by nationally-minded linguists sought to establish the base of the new national identity despite alleged ethnic or cultural differences in language, which has been tackled in scholarship (Kordić 2010, Jovanović 2012, Greenberg 2004). The first ‘split’ – on entirely political, national

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grounds – was between ‘Serbian’ and ‘Croatian’, where forced codification of new standards was introduced from the nineties onwards; ‘the instruments of codification include the many dictionaries, orthographic manuals, grammars, and handbooks of the new successor languages published since 1991. Each publication of an instrument of codification has political, rather than linguistic, significance’ (Greenberg 2004: 5). Giving an overview of the regional nationalist codifications of local languages, this article delves into the contemporary development of the Montenegrin national linguist corps, analysing their discourse beyond what was so far described in scholarship, as most works have concentrated on the works before 2008 (Kordić 2008, Greenberg 2004), with the exception of a short piece

by Nakazawa (2015) and Glušica (2011). The corpus used for analysis is the work produced by the nationalist linguist corps of Montenegro; it concentrates on the most important publications that promulgate a separate, specific Montenegrin language, such as the work of Vojislav Nikčević (1993, 2008b) primarily and especially its reception and proliferation by Adnan Čirgić (2011, 2010) as well as Žarko Đurović (2008a,b), mostly within the textual production of questionable scientific credentials put forth in the Lingua Montenegrina journal (2008– present), the analysis of which has not yet seen its day in scholarship.

The Context: The Serbo-Croatian ‘Split’ within the Region With the breakup of Yugoslavia, each ‘side’ developed their own way of forcing the idea of their own, separate, and unique language. In Croatia, this was done mostly by a reintroduction of purism that was already present during the era of the Croat Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (Busch 2004: 205, Kordić 2010). A mass of newly coined words were invented with the sole purpose of being different from what was considered to be ‘Serbian’. As Thomas has noted, nationalist governments tend to either support or insist on changing ‘foreign words’ as a part of their nationalist programme (Thomas 1989: 7). In the purists’ own words, it was ‘necessary to create Croat words and expressions’ (Frančić 2005: 191).

The Serbian nationalist linguist corps adopted a somewhat different approach.

The majority of linguists subscribed to the idea that Serbo-Croatian was still one language, yet that it was ‘Serbian’, which was, in a bizarre choice of wording, ‘eaten’ by other nations (Piper 2003). Those who do not resist such an occurrence are ‘unwilling collaborators in glotophagia, the hidden linguocide and the silent murdering of the language’ (Piper 2003: 19). The other key instance was the insistence on the Cyrillic script being something intrinsically Serbian (Greenberg 2004: 60), ‘the spirit and soul of the Serbian people’ (Matović 2006), whilst the Latin script started being considered as ‘Croatian’, even though it dates millennia into the past and the Roman Empire.

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Next in line was the discursive development of a new Bosnian language, which was seen as especially daunting as Serbo-Croatian was already ‘separated’ into two camps, leaving the Bosniak national linguist corps to ‘scrape the barrel’ for potential morphological, lexical, or phonological instances that could serve as ‘intrinsically Bosnian’. In Greenberg’s words, and for those reasons, ‘the task of establishing a new Bosnian language has been particularly arduous’ (Greenberg 2004: 136) as a ‘heavy stretch needed to take place in order to create a Bosnian language out of nothing’ (Jovanović 2017: 81). The ‘solution’ was found in a massive forcing of words of Turkish etymology (in lexicology) as well as the velar fricative /x/ (in phonology) during the nineties when ‘the Bosnian language erupted suddenly and unexpectedly in the context of the 1992–5 war in BosniaHerzegovina. The birth of a new Bosniac identity coincided with the proclamation of the language in 1992’ (Greenberg 2004: 136).

If Bosnian was left to ‘scrape the barrel’, Montenegrin nationalist linguists were left with little to nothing when it comes to the ‘building blocks’ of the forced creation of yet another (fourth) language as a political/administrative successor of what was once known as Serbo-Croatian. This was done resorting to an introduction of what Jacobsen called ‘alleged phonemes’ (Jacobsen 2008), Greenberg ‘some bizarre claims about authenticity’ (Greenberg 2004), ending up in what Greenberg described as ‘a mountain out of a mole hill’ (Greenberg 2004: 88), including a strong agenda pushing from the side of the academic and political elite (including the state), which will be analysed in this work.

From the point of view of linguistics, however, Serbo-Croatian is still one language. What is more, the whole South-Slavic region is ‘one dialectal continuum’ (Friedman 1999, Alexander, Joseph, and Naylor 2000). The differences between alleged Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin – nowadays ‘national varieties’ – are fewer than between the variants of French in France, Canada, Belgium, and Africa (Thomas 2003: 314), fewer than among the speakers of German in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Pohl 1996: 219) as well as between English in the United Kingdom, Canada, USA, and Australia (McLennan 1996: 107). It is one linguistic system, ‘unquestionably’ (Hinrichs 1997: 14). The administrative, political languages that have officially, yet not linguistically, been created from the wars of the Yugoslav secession onwards, though nowadays differing in names, have not changed; a name cannot create a separate language (Blum 2002: 153), and even though laymen can name their languages as they see fit, this cannot stand in the way of scientific rigour (Gröschel 2001: 175). According to Gröschel, there is no bilingualism (or multilingualism) between the groups of speakers of the newly formed idioms (Gröschel 2003).

In the words of Kordić, ‘Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins have a common standard language’ (Kordić 2010: 76). As Chilton wrote, ‘the varieties differ in relatively minor ways, and are certainly mutually intelligible’ (Chilton

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2004: 10). Having in mind principles of geographic layering of language, some differences do exist: … on the level of phonology, morphology and syntax, and to some extent the vocabulary itself differs slightly. These differences are in themselves minor, but all differences are capable of being politically indexed. The differences in the Serbo-Croat dialect continuum were seized upon and politicised by nationalist movements during the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia that began in 1991. (Chilton 2004: 10) The abovementioned differences, however, do not amount to the proclamation of different languages from a linguistic perspective. Language planning as well as the ‘whole process of language standardization is permeated by politics’ (Del Valle 2011: 389), often highly connected with nationalism (Dil & Haugen 1972, Haugen 1966, Blommaert & Verschueren 1998, Judt & Lacorne 2004).

‘The Merit of Politics and Politicians’ Not unlike their nationalist counterparts in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia, ‘“nationalizing” the language ... became one of the policies of the government of Montenegro’ (Džankić 2014: 367). The process was led from a ‘top-down’ approach (van Dijk 1993: 250) by the new linguistic elite and politicians, which is why it is important to ‘focus on the elites and their discursive strategies’ (van Dijk 1993: 250) as ‘the ruling elites adopted several symbolic policies in an attempt to consolidate their vision of independent statehood with that of a separate Montenegrin identity. The most significant among these policies were those related to religion, state symbols, and language’ (Džankić 2014: 362). In order to force a dominant discourse about language, nationally-minded linguists have numerous times stressed the officialdom of the endeavour. In essence, we are talking about language planning, in Fishman’s words, about the ‘organized pursuit of solutions to language problems, typically at the national level’ (Fishman 1974: 79), which tends to have a ‘symbolic status’ as it is ‘not just a matter of policy and planning’ (Del Valle 2011: 389).

In Čirgić’s words: ‘for the first time in Montenegrin history, the Montenegrin language became a constitutional category as the official language in Montenegro ... this is by all means the merit of politics and politicians’ (Čirgić 2010: 8). We see that the locus of the utterance is held in the official nature of the proclamation, where Čirgić openly admits that the introduction of an official Montenegrin language was political. At one point, members of the Montenegrin nationalist linguistic project spoke how Montenegrin should be ‘imposed by politics, school,

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voluntarism, the media’ (Nikčević 2009:116), even though, at a different point, they claim that their opponents ‘deal with politics rather than science’ (Đurović 2008b: 42) in the same journal, Lingua Montenegrina. However, proclaiming a language constitutional is not necessary in order to ‘protect’ the language (Gonzalez 2001), as constitutional proclamation is not even a criterion for the existence of a standardized language (Mattusch 1999: 79–80). This is why van Dijk emphasizes that in such discourses we often see ‘incomplete or lack of relevant knowledge – so that no counter-arguments can be formulated against false, incomplete or biased assertions’ (van Dijk 2006: 375). Furthermore, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the USA do not have a language defined in their constitution (Kordić 2008, 35), keeping in mind that: There is also another reason against Constitutional proclamation: the euphoria that is being artificially created around it can lead people to see the language or a specific language name as a totem, as a quasi-sacral, emotionally charged group symbol to identify with, something like a national hymn, flag or coat of arms. (Kordić 2008: 36: Tabouret-Keller 1997) As Gröschel wrote, from the constitutional declaration of newly standardized languages such as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin, arguments against the existence of the Serbo-Croatian language cannot be made (Gröschel 2009: 349). That is why the state is called upon heavily since governments tend to play the key role in language standardization (Kaplan & Baldauf 1997).

In addition, Čirgić claimed that ‘with state independence and the Constitution of the independent state of Montenegro, the Montenegrin language became the official language of Montenegro, and it was thus known that negating it was in vain’ (Čirgić 2010: 12), stressing the ‘vainness’ of ‘negation attempts’, indicating that the declarative power of the states is essentially a ‘trump card’. This was necessary due to the fact that a number of linguists (both within Montenegro and from other countries) who have worked in the initial Council for the Standardization of the Montenegrin language failed to reach a consensus among themselves. Čirgić wrote: When it became clear that the problem of the standardization of the Montenegrin language got carried over from professional debates into the daily press and lost any scientific character ... the Government of Montenegro abolished the Council for the Standardization of the Montenegrin Language and formed a working group, later entitled the Expert Commission for the Standardization of the Montenegrin language. (Čirgić 2010: 33) The same point is repeated above as well: linguists were prohibited to deal with the issue, with the state stepping in to force its agenda. ‘The Commission

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gave itself ... a fundamental task ... to prove the existence of the Montenegrin language’ (Perović in: Čirgić 2011: 15), which was seen as a question of identity, as ‘one of the key questions of Montenegrin state identity has the chance of being solved – the question of the Montenegrin language’ (Čirgić 2010: 7). In language planning, there is often a ‘political nature of these choices’ as language planning and policy practices are ‘deeply rooted in the interests and ideologies of its practitioners’ (Del Valle 2011: 389). However, ‘the linguistic aspect of the Montenegrin identity schema’s reconstruction was less than successful because a significant percentage of those who identified themselves as Montenegrin did not support all the government’s nation-building policies’ (Džankić 2014: 369).

