Zombory english.indd

Máté Zombor y
Máté Zombor y
This book shows that the world of nations is characterized by
a certain spatial dynamic which participates in the production and
maintenance of national belonging, as opposed to the static and
ahistorical spatial representation currently prevalent in eastern
Europe. The immobility and stability of the world of nations is
interpreted from the perspective of these spatial movements
of deterritorialization and ‘uprooting’, and thus there arise the
two different problems of the homeland and of ‘being at home’.
Among the spatial practices through which the individual and the
community inhabit space as national home, social remembering is
of crucial importance. The author elaborates on the spatial-corporeal dimension of memory practices by applying the concept
of localization and analysing the strategies of various individual and
governmental actors in drawing social-geographical space. This
theoretical framework enables to study the construction of cultural belonging as a reaction to the spatial dynamic of nationalism.
Maps of Remembrance
Space, belonging and politics of
memory in eastern Europe
Maps of Remembrance
The spatial problem of national belonging is investigated through
the struggles of post-1989 memory politics in Hungary. The
maps of remembrance of national identification are drawn
both by the state and by individuals whose Hungarian belonging,
at some point in the twentieth century, was questioned by force.
The Trianon Peace Treaty, the expulsion of those of German
origin after the Second World War, and the collapse of the bipolar world order are socio-historical events the memory of which
forces those affected to reconstruct their Hungarian belonging.
Whether dealing with state commemorations or individual life
stories, the author seeks the answer to the question of how
national belonging becomes natural in cases where the homeland
becomes doubtful. How is it possible to be at home after having
been expelled?
To the reader interested in sociological and cultural issues, this
volume presents the findings of a research which takes an original look at the relationships between nationalism and space,
between memory and spatial practices, and between the state
and the individual.
€ 12
I S B N 978 -963 -236 - 5 4 6 - 6
mate_borito_ENG2_barcode.indd 1
20/04/2012 19:22
MÁTÉ ZOMBORY
Maps of Remembrance
MÁTÉ ZOMBORY
Maps of Remembrance
Space, belonging and politics of memory
in eastern Europe
Budapest, 2012
The publication of this book was supported by the National Cultural Fund of Hungary
and the Hungarian Translators House.
Originally published as Az emlékezés térképei. Magyarország és a nemzeti azonosság 1989 után,
L’Harmattan, Budapest, 2011.
Translated from Hungarian by Richard Robinson
Academic proofreader: Anna Lujza Szász
© Máté Zombory, 2011
© Richard Robinson
© L’Harmattan, 2012
© AnBlokk Association, 2011
L’Harmattan France
7 rue de l’Ecole Polytechnique
75005 Paris
T.: 33.1.40.46.79.20
L’Harmattan Italia SRL
Via Bava, 37
10124 Torino–Italia
T. / F.: 011.817.13.88
ISBN 978 963 236 546 6
Publication of Publisher L’Harmattan and AnBlokk Association.
L’Harmattan Könyvesbolt
1053 Budapest, Kossuth L. u. 14–16.
Tel.: +36-1-267-5979
harmattan@harmattan.hu; www.harmattan.hu
Graphic design: Krisztina Csernák
Cover: Judit Ferencz
Printed and bound by Robinco Kft.
| 5
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
1. Nationalism and Spatiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
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49
The Nation-state as a Territorial Ideal. . .
Spatial Social Imaginaries . . . . . . . .
Intranational Space . . . . . . . . . . .
Territorialization . . . . . . . . . . . .
Spatial Movement, Dynamic Spatiality . .
Homelands and Homes . . . . . . . . . .
Spatial Dynamics and National Belonging
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2. Between Place and Memory: the practices of localization . . . . . . . . . .
Space and the Culture of Remembering
Spatial Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Spatial Practices of Remembrance . . .
National Localization . . . . . . . . . .
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51
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3. The Return to Europe: state politics of memory and Hungarian belonging . .
Disdainful Imperial Gazes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hungarian National Cartography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Dynamics of the Map: from Europe to Europe . . . . . . .
The Location of the Nation on the Map: between East and West
Border Changes on the Map: getting ‘left out’ of Europe . . . .
National Cartography and the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Redrawing the Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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85
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. 119
4. The Nation as Imaginative Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Identity and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Individualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Politics of Belonging . . . . . . . . .
Government of the Self. . . . . . . . . . .
The Laboratory of the Self . . . . . . . . . .
Self as the Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Imaginative Laboratory of the Nation
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124
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139
6 |
Remarks on Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Drawing the Border of the Hungarian Nation post-1989:
state and individual localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
The Life Story Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
5. The Museum of the Self: national-ethnic belonging
and the memory of expulsion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Ethnic Belonging as the Nurturing of Cultural Heritage
‘In the Middle of the War’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Destruction of Swabian Culture . . . . . . . . .
Home as a Place of Absence . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Identity as Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Working for the Peace of the Village . . . . . . . . .
A Museum in the Parental Home . . . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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156
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6. Hungarian Homelands: national belonging ‘beyond the border’ . . . . . . . 211
Hungary’s Diaspora Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The ‘Beyond the Border’ Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The ‘European’ Programme for the Reunification of the Nation
Reunification of the Nation through the Institutionalization
of ‘Hungarian–Hungarian Relations’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Boundary-Drawing within the Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hungarian Homelands outside Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Citizenship: None . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This Homeland – That Homeland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
‘Clipping the Edge of the Decaying Willow’ . . . . . . . . . . .
