Introduction – what is it about?
2010 Hungary. County of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén. One of the most disadvantaged regions. The Cserehát.
The poverty in Cserehát. Roma of Cserehát. The Roma-poverty in Cserehát. The poverty-stricken Roma.
This exhibition deals with the stratum forming the lower 5% of the society the members of which, generally, are not subjects of any sociological research.
This fact just deepens their isolation caused by their poverty.
What is it like? One who does not know the neediness could hardly imagine it.
We know the proverb everything looks alike in the dark. From afar each poor is the same.
Moreover from afar each Roma is the same. We would have liked to show just the very opposite, not generally speaking, not even in Hungary but in the Cserehát region only.
It is a generally agreed habit in Hungary to speak about the middle class or those who are aspiring to get into it and the so called sinking strata.
But a closer view shows that the poverty is also stratified.
We are going to introduce people who are not living in the Roma row but in the village. And from outside it can not be seen that their house is a “Roma one”. We are going to introduce those people who are still living in the village but in a poorer adobe house, and those who are living at the edge of the village in the so called CS - flat1.
Here the edited “course-of-life interviews” of the Roma people of Cserehát can be studied by the interested visitor.
What is not?
We would like to emphasize that the exhibited material is not about the Roma population of Hungary.
We are fully aware that the Roma of Budapest or those living in county of Baranya or in Zemplény are living their lives with completely different problems.
There are places where the situation is different from the one shown here, and there are others where it is the same.
We don not state that the Roma live in this way in Hungary, but there are people, Hungarian citizens who live in such circumstances also.
How was this material made?
The material which can be seen here was made by an unusual way that is irregular in Hungary. We were eager to know the everyday life of the poverty in the Cserehát. We made in-depth interviews with about 30 people in the Cserehát. The tapes were typed and edited sometimes abridged. Besides the above mentioned facts there were no other scientific- or interpretative methods used. We did it intentionally because we would have liked to present a material to the reading and visiting public in order to let them form their own judgement.
1 The CS flat is the abbreviation for an inferior flat. They were built in the seventies-eighties nationwide in Hungary. They were generally a one room, no-conveniences houses usually with a small garden. In those days those people who had the opportunity to move in from the hovels found themselves in better circumstances. These CS houses – in most cases in the Cserehát - were built at the edge of the village. Nowadays some of these CS flats are in disrepair, and there are others renovated and fitted with more modern conveniences.
