Minorics Tünde – Várnagy Péter: The local heritage collections in the historic area of Baranya county

Abstract: The Act No. XXX of 2012 concerning Hungarian National Values and Hungarikums has called upon local municipalities and their resident communities to take actions for safeguarding their existing and disappearing local values. The incoming legislation has contibuted a lot to the protection of local heritage properties, as it presented an opportunity to set up local committees for the role of identifying local values and creating inventories out of them for the sake of increased local recognition and public use. Local communities are considered to be the key stakeholders in value assessment, in the process of selecting what properties they feel primarily worthy, really belonging to them, vitally important for representing their local identity. Local communities, local settlements display a wide variety of diversity regarding the level and nature of local identity, there are numerous ones rather shaken in this respect, showing decay and disintegration, others don’t really find the influential power to represent their community interest and become visible. The research project on the theme of Manifesting Local Values in the area of the Historic Baranya County within the scope of the Current Community Knowledge has aimed at capturing the social processes since the inception of the 2012 ACT and their impacts, with special emphasis on local participation and community engagement practices used for transmitting traditional patterns of knowledge.

The research process and the preparation of the study were supported by the sub-program of the Cultural Research Program for Research Groups of the National Institute of Culture.

Introduction

The Hungaricum Act passed in 2012 (The Act No. XXX of 2012 concerning Hungarian National Values and Hungaricums) has provided a mechanism to promote heritage values in the country, has made local municipalities to recognize their responsibility to establish a Local Repository of Values and set up a Committee to guide the local public efforts in mapping their territory and creating a list that can be integrated into higher levels.  in the year 2020, out of the 301 settlements of Baranya county only 40 followed the intention of the legislation. The sample is very diverse both from the point of view of value assessing methods and seen through political or professional lenses. Certain village communities have lost their energies and interest in such issues, others show cohesion and comittedness to discover their distinctive traits.

The plurality of forms and functions of local values preserve a wide range of experiences and knowledge of the past.  Local community knowledge is mostly gained from the ways of accomodation to the nature and adoption to the needs of living ensuring the successful survival of local families over time.

The pool of community knowledge opens up channels for interaction between space and time, between modern and traditional, between ancestors and descendants. Embracing local values certainly may create opportunities for cultivating traditions and building cultural identity, both will be beneficial for the sustainability of the living conditions and may offer stimulus for vitality in terms of planning a sound rural economic future, like renewing distinctive touristic offers and enhancing the occupational structure.

The research project VALUE MAPPING and KNOWLEDGE AREA was launched in 2020 by the Cultural Heritage Research Group of the Institute for Human Development and Cultural Studies at the Pecs University to explore the processes and outcomes since the above mentioned new legislation in 2012. The research proposal got the support of the National Institute for Culture Nonprofit Ltd. through winning a tender. It mainly has had the purpose of securing professional contact building and recruiting new actors to this field. (nmi.hu/szolgaltatasok/osztondijprogram/)

The university research group has been a constant partner of the National Institute’s practitioners working in Baranya county, jointly organizing workshops and conferences and ongoing discussions regarding professional training and experiences of field practices.

The Baranya unit of the National Institute intensively took part in formulating the research concept and has given invaluable help to mapping local values within the municipalities, and providing relevant data for analysing.

The Aims of the Research

As a result of the externally induced change, the 2012 Hungarikum Act offered a multilevel national value pyramid structure to come into existence that’s firmly based on the local value repositories. There are higher levels in the pyramid, like the county and regional levels, and the national one, even nation segment’s repository of values of Hungarians living abroad are included. To capture the wide variety of heritage items, all are compiled into thematic branches of repositories as well. Following the recommendations of the lower level committees of the pyramid for nominating outstanding national values those getting support will be declared as hungarikums. The legislation prompted a growth in the heritage field, initiated or strengthened the focus on identifying relevant values operating in the community contexts to be manifested or re-interpretated for use. The local communities are the actors knowing the best what is valid for them.