‘This is our Motherland, Slovakia’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Re-drawing Forgotten Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 214
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. . . . . . 219
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220
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279
7. State-free Nationalism, Natural National Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Alternative National Homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Respect for Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
+1 N in the Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
| 7
Introduction
Nations are not given by nature and they do not last forever; they are created
by history and by society. This has been demonstrated by scholarly critiques of
nationalism in recent decades using a wide variety of approaches, methods, and
examples. They have proved what the national is ‘actually’ like, as opposed to how
it seems to be, even to itself. The statement ‘the nation is a construction’, which
became a slogan, never stood its ground per se, because the issue was how this
construction is carried out. The classic question was about how nations took shape
historically, and how they are maintained through their current practices. This
question referred primarily to the nation’s unity and continuity, and inevitably
had to take into account the contradiction that a historically formed sociocultural construction appears to be eternal and self-evident. Another, later wave
of critiques of nationalism cast doubt on the exclusivity, continuity and unity of
national belonging, pointing out social and cultural functions of belonging that
were not national, or that deviated from the dominant national form. The social
arrangement of space thus becomes a problem in its own right in nationalism
research, in the context of the issues of globalization, migration, cities with
multi-national populations, virtual belongings, and even the communications
revolution.
Regarding nationalism, we now face the embarrassing contradiction that in
spite of decades of in-depth and intensive scholarly critique, national belonging
continues to be able to operate as natural in everyday practices. It is, then, worth
investigating how it is represented as natural in life’s various fields. How are the
meanings which ascribe national belonging into the sphere of nature produced?
How are they organized, how are they consolidated? In what way does the nation
become evident in discourse?
Many answers have been made to this question in the context of the nation’s
temporality, emphasizing the role of a wide variety of everyday, commemorative
8 |
scholarly or institutionalized practices in producing the identity of the ancient
and current nation. This branch of nationalism research developed together
with memory research, which aimed to investigate the practices of the social
arrangement of time, through which the past accommodates to the present in
such a way that it provides the image and feeling of a permanent given.
However, nationalism research has overlooked the spatial practices through
which the individual and community inhabit the place they live in as if things
had naturally been thus since the beginning of time. How does this national
relationship between individual and space come into being, and how is it
maintained? How does national spatial attachment become obvious? What are
the roles of the state and the individual in this process? These are the questions to
which I shall seek the answer, in connection with the divergent forms of spatiality,
and the arrangement of territoriality. I shall investigate national belonging as a
spatial problem.
The key to understanding the spatial practices in question is provided by
memory research. Beyond the fact that in the construction of the nation the past
and memory continue to have special importance, similarly to the technology of
arranging time, we can reveal the spatial practices of memory. The reconstruction
of the past locates not only in time, but also in space.
I shall show how this happens through an analysis of post-1989 Hungarian
memory politics. I shall examine the Hungarian case as if from without. That
is, I am interested not in the meanings of the nation, of the struggles within the
nation-state for a monopoly over the criteria for belonging to the nation, but in
cultural concepts, regardless of party or ‘side’, which appear united regarding
the Hungarian nation-state. This unity is of course not some internal Hungarian
constant, but operates as derived from the institutional and power relations
of the nation-state, is defined historically and enforced governmentally. The
‘external’ perspective makes it possible to take into account the global context
of nationalism. An investigation of national belonging that deals only with
internal identities and ‘national uniqueness’ is incomplete, because of ignoring
the fact that to identify with the nation is also to identify with the world of
nations. Nationhood is represented as global, even though culturally it is far from
universal or uniform.
A critique of ‘natural’ national belonging is not directed at the ‘true nature’
of the nation, but at the practical implementation of national-ethnic categories
in quotidian life. The question is: what role does the representation of space in
memory play such that it produces national belonging as a natural factor.
| 9
The structure of the book
This volume contains three theoretical and three empirical studies. In the
first chapter, Nationalism and Spatiality, I deal with the particularities of spatial
representation of the nation currently prevalent in eastern Europe, I show that the
world of nations, though portrayed as static and ahistorical, is characterized by a
certain spatial dynamic, which participates in the production and maintaining of
national belonging. The immobility and stability of the world of nations can be
interpreted from the perspective of these spatial movements, and thus there arise
the two different problems of the homeland and of ‘being at home’. The question
arises as to which procedures make a place a homeland, to what extent it becomes
homely. In chapter two, Between Place and Memory: the practices of localization,
I discuss the extent to which social memory can be considered as totality of
the practices constructing space, and the relationship between space and man.
I survey the theoretical approaches of memory research, seeking a path to the
spatial-corporeal relations of remembrance. In the case studies I shall, through
an investigation into the spatial practices of memory, demonstrate the production
and maintenance of national belonging.
