Keyword – Pesti Napló

Nagy, Adrienn:

“Smugglers’ raid across half the country”

From the outbreak of World War I, some of the population along the Austro-Hungarian border engaged in smuggling for nearly a decade, which seriously affected state and economic interests, but at the same time provided a secure living in the long term and on an individual level. The black marketeers sought to leave few traces behind. There are primary sources for researching the topic such as the documents issued by the contemporary governmental and municipal authorities, the police, the sheriff, and the boarder guard, as well as fragments of information from memoirs and literary works. At the same time, it is also important to examine the basic mechanisms and characteristics of smuggling and the background of social activity from the perspective of the contemporary media, especially the press and film reports. After all, those ‘smuggling reports’ that reached the media’s threshold of attention and became publicly known have greatly shaped the public mood and focused attention on black marketeering. This paper, based on two media sources, is to present the profitmaking businesses of local smuggling operations that involved several actors and were based on mutual trust.

Keywords: Austrian-Hungarian border, Az Est, film report, Pesti Napló, smuggling