WEEK 1./12.

Introduction

Course description and assessment
Introduction to readings, online materials and course activities
Selection of student presentations

WEEK 2./12.

Continuities and discontinuities of Hungarian identity and memory politics

This lecture will offer a basic overview of the development of Hungarian societies since the 1920s – both as a majority society in Hungary, but also as minority societies in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, and their successor states. The focus of the introductory lecture shall be nevertheless, to expose the development of current Hungarian identity and memory politics, but more importantly to put them in a historical perspective, shed some light on their origins, and provide the students with a vantage point for the upcoming semester.

Since this course is aimed tom accommodate the needs of Bachelor students, this class will also introduce the basic concepts of memory- and identity politics, communicative- and cultural memory, political and artistic representation, theories of nationalism, the Holocaust, state socialism, etc.

Acquiring such insights would enable the students to understand current developments in Hungary, and also to familiarise themselves with the concepts and long-term processes, and their various (re)interpretations, which have their impact today.

WEEK 3./12.

Prelude: Late-Empire and Hungarian identity and memory politics until 1918.

Summary:

The class shall look into the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in terms of Hungarian identity politics and mnemonic practices. With a special focus on how some practices survived into the interwar era, or how they are reused and redefined today, the class will shed light on the continuities and discontinuities of Hungarian official memory making in terms of architecture, public art, museums, etc.

Reading:

Signs of Eternity – The Millennial Monuments. (Chapter). In: Varga, Bálint: The Monumental Nation - Magyar Nationalism and Symbolic Politics in Fin-de-siècle Hungary. Berghahn, 2016.

Rampley, Matthew: Introduction – Museums and Cultural Politics in the Habsburg World. (Chapter). In: Rampley, Matthew – Prokopovych, Markian – Veszprémi, Nóra (eds.): The Museum Age in Austria-Hungary. The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2021. 1–17.

Visuals:

Square of the Heroes (Budapest)

Vajdahunyad vára

Feszty-cyclorama

Matthias Rex (Cluj-Napoca)

Presentation topic

a) Representation(s) of Hungary and Hungarians during the late-Habsburg Empire (institutions)

b) Representation(s) of Hungary and Hungarians during the late-Habsburg Empire (monuments)

WEEK 4./12.

Interwar-era I

Summary:

The class will look into the official mnemonic practices of the Horthy-era, how it selected and assessed events, symbols and historic figures to create references for official remembering.

Reading:

Christian Hungary as History. (Chapter). In: Hanebrink, Paul A.: In Defence of Christian Hungary – Religion, Nationalism and Antisemitism, 1890–1944. Cornell University Press, 2006.

Visuals:

Regent Admiral Horthy Unveils Rakoczi Memorial (1937)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=medk56qmKjU

The Horthy Kingdom of Hungary - Budapest (1936)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCzO8WXMYy0

Switch: Imre Nagy Memorial and Memorial of the National Martyrs (Vértanúk tere, Budapest)

Presentation topics

a) Origins of Hungarian Christian Nationalism

b) How did the Horthy-era look like? Which memories were selected and made publically visible?

WEEK 5./12.

Interwar-era II. Neighbouring states

Summary:

Tha class deals with the decomposition of Hungarian public memoryscapes in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, it will look into competing nationalisms from the Hungarian perspective, and their impact on Hungarian memory and identity politics in these areas today.

The focus of the class will be on re-composition, post-imperial trends and hegemony-shifts in public memory practices. It will therefore, look critically also into the altered and altering mnemonic landscapes of Africa, Asia and the Americas from the perspective of the local population and ethnic minorities, as well as their re-interpretations of the landscape.

Reading:

Transylvania – Regionalism and ethnic strife (Chapter). In: Irina Livezeanu: Cultural Politics in Greater Romania. Cornell University Press, 2000. 129–188.

Paintings/Sculptures/Film:

Arad Martyrs Memorial (Arad)

Millenium Memorial (Divin/Dévény)

Presentation topics

a) Memory and identity politics through the switch from a majority into an ethnic minority

b) Similar post-imperial examples of de-composing and re-composing hegemony (South-Tyrol, Sudetenland, or non-minority post-colonial examples in Asia, Africa…)

WEEK 6./12.

Interwar-era III.

Summary

This class will round off the interwar-period by a selection of videos and critical discussion.

Videos:

Coronation of King Charles IV.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRsB7QKlmVg

Budapest 1930's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ZtJH1xNlQ

Budapest 1938:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVv3NO2ZDgQ

MGM Beautiful Budapest 1938:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_T-ahdVXY&t=1s

Discussion

WEEK 7./12.

Worl War II, Holocaust and aftermath: ruptures, dis/continuities

Summary:

Unlike previous classes, which focused on the memory and identity politics of a period, this class will focus on current Hungarian identity and memory politics in relation to the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Reading:

Gábor Gyáni: Hungarian Memory of the Holocaust in Hungary. In: Braham, Randolph L. – Kovács, András (ed.): The Holocaust in Hungary – Seventy Years Later. CEU Press. Budapest. 2016. 215–231.

Pető Andrea: The Illiberal Memory Politics in Hungary. In: Journal of Genocide Research. 2021.4.

Andrea Pető: Death and the Picture. Representation of War Criminals and Construction of Divided Memory about WWII in Hungary. In: Petö, Andrea – Schrijvers, Klaaertje: Faces of Death – Visualising History, 2009.

Visuals:

House of Terror (Budapest)

Shoes on the Danube Bank

Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation

Čurug memorial of the victims of 1944/45.

Presentation topics

a) Remembering the Second World War in Hungary (Soviet, Nazi, Fascist iconography, rallies, sculptures…)

b) Remembering the Holocaust in Hungary

WEEK 8./12.

State socialism I. 1945-1956

Summary:

The class shall look into the evolution of the Rákosi-era, with a special focus on its mnemonic practices. It will describe the outlines of socialist realism in terms of Hungarian art, and its role in the developments of the recognisable visibilities of the regime. Moreover, it will also tackle, which references were used to achieve the commemorative practices of the time, but also how they are handled today.

Reading:

Apor Balázs: National traditions and the leader cult in communist Hungary in the early cold war years. In: Twentieth Century Communism, Volume 1, Number 1, June 2009, pp. 50-71(22)

Hajnalka Makra: ‘Us and our progressive traditions’ – leftist literature politics in Hungary and Finland in the 1940s and 1950s. (Chapter) In: Nyyssönen, Heino – Vares, Mari (eds.): Nations and Their Others – Finland and Hungary in Comparison. East-West Books, Helsinki, 2012.

Visuals:

Stalin statue – Városliget,

Stalinist Hungary – Rákosi Mátyás https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJGGJ7y23Qg

Soviet heroes memorial