Chapter three is a case study presenting the post-1989 memory politics of the
Hungarian state (The Return to Europe: state politics of memory and Hungarian belonging),
in which I examine how the Hungarian state produced national-spatial belonging
after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. I analyze the official state commemorations
between the regime change of 1989 and the country’s accession to the EU: the
August 20 (St Stephen’s day) celebrations in which the prime ministers and heads
of state of the Republic of Hungary narrated the history of the nation. This is
the first empirical analysis, because the context of the case studies defines the
reading, which would be extremely difficult if for instance they followed a sociohistorical chronology. In order to analyze individual identity strategies, we must
know the procedures of state normalization. In addition, I have decided that, in
order to emphasize the interrelatedness of the case studies, theoretical clarification
of individual identity strategies will follow the first analysis; the political problem
of individual constraints and possibilities is thus raised not compared to the general
theoretical conception, but in its socio-historically embedded version.
Accordingly, the theoretical framework applied during the analysis is in
chapter four (The Nation as Imaginative Laboratory) supplemented with the problem
of individual identity. In this study I deal on the one hand with the way individual
identity strategies can be examined in the context of state normalization, and then
I discuss the main questions of research methodology, and the details of recording
and analyzing biographical interviews.
10 |
In chapter five (The Museum of the Self: national-ethnic belonging and the memory of
expulsion) I analyze the individual localization strategies in life story interviews in
a context in which individual national and ethnic belonging comes into conflict
with the identification endorsed by the state’s memory politics. The narrators,
who were expelled from Hungary because of their German origins, returned,
and in their recollections face the fact that the stigmatizing German identity robs
them of Hungarian belonging, and of the possibility of identifying themselves
as ‘non-guilty Germans’. The question is, how it is possible to return home in
every sense of the word: to return and be at home in a place from which one
has been expelled. Chapter six is also an analysis of biographical interviews,
conducted with Hungarians living in Slovakia (Hungarian Homelands: national
belonging ‘beyond the border’). In this case the memory politics of the Hungarian
state and the discourse addressing ‘Hungarians beyond the borders’ which defines
it confront the interviewees with the constraint both of remaining Hungarian and
of rejecting the distancing and disdainful national identification coming from the
‘mother country’. How, in the midst of this, can one be at home as a Hungarian
outside Hungary?
Finally, chapter seven contains summarizing remarks (State-free Nationalism,
Natural National Resistance).
| 11
1. Nationalism and Spatiality
‘If, for example, someone tells us why he dislikes his homeland, his confession
will inevitably be an expression of his love for it and his desire to act on this
love, while earnest, passionate affirmation of loyalty to one’s country usually
betrays loathing, suggesting that this country has caused one much pain,
worry, despair, deep doubts, and paralyzing helplessness, and the crippled
desire for action must retreat into enthusiastic expressions of loyalty.’
Péter Nádas: A Book of Memories
‘Nationalism is not what it seems, and above all it is not what it seems to itself.’1
This declaration, which originates with Ernest Gellner, considered the pioneer
of nationalism research, is a fine example of the general suspicion enshrouding
the subject. For Gellner, as for other researchers in the area, the most suspicious
characteristic of nationalism was that the nation appears as natural and eternal,
as an entity which is ‘there’, like Mount Everest.2 Accordingly, theories and
approaches that have since become classical have attempted to show the ‘true
nature’ of nationalism as opposed to what it states about itself, i.e. the nation,
and which is nothing less than a ‘sociological self-deception, a vision of reality
through a prism of illusion’.3 Following Gellner, since the 1960s4 nationalism has
become a legitimate research topic, a situation made possible by the view that the
nation is a consequence of nationalism, rather than the reason for it. The subject of
this examination is not which nations are nationalistic, to what extent and why,
but rather the mechanism by which nationalism creates nations. In actual fact
nationalism is not some characteristic typically viewed as bad, an essential feature
of the nation, or more precisely of certain nations, but a social process which is
responsible for creating the nation – thus this latter is a construction. Although in
the literature, in contrast to this constructionist viewpoint the ‘primordialists’ are
often mentioned, according to whom nationhood is a natural state, in sociological
research these latter by definition do not exist, since together with their subject
of research they would eliminate themselves. It can then be said that some degree
1
Gellner’s work Nations and Nationalism was first published in 1983. References here will be to the 1996
edition. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 56.
2
Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 49.
3
Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 58.
4
He first dealt with nationalism in one of the chapters of Thought and Change (1964), which then served
as the basis for his major work in 1983.
12 |
of ‘constructionism’ is indispensible for a scholarly examination of nationalism
which investigates this social construction from various approaches.
For example, when did nations form, and historically from what point can
we speak of nationalism. This is the classic issue of nationalism research, inspired
by the suspicion that nations are represented as ancient, and as being as old as the
human race. The issue of temporality has been the subject of many critiques.
On the one hand, it has been shown that nationalism is the product of a specific
historical period, and attempts have been made to discover the historical-social
conditions for nation construction.5 Interestingly, this modernist approach also has
its counterpart in early nomenclature: in the view of the so-called ‘perennialists’6
the nation exists permanently, unscathed by history and time. The phantom camp
of like-minded primordialists and perennialists is nothing less than a perfect
example of how a nascent area of scholarship attempts to delineate its borders in
a legitimate fashion.7 On the other, to probe the issue of the temporality of the
nation, research has been conducted into the processes by which the ‘sacred’ time
of the nation becomes a social reality, as the past is given a national meaning. This
branch of nationalism research developed in close relationship to memory research.
