Fabricating Authenticity in Soviet Hungary

Péter Apor

Description

The first book to confront the Hungarian state’s problematic remembrance of 1919 under communism, unravelling the connections between how a dictatorship remembers and the authenticity of constructed memory.

How do you make abstract historical interpretations authentic? This question troubled communist party leaders and propaganda historians in Hungary following the restoration of dictatorship after 1956. Accordingly, this book investigates the crooked history of the retrospective state revisions of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic between the years of its 30th and 40th anniversary, 1949 and 1959.

In recent decades the study of memory has become central to the historical discipline as a powerful conceptual tool to assess both the political-ideological implications of social constructions of the past and the writing of history itself. Yet, most of these investigations focus on postdictatorial situations, and suggest ways to understand how these societies confront their controversial and often traumatic pasts. In this volume, Péter Apor takes an in-depth look at a particular phenomenon – the First Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 – to illustrate how a dictatorship and a communist state remembers. Unlike other works analysing social memory, this book concentrates on authenticity as the crucial concept in establishing the success or failure of memory constructions, integrating the broad range of processes – political, scholarly, artistic – through which history is sought to be rendered authentic.

Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; Chapter 1: Prefiguration: The First Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Rákosi Dictatorship before 1956; Chapter 2: Resurrection: The Emergence of 1919 and the Counterrevolution after 1956; Chapter 3: Lives: 1919 in the Postwar Trials of War Criminals; Chapter 4: Funeral: The Birth of the Pantheon of the Labour Movement in Budapest; Chapter 5: Narration: History, Fiction and Proof in the Representation of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic, 1959–65; Epilogue: The Agitators and the Armoured Train; Index