Having confronted with the wide array of differences in the localities, tha aims of the research couldn’t have been anything else but exploring how the selection and the identification practices had happened, what composition the emerging committees have been displaying, what sort of value assesment tools and methods have been employed. Obviously, understanding the involvement of the local community was of crucial importance. Other points were to examine: How the community outreach to achieve greater awareness has been ensured, what sort of cooperation forms have been exercised, how the local „ownership” of the community collection of values has been encouraged?  Has there been a new local legislation as an impact? Has heritage protection and promotion become a stable element of the local cultural provision? To find the answers to all these questions was our intention.

So, the research project wanted to explore the role of the committees and their impact on the local society, explain how the heritage issues were embedded in the local discourses and got discussed thoroughly giving access to all. The plans for ensuring the local passing on of the traditions and values have been also reviewed.

The research has aimed at offering a clear overview of these aspects and presenting the findings on public websites. Hopefully, it will generate a new stimulus for cooperations and network building. Creating a constantly updated data base of information and displaying efficient tools in good practice has been also an important objective. The purpose is to be able to function as an open service for the professional community and interested parties in order to enhance collaboration and greater public use.

The research has been extended beyond the present geographical area of Baranya county taking into account of the historic layout existing before the end of the first world war. The regional historic background is the same for this area. Sharing a lot of common attributes and cultural roots definitely had shaped the broader set of local values, regardless of the big political, administrative, institutional shift caused by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.

Cultural landscapes possess not only physical dimensions, but rather more similar cognitive elements, cultural constructs. It seems very true for the Hungarian language speakers still living in present Serbia and Croatia, a lot of studies showed their preserved ethnic identity and commonalities in mental heritage.  „The new spatial concepts doesn’t emphasize borders and boundaries, the internal dimensions are rather determined by the elements of the content” (A. Gergely 2001).

In our case it seemed obvious to compare cultural values and heritage properties found in historic Baranya and the present one. That’s why the research tried to cover the Croatian part of the Drava-triangle (Drávaszög) and the former Baranya-area (Baranja) as well.

Certain key questions were asked by us: How do we define the concept of „value?, how does the legislation interpret the notion of value?, what do the local people perceive as their values ? Apart from the definition-issues the research project wanted to map and evaluate the efficient ways and tools for involving and mobilizing citizen groups, and assess their efficacy in cultural community development processes like capacity development and cooperation skills. How did the local publicity forums work?  Has the scope of the community knowledge broadened? Is it possible to detect direct enabling links between heritage values and economic development initiatives or culture-led regeneration?

The research couldn’t do without analysing the jurisdiction, especially the impact of the Hungaricum Act. The legal environment ’s direct and indirect influence had to be investigated, their role guiding the implementation, and identifying the barriers preventing quality performance.

As it is well-known, Article P of The Fundamental Law of Hungary (25 April 2011) states that „Natural resources, in particular arable land, forests and the reserves of water; biodiversity, in particular native plant and animal species; and cultural artefacts, shall form the common heritage of the nation, it shall be the obligation of the State and everyone to protect and maintain them, and to preserve them for future generations.”

 Based upon this legislation the Act No. XXX of 2012 concerning Hungarian National Values and Hungarikums had been formulated that was followed by executive orders and implementation regulations such as the (114/2013. (IV. 16.) Government decree, and another Government decree (324/2020. (IV. 16.). There are other significant law-making to consider like the Act LXXVII of 2011 on World Heritage, the Act CXL of 1997 on museums, public libraries and cultural community services, the Act LXIV of 2001 on the protection of Cultural Heritage.