Posing this question is able to resolve the paradox that from the viewpoint of
historians the nation is objectively (i.e. actually) a modern phenomenon, while
for the ‘nationalists’, it is subjectively an ancient one.8 At the center of interest in
memory research are indeed the social techniques for the organization of time.
The issue of the formation of national traditions, the national institutionalization
5
The central theme of the Warwick debate organized between Gellner and his former student Anthony
D. Smith was to what extent nations can be considered a modern phenomenon. As Gellner put it: do nations
have navels? His view was that nations are entirely a product of the needs of modern industrial societies,
while Smith held that modernity is only ‘half the story’, because nations formed from the symbolism and
traditions which provided cultural cohesion for earlier premodern ethnic communities. http://members.
tripod.com/GellnerPage/Warwick.html, http://members.tripod.com/GellnerPage/Warwick2.html,
and also Anthony D. Smith: The Ernest Gellner Memorial Lecture. Memory and modernity: reflections
on Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationalism. http://members.tripod.com/GellnerPage/SmithLec.html.
6
See Anthony D. Smith’s typology on research into nationalism: The Nation in History. Historiographical
Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism, (Hanover: University of New England, 2000), 27-52.
7
Another method is to create a canon of classical writers on the subject. The list of ‘early theories’
usually beings with Ernest Renan and Herder. See for instance Anthony D. Smith, “Nationalism and
historians,” in Mapping the Nation ed. Gopal Balakrishnan (London, New York: Verso, 1996), 175–197.
8
Anderson identifies three paradoxes in nationalism. Besides objective modernity vs. subjective
antiquity, scholars see a further paradox that nationality is, as a socio-cultural concept, formally
universal (‘in the modern world everyone can, should, will “have” a nationality’), as opposed to the
particularity of the concrete manifestation of nationhood (every nation is unique); also, in a political
sense nationalism is effective and dominant, yet it is philosophically weak, having no ‘great thinkers’.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (Londond–New
York: Verso, 2006), 5-7.
| 13
of the past through museums, archives, scholarship and public education, the
temporality of national commemorations and so forth all presume techniques
which are accomplishments of history, but which organize the time of society
such that its backbone is formed by the national narrative. Yet in this narrative
the nation appears as an ancient, often permanent quality, which is able to assert
itself only through its ‘own’ state – and if it does not assert it is because it is
being oppressed: this is the narrative figure of the ‘sleeping beauty’9 awaiting her
awakening. In the eastern European version for instance, ‘communism’ oppressed
the nations, which after the disintegration of the Soviet bloc could breathe once
more, and this is supposed to explain the xenophobia and ethnic conflicts present
in the successor states.
This ‘unveiling’ branch of nationalism research, which counterposes the
national idea to that of objective reality, has further enriched the series of paradoxes
in nationalism research with the equally confusing contradiction that in spite of
the prolonged, diverse and intensive critique of the temporality of nationalism,
the idea of the nation continues to operate as an atemporal and natural entity
in everyday life. In vain have several researchers used various methods to show
that the ‘myths [of nationalist ideology] invert reality’10; it seems that objective
criticism counts for nothing in the face of these myths. The question arises as to
what makes these ‘myths’ attractive, what is their role, and how do they operate
in everyday life? If it is scientifically proven that national belonging is a social
phenomenon and not a natural one, how is it then possible that it operates as
natural in everyday practice?
Rather than the objective criteria for the development and operation of
nationalism, I shall investigate the processes by which it ‘seems to itself’. From
this point of view the question is not what the nation ‘really’ is, but rather how it
becomes real or natural. To put this another way, the emphasis is shifted from the
sociological reality of the nation to the reality of ‘thinking, feeling and acting in
terms of the nation’. Thus there is no purpose to a definition of the nation, since
we acknowledge that the nation is a classification category, whose use in a given
historical and social context is to be explained, together with its resulting meaning
and role in society.11 Instead of seeking a perfect definition, I shall focus on various
9
On this see for example Gellner: Nations and Nationalism, 48.
Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 124.
11
On this see for instance:Bourdieu, Pierre, “Identity and Representation: Elements for a Critical
Reflection on the Idea of Region,” in Language and Symbolic Power by Pierre Bourdieu, (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1991), 220-229., Rogers Brubaker, “Rethinking Nationhood: nation as an institutionalized
form, practical category, contingent event,” Contention 4/1 (1994): 3–14., Daniele Conversi, “Reassessing
current theories of nationalism: Nationalism as boundary maintenance and creation,” Nationalism and
Ethnic Politics, 1/1 (1995): 73–85., Verdery, Katherine. “Whither ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationalism’?” Daedalus
10
14 |
actors’ struggles for definition; instead of the objective criteria of nationhood I
shall examine the process of objectification; and instead of the ‘normal’ forms of
nationalism I shall look at the prescription and enforcement of nationalism as a
norm, and so forth. The nation, then, is a system of cultural representation which
can be characterized by a given view of the world and modes of intervention, and
which excludes other visions, and in many cases competes with them. In any case
the issue relates to the discursive processes of cultural representation in which the
nation operates as a category of identification.