In other words, the response by the population of Montenegro expected by the nationalist corps was not nearly as enthusiastic. The question remains as to how Montenegrin was discursively created, i.e. what are the main discursive instances that have been put forth by Montenegrin nationalist linguists, which is where we turn to in the following paragraphs.

Whence ‘Montenegrin’?

The Symbol of a Nation In Fishman’s formulation, when language planners discuss the establishment of new standard languages, their task is both to define the characteristics of the new language and to establish the differentiating features of the new language as opposed to other closely related or competing languages (Fishman 1993). This is why for the main codifier of the new language, Vojsilav Nikčević, ‘the focus has been less on how Montenegrin is neither Croatian nor Bosnian, but rather on what has differentiated Montenegrin from Serbian’ (Greenberg 2004: 90). In other words: Serbia is defined as other in contrast to Montenegrin us. Serbia became the ‘true enemy of the Montenegrin nation’ in the Montenegrin nationalists’ language ideology. They represent themselves as a small nation, suppressed (by Serbia) on the one hand and on the other hand, somewhat in reaction to this, a Westernized nation. (Nakazawa 2015: 134) In accordance with such a pathos of differentiation, the discourse stresses the alleged difference from ‘Serbian’: Even a superficial glance into the opus of the greatest Montenegrin writers will show that they have indeed been writing in folk language but significantly different from Serbian. It is so different that Serbs (even

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though they appropriate them as their own writers) cannot understand them without a dictionary! (Đurović 2008b: 10) A common instance that will be seen is strong counterfactuality, having in mind that even the dialects spoken in Montenegro are also spoken in parts of Serbia as ‘one of the two dialect types in Montenegro—the Neo-Stokavian/ijekavian dialect— is nearly identical to that spoken by the Serbs residing west of the Drina River’ (Greenberg 2004: 91). On a broader level, ‘Montenegro’s current political boundaries do not correspond to either the dialectal or the ethnic ones’ (Greenberg 2004: 92).

It has been established in the study of nationalism and national identity that ‘the opposition to the other is taken as an intrinsic feature of nationalism’ (Triandafyllidou 1998: 596), and in the case of Montenegrin linguistic nationalism the ‘Other’ are Serbs, where ‘the significant other in these cases serves in overcoming the crisis because it unites the people in front of a common enemy, it reminds them “who we are” and emphasizes that “we are different and unique”’ (Triandafyllidou 1998: 603): ‘the idea of the political, military, spiritual, linguistic, ethnic and state equality of the Serbs and the Montenegrins was a fatal delusion for the naive Montenegrin people, who have ... been tricked and dragged over to the Serbian national and state corpus’ (Đurović 2008b: 6). Đurović offers a revealing paragraph, in which he stresses the ‘Montenegrin people (not Serbian)’: In any case, everybody is well acquainted with the fact that the name of the Montenegrin language springs from the being of the Montenegrin people (not Serbian), as their creators, and has to be identified with it.

Those peoples who accept a foreign language as their own are doomed to disappearance. One’s own literature and culture cannot be developed in a foreign language. That is why the question of language is much more than a formal acknowledgment and realization of a universal human right.

Language is a crucial existential question for a nation. There are numerous proofs that the Montenegrin language has been developing in continuity ever since the proto-Slavic period. Rare are the peoples who have such rich oral and written literature as the Montenegrins do. The confirmation of the existence of the Montenegrin language is found in the literary works of Petar I, Petar II, Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša, Marko Miljanov Popović and other writers who have written works of unsurpassable values in the original Montenegrin language. (Đurović 2008b: 9) The ‘Other’ is discursively presented as the enemy, as ‘the Serbian political and spiritual elite, with much zeal and will, embarked upon a hasty deconstruction of the Montenegrin national consciousness, establishing a Serbian value system in all spheres of life along the way’ (Đurović 2008b: 6). As explained by Glušica, ‘the

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most important task of the Montenegrin linguistic restandardization is the radical separation of the Montenegrin language first of all from Serbian ... which is the foundational approach of nationalism’ (Glušica 2011: 274). The oppositional Other exhibits ‘crude negational attacks on the foundations of Montenegrin culture, statehood and spirituality’, which ‘were significantly helped by local scientists of a Great Serbia orientation ... they have all been given the same task: fulfill the expansion of Serbian national consciousness and eradicate any trace of the existence of Montenegrins as a self-important people and nation’ (Đurović 2008b: 7). As Džankić noted, ‘the policies on language and state symbols have been adopted predominantly as markers of differentiation between the Montenegrin and Serb identity schemas’ (Džankić 2014: 362). Furthermore, there is a strong insistence on the language that should separate the nation from the Other, as ‘language has been an additional ethnocultural symbol in the reconstruction of the Montenegrin identity schema’ (Džankić 2014: 366).

In a Herderian fashion, it is often emphasized in Lingua Montenegrina that ‘One of the most important elements of cultural and national identity is language’ (Brom 2008: 62). Or, in Đurović’s words, ‘a name, language and spirituality are the founding blocks of every national being and statehood’ (Đurović 2008b: 6).

Language is thus positioned as the prime defining element that constitutes a nation: Against this background, calling the language used in Montenegro – Montenegrin is an indicator of high cultural awareness of the Montenegrin society, achieved despite unfavorable political conditions. The language is in this case the implementation of a state of mind and the manifestation of the spiritual unity of the nation. (Brom 2008: 64) The Other, being as such superimposed as the Enemy, thus negates these basics of national identity in a ‘strategy’ of assimilation: The creation of such false notions about the Montenegrin language, which has received the status of locus communis in Serbian linguistics, was a part of a larger political strategy to impose Serbian linguistic identity onto Montenegrins, and then, based on these identifications, carry the political doctrine of annexation of Montenegro into Serbia into effect. (Perović in: Čirgić 2011: 7) This Weltanschauung, even though presented as ‘natural’ and ‘selfunderstandable’ in nationalist discourse, does not correspond with reality as ‘many people take it for granted that the political entities we call states have their own language. This is not a state of affairs that comes about naturally, so to speak; it is deeply political’ (Chilton 2004: 8, see also: Haugen 1966).

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Allophones as Phonemes: Ś and Ź Besides the insistence on language as the foundational core of national identity, Montenegrin national linguists have developed some implausible notions of the purported phonological structure of the fledgling language, mostly by presenting allophones ś and ź as intrinsically Montenegrin, with a new orthography to present them. However, ‘the occurrences of the new jotations *sj and *zj, which produced the new phonemes and their corresponding graphemes in the proposed new Montenegrin alphabets, are relatively infrequent. Nikčević provided no proof that these sounds qualify as distinctive phonemes’ (Greenberg 2004: 103).

The emphases on the two newly added phonemes, by means of reiteration, are ubiquitous within the discourse, and it can be said that they represent the main ‘linguistic argument’ to the uniqueness of Montenegrin, based on the sheer iterative frequency. In the words of Đurović, ‘without the graphemes/phonemes ś, ź, and з, the vocal system of the Montenegrin language is incomplete, unreal, and non-existent’ (Đurović 2008b: 10). There was a need for ‘the expansion of the Montenegrin consonant system with the sounds ś and ź’ (Čirgić 2011: 56), indicating a stress on phonology at one time, while the same discourse, in other instances, emphasizes the orthographical moment as ‘the orthographies that have been official in Montenegro did not take into consideration general Montenegrin language specificities since they have not been taken into consideration by the former Serbo-Croatian standardized language norm’ (Perović, Silić, and Vasilijeva 2009). Whether only ś and ź are used or the insistence is expanded to other phonemes is entirely haphazard in the discourse. At one point, Nikčević, combating Serbian linguists who are opposed to the discourse, magnifies the array entirely, saying that ‘in this work, the author impugns the opinions of Drago Ćupić about the nonphonemic character of the sounds ś, ź, з, ć i đ in an analytical and critical manner’ (Nikčević 2008a: 25). Čirgić, in another, offers his own random collection, even adding an ellipsis, so that the reader might read in their own vision, claiming that ‘the sounds ś, ź, ć, đ... are omnipresent in all Montenegrin speeches, without exception’ (Čirgić 2011: 144), indicating poor systematic linguistic work.

Contrary to the Montenegrin national linguist corps’ repetitive claims, ‘Nikčević’s orthography received no major support by mainstream philologists and linguists’ (Nakazawa 2015: 130) – as ‘these new jotations are found in the territory of Montenegro, they are neither pan-Montenegrin nor uniquely Montenegrin, since East Herzegovinian Serbs also admit such a feature’ (Greenberg 2004: 103).

In more detail: If we take a closer look at the situation presented in the Grammar of the Montenegrin Language (by Nikčević), we shall see that when it comes to the first two alleged phonemes what is surprising is the claim of the author

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Srđan M. JOVANOVIĆ that ś and ź are specifically Montenegrin phonemes, when it is known that they are present in a large area of South Herzegovinian speeches ... besides that, it is clear that ś and ź are not functional units but the combinatory versions of the phonemes s and z as they come up only in connection with the phonemes /j/, /lj/ and /nj/. (Jacobsen 2008: 30)

Occasionally, /đ/ and /ć/ get mentioned as well; however, ‘when it comes to the other two allegedly typical Montenegrin phonemes, đ and ć, it is not possible to see any structural difference between Serbo-Croatian and Montenegrin’ (Jacobsen 2008: 31), given that they are part of the phonemic repertoire of Serbo-Croatian in all its dialectal forms, from Istria to the Torlak region. According to Greenberg: The two palatal sounds, s and z, arose primarily in the Northwestern Montenegrin and East Herzegovinian Neo-Stokavian/ijekavian dialects.