Out of all these legislations several intersections occur affecting the life of local municipalities that needed to be investigated by us.  In the first phase we observed the organizational framework of the local committees for creating their value collection and the attached financial and human conditions, and the local legislation for cultural provision. The content analysis of the local data will be highlighting the significance of local heritage promotion and its relation to the exisiting system of cultural provision. Are there any specific communities or institutions embracing the heritage maintenance and education? What professional fields do they represent, are the organizational actors coming from the local or higher government levels, from the civil sector, or the religious field or from the business sector? Are they connected to external rural development agencies? The municipalities display very different proportions in this respect. Experiences are quite varied if the theme of partnerships or community-based coalitions are addressed, whether they are capable of working towards inspiring and activating the broad community to identify and embrace its values. The level of access to the local value repository, involvement in the process of collection of community items and participating in community events seems to be a good indicator assessing the chance to acquire local community knowledge whether in individual or in collective forms.  The local experts are very different in that respect whether they willingly share or withdraw their findings.

The expected results of the research

The research is going to lead to building a structured dataset to be used for creating a constantly renewing knowledge base able to generate sharing good practices and network building among the stakeholders of the municipalities.

The employed methods (observation, participation in events, focus group interviews, expert interviews, document analysis) will reveal a range of useful views and experiences to guide community strategies and actions on evolving issues and opportunities regarding heritage preservation.

Through network building the quality methods will be effectively shared and learned, providing an excellent source of new perspectives and innovative ideas. Trustful relationships will stimulate the spirit of collaboration in the heritage field viewed as a resource of multiple value. Involving the public, engaging civil society, community development and creating partnerships will be a natural component of the knowledge network area.

The theoretical background of the research

That requires trying to define the core concepts of „value” and „heritage”. The first author to mention in the Hungarian academic literature is Gábor Sonkoly whose writing on the interpretation of the concept and its employability was of crucial importance. He was giving an account of the previous international discourse on the term within academia and beyond. (Sonkoly 2000) This publication was decisive in preparing for the Hungarian heritage law-making and prompting cross-disciplinary dialogues.

Likewise Peter Erdősi’s article needs considering that comprehensively analysed the varied interpretations of the cultural heritage concept leading to cultural policy actions. (Erdősi 2000) Attila Paládi-Kovács greatly contributed to the discourse attaching the formidable national characteristics. (Paládi-Kovács 2014) The National Cultural Institute published a methodological guide to help to identify and collect national heriage properties and soon good practices were shared on how communities should be safeguarding their values as cultural resources.

Milestone publications were emerging in the 2000s dealing with the relation between values and communities, and exploring the issue of individual and collective values and value typologies (Farkas 2008), (Nagyné Babics Éva 2016). The available literature focused heavily on the change of value-systems. (Jakab-Vajda 2015) Creating and nurturing values was also the main research theme of many scholars, (like Tóth 2024) and Károly Varga ’s oeuvre on value research has proved to be a valuable resource. (Varga 2003)

According to György Csepeli „Anything can be defined as a value in a human society, but not everything is a value.” (Csepeli 2001) He demonstrates that value constitution is always in correlation with needs and motivations that drive people to act in a certain social context. The business of compiling a register of values suggests that this relationship is rather static, fixed and implies a strong local identity. This assumption considers values to be rather stable, not really transient elements of a long-established culture with a persistent nature that determines social norms directing social practice.

Values are resistant to change, but the practice of choosing values are constantly changing. There is a change in that what is perceived to be a value in a given situation, what is not. A value may become a heritage if it finds contact, build a real relationship with the present, able to get relevance in actual life of the people.

The research project has gained a guiding perspective from this notion. While investigating the local value repositories the focus was always on the connection between the value of the past and the relevance to the present life of the community. In order to be a meaningful part of community identity it requires knowing the value per se and the capability to translate it to a form valid for the current reality.

The Act of 2012 never uses the term „heritage” but always speaks of „values”, but obviously the local community is able to utilize its „values” only if they function as some actually existing relevant embodiments.  This „conversion” into a quality conceived by the people is needed for strengthening identity.

If we see the institutional and legal practice of the national value pyramid this connective relation is well captured in the case of peak values, i.e. the hugarikums which had been nominated from the national inventories by the communities representing local communities’ intangible heritage forms.