When examining nationalism one must be aware that the constructing of
the nation also means the production of the world of nations. Every nation is
located among other nations. The global diversity of nationalism however makes
it impossible to conduct an exhaustive examination; indeed, there has been no
theory of nationalism which could be universally applicable. A further difficulty
is that national representation can also take on various forms, as transnationalism
research and postcolonial criticism has shown.
I shall narrow the examination of nationalism and spatiality to the territoriality
of the nation-state. Nation-state-based cultural representation can be investigated as
the various applications of a dominant norm, which is enforced in many various ways
(symbolically, institutionally, by violence etc.) primarily but not exclusively by state
and governmental agents. Gellner defined nationalism as a ‘not total and not universal,
but dominant’ norm, which legitimizes political units in the modern world: the
‘natural’ and only form of rule is the (territorial) state organized on national grounds,
claiming the principle of ‘one state, one culture’. His work aimed to disclose the
objective conditions for this norm.12 He interprets nationalism as a new way of relating
to culture, which is necessarily brought about by the modern form of the division of
labour typical in the ‘industrial society’, as opposed to the ‘agrarian societies’ earlier in
history. Homogeneous, or rather homogenized culture makes it possible for signs to
flow independently of context, which is indispensible in the modern industrial order
characterized by a high degree of employment mobility and constant innovation.
Gellner thus gives a structural explanation for the development of nationalism in
the form of the transition to the modern division of labour. Since he views cultural
homogeneity as a functionally necessary condition for industrial society, and not as
a normative ideal, he considers social division, exploitation and xenophobia within
122 (1993): 37-46., Ruth Wodak, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl, and Karin Liebhart, The Discursive
Construction of National Identity (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).
12
See Ernest Gellner, “Nationalism and the Two Forms of Cohesion in Complex Societies,” Proceedings of the
British Academy 68 (1982): 165–187. and Ernest Gellner, “The Coming of Nationalism and its Interpretation:
the Myths of Nation and Class” in Mapping the Nation edited by Gopal Balakrishnan, (London: Verso, 1996):
98–145. .
| 15
the nation-state as dangers threatening society (a characteristic he terms entropyresistance).13 However rather than an operational disturbance of the nation-state,
this is a practice of homegenization, which includes the internal differentiation and
reproduction of the cultural other. To paraphrase Gellner’s celebrated example14 I am
looking for the answer how today’s ‘Kokoschka-like’ world of cultural belongings
is (or fails to be) repainted as a ‘Modigliani-like’ scheme. Gellner’s ‘homogenization’
means more than just the state-sponsored education system’s ‘production of viable and
usable human beings’, indeed even the success of this undertaking is to be questioned.
I shall consider the homogenized cultural representation of space organized by the
nation-state principle, this Modigliani-style picture as a normative ideal, whose fullscale implementation and enforcement is never possible, moreover the (historically
and socially determined – and variable) application of the norm raises the issue of the
possibility of resistance.
According to this ideal nation-states share out the surface of the Earth, the
borders of nations coincide with those of states, the population is settled, belonging
is national and singular. Although this norm appears as universal, it has developed
historically and is implemented and institutionalized by varying degrees and
methods throughout the world. The norm of the congruence of state, nation
and territory has been institutionalized to a considerable extent in the European
continent, though we should not overlook the fact that the territorial norm of
the nation-state is prescribed in the context of the cultural representation of
space. This means that we must also take into account the possibility of differing
national and cultural belongings.
In the first part of the chapter I shall attempt a theoretical reconstruction of
the normative ideal of society’s commonplace imaginary world in which the state,
the nation and territory are congruent. In this scheme the world of nations is static
and ahistorical, and organization by territory appears to be natural and right. In
the second part of the chapter I shall explore the spatial dynamic of the cultural
logic of nationalism. Partly this will touch on the processes covered by the notion
of deterritorialization, which cast light on the representation of the nation (which
13
On this see Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 66 ff.
“Consider the history of the national principle; or consider two ethnographic maps, one drawn up
before the age of nationalism, and the other after the principle of nationalism has done much of its work.
The first map resembles a painting by Kokoschka. The riot of diverse points of colour is such that no
clear pattern can be discerned in any detail. … Look now instead at the ethnographic and political map
of an area of the modem world. It resembles not Kokoschka, but, say, Modigliani. There is very little
shading; neat flat surfaces are clearly separated from each other, it is generally plain where one begins
and another ends, and there is little if any ambiguity or overlap.”
Cited in Liisa Malkki, “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization
of National Identity Among Scholars and Refugees,” Cultural Anthropology 7/1 (February 1992), 24–44.
14
16 |
in the territorial ideal of the nation-state is static, unhistorical and natural), and
show it to be problematic. Also I will deal with the spatial dialectic which can
be understood as the ‘uprooting’ resulting from the application of the territorial
norm of the nation-state and as a response to this by national representation.