These dialects obtain such forms through a process referred to as ‘new jotations,’ which occurs when the dental consonants s, z, d, t were followed by j resulting from the ijekavian renditions of the short jat’. In the ijekavian dialects spoken by Bosniacs and Croats, such jotations are completely absent; they may only be found among Serbs of East Herzegovina and Montenegrins. (Greenberg 2004: 103) A further moment of relevance is the recognition of the Montenegrin linguistic corps that ‘the presence of the voices ś and ź is confirmed also in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian’ (Čirgić 2011: 161), yet this never functioned as a deterrent in the creation of a new standard: The fact that linguistic properties in Montenegro are ‘not only Montenegrin but they envelop significant zones beyond Montenegro’ cannot be in collision with the standpoint of the existence of Montenegrin speeches as a whole, that is, it cannot serve as a confirmation of the non-existence of typical Montenegrin properties. (Čirgić 2011: 58) Due to a running non sequitur, the lines above were needed to be given in a declarative discursive fashion the topos which permeates the discourse. That is why it is probably true that ‘the orthography of the Montenegrin language with two new sounds ś and ź will not be long-lived ... that is because these “expert” experiments are more than of ephemeral character’ (Kadić 2009). Furthermore, claims have been made that there is a ‘magisterial Montenegrin orthographic and orthoepic principle Write as you speak, read is it has been written – for each sound (phoneme), an appropriate letter (grapheme) has to be found’ (Đurović 2008b: 10), an error made by the lack of understanding that even languages in

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which one grapheme does not correspond to one phoneme (languages with phonemic orthography such as Serbo-Croatian or Arabic) ‘write as it is spoken’ and ‘speak as it is written’.

In order to convince their audience of the ‘importance’ of the new phonemes, the authors tended to use them wherever possible or impossible, so that words like ‘śedoči’ (Đurović 2008b: 6) were coined even though the original word, ‘svjedoči’ (Ser-Cro: ‘testify’), does not have the jotation itself, having in mind the consonant cluster ‘svj’, and not ‘sj’. In other moments, some words, such as ‘usljed’ (due to, since), becomes forcefully jotized to ‘uśljed’ (Nikčević 2008b: 60, 62). Đurović uses ‘uśljed’ several times as well (Đurović 2008a: 329), yet inconsistently, as then he reverts to the standard form ‘usljed’ (Đurović 2008a: 323) within the same text, showing that not even he himself has managed to congruously force it into his discourse. In short, Nikčević, with his new phonemes and orthography, ‘created an artificial and idealized language for the Montenegrins, which is not native to any of its citizens’ (Greenberg 2004: 105).

Other Separating Instances: Ijekavian as a Separator and the ‘Ancient’ Character of Montenegrin Yet another instance that was put forth as ‘intrinsically Montenegrin’ is the ijekavian pronunciation. In Nikčević’s own words, ‘the very fact that the ijekavian pronunciation is standardized in Montenegro, while being dialectal in Serbia, speaks that it is originally Montenegrin, and in Serbia ... secondary and dying out’ (Nikčević 2008a: 36). This serves to prove that the Otherization takes exclusively Serbia as its opposition, as the ijekavian pronunciation covers the whole of the territories of Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia as well as southwestern Serbia, yet only in Serbia it does not function as part of the standardized language (even though Bosnian Serbs use the ijekavian pronunciation). In Greenberg’s explanation, ‘for him (Nikčević), the Montenegrins are the sole authentic ijekavian speakers in the Balkans, and other peoples in the area (Serbs, Croats, Bosniacs) had acquired ijekavian speech “secondarily”. There is no credible evidence to justify any of these claims’ (Greenberg 2004: 100). According to Čirgić, ‘contrary to the territory covered by Bosnian, Croatian, and especially Serbian, the territory of Montenegro is predominantly and recognizably ijekavian’ (Čirgić 2011: 93), yet this is an entirely counterfactual statement as both ‘Bosnian’ and ‘Croatian’ are ijekavian in their entirety.

In addition to the insistence on ijekavian, Montenegrin linguist nationalists have also tried to present Montenegrin as a language with diverging historical development, which has led to Nikčević’s incredulous categorization of the language through history, in which the first stage of the development of Montenegrin is ‘from the articulation of speech to 1360’ (Nikčević 1993). As the

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alleged differences were contrary to modern linguistics, the discourse needed to continue in a declarative fashion; according to Čirgić, ‘even though they have a štokavian base, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian, and Serbian had different developmental flows, so their development did not have many contact points in particular stages’ (Čirgić 2011: 23). According to Greenberg: Like other nationalists, members of the pro-Montenegrin faction support their claims for a sovereign Montenegrin nation-state, by emphasizing its specific cultural heritage, history, literature, ethnic origins, and language.

In their search for authenticity, they have made some outlandish claims on the special origin of the Montenegrin people. In an interview posted on the Montenet website entitled ‘Does a Montenegrin Language Exist?’ (‘Da li postoji crnogorski jezik’), Nikčević made the highly dubious claim that ‘the prototype for the Montenegrin language is the Polabian language,’ having based these unfounded assertions on ‘hundreds’ of Montenegrin place names. (Greenberg 2004: 100)

‘With Full Respect to Scientific Argumentation’: The Discursive Strategies of Repetition, Praise and Faux Ad Verecundiam Another instance which is heavily exploited is a staunch encomiastic discourse, with the main proponent of the Montenegrin language, the late Vojislav Nikčević, being the most common object of praise. Đurović wrote, drawing upon Čirgić, that ‘for Čirgić, there is no doubt that the academic Vojislav P. Nikčević, with his work and linguistic conception, acquired great international acclaim in the world of linguistics’ (Đurović 2008b: 16). He also called Nikčević ‘the bard of the Montenegrin language, who now already enjoys high respect in philological and linguistic circles throughout Europe. There is an imposing number of writers, prominent cultural workmen, philologists and linguists that hold true that Vojislav P. Nikčević is, as a scientist and tireless workman, unrivalled in Montenegrin linguistics’ (Đurović 2008b: 8).

Statements are given in a straightforward, declarative manner, without corroboration, expecting from the reader to take the information given for granted.

The praise continues, uninterrupted: It is doubtless that Čirgić’s scientific attitudes about the whole of the work and importance of Vojislav P. Nikčević fit into the criteria of numerous contemporary linguists, academics, and university professors throughout

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Europe. All of them are unified in the judging that Nikčević’s work has played the key role for their own introduction to the Montenegrin language as well as that because of him this language is being studied at departments of Slavistics outside of Montenegro. Without any exaggeration, one could say that there is no linguist in the world who is aware of the Montenegrin language without being aware of the academic Nikčević. (Đurović 2008b: 16) Besides the ubiquitous declarative nature of the statements, the main identifiable instance in the above-presented encomiastic discourse is repetition.

For some linguists, repetition is a ‘central linguistic meaning-making strategy’ (Tannen 2007: 97) as it has a strong ‘reinforcing function’ (Lausberg, Orton, and Anderson 1998). Similar discursive instances are presented time and again by the use of slightly different wording and synonymy, which in linguistics is known as ‘semantic repetition’ (Persson 1974). This praise is repeated in constant new iterations, all of which promote the idea that Nikčević is a rigorous scientist: he is a ‘lucid scientific researcher’ (Đurović 2008b: 5) ‘adhering to rigorous scientific norms’ (Đurović 2008b: 8), ‘with full respect to scientific argumentation’ (Đurović 2008b: 12), including the following: As an important property of Nikčević’s work, the academic Rotković states the principle of acknowledgment of linguistic facts ... the academic Nikčević does not belong to that circle of linguists who invent solutions only to make Montenegrin different from Serbian, Bosnian, or Croatian. (Đurović 2008b: 9) – even though the statement above is entirely counter-factual. Repetition is an important element in encomiastic text as it stands among the most important of instances in the creation of discourse (Tannen 2007). Plato was probably the first to stress the negative aspects of praise (Nightingale 1993), and the examples given here speak to that particular point. Besides Đurović, Perović went in a similar manner, claiming that: [Nikčević] persuasively and with scientific validity ... proved the historical foundation of the Montenegrin language, its independence and authenticity, its specific differences towards Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, the justification of a complete linguistic rehabilitation of ijekavian iotation as well as a total linguistic, cultural, and political meaningfulness and validity of the act of the first standardization of the Montenegrin language. (Perović in: Čirgić 2011: 19)

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Praise continues, claiming that ‘even with the most superficial of glances into the overflowingly rich creation corpus of the academic Vojsilav P. Nikčević, one comes to the conclusion about his immensurable contribution to the guarding of the spirit of the Montenegrin language’ (Đurović 2008b: 7). The all-permeating pathos of ad verecundiam, in which Nikčević is the only reference, serves to stress the alleged scientific background of his work. Occasionally, ad verecundiam will spread to: [I]mportant names of contemporary philology and linguistics (who) have unreservedly supported the gifted and tireless scientist, Nikčević, as the linguistic leader of Montenegro, who has, by use of his fundamental books, created the strongest of foundations for the Montenegrin language. (Đurović 2008b: 7) These ‘important names of contemporary philology’ are most commonly left unnamed, having in mind that the number of linguists who support Nikčević’s idea of a ‘standalone’ Montenegrin is small to non-existent, as Serbo-Croatian, at least in linguistics, if not local politics, still figures as a single language (Kordić 2010, Greenberg 2004, Mørk 2008, Jacobsen 2008, Thomas 2003). Only occasionally, nonetheless, is it elucidated who these linguists are, such as in Čirgić’s elaboration as follows: There is a not too small number of philologists in the world to whom the Montenegrin language is an undeniable reality (next to the mentioned Croatian linguists, these are: Emil Tokarz, Przemysław Brom, Robert Bońkowski, Agnieszka Spaginska Pruszak, Lyudmila Vasilyeva, Daniel Grabić, Krzysztof Zalewski, and others). (Čirgić 2011: 191) However, inquiry into these ‘important names’ reveals less than exonerating instances. Przemysław Brom is listed as a fifth-year student of Croat studies at the Silesian University in Katowice (Katowice 2017). Robert Bońkowski is officially a linguist from the same university, who supports the idea of Montenegrin as a separate language in a single, nine-page article, quoting Brom at the beginning of his work (Bońkovski 2008: 191); the English version of the summary speaks about the ‘wrighting of Montenegrins’ (Bońkovski 2008: 201) instead of ‘writing’.

