A PECULIAR SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT ATTEMPT DURING THE WORLD WAR II (TORDAS: THE COOPERATIVE MODEL MUNICIPALITY IN HUNGARY)

Abstract

In Hungarian settlement policy the “model” was always characteristic and present during the entire process of modernisation. Public institutions and bodies, the churches and the state itself considered the “model creation” as important, therefore model ranches, model ranch schools,model houses or model housing estates, as well as model villages, and later socialist model villages, socialist model towns, etc. all appeared in different periods.

1938 the national centre of the so called HANGYA (ANT) co-operative movement has decided to develop Tordas in Fejér County to cooperative model village in its own investment and with the support of the local society, county administration and the national sectoral administration.

This development process started with a conscious and planned research the different t steps of the effective intervention was formulated based upon and in compliance with the structures and demands found. This reconstruction covered the development of the linear infrastructures of the settlement (access roads), fundamental improvement of the existing infrastructure within the settlement (sidewalk, electric lighting, and healthy drinking water) as well as the preparation of the standard design plans for houses.

As regards economic activities the HANGYA has provided an overall model for local economy through the establishment model cooperative and the complete arrangement of the cooperative sector and at the same time it has shaped local society.

The model village was completed by 1940 but could never become a real model after 1945 since the cooperation and cooperatives received a new ideological, political and economic content and finally the HANGYA cooperative movement itself was eliminated.