By recognizing the spatial dynamic of nationalism the national home, or the
homeland as the space for belonging is divested of its self-evident meanings. I
shall deal with this in the third part of the chapter. If the construction of national
belonging is not defined exclusively by the territorial norm of the nation-state
(deterritorialization), that is, if this norm is applied in a field of cultural belongings,
and if the consistent application of this very norm uproots, then we shall have to
think of spatial national belonging as a re-formation, a continuous production,
as a making homely of the homeland.
The Nation-state as a Territorial Ideal
Spatial Social Imaginaries
In the nation-state doctrine prevalent today the nation is a political community;
that is to say it is a category designating the framework for the government
(in the modern imagination self-government, sovereignty of the peuple) of some
human population, which is indivisible from state institutionalization. In the
tradition of the Englightenment the freedom to participate in politics is divided
equally between the members of the political community of the nation (as regards
suffrage and electability, governing and being governed). The modern form of
the political community, the nation, is in this sense can be seen as a response to
the disintegration of the feudal, dynastic political framework. It is often said that
according to the concept of the French revolution the nation is the peuple put in a
position of political power and sovereignty. The issue of space is expressed as state
territory; if someone chooses it as their living place, they share in the political
rights and obligations deriving from membership of the nation. In this theory the
nation ‘lives’ in some territory, and that would tie up the issue of spatiality: the
territory is a condition for the political community of the nation insofar as every
nation has to have territory, on which the distribution of the members of the
nation is indifferent, and living on the territory is necessary to exercise political
freedom. Moreover however the state exercizes control and surveillance on those
who live on the territory enclosed by its borders, so for instance not just anyone
can choose to live there. In this Foucauldian sense territory is an abstract function
of power, which is characterized by a certain form of exercising of power.
| 17
So far in this investigation of the problem of space we remained within the
limits of politics defined by the modern nation-state. The next state in this train
of thought, however, will prove to be a breach in this respect. For one thing,
the political community of the nation presumes cultural conceptions which
in the modern nation-state order were considered ‘pre-political’; for another,
politics has now become detached from the framework of the nation-state, and
areas previously considered apolitical have become politicized. The notion of
identity politics clearly demonstrates how in the modern industrial nation-state
order, apolitical facts such as career, cultural belonging or sexuality have become
politicized, that is the state organization of politics (as the self-reflection of society)
is coming unravelled.
For the moment let us continue to focus on the modern social order, more
precisely with the cultural conceptions that form the basis of the ‘political’. It
can easily be seen that territory is never a pure abstraction (and neither is the
nation), because it is always made concrete as the state territory, that is, it gains
geographical location and extent, not to mention its history or the development
of the social relationship between territory and population. To return to the
French example, many aspects of spatiality are self-evident. Thus it seems obvious
for instance that the French peuple has only one, defined part of the planet in
which to exercise political self-representation – just as does every nation, though
a different place. It also appears obvious that this is made possible precisely by this
territory, which was ‘inherited’ from the dynastic state by those who lived there
previously (and do they alone constitute the peuple?). And if to all this we add the
Hexagone, a synonym for France (the territory of the state resembles a hexagon) it
becomes clear that countless cultural conceptions form the basis for (or surround)
the abstract notion of territory in what is thought to be a purely abstruse political
interpretation of the nation. The metonymic replacement of the state territory
with a regular geometric shape does nothing less than makes the territory natural,
constructing it as ‘regular’ and ‘whole’.
I shall deal with these self-evident conceptions shortly. I referred to the French
example in order to show that the exercising of the modern political community,
the nation, is founded on cultural conceptions, even in France, held to be a shining
example of the ‘état-nation’. This ‘pre-political’ interpretation is made possible
by the notion of social imaginaries.15
Charles Taylor writes: ‘This approach is not the same as one that might focus
on the ‘ideas,’ as against the ‘institutions’ of modernity. The social imaginary is
not a set of ideas; rather, it is what enables, through making sense of, the practices
15
Charles Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” Public Culture 14/1 (2002): 91-124.
18 |
of a society.’16 The social imaginaries are cultural conceptions enabling the
operation, practices of modern society (including the social form of territoriality,
of the public sphere or of the self-governing people), which conceptions relate, in
both the descriptive and prescriptive sense, on how people connect to one another
before they form a political community. Taylor deals with the unwritten (Western)
code of counter obligations and rights in the spirit of which the social contract
is made. The point is not that successful governance (that political opposition
should not lead to the breakup of the nation-state), has need of, in addition to
the institution of political citizenship, as a kind of basis for it, a formed cultural
community.17 In this sense a purely political attachment never even existed. In
other words the social imaginary is not simply the sum of community norms, but
primarily, to use Taylor’s words, that of their ‘ontic components’ or that of the
notions and conceptions which make it possible to implement the norms.
In the work I have cited by Taylor he deals with social space only in the
sense of the relations between individuals. He discusses three secular spaces
apart from politics, which are essential in the modern social order. The public
sphere (Habermas), society (whose members look on it as being beyond politics,
organized in the [market] economy), and society as a peuple. This latter he sees as a
metatopical agency which departs from the immediately local; related to it is the
notion that its existence precedes and even lays the foundation for the politically
organized society. To return to the French example, individuals already related to
one another as members of the peuple before they formed a political community
as a nation. The adjective ‘metatopical’ refers to the fact the members of society
consider each other members of the same people without being in immediate
communication, gathered together in some territory. Taylor does not go into
where the borders of the people may be. Where are its members, in their physical
reality? In terms of the relationship between land and people it is also possible
to identify social imaginaries. In what follows I shall deal with the modern
(nation-state principle) social imaginary and its spatial dimension I shall term
territorialization.