Emil Tokarz is yet another Silesian linguist who has produced a single work about the linguistic situation in Montenegro, published in the first issue of Lingua Montenegrina, in which he mentions only that ‘the Montenegrin language is the youngest of the normatized standards that have been introduced in the past few years’ (Tokarz 2008), never in actual fact supporting the idea that Montenegrin is a separate language, indicating perhaps that the editorial of the Lingua Montenegrina has dubious publishing practices, as there is no way in which it can be proven that

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anybody from the editorial board speaks Polish. Agnieszka Spaginska Pruszak is another Polish linguist who deals with Serbo-Croatian and has published a couple of works on the topic of the linguistic situation in former Yugoslavia (SpagińskaPruszak 2003, 2005a,b,c), yet without mentioning Montenegrin. Krzysztof Zalewski has not published anything on the Montenegrin language. The case of Daniel Grabić’s work is somewhat more interesting as he actually wrote about Montenegrin linguistic nationalism and the ‘exclusive Montenegrin nationalist project’ and that there is ‘skepsis in connection with the meaning and legitimacy of the demand for a further segmentation of the former Serbo-Croatian language area’ (Grabić 2010: 22), indicating yet again that Čirgić had never checked what Grabić wrote, given that he wrote in German. When it comes to Lyudmila Vasilyeva, she is a Ukraine-based scholar who has written several times about Montenegrin, mostly by propounding a Herderian view of language, claiming that ‘the language of any people, as well as state language, is the instrument of communication within society and the basis of national culture’ (Vasiliyeva 2009: 48) as well as that ‘language is an important sign of the cultural specificity of a people and state’ (Vasiliyeva 2009: 51). In summa, only a few of the authors enumerated by Čirgić do claim that Montenegrin is a separate language, while most of them do not. Those who do not have mentioned the phrase ‘Montenegrin language’ in the work (as does this article), published in foreign languages. A conjecture can be made that the creators of the Montenegrin language searched for the phrase and then took every work that mentions it, without reading it first, as they are in Polish, German, and Ukrainian.

Conclusions The process of Montenegrin language planning and the creation of the fourth language offspring of Serbo-Croatian was led by a relatively small number of the elite, with ample help from the state itself, via a process of the discursive construction of national identity by attempts of simulating linguistics. This process was initially ‘led by Vojislav Nikčević—a professor of Slovene literature from Nikšić’s Philosophy Faculty—the Montenegrins advocating a separate Montenegrin language became louder and politically more palatable after 1997, when Milo Đukanović was elected president of Montenegro, and the republic began moving towards secession from the FRY’ (Greenberg 2004: 89).

Within Nikčević’s discourse, it could be seen that he was not a linguist but a literary scholar as most ideas put forth by him tended not to correspond with linguistics or linguistic reality. As Nakazawa wrote: Vojislav P. Nikčević (1935–2007) was a linguist born in Montenegro, educated in Zagreb, and later worked at the Faculty of Philosophy in

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Srđan M. JOVANOVIĆ Nikšić. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, he promoted the uniqueness of Montenegrin language as a Montenegrin nationalist and in course of the polemics on the origin of Montenegrins in the 1980s he stood by the anthropologist Špiro Kulišić, who argued that Montenegrin has no common features with Serbian. In course of the political transformation period he wrote many books on ‘Montenegrin language’. (Nakazawa 2015: 129)

Nakazawa, however, erred when he dubbed Nikčević a linguist, as he was a literary scholar. After his passing, the discourse was taken over primarily by one Adnan Čirgić, who is often dubbed ‘the first doctor of the Montenegrin language’ (Đurović 2008b: 15), who has ‘at the University of J. J. Strossmayer, on 26 October 2007, defended his doctoral thesis’ (Đurović 2008b: 15), yet Strossmayer University in Osijek does not boast a study programme for Montenegrin language (Osijek 2017). Žarko Đurović, who was heavily cited in this work as an important creator of the nationalist discourse, is not credited with a Ph.D., but with a B.A. in literature studies.

We have approached the Montenegrin national linguistic agenda from a discourse analytical perspective, taking special consideration of the notion of manipulation, promulgated by van Dijk as ‘one of the crucial notions of Critical Discourse Analysis’ (van Dijk 2006: 359). ‘Discursively, manipulation generally involves the usual forms and formats of ideological discourse, such as emphasizing Our good things, and emphasizing Their bad things’ (van Dijk 2006: 359) – in this case, ‘Montenegrin good things’ versus ‘Serbian bad things’. ‘Manipulation not only involves power, but specifically abuse of power, that is, domination’ (van Dijk 2006: 360), when one discursive format, put forth by the elites and the state, tried to establish itself above all others. As van Dijk noticed, ‘“modern” and often more effective power is mostly cognitive, and enacted by persuasion, dissimulation and manipulation, among other strategic ways to change the mind of others in one’s own interests’ (van Dijk 1993: 254).

Due to its being based on severe lack of linguistic expertise, as well as having in mind that it has commonly been put forth in an entirely declarative discursive manner, Montenegrin as a ‘standalone’ language has not been accepted in linguistics worldwide and stands as a testament of the unending streams of nationalism from the fledgling states that used to be part of former Yugoslavia in their own ways of discursively constructing national identities. As Mørk wrote, as just one example, ‘when it comes to the Montenegrin language, as a topic of study, it will not be used outside of Montenegro’ (Mørk 2008: 296). We shall end by quoting Jelušić, who put the situation in a brusque and straightforward manner: ‘After everything that has happened in these areas, Montenegro needs knowledge and education, not linguistic nationalism, especially one tolerated and supported by the state’ (Jelušić 2008).

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THOMAS, Paul-Louis. 2003. Le serbo-croate (bosniaque, croate, monténégrin, serbe): de l’étude d’une langue à l’identité des langues. Revue des études slaves 74(2): 311–325.

TOKARZ, Emil. 2008. Język czarnogórski w dzisiejszej rzeczywistości językowego zróżnicowania południowej słowiańszczyzny. Lingua Montenegrina 1(1): 95– 102.

TRIANDAFYLLIDOU, Anna. 1998. National Identity and the ‘Other’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(4): 593–612. van DIJK, T. A. 2006. Discourse and Manipulation. Discourse & Society 17(3): 359–383.

1993. Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse & Society 4(2): 249– 283.

VASILIYEVA, Lyudmila. 2009. Cуспільна зумовленість існування чорногорської мови. ВІСНИК ЛЬВІВ. УН-ТУ 46(2): 48–54.

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 87–104

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0006

Migration, Language Policies, and Language Rights in Luxembourg Abhimanyu SHARMA

Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics University of Cambridge email: aks71@cam.ac.uk Abstract. This paper deals with the state of language rights in Luxembourg in the light of immigration and the multilingualism associated with it. Although Luxembourg might appear to be an ideal case of multilingualism with three official languages (Luxembourgish, French, and German), the reality is very different because its language policies are marked by a hierarchy: while Luxembourgish has the symbolic dominance as the ‘national language’, French is the preferred language in the workplace and administration. The situation has become complex due to the steady influx of immigrants since the 1970s. Currently, more than 40 per cent of Luxembourg’s population consists of foreigners, and this has changed the linguistic situation in the sense that Portuguese has become one of the most widely spoken languages in Luxembourg, although it does not enjoy any legal safeguards. Taking account of this multilingual scenario, this paper examines the rights of different linguistic communities in Luxembourg. On the one hand, there is the need to protect Luxembourgish, which is the majority language in Luxembourg but a minority language when compared to other national languages of Europe, while, on the other hand, the needs of its Portuguesespeaking community also have to be taken into account since the use of German as the medium of instruction at primary level disadvantages them.

Finally, the paper will also consider the role and the future of the other two main languages (French and German).

Keywords: language rights, language policies, immigration, language testing, legal discourse, Luxembourg

1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to examine the state of language rights in Luxembourg in the context of immigration and the language policies devised to deal with the multilingualism resulting from immigration. Luxembourg has traditionally been a multilingual state, and the steady influx of immigrants since its economy

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shifted from the industrial sector to the service sector in the 1970s has enriched its multilingual character. Kollwelter and Sadler (2013: 4–5) observe that since the end of the nineteenth century migration has significantly contributed to the economic and social development of Luxembourg and argue that ‘given Luxembourg’s ageing population, having a large migrant workforce is considered an economic necessity’. However, as the immigrant communities do not have any voting rights, Kollwelter and Sadler (2013: ibid.) posit that the high percentages of ‘foreigners’ not integrated in the democratic process create a democratic deficit and thus a political challenge for the country in which ‘less and less people [are] making political choices for a growing foreign population’.