Sujets

• History of Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780857281142
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Fabricating Authenticity in Soviet HungaryFabricating Authenticity
in Soviet Hungary
The Afterlife of the First Hungarian Soviet
Republic in the Age of State Socialism
Péter AporAnthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition frst published in UK and USA 2014
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
Copyright © Péter Apor 2014
The author asserts the moral right to be identifed as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Apor, Péter.
Fabricating authenticity in Soviet Hungary : the afterlife of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic
in the age of state socialism / Péter Apor.
pages cm
“Also available as an ebook”–Title page verso.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-85728-110-4 (hardback : alkaline paper) –
ISBN 0-85728-110-0 (hardback : alkaline paper)
1. Hungary–History–Revolution, 1918–1919–Infuence. 2. Hungary–Politics and
government–1918–1945. 3. Hungary–Politics and government–1945–1989. 4. Memory–
Political aspects–Hungary–History–20th century. 5. Collective memory–Hungary–History–
20th century. 6. Political culture–Hungary–History–20th century. 7. Authenticity (Philosophy)–
Pary–History. 8. Communism–Hungary–History–20th
century. 9. Dictatorship–Social aspects–Hungary–History–20th century. 10. Hungary–
Social conditions–20th century. I. Title.
DB955.A68 2013
943.905–dc23
2013043360
ISBN-13: 978 0 85728 110 4 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 0 85728 110 0 (Hbk)
Cover image by Béla Uitz: Vörös katonák, előre! (Red soldiers, forward!) 1919.
This title is also available as an ebook.CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
List of Illustrationsix
List of Abbreviationsxi
Introduction1
Chapter 1 Prefguration: The First Hungarian Soviet Republic
and the Rákosi Dictatorship before 1956 27
Chapter 2 R esurrection: The Emergence of 1919 and the
Counterrevolution after 1956 61
Chapter 3 Lives: 1919 in the Postwar Trials of War Criminals 101
Chapter 4 Funeral: The Birth of the Pantheon of the Labour
Movement in Budapest 125
Chapter 5 Narration: History, Fiction and Proof in the Representation
of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic, 1959–65 165
Epilogue The Agitators and the Armoured Train 199
Index 209ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing history is an essentially collaborative activity shaped by intellectual interaction
and community, even though individual works are usually attached to individual authors.
As such, this book is the outcome of much proliferating discussion, criticism and debate.
I would like to name a few of my partners in these conversations, to whom I owe much
gratitude. István Rév, Bo Stråth and Gábor Gyáni read more than one version of the
entire manuscript and never refused to help, improving the text with their suggestions
and criticism. I am particularly grateful to Lusia Passerini, Andrea Pető and István Papp
for their forthright and useful comments concerning the entire text. The help of Claudio
Fogu and James Mark were indispensible in fnalizing Chapters 1 and 4.
The work of the historian is rarely successful without the contributions of archives
and archivists. Hereby, I would like to thank for their selfess help the staff in the
Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Archives, the Budapest City Archives, the Hungarian
National Archives, the Hungarian Radio Archives, the Open Society Archives and
the Archives of Political History and Trade Unions. I would like to thank especially
archivist István Simon and director Katalin Zalai. I would also like to thank Pasts, Inc.,
Center for Historical Studies, Central European University and the Institute of History,
Humanities Research Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences for their support in the
production of this book.
And fnally, special gratitude goes to my most persistent reader and honest critic, my
wife: this book is shared, as with many other things, in life.
I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of Reinhart Koselleck, for the gift
of fatigueless curiosity and appreciative wisdom, which he was never reluctant to share
with a then young researcher.LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1 ‘Előre munkások!’ (Forward workers!), Pártmunkás, 30 March 1949,
cover page. 47
Figure 2 ‘Rákosi Mátyás a Vörös Hadsereg élén’ (Mátyás Rákosi heading
the Red Army). Endre Kovács, Gyula Simon, Béla Bellér,
Történelem IV (Budapest, Tankönyvkiadó, 1950), 27. 48
Figure 3 The 30th anniversary of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Historical Photographic Records of the Hungarian National
Museum 477. ME/II/A, Box: Political Life: Anniversaries 1949–56.
Registry no.: Hungarian Labour History Museum 78.854. 51
Figure 4 ‘Six members of the guard were hanged by their feet and beaten
half to death following a frefght in Republic Square’.
White Books, vol. 1, 14. 68
Figure 5 ‘Corpses of the murdered in front of the party headquarters’.
White Books, vol. 1, 21. 68
Figure 6 ‘A female staff member of the party committee is kicked, beaten
with a rife butt and has her hands twisted’. White Books, vol. 1, 13. 69
Figure 7 ‘A victim whose corpse was “bestially” dismembered’. White Books,
vol. 1, 17. 70
Figure 8 ‘In 1919… and in 1956’. White Books, vol. 5, 170–71. 98
Figure 9 ‘1919 and 1956’. White Books, vol. 5, 172. 99
Figure 10 The road leading to the mausoleum. Author’s drawing based on
the map in the Guidebook to Fiumei úti sírkert (Kerepesi temető)
(Budapest: Budapesti Temetkezési Vállalat, 2007), 12. 144
Figure 11 The heroes’ plot. Courtesy of the author. 144
Figure 12 The sepulchre of the Jacobins. Courtesy of the author. 145
Figure 13 The sepulchre of the martyrs of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Courtesy of the author. 146
Figure 14 The walkway to the mausoleum. Courtesy of the author. 148x FABRICATING AUTHENTICITY IN SOVIET HUNGARY
Figure 15 ‘More than 2 billion forints have been accumulated for the
memorial of the great dead of the labour movement’. Népszava,
20 March 1958, 3. 149
Figure 16 ‘To Arms! To Arms!’ OKISZ Commemorative Exhibition for
the Soviet Republic. Historical Photographic Records of the
Hungarian National Museum 48. ME/II/B, Culture:
Exhibitions 1957–62. Registry no. 59.233. 151
Figure 17 OKISZ Commemorative Exhibition for the Soviet Republic.
Historical Photographic Records of the Hungarian National
Museum 48. ME/II/B, Culture: Exhibitions 1957–62.
Registry no. 59.235. 152
Figure 18 ‘1919–1959’. Népszabadság, 21 March 1959, cover page. 153
Figure 19 ‘A néphatalom hű őrzője’ (The true guardian of people’s power).
Szabad Föld, 22 March 1959, cover page. 154
Figure 20 Colonel László Lukács’s tomb. Courtesy of the author. 163
Figure 21 ‘The Establishment of Organizations’. Historical Photographic
Records of the Hungarian National Museum 48. ME/II/B,
Culture: Exhibitions 1957–62. Registry no. 59.525. 187
Figure 22 The exhibition of the railworkers’ union for the 40th anniversary
of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic. Historical Photographic
Records of the Hungarian Na,
Culture: Exhibitions 1957–62. Registry no. 59.524. 187LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BAZ ML Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Megyei Levéltár Mezőcsáti Fióklevéltára
(Archives of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, Mezőcsát Branch)
BFL Budapest Főváros Levéltára (Archives of the Capital Budapest)
FN Felvidéki Népszava (People’s voice in Northern Hungary)
MOL M-BB Magyar Országos Levéltár Budapesti Pártbizottság iratai (BFL
XXXV.1.a.3.) (Hungarian National Archives, Records of the Budapest
Party Committee)
MOL M-BP Magyar Országos Levéltár Budapesti Ideiglenes Intéző Bizottság iratai
(BFL XXXV.1.a.1.) (Hungarian National Archives, Records of the
Budapest Temporary Executive Committee)
MOL M-KS Magyar Dolgozók Pártja és Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt iratai,
Központi szervek (Hungarian National Archives, Records of the
Hungarian Workers’ Party and the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party,
Central Organs)
MSZMP A Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt ideiglenes vezető testületeinek
jegyzőkönyvei (Minutes of the Temporary Central Organs of the
HSWP). 11 November 1956 – 26 June 1957. Series editor Sándor
Balogh. Vols 1–5 (Budapest: Intera Rt, 1993–98).
NSZ Népszabadság (People