16
Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” 91, emphasis in the original.
On this see, for instance, György Schöpflin, “Nationhood, Modernity, Democracy” in Regio:
Minorities, Politics, Society 6/1 (2006): 5-17. As Schöpflin puts it: “From this perspective the idea of the
civi contract as being the determinant of the nature of the modern state was always a legend, a selfserving narrative.” 9.
17
| 19
Intranational Space
One peculiarity of the cultural representation of space organized by the nationstate principle is that territorialization remains non-represented, and in this
context the problem of space arises in a special, restricted form. I shall examine
this restricted spatial problem according to three interrelated criteria: as the ‘just’
division of territories among the nations; as the ‘family of nations’; and as the
overlooking of a nation’s ‘own nationalism’.
According to the territorial ideal of the nation-state every territory must
belong to some nation-state (and thus to a nation), and each territory may belong
to only one nation. The relationship between territory and nation is defined by
exclusive ownership, which is the basis for the sovereignty of the nation-state.
At the same time every person must belong to some nation, that is to say he
must ‘have national identity’ but only one. The world seems to be naturally
divided up between nations, which, organized as states, have control over their
own delimited territories. In this vision the problem of space arises exclusively
as a question of control over the national territory, as the ‘just’ division of the
available land surface between the nations. In this imaginary the problem rears its
head when a ‘young’ or ‘potential’ nation stakes a claim to statehood, that is, the
sovereign control over its own territory, or when a body representing the nation
puts forward a claim to territorial revision. Participants in such conflicts regularly
refer to the principle of national self-determination. This principle rests on the
concept that every nation strives for statehood, for territorial independence, and
when it has gained it, nationalism evaporates, since there is no longer any need for
it. Brubaker terms this the architectonic illusion,18 in which satisfying territorial
claims and granting state self-determination can bring national conflicts to an
end. The history of Europe in the twentieth century provides countless examples
to show there is no just division of territory between nations; the drawing of
borders with reference to self-determination is always arbitrary, and furthermore
maintaining the border entails continuous strife, even confl ict. In its restricted
form the problem of national space cannot be resolved. The principle of national
self-determination rests on a social ontology which sees the territorially separated
nations as substantial and permanent entities, which have a ‘propensity’ to
statehood, and which identifies this propensity as nationalism. A further difficulty
in the ‘just’ division of territory is that since the nation is a disputable political
18
Rogers Brubaker, “Myths and Misconceptions in the Study of Nationalism,” in John A. Hall (ed.)
The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 1998), 272–305.
20 |
claim, or category of classification, it is impossible to make a morally correct
decision regarding the various claims for independence.
‘Nation-building’, that is the claim for one’s own nation-state, takes place in
the name of the universal order and morality of nationalism, often with reference
to the ‘universal rationality’. This rationality however is far from being obvious, as
most recently shown by the international intrigues surrounding the independence
of Kosovo and South Ossetia. The only characteristic of this universal rationality
and morality is the imperative that the world must consist of a territorial mosaic
of nations; territorial confl icts are never resolved rationally or morally, and
the portrayal of the current order as just is nothing less than the exercising of
hegemonous power. In the international order of nations this ‘morality’ (i.e.
referring to the interest of nations) is a well-functioning tool for mobilization;
the ideology of the ‘family of nations’ clearly serves the given regime’s order,
which we might term the ‘global political order’ of the nation-state.19
Besides the architectonic illusion, then, the concept of the world of nations
entails the restricted understanding of the spatial problem of nations, and with
this the cultural representation according to the territorial ideal of the nationstate. The individual must be a member not only of a nation, but also of the
world of nations. Thus recognition of each nation also means recognition of all
nations, and generally the recognition of national existence – and vice versa: factors
endangering the nation, even one, cast doubt on the order of nations. The true
test of becoming a nation is actually international; the success of the development
of national identity depends on whether others (other nations) recognize it as the
‘otherness’ of the given people20 and this very recognition reinforces the natural
order of nations.
Finally, another circumstance attendant on the restricted understanding of the
national problem of space is the way the national discourse ascribes nationalism
to others, locating it in another geographical place, generally the ‘periphery’, as
an irrational outbreak of the phenomenon of a temporary crisis, which would
be resolved by granting self-determination. This distancing masks the everyday
banal nationalism 21 of functioning nation-states, the routines by which nationstates reproduce themselves. But at the same time, belonging to a nation is made
to seem natural in the international world of nations by branding the other with
the charge of nationalism, while leaving one’s ‘own nationalism’ unsignified.
19
Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).
See for example Orvar Löfgren, “A nemzeti kultúra problémái svéd és magyar példákon szemlélve.”
Janus VI/1 (1989/1): 13–29. This paper was presented at the ‘National culture as a process’ HungarianSwedish symposium in honour of Tamás Hofer on his 60th birthday.
21
Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism, (London: SAGE 1995).
