The Centralized Management of Folk Art Trade in Hungary

Abstract The decorated artifacts of rural craft industries were the forerunners of the products which, from the late 19th century, were made for the organized trade that entered the global market and met the needs of the Hungarian market. The production was managed by the increasingly numerous cottage industry associations, later cottage industry cooperatives and independent companies. Until World War II, craft and folk art products were marketed by centrally managed organizations, as well as by individual entrepreneurs, commercial travelers, trading companies, and cottage industry cooperatives. From 1948 onwards, the marketing of the products of cottage industry cooperatives was exclusively in the hands of state-controlled domestic trading and export companies. After the political regime change in Hungary in 1989, the applied folk arts cooperatives continued to operate for some time, but the centrally managed trading companies ceased to exist. The cooperatives carried out commercial activities by building on their previous relationships. By the 1990s, however, the global market for folk art products and the economic conditions for their production in Hungary had changed, and the folk art products of the cottage industry cooperatives have been phased out. This paper focuses on the history of centrally managed institutions of commerce from the 1870s to 1989 and their aftermath up to the 1990s.