Sovietization and Nationalism in Hungary (original) (raw)
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AARMS – Academic and Applied Research in Military and Public Management Science, 2021
The 19th century saw the modern development of nation states and the early development of human sciences. These progresses linked up with the ideologies of nation-building. Some European states having long history and imperial traditions applied the study of their own history to support their national political purposes. The new political ideology was historicism used for imperial purposes, imperial historicism. With the help of imperial historicism, 19 th century thinkers and statesmen identifying themselves and their community with the historical forms of their community attempted to build or uphold their empire. Hungary, or at least some Hungarian thinkers and statesmen, was one of those states which used imperial historicism to define their foreign policy and internal political purposes. Examining political thinking of the 19 th-century Hungary one can find several forms of imperial historicism and historical self-identification. This paper presents imperial historicism and its Hungarian forms.
The Squaring of the Circle: The Reinvention of Hungarian History by the Communist Party in 1952
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2008
This article analyses a document, published by the Hungarian Academy of Science as a gift for the dictator Mátyás Rákosi's sixtieth birthday in 1952. The document tries to legitimate governance by the Communist Party, which emerged victorious from the political struggles in the post-war period (1945–1949). The Party had no tradition of public political life and its politics and ‘collective identity’ lacked national roots. For this reason, professional historians with leading positions in the Communist Party used raw material from Hungarian history in its attempt to achieve congruent communist and national traditions. They therefore introduced new heroes to the pantheon and removed others. This new narrative justified the elimination of potential enemies and promised a bright future for the nation. The article highlights the technique of realigning temporal references along a theoretical guideline, which is derived from a specific worldview, and examines the extent to which a new narrative can be successful when forced temporal references and the administrative creation of the past is too obvious. This article assumes that only closed societies enable such a ‘squaring of the circle’.
2015
After the onset of communist power in February 1948, Czechoslovak public space began to be intensely filled with references to the progressive national history, with the prime importace given to the Hussite tradition. This tradition which, according to its interpreters, stretched through history from the 15th century up to the seizure of power by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, provided historical justification to the communist project. In the guise of the Hussite tradition, the Communist government became part of the national history (sense). With the aid of Medieval Hussitism, post-February present as well as the expected future were to continue to be revolutionary without being out of tradition. The socialist transformation of Czechoslovakia was thus becoming a part of the historical development of the Czech people. By adopting ideas of the Hussite movement, the Communist Party also disposed of the label of a non-national party not understading the people. Adoption and enforcement of a national framework after the Second World War and after 1948 added to its credibility. The book deals with the communist dictatorship politics of history, it is specifically dedicated to the formation and promotion of politically updated image of the Hussite movement and the use of the Hussite tradition during the early years of Communist Party rule. Attention is not primarily given to the history of period historiography. Production of historians is viewed in the book as a part of the political use of historical arguments on which alongside academics, an entire ideological apparatus of the communist state (journalists, politicians, ideologists of the Communist Party, textbook writers and cultural workers) participated. (the whole English summary is in the attached pdf file)
East Central Europe, 2017
By tracing the developments that led to a historical debate in 1950, this article questions some assumptions concerning the Stalinization of Hungarian history writing, in particular the notion of a predetermined continuity between the national-communist line followed by Hungarian communists before and after 1949. Contrary to the understanding of the Sovietization of historiography in Hungary as a straightforward process, guided by a firmly-established ideological line, this article shows that the period between early 1949 and 1950 was characterized by a certain level of uncertainty, caused, on the one hand, by the ideological and institutional changes brought about by Sovietization, and, on the other, by a temporary lack of firm interpretative guidance from the Party leadership. A closer look into the efforts to elaborate a new periodization of Hungarian history reveals not only the existence of competing Marxist interpretations (a “national” state-oriented and an “internationalist”...
The Last Hundred Years: Some Observations on Historiography of Austria-Hungary
Radovi Zavoda za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskoga fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2018
The paper discusses the developments of historiography on Austria-Hungary in Austria, Germany and the English-speaking countries in the century after its downfall. Two main periods are identified. First, the prewar period, dominated by political history, national antagonisms, and the discussion on the question, who was to blame for the collapse of the monarchy. Second, the postwar period, marked with the rising dominance of the Anglo-American historiography, and the gradual inclusion of social and cultural history, and, recently, the imperial and post-colonial paradigms. The main issue discussed are the causes of the gradual rehabilitation of the monarchy and its popularity among Western scholars.