In terms of cooperative autonomy. Advocacy strategies of the Hangya cooperative in Czechoslovakia (1919–1923)

The study deals with a barely examined aspect of the history of the Hungarian cooperative movement, with the interests of the Hangya cooperative centre in Czechoslovakia, but most of all with the fate of the blocked or illegally confiscated Slovakian property and the Trnava office of Hangya. The subject of examination was the issue of the integration of cooperatives during the period between 1919 and 1923. After the First World War, nation-based cooperative systems were established in the successor states. This nation-building strategy came face to face with the cooperative architecture of the dual monarchy, in this case, of the tradition of the historical Hungary. The author, leaning on archival sources, analyses the advocacy policy of the management of Hangya against the separative Slovak cooperative ambitions. He devotes special attention to the unsuccessful Slovak–Hungarian cooperative negotiations and the applied tactics. He examines the wide-ranging issue of the Hangya property in Czechoslovakia, one of the main topics of the Czechoslovak–Hungarian economic negotiations in the years 1921–1923. The development of the nation- and ethnicity-based cooperative systems induced serious political and economic conflicts. The nationalistic cooperative policy conflicted the basic principles of the cooperative ideology in several points.

István Gaucsík           338.2(437)“1919/1923“

In terms of cooperative autonomy. Advocacy strategies of the Hangya 334 (437)(091)

cooperative in Czechoslovakia (1919–1923)

Keywords: history of cooperatives, cooperative policy, cooperative autonomy, nationalism.