This democratic deficit named above also reflects the socio-political status of different languages spoken in Luxembourg, such as Portuguese which has gained a strong presence in Luxembourg due to decades of immigration but does not have any official recognition. The national language of Luxembourg is Luxembourgish (also known as ‘Lëtzebuergesch’), which is spoken by more than half of the population as the ‘main language’ (see Table 1).1 However, the language most used in the workplace is French, even though it is spoken by a relatively small section of the population as compared to Luxembourgish (Luxemburger Wort 2016). German, on the other hand, dominates the print media (Official Portal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 2016) Table 1. Languages spoken in Luxembourg Main language Number of speakers Luxembourgish 265,731 Portuguese 74,636 French 57,633 German 14,658 Italian 13,896 English 10,018 Other languages 40,042 TOTAL 476,614

Percentage 55.8% 15.7% 12.1% 3.1% 2.9% 2.1% 8.4% – Source: Fehlen et al. 2013

1

The data mentioned in Table 1 are based on a German-language summary of a report by the national statistical institute known as Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (or STATEC). The summary uses the term ‘die am besten beherrschte Sprache’, which I translate as ‘the language which one commands or knows best’. The report also uses the term ‘Hauptsprache’ (main language) as an alternative. See Fehlen et al. 2013. There were two questions on the basis of which these data were collected. The first question concerned the language which the speakers think in and know the best. The second question was ‘which language(s) do you usually speak: at home, with loved ones? at school, at work?’. While there was only one possible answer for the first question, several responses were possible to the second question. However, the choice concerned only the six most common languages selected.

The others are grouped into one category. See Heinz & Fehlen 2016.

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Of the languages mentioned above, Luxembourgish, French, and German are recognized as official languages, and, as mentioned above, Portuguese does not have any official status despite being the second most widely spoken ‘main language’, which may be due to the fact that Portuguese does not have a historical presence in Luxembourg in the way Luxembourgish, French, or German do. The steady immigration (of mainly Portuguese-speaking immigrants) has created a challenging situation for the policymakers in the sense that the existing languagein-education policy influences their overall school success rate in Luxembourg.

The medium of instruction for a large part of primary-level schooling is German, which is relatively more accessible to Luxembourgish speakers due to the closeness of Luxembourgish and German, but which works to the disadvantage of the Portuguese-speaking pupils. The official policies have hardly considered Portuguese-medium instruction as an option because the policies have so far focused on protecting Luxembourgish. While it is understandable that official policies strive to promote Luxembourgish, as although it is the majority language in Luxembourg but a minority language when compared to the other national languages of Europe, the needs of its immigrant community also have to be taken into account. Finally, one needs to consider the historical changes in the socio-political status of French and German, the two other key languages of Luxembourg apart from Luxembourgish and Portuguese. The change in the priorities of language policies over time has had an impact on the status of French and German. In view of the context presented above, the paper tries to find the hidden agendas of Luxembourg’s language policies and examines how language policies marginalize and alienate different language communities. Second, the paper considers how the rights of different linguistic communities interact with each other and the implications such interactions have for these communities.

2. Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework consists of two key concepts of language policy research: language rights and hidden agendas in language policies. The issue of language rights was brought to the fore by Ruíz (1984) through his threefold ‘orientations’ model, in which he acknowledges ‘language as a right’ as one of the main orientations in language planning.2 However, the main scholarly impetus was offered by scholars such as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phillipson, who in one of their essays rename ‘language rights’ as ‘linguistic human rights’ and argue that the notion of linguistic human rights is reflected by the collective 2

Ruíz (1984: 16) defines ‘orientations’ as a complex of dispositions toward language and its role and toward languages and their role in society. Ruíz’s threefold orientation model describes ‘language as problem’, ‘language as a right’, and ‘language as a resource’.

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rights of varied linguistic communities to maintain their ethnolinguistic identity and difference from the dominant society and its language (Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson 1995). The maintenance of such an identity was laid out in the Recife Declaration of 1983, which emphasized, amongst others, the right of every child to fully learn the language or languages of her/his group and the right of every person to use any language of her/his group in any official situation (see Phillipson 1992: 107). Although the argument for language rights is sometimes criticized for being ‘essentialist’ (cf. May 2003), I argue that the validity of such criticism can only be measured by examining the specific contexts. As far as the Luxembourgish case is concerned, I argue that languages are central to the different group identities, as, even when Portuguese language speakers acquire Luxembourgish, their identity can still be deciphered using their accent, which can lead to them being exposed to biases (cf. Weber 2009: 124–125).

The second theoretical viewpoint concerns ‘hidden agendas’ in language policies. In her seminal work on hidden agendas, Shohamy (2006) speaks of ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ mechanisms through which languages are manipulated and controlled. According to Shohamy (2006), these mechanisms are language policy tools, the effects and consequences of which can lead to violations of democratic processes and of personal or language rights. As Shohamy argues, it is the existence of such mechanisms and their effects on covertly creating actual language policy that make up hidden agendas, which are unknown to the public. Shohamy (2006) recommends examining language policies in ‘a broader perspective that includes mechanisms, policies and practices as well as the set of negotiations, conversations and battles that take place among them’. As it is one of the aims of the paper to find the hidden agendas of the language policies in Luxembourg, I shall – apart from looking at the historical and socio-political context – also examine the legislation that directly or indirectly shapes the language policies in Luxembourg.

3. Historical Context In order to analyse the language policies of Luxembourg, it is also important to gain an understanding of the emergence of a national identity in Luxembourg, its multilingualism, the different degrees of valorization ascribed to different languages spoken there, and the emergence of Luxembourgish as a language in its own right. If we look at the historiography of Luxembourg, the point that often resurfaces in the representations of Luxembourg’s history is the theme of ‘foreign occupation’, which is related to the fact that Luxembourg was under the occupation of neighbouring European powers for four centuries, also referred to as the ‘four centuries of domination’ (cf. Davis 1994: 31). Moreover, there is also the theme of the ‘three partitions’, which refers to the territorial losses that

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Luxembourg underwent due to the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, the Congress of Vienna in 1817, and the Treaty of London in 1839 (see Fig. 1).

Source: FrĂśhlich and Hoffmann 2006: 1160

Fig. 1. Changes in Luxembourgish territory since 1659. The dark line represents the French–German linguistic boundary. The diagonal lines represent the territory ceded to France in 1659, the horizontal lines represent the territory ceded to Germany in 1815, and the vertical lines represent the territory ceded to Belgium in 1839.

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According to Horner and Weber (2008: 72), these territorial losses are linked to the ‘image of a shrinking territory’. I find it important to underline that any talk of an ‘image of a shrinking territory’ should not ignore the fact that Luxembourg’s territory grew significantly in the first four centuries of its foundation.3 Moreover, the narrative of ‘foreign occupation’ is not entirely true because in the 14th century Luxembourg was in control of Bohemia and was seen as a foreign entity there (Newcomer 1984). The history and historiography did, however, have an impact on the collective memory. To cite an example, in 1934, Marcel Noppeney, the founder of the Society of Luxembourgian Writers of the French Language (Société des écrivains luxembourgeois de langue française), commented that ‘having lived as serfs of foreign nations for four centuries, the Luxembourgers still have the mentality of terrorised slaves’ (quoted after Péporté et al. 2010: 10).

The much-talked-about ‘four centuries of domination’ started in 1443 when – through burden of debt – the Duchy was acquired by Philipp the Good, Duke of Burgundy (Dijon), who established his legislature at Malines/Mechelen (modern Belgium) (Newton 1996: ibid.). The first of three partitions occurred in 1659 as a result of the conflict between France and Spain, when Luxembourg was part of the Spanish Habsburg Empire. Under the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), which was the first international treaty after the Peace of Westphalia to include specific reference to a delineated boundary between two sovereign countries, France gained control of part of the southern territory of Luxembourg and the towns of Thionville/ Diedenhofen and Montemedy (Shelley 2013: 45). The second partition occurred at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic wars. Scholars such as Horner and Weber (2008: 72) and Fehlen (2013: 13) argue that the second partition initiated the development of modern Luxembourg, as it was granted the status of a Grand Duchy and proclaimed to be an independent state. However, such independence was insignificant because the treaty stipulated that King William I (1772−1843), monarch of the newly created ‘Kingdom of the Netherlands’, would be the ruling sovereign of the Grand Duchy (Horner/Weber 2008: ibid.). Under this treaty, 2,280 km2 (880 sq. miles) of territory lying to the east of the rivers Moselle, Sûre, and Our, including the towns of Bitburg (Germany) and St Vith (since 1920 part of ‘New Belgium’), had been ceded to Prussia (Newton 1996: 10). On Prussian insistence, the Grand Duchy also became part of the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) with the result that, while Luxembourg formed part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, its fortress was also part of the German Confederation, and garrisoned until 1867 by the troops of Prussia (Newton 1996: ibid.).

3

Henry of Namur (1112–1196) expanded the original Luxembourgish territory to Hainault, Limburg, and Brabant, which was expanded through marital alliances between Luxembourgish and other royal families. In 1214, the marriage of Ermesinde of Luxembourg (1196–1247) to Walram of Limburg (1165–1226) extended the territory to Arlon, Falkenstein, Bitburg, and Dahl, and the kingdom of Bohemia became part of Luxembourg upon the marriage of Henry’s son John ‘the Blind’ (1296–1346) to Elizabeth of Bohemia (1292–1330). See Newton (1996: 6–8).

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In 1830, the southern section of the Kingdom of the Netherlands broke away from the north in a revolution which began in Brussels on 25 August 1830 and eventually led to the proclamation of Belgian independence on 18 November of the same year (Newton 1996: 10). The conflict between Belgium and the Netherlands continued until 1839, when the Treaty of London was signed. Under the terms of this treaty, Belgium was recognized as an independent state. The Treaty of London also resolved the status of Luxembourg and delineated the boundary between Belgium and Luxembourg (Shelley 2013: 83). The eastern section of the Grand Duchy remained William’s personal possession, which he reassumed on 11 June 1839, and part of the German Confederation; a western section of 4,320 km2 (1668 sq. miles) fell to Belgium (Newton 1996: ibid.). This event is known as the Third Partition of Luxembourg.