Local values express accumulated local community knowledge and experience through which production of one’s sense of place happens attaching meanings and identities to the specific locality. Socially approved values of the past direct the individuals to find their own answers to the actual challenges of the specific environment. These may include finding the adequate jobs and work activities, readiness to revitalize the local cultural resources someone has been identified with.

For rural development the local value-based approaches can be real drivers of enhancing the local economy, the distinctive heritage properties can accrue financial benefits when generating tourist inflows.

A big bulk of research studies can be cited that highlighted that heritage sites acting as memory bases of different communities beyond giving authentic human experiences were capable of triggering significant economic advantages for the residents.  One of the most dynamic area in this respect is the field of tourism, where new attractions have been developed all the time based on the the multidimensional nature of heritage with the aim of making incomes.

Local gastronomy, local traditional production of food and access to distinctive dishes has become a very popular form of heritage tourism in the recent decades. Valuing the local/regional culinary and gastronomic heritage may have multiple beneficial effects, securing incomes for the local providers and contributing to the more healthier eating and supporting environment-friendly production. Especially areas with marked rural features, and with characteristic ethnocultural traditions can address this trendand jump on the bandwagon. (Berghauer et al.2020:70)

Freshly published research papers report that all the stakeholders (not only tourism experts but local providers, and producer as well) have found their role in such joint ventures and seem to be involved in sharing and exchanging inspiring practices to each other. (Gonda et al. 2021)

In multiethnic settings such as in the area of Baranya county the local repositories contain numerous ethnic identity representations of cultural heritage items. The Ethnic German settlements revitalized traditional rituals and celebratory events like the Emmaus-day on Easter Monday in the wine cellar area of BÓLY, the local gastrofestival focusing on steam dumpling in Geresdlak, or the blue-dyeing festival of Nagynyárád showcase a colourful craft tradition.  All the local village museums and their collections of the traditional German cultural properties are functioning both as touristic attractions and a community knowledge pool the museumpedagogical programs can heavily rely on. (Szeidl - Antal 2019:49-59)

It’s important to establish heritage sites and institutions, they are boosting local identity but also give a chance for local communities to utilize them as resources for their socioeconomic development through heritage tourism.  A local heritage centre may bring in tourism and incomes, in sum, may contribute to becoming proud, heritage-conscious members of the community.  Any money spent by the experience-seeking tourists in the locality will contribute to the betterment of the quality of local life. Developing such site-specific benefits have driven to build a new project in Szigetvár, the Suleiman the Magnificent’s Tomb (Turbe) offering unique heritage attractions as a historic memory place. (Sipos et al. 2020:19, Sipos et al. 2021)

The Survey Results of the Municipality-level Collections of Values

A survey was conducted among the chairs and members of the committees in Baranya settlements. The sample was created based on different data sources (websites, media releases, personal inquiries, official lists), altogether 51 municipalities took part in the survey. In the second stage the researchers could expend the list of respondents: all the 280 participants in e county-wide cultural employment and training program did get a tailored online questionnaire. With their help we got additional information on emerging repositories and committees „in progress”. The size of the sample has grown to be 58. Another 16 settlements has come into light with serious intention to establish committees to care for local values. The final figure is that 227 municipalities haven’t reacted to the opportunities shaped by the Act in 2012.

1st diagram
The number of local repositories in Baranya county. Own research. 2021.08.11.

The data on the time of the formation of the local registry is recorded well in the 3 year period after the Act, but there is a 2 year break after that. The following two charts will give us only a tendency in the figures, as the category „emerging” makes the picture a little opaque. The surprising element is that the year 2021 will be a flourishing one regarding the increase in the number of the committees. We attribute the expansion to the nearly 300 practitioner-to-be learners in the training system run by the National Institute.

2st diagram
The number of Committees for creating local value collections since 2012 in Baranya county. Own research. 2021.08.11.

