Memory and discourse on the 1956 Hungarian revolution

Abstract

This contribution discusses a variety of different factors that have influenced the historical memory of the 1956 revolution in Hungary and the range of different interpretations that have made up the discourse on it. It explores the consequences of the post-1956 repression and the ‘enforced historical amnesia’ that was maintained by the Kádár regime. It then reviews the controversies and disputes between different accounts of the revolution relating to differences in the personal experiences of participants and the different ideologies and outlooks of different political parties as they compete to utilise the legacy of 1956 for their own political programmes. It concludes that there are still rival, irreconcilable images of the 1956 revolution in contemporary Hungary and this seems to offer some support for the post-modern belief in the variability of historical narratives as a consequence of the democratisation of the past, and the variations of memories of the past.

Notes

¹On the notion of social memory see the following: ‘History is not the prerogative of the historian … rather, a social form of knowledge; the work in any given instance, of a thousand different hands’ (Samuel 1994, p. 8); see also Gyáni (2002, pp. 195 – 201).

²On the debate revolving around this issue see Gyorgy (2000), Gyáni (2001), Litván (2001) and Horváth (2001).

³Of the abundant literature on the failure to accord 1956 a true Hungarian lieux de mémoire, see Kende (1993, pp. 7 – 19) and Rainer (2003, especially pp. 223 – 249).

⁴As far as the historical biography is concerned see Rainer (1996, 1999, 2002).

⁵The material relating to the whole matter was made available to me by János M. Rainer, to whom I express my thanks.

⁶For more on this, see Gyáni (2003).

⁷For a fuller discussion of the problem see Gyáni (1993, pp. 893 – 915).

⁸We refer here to the studies of narrative psychologists like J. Bruner, D. P. Spence, K. J. Gergen and M. Gergen. And, of course, A. MacIntyre, P. Ricoeur and E. H. Erikson also support that line of argument.

⁹Gadamer's hermeneutics has been directly applied to history in LaCapra (1983, pp. 23 – 69) and Olafson (1986, pp. 28 – 43).

¹⁰On more recent developments in historiography, see two opposing overviews and assessments: Litván (2000, pp. 205 – 219) and Horváth (2002, pp. 215 – 225).

¹¹This slogan, first voiced by Carl L. Becker several decades ago (in 1935) has been revived by several historians today; see Gillis (1996, p. 17).