According to Kirps and Reitz (2001: 2), the Treaty of London (1839) marked the beginning of a new era because of the growing awareness of national identity. The citizens of Luxembourg requested William II, who came to power after his father William I abdicated in 1840, that Luxembourg should be ruled by Luxembourgers (Newton 1996: 12). Such a request can be seen as a reaction to the policy of ‘Germanization’ pursued by William I (cf. Newton 1996: ibid.). His advisor, ChristianErnest Stifft, a German from Nassau, had worked on reports that compiled a dossier of Luxembourgish institutions and persons accused of anti-Dutch sentiments. This policy intensified when Hans Daniel Hassenpflug (1794–1862), who was appointed

by William I as head of the civil administration in 1839, set about his goals of ‘harmonising the administration in accordance with that of Germany, dispelling the ideas of independent national sovereignty, inculcating fear of the grand duke, and bringing about absolute compliance with his orders’ (cf. Newton 1996: 12).

While the accounts of occupation by the Netherlands, Belgium, and Prussia are not to be questioned, the narrative that Luxembourg was constantly at the receiving end of foreign (especially Prussian) aggression is contested by many authors; however, it remains an important constituting element of the Luxembourgish national identity. Luxembourg had been a member of the German Customs Union (Zollverein) since 1842, which, according to Newton (1996: 12), led to ‘a period of industrial development and prosperity’.4 Moreover, Luxembourg – which was declared neutral through the revised Treaty of London in 1867 – was not entirely neutral during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) fought in Lorraine, because it allowed food supplies for the French at Thionville to be routed on the railway track which ran through the Grand Duchy (Newton 1996: 13). In spite of such 4

According to Newcomer (1984: 219), the Zollverein provided an outlet for agricultural products as well as manufactured products, and later a protective tariff helped Luxembourg. By the end of the 19th century, Luxembourg was producing one-seventh of the total cast iron production of the Zollverein member states, and Germany itself purchased half of Luxembourg’s production (Newcomer 1984: 218).

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crucial evidence, the narratives of being perpetual victims of foreign aggression have played an important role in the history of Luxembourg and continue to influence the public discourses on ‘the foreign’ in Luxembourg.

Two global events that influenced not just the socio-political but also linguistic history of Luxembourg were World War I and World War II. The neutrality guaranteed through the 1867 Treaty of London was violated in 1914 when Luxembourg was occupied by German troops, although the government was left intact and Luxembourg was not incorporated into the German state (Horner & Weber 2008: 74). However, during World War II, the Nazi government incorporated Luxembourg into the Third Reich in 1940 and justified it using the argument that Luxembourgers were ethnically and linguistically German (Horner & Weber 2008: ibid.). During the occupation, the Luxembourgish language became an instrument of resisting the Nazi rule. For example, the speeches read out by Grand-Duchess Charlotte via BBC London were in Luxembourgish. Moreover, in October 1941, a census was administered, including questions on Jetzige Staatsangehörigkeit (current citizenship), Muttersprache (mother tongue), and Volkszugehörigkeit (ethnicity), to which many people answered with ‘Lëtzebuergesch’: this act of symbolic protest against Nazi authority is known as dräimol Lëtzebuergesch (‘three times Luxembourgish’) (cf. Horner & Weber 2008: ibid.). The role played

by Luxembourgish during World War II was a key factor in it being perceived as a symbol of Luxembourgish identity.

Although it can be argued that the role played by Luxembourgish in World War II was the reason why it was designated the ‘langue nationale’ (national language) of Luxembourg, some scholars also take into account a number of other factors. Garcia (2014: 120), whilst pointing out that the post-war efforts to establish Luxembourgish as a language in its own right were not enthusiastically received by the public, cites two main reasons for the resurgence of Luxembourgish. First, European integration started to be seen more and more in terms of loss of national sovereignty, and the implications of the delegation of power to the supranational level become visible directly in the field of language in the sense that in 1983 EU laws guaranteeing the mobility of member state nationals prevented the Luxembourgish state from imposing strict language criteria on doctors (Garcia 2014: ibid.). Second, the growing number of immigrants since the 1970s started to be perceived as a threat, and the publication of the Calot report in 1978, which focused on the demography of Luxembourg, ‘triggered a wave of alarmist discourses around the idea that Luxembourgish people are bound to disappear’ (Garcia 2014: ibid.). ‘Echoing this existential crisis’, as Garcia (2014: ibid.) notes, ‘the Luxembourgish language was presented as threatened by extinction, and it became ever more legitimate to call for its protection’. Luxembourgish was officially declared the national language of Luxembourg in 1984, and the government has since then actively made efforts to promote Luxembourgish in the different spheres of public life.

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4. Demographical Changes and Voting Rights It has already been mentioned in the sections above that there was a steady influx of immigrants in Luxembourg for some decades. According to Horner and Weber (2008: 69–70), the number of non-Luxembourgish citizens living in Luxembourg has been increasing steadily since the end of World War II, especially since the 1970s. In 1981, the total population of ‘resident foreigners’ amounted to 26.3%, which increased to 29.4% in 1991.5 It rose further to 36.9% in 2001, reaching 39.6% in 2006 and 43.5% in 2011.

Table 2. Luxembourg’s population over years (Official Statistics Portal, Luxembourg 2017) Year 1981 1991 2001 2011 2016 364.6 384.4 439.5 511.4 576.2 Population (x 1,000) Luxembourgers 268.8 271.4 277.2 291.9 307.0 Foreigners 95.8 113.0 162.3 220.5 269.2 – of which: Portuguese 29.3 39.1 58.7 82.4 93.1 Foreigners in % 26.3 29.4 36.9 43 46.7 Of the foreigners (either born abroad or in Luxembourg), the greatest population is of Portuguese nationality. Kollwelter (2007) makes an interesting claim when he states that ‘while the government maintained no explicit policy regarding immigration for much of the twentieth century, the implicit policy centred on accepting mainly white, Catholic, European immigrants from Italy and Portugal’.6 Moreover, it is to be noted that despite forming a significant proportion of the population, residents of foreign nationalities do not enjoy any voting rights in Luxembourg. In a referendum conducted in June 2015, more than 70% of the Luxembourg voters voted against granting foreigners the right to vote (Luxemburger Wort 2015a). Ingleby and Kremer (2017) posit that ‘perhaps because it is such a small country and has been occupied many times, Luxembourg is highly protective of its own values and traditions’.

5

6

Horner and Weber (2008: 69) use the term ‘resident foreigner’ for ‘foreigners with a residence permit’. It is a translation of the French term résidents étrangers. The term ‘resident foreigner’ is also to be found in English-language versions of certain official Luxembourgish websites. Cf. The Official Portal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 2017.

An explanation for such a policy can be found by looking at the historical context: Horner and Weber (2008: 72–73) note that, prior to the formation of the state and the subsequent declaration of neutrality, the Catholic Church had served to provide a sense of cultural unification and had a major impact in many areas of social and political life.

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5. Varied Identities and Hidden Agendas The protective stance that the government assumes to ensure the dominance of Luxembourgish over other languages can be understood by examining the different language policy mechanisms which also create varied identities. The policy mechanisms analysed here mainly consist of official statutes. The first key statute is the 1984 language law (officially loi du 24 février 1984 sur le régime des langues, or Law of 24 February 1984 on Language Regime), Article 1 of which officially recognized Luxembourgish as the ‘langue nationale’ (national language).

The intertwining of the Luxembourgish language with the national identity induced by the 1984 law was further underscored by the loi du 23 octobre 2008 sur la nationalité luxembourgeoise (Law of 23 October 2008 on Luxembourgish Nationality), also known as the 2008 Nationality Law, as it made knowledge of Luxembourgish a mandatory criterion for naturalization: Article 7 of 2008 law decrees that applicants shall not be naturalized until they show evidence of ‘intégration suffisante’ (sufficient integration), which is proven if a candidate passes a test of Spoken Luxembourgish and has ‘sufficient active and passive knowledge of at least one of the languages’ (i.e. Luxembourgish, French, or German).7 The naturalization criterion can be analysed from the viewpoint of different stakeholders. First, it should be considered that there is a need to protect and promote Luxembourgish as, while it is a majority language in Luxembourg, it is a minority language compared to other national languages of Europe. The Recife Declaration also applies to the Luxembourgish-speaking community as it has the right to protect its language. The question, however, is whether the implementation of such rights can be allowed to interfere with the interests of other language communities. This issue is intertwined with the second viewpoint, which says that ‘expelling and de-legitimising people because of their not knowing the dominant language is a form of violation of language rights’ (Shohamy 2006: 106). Knowledge of a power language, as Shohamy (2006: ibid.) argues, should not be used as a condition ‘for living’. However, the language-testing mechanism did impact the rights of communities that do not speak Luxembourgish, as the data reveal that the success rate in the naturalization tests has steadily fallen from 91 per cent to 63 per cent since the introduction of the language test in 2008 (Luxemburger Wort 2015b). Moreover, according to a poll conducted in 2015, more than 70 per cent of the voters were against a simplification of the test (Luxemburger Wort 2015c).

Citizenship test is not the only area where language skills are instrumentalized to maintain the hegemony of Luxembourgish. Even in the administrative domain, 7

Clause b of Article 7 (cited above) states that applicants for naturalization have to demonstrate that their listening skills in Luxembourgish should be B1, while their spoken skills should be A2 (in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).

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the dominance of Luxembourgish is ensured as it is mandatory for being selected for high-ranking government positions. For example, the preliminary and final examinations for several posts in the parliamentary administration (such as administrative officer, editor, etc.) require the candidates to pass a Luxembourgish language test of 60 points, which is equal to the combined weightage of other languages, which include French, German, and/or English.8 This kind of language testing ensures that high-ranking positions are not accessible to those who do not speak Luxembourgish. As Kollwelter (2007) notes, ‘Luxembourgers […] work mainly in the civil service, leaving most of the production and innovation sector work to immigrants and commuters from border areas’.

The efforts to promote Luxembourgish have naturally impacted the fate of the other languages in Luxembourg. The status of French and German, the other two administrative languages of Luxembourg, has changed significantly in the course of time. Currently, they are recognized as administrative and judicial languages (langues administratives et judiciaires); however, in the past, they were referred to as ‘national languages’. For example, a royal decree from 1835 stipulates that French and German are national languages of the Royal Duchy.9 Although the official status and the public perception of these languages have changed in the course of time, they have remained of strategic and pragmatic value. However, the recent shifts in policymaking show an increasing tendency towards the alienation of these languages.