 We were curious to get to know the bid performance of the committees, that’s why we asked the Hungarikum Office to give us a feedback on the successful Hungarikum tenders. The data analysis was made for the sectoral repositories as well. The questionnaire was sent to all the selected settlements. The final data will be available only after 31 August. It’s accuracy needs constant updating.

The first round of the research focused on investigating the social embeddedness of the local heritage values and their practical part in the community knowledge in the sample of 51 settlements. This mainly needed mapping and analysing the webcontent available. (i.e. the websites aand social media sites of the local organizations and the committee for the repository of values.)

We wanted to examine the objectives of the committee, the ways of nomination to the local inventory, by whom the nomination had taken place, the present list of items, their classification according to thematic branches. Answers were also looked for those local values that hadn’t been selected into the local lists, in spite of the local community ’s proudness over them, such as like smaller festivals, folk rituals, listed buildings, traditional attractions.

Gathering primary data covered the settlements in Croatia with Hungarian ethnic population. Earlier it was explained in the introduction that the concept of Hungarian national values and Hungarikums purposefully aims at encompassing the nation segments outside the present borders of Hungary. According to this notion the nation remains a key unit of shared common fate in the past centuries and having a distinct language, the same cultural influences, religious background and institutions despite the occurring diversities still created a complex unity of nationhood that culturally survived. The shared geographical land with its opportunities also shaped the livelihood of local people and their community culture. New national borders were brought by the Trianon Treaty after the first world war but the traits of ethnic and national cultural sameness are there and we can safely say, that the value repositories display the closeness and unity.

The preferred values by Ethnic Hungarians living in the Croatian Baranya area

In order to highlight the local value preference of the Hungarian population living in Croatia some historical background information is needed to explain the context. One of the main source to cite is Károly Lábadi’s book with the title: Life after a War. Ethnic, ethnographic and cultural phenomena among Hungarian minority groups in Croatia after the 1991 Wars. (Lábadi 2008) Another book is very illuminating in this respect written by Júlia Baranyai: Traces washed away. (Baranyai 2004) The Croatian War of Independence had been a 7 year-long period causing serious damages. Approx. 100 thousand people emigrated. Just sizing up the war damages had taken 8 years. Naturally not only the physical damages had to be counted but the human loss of the families, and communities who became deprived of their organizations, minority interest representation. Those forced to go to exile when returning found a totally different world. That goes for the settled population as well. There was a great shift in the way of life after the war in all aspects. So far it can’t be really assessed what the future holds, what is lost for ever, what can be reborn and revitalized. (Lábadi 2008:1)

The demographic decay of ethnic Hungarian groups living in Croatia has been undergoing throughout in the 20th century. Apart from the population loss in the second world war there were 7 thousand Hungarian emigrants from Jugoslavia. The assimilation processes have been growing steadily for a long time paralel with the decreasing childbirth. The number of mixed marriages is also on the rise meaning integration into the Croatian society. A smaller region called „Drávaszög” displays homogeneity of Hungarian language speakers, but even this one in a narrower fashion. The war had devastating effects on the community.  In Eszéki Baranya (Osijek-Baranya) county the number of ethnic Hungarians doesn’t reach 10 thousand members (the actual figure is 9784), those with Hungarian mother tongue make 8307. (Lábadi 2008:9-11)

Since the Trianon Treaty preserving the Hungarian identity has been rather difficult, but after the 1991 war and the Serbian invasion nearly one-third of the population escaped from this territory, and the chance for returning only opened up 7 years later. During the 7 year period ethnic cleansing took place with disorganizing the civic institutions of the ethnic Hungarian minority. A few did function but barely with effect. (Lábadi 2008:9)

The author himself puts the question what could be a solution to replace the lost values. He prioritizes rebuilding the economic conditions that could support the livelihood of the local people and enable them staying for good.  He equally gives importance to the issues of reorganizing the local cultural-communal sphere, and the cultivation of the minority institutions’ activities.  Even if the traditional local collections were not that rich in their objects, still it would diminish hopelessness. „At present all the community efforts to create ethnographic collections and small heritage institutions desperately seek signifying that once the ancestors accumulated a great heritage, their past achievements deserves respect and gives strengths for building back conditions for re-beginning.” (Lábadi 2008:51)

