Antifascism, the 1956 Revolution and the politics of communist autobiographies in Hungary 1944-2000

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Europe-Asia Studies © 2006 University of Glasgow; Europe-Asia Studies is available online at http://www.informaworld.com.Using oral history, this contribution explores the reshaping of individuals' public and private autobiographies in response to different political environments. In particular, it analyses the testimony of those who were communists in Hungary between 1945 and 1956, examining how their experiences of fascism, party membership, the 1956 Revolution and the collapse of communism led them in each case to refashion their life stories. Moreover, it considers how their biographies played varying functions at different points in their lives: to express identification with communism, to articulate resistance and to communicate ambition before 1956; to protect themselves from the state after 1956; and to rehabilitate themselves morally in a society which stigmatised them after 1989.I didn't use this word 'liberation' (felszabadulás), because in 1956 my life really changed. Everybody's lives went through a great change, but mine especially. … I wasn't disgusted with myself that I had called the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 a liberation, but [after 1956] I didn't use it anymore

Violence and the end of revolution after 1989

The series of Velvet revolutions in 1989, which brought about the collapse of communism in Europe, seem to have vindicated those political theorists and activists who believed in the possibility of non-violent power. The relative success of the 1989 revolutions has validated a new paradigm of revolutionary change based on the assumption that radical changes were attainable through moderate means. Yet the legacy of these non-violent revolutions also points towards the limits of political strategies fundamentally opposed to violence. The article shows that the key architects of non-violent revolutions in 1989 were well aware of the contingent nature of all political actions, and were thus willing to take risks in their pursuit of freedom.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Four monuments and a funeral:established pathological mourning and collective memory in contemporary Hungary

In this chapter, I suggest that the rhetoric of the Hungarian far right largely resembles what Vamik Volkan has called Established Pathological Mourning. In such circumstances, mourning becomes extended, whereby an individual – or in the present case, a collective – cannot adaptively work through the loss of a loved object. Mourning rituals are extended, whereby the repetition of mourning is an attempt to ‘keep alive’ the lost object. Rather than being a recognition of loss, these complicated mourning rituals forestall the work of living on without the lost object. I suggest that, similar to the re-grief therapy that Volkan promotes, collective cultural mourning may offer an adaptive way forward in working through the issues of loss and control for a larger segment of a society