For example, the 2014 Grand-Ducal Regulation on a National Support Fund for audio-visual productions decrees that one of the criteria for the allocation of funding concerns the promotion of Luxembourg’s image, and such promotion consists in highlighting the sociocultural heritage of Luxembourg, its history, its historical and cultural sites, and ‘its language’.10 It is an interesting formulation because it ignores the historical association of French and German with Luxembourg.

6. Education and Exclusion So far, I have focused on the official efforts to promote Luxembourgish and the alienation of French and German that results from such policies. This section highlights the othering of immigrant communities in schools due to the language 8

9 10

The statutes related to preliminary and final examinations for different parliamentary positions are to be found in Texte Cordonne du Règlement de la chambre des Députés. See the references for details.

Arrêté de sa Majesté du 4 janvier 1835 (see the references).

The original text reads as follows: ‘Le Comité instruit les demandes et évalue les projets en considérant […] les critères concernant la promotion du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, tels que: l’intérêt du projet pour le rayonnement de l’image de marque du pays et la promotion de son patrimoine socio-culturel, son histoire, ses sites historiques et touristiques, sa langue’. See: Règlement grand-ducal du 4 novembre 2014 portant exécution de la loi du 22 septembre 2014 relative au Fonds national de soutien à la production audiovisuelle.

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policies. Luxembourg follows a ‘trilingualism’ policy for the teaching of different languages in schools, which means that the medium of instruction gradually changes as pupils move to higher stages of school-level education. The medium of instruction in the first year of primary education is Luxembourgish, while the medium of instruction in the second, third, and fourth years of primary education is German.11 The use of Luxembourgish, French, and German is allowed for explaining certain subjects, but written explanations are given in German.12 Such a language policy is disadvantageous to pupils who do not speak Luxembourgish (or German or French) at home. It should be noted that Luxembourg’s school population is marked by a huge diversity when it comes to languages. Although Luxembourgish is still the majority language in school, the difference between the number of pupils speaking Luxembourgish and Portuguese as their first language has reduced significantly over the years (from 18.4% to 9.8%; see Table 3). On the other hand, the other two official languages, French and German, are spoken as a mother tongue by only 12.6% and 2% of the pupils respectively.

Table 3. Mother tongue spoken by pupils registered in the Luxembourgish school system Mother tongue 2010/2011 2011/2012 2012/2013 2013/2014 45.9% 41.5% 39.9% 38.7% Luxembourgish Portuguese 27.5% 28.2% 28.7% 28.9% French 11.1% 11.5% 11.9% 12.6% Serbo-Croatian 5.2% 5.5% 5.6% 6.4% German 2% 2% 2% 2% 1.8% 1.9% 1.9% 1.9% Italian Other 8.3% 9.3% 9.8% 9.5% These data reflect the structure of the Luxembourgish population. After Luxembourgish, the main nationalities are Portuguese and French. The first thirdcountry language is Serbo-Croatian, which is consistent with the large population originating from the western Balkans living in Luxembourg (Dionisio 2015).

A study conducted in the early 1990s by Kathryn Davis showed that the students from the Romanophone group are disproportionately represented in technical secondary schools (Davis 1994: 112–116). This trend has not changed much since then, as is clear from Table 4 in the following, which shows that 85.6% of the students of Portuguese nationality attend technical secondary schools, while for Luxembourgers this proportion is only 53.5%.

11 12

Règlement grand-ducal du 11 août 2011 fixant le plan d’études pour les quatre cycles de l’enseignement fondamental.

See Art. 4, ibid.

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Table 4. The proportion of students who completed schooling in different streams in the year 2007–08 Nationality Luxem- Portuguese ExOther EU Other Total bourgish Yugoslavian non-EU 46.5% 14.4% 17.6% 42.9% 51.9% 42% ES 53.5% 85.6% 82.4% 57.1% 48.1% 58% EST Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Source: Ministère de la Famille et de l’Intégration (2010: 63)

ES stands for ‘enseignement secondaire’ (secondary education), while EST refers to ‘enseignement secondaire technique’ (technical secondary education).

Furthermore, the percentage of students who complete the higher secondary level is relatively low. In 2012, the percentage of upper secondary school students who completed their education in the expected time was 40, which is significantly lower than the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average of 72% (Luxemburger Wort 2014b). It is interesting that in 2005 this number was even lower, as only 16.7% of young people obtain successfully the secondary school leaving diploma (Horner & Weber 2008: 88). The performance of Luxembourgish has remained consistently ‘below average’ in the international assessment known as the Programme for International Student Assessment (Luxemburger Wort 2013). Such consistent poor performance led the former Minister of Education Mady Delvaux-Stehres to understand the drawbacks of the rigid trilingualism practised in Luxembourgish schools, as she noted that ‘[…] we have yet to adapt our system to the heterogeneous population in our schools […] to get better results, we must take the different language profiles into consideration early on and offer instruction better suited to each individual’ (Chrillesen 2013).

However, the views expressed by Delvaux-Stehres have yet to be translated into reality. Weber (2009: 48) points towards contradictions of two kinds of discourses practised in Luxembourg. While many of the discourses on the international level project an image of the Grand Duchy as inhabited by a homogenous population with Luxembourgish as a home language and German, French, and English as additional languages, the domestic discourses present a completely different picture (cf. Weber 2009: ibid.). In the domestic discourses, as Weber (2009: ibid.) elucidates, cultural and linguistic diversity is portrayed as being at the root of the problem (i.e. the poor performance of Luxembourg in PISA). Immigration patterns rather than pedagogical concerns are seen as being more directly connected to the results of Luxembourg (Horner & Weber 2009: ibid.). According to Carey and Ernst (2006: 12), the authorities have long been aware that trilingual education creates a more challenging learning environment for many students, and the authorities even considered creating a two-track literacy system with a choice between

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German-language literacy and French-language literacy. However, following a debate in 2000 on the language education and integration of immigrant children, the parliament rejected this option out of the concern that it would undermine social unity by creating two distinct linguistic communities, i.e. German-speaking and French-speaking (Carey & Ernst 2006: ibid.).

Finally, talking of inclusive pedagogy seems problematic, when, for example, there are cases of children being punished for using their first language in the classroom. According to a ‘Luxemburger Wort’ report from 2014, Portuguese children in Luxembourg are being punished and separated from the group if they speak Portuguese in some kindergartens (Luxemburger Wort 2014a). The prohibition on the use of the mother tongue is a violation of the language rights of immigrant communities living in Luxembourg. Furthermore, Weber (2009: 113) offers the example of a Lusophone student who has been sometimes told by his classmates to stop speaking Portuguese (‘Hal op Portugiesesch ze schwätzen, mir sinn hei ze Lëtzebuerg’, translation: ‘stop speaking Portuguese, we are here in Luxembourg’). The Luxembourgish utterance indicates an essentialist position because it links a given language to a certain territory (ibid.). The interesting aspect of the interview with this Lusophone student is that he speaks French for the most of the interview and uses Luxembourgish only when referring to the discriminatory remarks made by his classmates: such differentiated use of languages to represent contrastive ideological positions means that the aforementioned student distances himself from the ‘one nation – one language’ ideology, which underpins the discriminatory remarks made by his classmates.13

7. Conclusions An analysis of Luxembourg’s language policies shows that the policy mechanisms are devised in a way that brings the rights of different communities into conflict.

The Luxembourgish-speaking community has the right to protect and promote its language; however, such protection and promotion has impact on the interests of other linguistic communities. The case of language testing used for determining naturalization stands for the violation of language rights of the people as it tries to ‘de-legitimize’ people on the basis of them not knowing a given language.

Moreover, the use of language testing as a selection criterion for highly-ranked government positions reveals how language is instrumentalized to maintain the 13

An important perspective that can contribute to discussions on language rights of minorities would be taking into account what the interests and ideologies of these minority groups are. In Luxembourg’s context, one can refer to works such as Beirão (1999), who conducts interviews with Portuguese or Portuguese-origin workers. I have preferred Weber (2009) to Beirão (1999) to refer to interviews with minority groups because the latter tends to evaluate the linguistic resources of immigrants negatively by describing their linguistic varieties as a ‘mixture’.

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hegemony of the Luxembourgish language and the community that commands this language, as officials working in powerful government positions can influence the language policies and policymaking processes.

As far as the language-in-education policy is concerned, it is problematic because it does not take into account the needs and interests of the people who do not speak any of the official languages at home. This has led to Luxembourgish students performing below average in international assessments. While certain officials have come to realize the drawbacks of Luxembourg’s policy, domestic discourses see immigration as the main cause of unimpressive PISA scores of Luxembourg’s students. The forced integration policy, which can be described as being driven by the ideology of the dominant, needs thorough revisions.

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KOLLWELTER, Serge. 2007. Immigration in Luxembourg: New Challenges for an Old Country. Washington: Migration Policy Institute. At: http://www. migrationpolicy.org/article/immigration-luxembourg-new-challengesoldcountry.

KOLLWELTER, Serge–SADLER, Noémie. 2013. Racism and Related Discriminatory Practices in Employment in Luxembourg. ENAR Shadow Report 2012–2013.

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by Sex and Nationality on 1st January (x 1000) 1981, 1991, 2001–17. Accessed on: 15 July 2017. At: http://www.statistiques.public.lu/stat/TableViewer/tableView. aspx?ReportId=12853&IF_Language=eng&MainTheme=2&FldrName=1.

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2015b. Language Test Fail Rate Rising Steadily. December 29. Accessed on: 2 August 2017. At: https://www.wort.lu/en/politics/luxembourgish-nationalitylanguage-test-fail-rate-rising-steadily-56824de70da165c55dc5049d.

2015c. Majority of Luxembourgers Oppose Simplifying Language Criteria.

November 10. Accessed on: 2 August 2017. At: https://www.wort.lu/en/ politics/luxembourg-nationality-reform-majority-of-luxembourgers-opposesimplifying-language-criteria-564219ed0da165c55dc4ce83.

