The Convolutions of Historical Politics

The Memory of Trianon as a Political Instrument in Hungary Today

The Memory of Trianon as a Political Instrument in Hungary Today gáBor gyáni Following the political change of 1989, history came to attract more and more attention in Hungary and every other post-Communist country in Central and Eastern Europe. The emerging cult of the national past created by politicians derived not just from the negative, Communist attitude which prevailed during the decades of their rule, as has often been accused. The discourse—called at the time a “return to history ”—was as much a reaction to the demands of the new democracies established amidst the circumstances of national sovereignity. The revival of historically tried methods, and the emergent discovery or invention of traditions, served in many post-Communist countries to preserve or gain vitally important mass political support, or at least an assurance of the passive loyalty of people, the voters, who started then to experience in ever larger numbers the heavy economic price of political change (mass unemployment, drastic decrease either in the wages and the occupational position of many and not the least increase in material inequality among the members of society). The preoccupation with the national past was necessary for creating and strengthening the democratic national community which thus could replace the forces of political loyalty in a situation where the former mechanisms of legitimacy (the fear of terror or of its remembrance , discrimination, and the gentler forms of suppression, political apathy, and, last but not least, the involvement of many in maintaining the old system, which also rewarded this active role) had suddenly ceased to operate.1 1 Gyáni, “Political Uses of Tradition in Postcommuniust East Central Europe,” especially 902–903. 92 The Convolutions of Historical Politics This argument advanced in the first years of the post-Communist transition may easily be adapted to succeeding developments. But it is true, however, that the use of history for clearly political purposes, the political instrumentalization of the national image of the past, was always preferred by conservative or right-wing governments rather than socialist or liberal ones. This was already the case with the first (conservative ) government led by József Antall, and was perpetuated and further deepened by the first Fidesz government which came to power in 1998. The pattern is much the same now, when after the Parliamentary elections in spring 2010, another conservative, right-wing government came to power. Let’s see now how the past has been instrumentalized both by politics and society during the last two decades. In describing the main features of the public use of history at that time, I am going to point to specific political aims sought and found in the various ways of accommodating the past images to the changing political discourses. Three historical issues seem to have been the most important reference points: the memory of the Holocaust, the memory of the 1956 revolution , and the mental legacy of the former Communist past. Coming to Terms with the Past after 1989 Unlike Germany, Western Europe, and the United States—but similar to many other Eastern European countries—public memory of the Jewish Holocaust does not play a great role in shaping the presentday historical consciousness in Hungary. This is true even though the country, which was occupied by Nazi Germany in March 1944, took an active part in carrying out the terrible project of Jewish genocide. Coming to terms with that particular past was, and is even more today, an urgent part of creating a stable national identity. The more or less total obliviousness of Hungarian society of their own complicity in committing the Holocaust (beyond the role of state authorities of the Horthy regime) was followed after 1989 by officially initiated, forceful commemorative practices about the Jewish tragedy of 1944 and 1945. Just a few weeks after the new, democratically-elected government led by József Antall entered office in 1990, the president of the republic and the Prime Minister attended the unveiling of a monument 93 The Memory of Trianon as a Political Instrument in Hungary Today dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust located on the territory of the former Great Pest Ghetto. Also, the Minister of the Interior spoke at another commemorative ceremony that year, organized for the inauguration of a monument dedicated to Jewish Hungarian martyrs on the enbankment of the Danube River. The message delivered at these official commemorative events was, however, not to wholly...