There have been new emerging community inititatives for the aim of generating local cohesion. Numerous social events have been organized like May Days, community festivities with arts, entertainment and local food, cooking competitions, pig killing feasts, fishing days, Easter sprinkling of the girls, Luca Day ritual before Christmas) etc, specific associations for cultivating and promoting local traditions have been established, social movements have reached them orienting the public attention for landscape conversation and safeguarding the ecologically sound environment. The merit of local products is on the rise.  The value of local characteristics is also recognized increasingly. Baptizing ceremonies, traditional weddings, nameday celebrations are in fashion. Since 2005 Carnival time each year the rooster beating day has been celebrated in Daróc. In Csúza the harvest ball’tradition has been reinvented. Vintage traditions also have been kept since the autumn of 2004. The Catholic Holy Thursday traditions that commemorate Ascencion of Jesus Christ has restarted in Laskó. And the list of community events could go on and on. Kopács has become a touristic attraction of its fish soup days connected to celebrating the Danube fishermen. There are special local meal-brands coming from certain villages, like tripe from Sepse. All of these examples display using the traditional heritage for attraction.

Another trend is palpable which can be explained by the recent war’s effect: memorial days, celebration of memorable events, anniversaries, and remembrance of victims and martyrs have become in the forefront.  Some of these have surfaced in the local repositories.

The Hungarikum Act of 2012 was amended in 2015 (Act LXXX) that gave the right to those ethnic Hungarian organizations which are constitutive part of the MÁÉRT (Hungarian Permanent Conference) to establish their own Value Repositories representing their segments of the Hungarian nations and are authorized to send those to the National Region’s Collection of Hungarian Values Abroad. In Croatia the Committee was formed in 2015. Interviews were made with all the three members of the committee. Andor Pajrok economist, Tünde Micheli journalist, Olivér Mijekovics lawyer. According to their statement the municipalities have not been inclined to form a committee for collecting values mainly because of the small proportion of the ethnic Hungarians living in the settlements that affects weaker representation of their interests. This situation is diminishing the hierarchical levels and the involvement of the communities as primary identifiers. Instead the main representative minority body in the Croatian Parliament, the Democratic Community of Hungarians in Croatia has the power to nominate. Another huge problem has been brought to light by them is the lack of adequate human capacity. Succesful bids and funding had to be sent back to Hungary because of capacity deficits. The very innovative and useful ideas and plans (designing a mobil exhibition, circulating it in education institutions, using gamification techniques for producing tools and games) haven’t been delivered yet.

Those engaged municipalities with functioning committees are the following ones in the area called Drávaszög: Kopács, Csúza, Várdaróc, Újbezdán, Laskó, Hercegszőlős, Vörösmart, Csúza, Laskó, and the another 2 settlements are found in Slavonia-Croatia: Kórógy és Haraszti.

 In the guidebook on the national collection of values of the Croatian Hungarians the sectoral list contains the following items (www.hungarikum.hu/content/kulhoni-ertektar-nemzeti-ertekeinek-listaja):

Agriculture and Food Industry:

1. Fishing devices
2. Gastronomy/ Distinctive meals

Tourism, Hospitality:

Rooster beating (a masquerading custom at Carnival time) - Várdaróc
Maypole Dance – Újbezdán

Cultural heritage:

Headdresses, bonnet

Built heritage:

The Memorial of Gedeon Ács - Csúza
Protestant churches of Drávaszög area - Laskó, Hercegszőlős
The Memorial of Julianna Borkó - The cemetery of Kopács
The Tombstone Memorial of Izsák Béni - Vörösmart
Grain bin for storage on wooden legs - Kórógy, Haraszti

