Abstract
This contribution focuses on postwar migration flows from a micro-perspective and aims to show their impacts on everyday life in the intimate small town community. The town of Medzev in eastern Slovakia was chosen for the micro-historical study because of several local specifics.
Firstly, the town was inhabited by a predominantly German-speaking population, which remained the majority even after the turbulent postwar years, an almost unique case in Czechoslovakia. Secondly, the mix of local languages, identities and loyalties that have been present in the town for centuries, and further reinforced by the economic migration associated with the industrialization of the region in the 1960s, provides an excellent example for studying changes in society after migration waves.
In this paper, I ask the questions: How was the Medzev population affected by post-war migration flows? What effects did the economic migration connected with socialist industrialization have on the prevalently German-speaking community?