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Book Review

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 13 (2018) 107–111

DOI: 10.2478/auseur-2018-0007

Post-Socialist Neoliberalism and the Ethnography of Uncertainty A Review of the Volume Brković, Čarna: Managing Ambiguity: How Clientelism, Citizenship and Power Shape Personhood in Bosnia and Herzegovina1 Tibor TORÓ

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania Faculty of Sciences and Arts, Cluj-Napoca email: torotibor@sapientia.ro

Bosnia has always been in the focus of sociological and ethnographic research, providing rich empirical material in numerous domains from political science through nationalism studies to history. Also, based on this research, a vast number of theories were developed regarding informality, clientelism, the consequences of power sharing, interethnic relations, conflict and conflict management, or the image and memory of the Balkans. Similarly, in the past almost 30 years, a vast number of literature focused on the consequences of post-socialist transition, asking questions regarding how Central and Eastern European countries managed to overcome the challenges of post-socialism and what were the peculiarities of transition to capitalism and democracy in the region.

Managing Ambiguity: How Clientelism, Citizenship and Power Shape Personhood in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Čarna Brković continues and breaks with this tradition at the same time. On the one hand, relying on exquisite empirical material, she continues the finest anthropological tradition that focuses on the complex concept of favours, informality, and clientelism. By putting it in the context of the state welfare system, it presents how these shape social and power relations in a Bosnian town. On the other hand, with theoretical thoroughness, she rejects the Central and Eastern European specificity and the groundedness in post-communist transition, criticizes the orientalizing aspects of research in the topic, and formulates general conclusions on the challenges of the globally observable neoliberal transformation of the state.

1

Edited by Berghahn Books, New York, 2017.

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The main argument of the book is that, contrary to the common discourses on clientelism and informality, “veze” and “stele” – specific Bosnian forms of clientelism – are not pre-democratic practices that will disappear with the consolidation of democracy but are well embedded in the neoliberal state institution and are fostered by the ambiguities and uncertainties generated by neoliberal reforms regarding welfare. In other words, clientelism and the globalized form of flexible governance are not contradictory to each other but mutually constitutive. Inasmuch as the state withdraws from different social domains, responsibility is passed on to the local community and the myriad of actors representing it. Without a clear description of responsibilities, ambiguity and uncertainty are growing, leaving room for clientelist relationality to take over.

Furthermore, the book develops a new theoretical approach to favours. In the anthropological literature, favour is approached from three perspectives (for a detailed account, see Chapter 2 of the book). The first one argues that informality is a systemic response to the shortages generated by post-socialist transformation, and, as soon as soon as CEE countries are ‘modernized’, it will gradually disappear.

The second, called by many a moral perspective, argues that informality survives in CEE countries because people intentionally reject the ‘official ways of doing things’, and through informal practices they generate a sense of pride and selfworth, thus defining themselves as moral beings. A third, culturalist explanation argues that favours are deeply embedded in the Balkan identity. According to Brković, all three discourses reiterate a sharp distinction between the East and the West and reify an orientalizing image of Central and Eastern Europe; however, some elements of these approaches can be used to build a new approach on how favours appear in the neoliberal context.

In her opinion, favours are a systemic response to social realities but not in the orientalizing way presented in the literature but more related to the changing aspects of the neoliberal state and citizenship. Also, the material – interest-driven – and its moral – identity-forming – aspects of clientelism cannot be separated but analytically as people use their social world and networks both to fulfil their claims and to find their place in society.

The book develops these concepts and arguments on three levels. In the first part, it presents how the Bosnian system of favours is linked to personhood.

In the second part, it deals with the specificities of the new neoliberal reforms regarding the citizen and citizenship, while in the final, third part, it analyses how these two concepts are related to power. In the following sections, for the sake of the argument, I will first discuss citizenship and then the aspects related to personhood.

Brković’s conception of the neoliberal state can be included in a series of authors that describe changes through the Foucauldian concept of governmentality.

According to this, power is generated not only by the different rules and

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regulations of the state but the dominant ideologies that shape society.2 In the neoliberal context, this means two things. First, because of the growing critiques of the welfare state, the state withdraws from the administration of the welfare system, and, second, it introduces the ethos of empowerment and community.3 Consequently, it avoids taking responsibility in resolving the situation of the needy and places responsibility on the person and the local community. More exactly, to resolve their problem, the person cannot rely on the state anymore, they need to become proactive and to find partners for their endeavours. Similarly, instead of being the responsibility of the state, welfare relies more and more on voluntary work, philanthropy, and the cooperation of local community actors.

This spread of the neoliberal model involves several problems. First, as Brković points out sharply, ‘local community’ is both used as an institution to be created and one empowered at the same time. In other words, the citizen faces ambiguity as it is not clear who is responsible for what, what are the things people are entitled to, and what exactly their rights are. While the socialist welfare system offered a clear guidance for the citizens on whom they should turn to, in this new model, the actors’ involvement is shaped by a mixture of formal legal framework, private willingness, and sense of vocation. Second, ambiguity becomes not a temporary status but the norm, where people need to make use of every resource they have to resolve their problems. As their most available resource is their social network and a system of favours, the lines between public and private, responsibility and philanthropy are blurred.

The second pillar of the argument is related to the consistency of the ‘veze’ and ‘stele’ system in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see chapters 1 and 2 of the book).

Brković argues that this is not only interest-driven, sustained by the deficiencies of the state, but it has implications for the identity of the person and the social personhood it develops. In her conception, social personhood is shaped by the connections and relations a person develops. More exactly, by using connections and favours, the person places themselves on the map of social relations and reproduces existing power relations and hierarchies. In this framework, pursuing interest and identity formation cannot be separated. People build their connections and use their social identities to resolve their problems but also to construct their social identity: knowing others means finding out the others’ identity and knowing one’s place in the society.

The two concepts – neoliberal citizenship and social personhood – shape power relations in several ways. Most accounts on favours and clientelism emphasize its 2

3

For more on the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, see: Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, and Nikolas Rose (eds). (1996). Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Rationalities of Government. Chicago: University of Chicago Press or Thomas Lemke (2002).

Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique. Rethinking Marxism 14(3): 49–64.

Nikolas Rose. (1996). Governing ‘Advanced’ Liberal. In: Barry et al. (eds), Foucault and Political Reason.

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reciprocal nature. However, the system described by Brković is not reciprocal at all. Ambiguity can be manipulated to reproduce positions of power. As she puts it: ‘decision-makers and providers of social protection are able to influence when and how much a particular service is a matter of their professional duty and when and how much it is a matter of their personal goodwill to do a favour’ (p. 16). As the neoliberal restructuring has strengthened this duality – social protection as both a citizenship right and a social gift –, it created the possibility for people with different social, political, public, and private positions to navigate and in some cases manage ambiguity and to exchange their influence to political power. These relationships cannot be described by the existing concept of patronage as there is no centralized state apparatus from which resources would be redistributed. In this context, there are a myriad of locally and nationally existing positions and resources distributed unequally within society. In this context, power relations are shaped by people who manage to dominate the social world of favours, keep more than one position, and become less dependent on others. Even in this context, their power is fragile as they need to constantly invest in their personal relations and prove their unavoidability in the domain. In addition to this, Brković constructs another type of power relation. Similar to how Rose develops the concept of empowerment as a form of social control,4 Brković, by drawing on the Foucauldian concepts of panopticon, uses the concept of moveopticon to describe how a person trapped in the welfare system becomes controlled. In a world where there is no clear boundary between rights and favours, public and private, where information is dispersed and there are no institutions and actors that control all of it, to resolve their problem, a person needs to be constantly on the move, needs to look for newer and newer relations and utilize newer and newer possibilities. Although most people are aware of the flaws of the system, they want to get things done and thus need to play by the rules of the game and intentionally or unintendedly reify the existing power relations.

All in all, Brković constructs a convincing argument on how ‘veze’ and ‘stele’, the Bosnian system of favours, can fit in and become a constituting element of the post-socialist neoliberal state, but, as mentioned earlier, her argument goes beyond these local specificities. She argues that these processes can be fitted in a global change in power relations, as their neoliberal undertakings are not only Eastern European specificities but are emphatically present in Western postwelfare states as well. Nonetheless, this could be true, but still the characteristics regarding how the formal and informal elements, ‘state’ and ‘what is not the state’ (p. 78), fit together in this context is very much Eastern European and postcommunist. Brković argues that ambiguity is a result of the neoliberal reforms, but she also mentions that it is amplified by several institutional and systemic elements that are specific to Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular and Eastern Europe 4

Rose. Governing “advanced” liberal democracies

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in general. The most important of these are the institutional setting and the involvement of the international community. First, Bosnia is a divided country, where policy and decision-making capacities are decentralized. As the author puts it, the social protection system can be radically different from region to region, even from town to town (p. 77). This lack of central guidelines amplifies ambiguity, leaving room for local political actors to manoeuvre and helping them to manage the existing ambiguity even more. Second, in the 1990s, several international actors appeared in Eastern Europe, which engaged themselves in peace building, strengthening democracy, and other similar activities. However, as Brković herself observes, these activities were rather ambiguous both as their objective and their implementation. In many cases, these programmes did not target the countries but only small communities (pp. 99–101). Furthermore, these programmes and policies were sometimes deflected by local elites and used instrumentally to strengthen their power.5 In other words, they contributed to the ambiguity already encoded into the system and strengthening the path-dependent linkage between favours and the neoliberal welfare system. Brković does not offer a convincing explanation of why one should disregard these specificities; thus, the question remains: is there a general trend of ‘informalization’ and a shift in global power relations, or this type of strong linkage prevails only because of the specific institutional context where it has developed?

5

A similar point is made by Martin Brusis regarding the instrumental use of EU regional policy in several Central and Eastern European countries (Martin Brusis 2005). The Instrumental Use of European Union Conditionality: Regionalization in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. East European Politics and Societies 19(2): 291–316.

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