Baranya county settlements display a lot of similarities in their collections of values whether they are from the Hungarian or from the Croatian side. The similarities origin from the commonalities they shared for centuries but the different social and political evolutions also mark their effects in the nominations. The gastronomical local values can’t be sharply separated along ethnic lines or political borders, rather they express crossover features, having learnt from the neighbouring ethnic group’s practice through exchange. The whole area seem to prefer bean and fish food, black puding (made of pork) when they are asked to name their characteristic meals for local gastronomical heritage. Fish consumption and the varied ways of cooking fish reflects the lifestyle shaped by their homeland area where rivers meet.  It is remarkable that the Croatian Hungarians nominated a lot of tools and devices representing the once practiced fishing-based life of the community.  Why is it when it is not essential for livelihood nowadays?  An explanation could be that at present the Hungarian ethnic minority has been struggling for survival, feels that the latest war has damaged the artefacts rooted in its past and relying on the precious memories of the former legacy counts. It is also interesting that reviving folk customs (Maypole dancing, Rooster beating) are not categorized under the section of cultural heritage but tourism and hospitality. These local feasts and celebrations are mainly for meeting together, strengthening the ties between the community and its guests, constructing a newly found cohesion. Collected under the heading of cultural heritage all the items showcase forms of cultural memories, expressing mental belonging to the Hungarian culture. The items of the built environment section cover mostly historic churches, sacral objects referring to the settlement of the Hungarians in the locality, or tombstones in the graveyards commemorating the ancestors’s merits, both explicitly aims at building the ethnic identity and find the adequate representation of the Hungarians within the Croatian society.

Conclusions

The research project „Manifesting Local Values in the area of the Historic Baranya County within the scope of the Current Community Knowledge” was completed at the end of August 2021. The present state of findings will be extended relying on more data. The initial data gathering on the nomination processes, the web search on issues of access and sharing heritage values hasn’t produced a solid outcome. The researhers have encountered problems in the websites, searches haven’t been easy, the contents have been found diffuse, not continually updated, thus causing lower satisfaction levels for the interested readers. These features can be remedied, if those responsible would do a better quality job to inform and involve the local public.

Excellent examples have been found as well, in the case of Nagypall and Alsómocsolád.

Comparing the sectoral collections in the Hungarian and in the Croatian part of Baranya was revealing marked differences. In the Baranya county collection the category Cultural Heritage is the most preferred. The category Architectural Heritage is the fifth in the county collection but places second in the local lists.  In the case of Health and lifestyle category the inverse happens. Food and Agrarian Industry category is in the middle positions. Natural Heritage-properties are highly valued in the settlements, but there is no presence of them in the county collection. The same is true for the Drávaszög settlements, where the Food and Agriculture-items are the first in the list followed by the built heritage and a very slim size of Cultural Heritage and Tourism and Hospitality. It is important to note that in the present Baranya county actully relevant values shaping local identity are the selected ones, in the historic part of Baranya in Croatia the memory-based common history and the folk elements are mostly priotized.

The analysis is hindered by the 2012 Act’s intention. The regulatory framework has been guiding the whole process including how to make a collection for those who opt for the delivery. In terms of content it completely gives freedom to choose any values however it offers a classification, i.e. types of heritage forms.  It’s the choice of the committees to categozize their local values under the headings.

Disadvantaged rural communities try to reposition themselves, seeking to revitalize, diversify their economic base, enhance their livelihood usually through tourism which is seen a lot of times as the only option. That’s why heritage properties whether it is natural or cultural, traditional production technologies or crafts are considered community resources for possible development. Usually the preserved traditional items also signify the backwardness of the settlement. Forms of heritage are viewed as a foundation upon which the sustainable future touristic destinations of these small communities rests. (Marton et al. 2016:34)

All municipalities can use their heritage but it can’t happen without recognizing the ways the community understands itself, expresses itself, without engaging all the resident groups within the community to take part in value assessing, to have their access to informed decisions and open debates and negotiations in order to come to a consensus in the given issue. Wthout these community capacities success for the local development intitatives will be weak.

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