20
| 21
A typical example of this discursive strategy is the differentiation between ‘our’
patriotism (valued as positive) and ‘their’ nationalism (condemned as negative).22
The normative order of the international world of nations is faithfully depicted in
any common world atlas. It defines every nation as a given, geographically delimited
territory; there are no overlaps between the pieces of the mosaic, and the map depicts
difference and distinctness. The depiction of each nation (in fact, sovereign states)
in one colour not only emphasizes the contrast of the borders between nations, but
by eschewing shades of colour, it also portrays the idealized cultural and territorial
homogeneity within the nation-states. This vision defines the relationship of people
and space purely as a marriage of nation and territory. Most maps of the world
hanging on the wall have, alongside ‘The World’ a part giving the national flags
with the name of the country. Thus, examining the spatiality of the nations, we see
that a space appears which can be termed not international, but intranational. This space
provides a place for the array of national flags, and perhaps shields, these universal
signs of particularity, which instead of enabling identification with the nation far
rather differentiate it from the other nations. The individuality of the nation must be
portrayed according to universal norms.
The spatial order of the world of nations described above is no natural or
normal condition, but rather the territorial norm of the nation-state in the given
regime of power. This ideal, which can never by fully realized, and whose aim
is that state, territory and nation should coincide, is a product of history, and its
institutionalization varies in different parts of the world.
Territorialization
One feature of the nation-state order is that power and control over the
population is exercised through the organization of space into territory. The
modern forms of state surveillance and population control, just as the capitalist
organization of work, are based on the homogenization, rationalization and
division of space. In the narrow sense, this process of shaping space into territory
is called territorialization. Territory, therefore, is a product. If we accept that the
given operation of power relations organizes definite space that facilitates this
operation, we have to concede that it is possible to speak of territoriality (though
as the result of a differing technology of power) even before the appearance of
nation-states (in Foucault’s terminology,23 the exercising of power by a sovereign
22
Billig, Banal Nationalism; Brubaker, “Myths and Misconceptions”.
See for example Michel Foucault, Sécurité, territoire, population. Cours au Collège de France 1977–1978.
(Seuil/ Gallimard, 2004).
23
22 |
ruler also creates territory and holds it under surveillance, but through a different
organization of space). Nevertheless, in what follows I shall restrict the notion of
territory/territoriality to the spatiality organized historically by the nation-state
principle, although I will stretch the concept beyond the purely power function
(technology in the Foucauldian sense) to include a cultural framework. In other
words territorialization is not simply a power technique which turns space into
a territory of surveillance, but a cognitive, even metaphysical and ontological
framework that provides the place of ‘I’ and ‘we’ with meaning and significance,
since it gives an answer to questions such as ‘Where is our place in the world?’
or ‘What should the world we live in be like?’. Modern territoriality is thus a
social imaginary of considerable significance in the operation of the national
category (i.e. in nationalism) that contributes to the division of the world, insofar
as it manifests in such practices that enable the construction of the relationship
between soil and people as ‘natural’. The territorial norm of the nation-state can
territorialize to varying degrees, just as the naturalness of national belonging
is varied: it may mean merely the obviousness of the world of nations, or the
unquestionable intertwinedness of the given nation and the given state, or even
an organic understanding of the nation.
In what follows I shall examine territorialization, namely the group of cultural
practices that operate the territoriality of the modern nation-state, from several
angles, in such a way that I shall analytically divide the space between nations from
that within nations (which spaces are mutually dependent and complementary).
This is necessary so that we can release the problem of nationalism and spatiality
from the restricted interpretation outlined above. Firstly then, I shall discuss the
way that in the territorial ideal of the nation-state the relationship between nation
and territory is the same everywhere throughout the globe (territorialization as the
space between nations). Following this, entering the space within the nation-state,
comes a discussion of the state’s territory as a space for surveillance and belonging,
and after the problem of the national landscape (as the national peculiarity and
naturalness of the nation-state territory) I shall list the more significant modern
cultural concepts which support the congruence of state, nation and territory.
The global territorial division of nations. In the first edition (1983) of Anderson’s
Imagined Communities he applies the concept of territorialization to that
representation of the world which portrays each religion as entities of equal
rank located alongside one another. With the discovery of worlds beyond
Europe the cultural-geographical horizon is broadened to include mutually
exclusive religious systems that had previously worked with the opposition
| 23
of believer/godly – unbeliever/pagan.24 In the revised 1991 edition Anderson
dedicates a separate chapter to spatiality, saying he had overlooked it earlier.25
He calls the abstract space between nations a homogeneous, empty space in
which distance is measured no longer in sacred meaning, but in mathematically
calculated straight lines. The innovation of nationalism as a system of cultural
representations in this respect lies in the fact that extended groups of people
think of themselves (in a previously unthinkable way) as living in parallel to
other extended groups of people, who travel the same path, though they do
not necessarily meet. The territorialized space provides a place for the world
of nations, in which each group of people are as nations of equal rank in the
ontological sense and presume one another to be so, and in this sense are the
‘same’ distance from one another.
The abstract space between nations is best expressed by the currently dominant
concept of the border, which is inseparable from territory. The actors on maps
prior to the nation-states, the winds, the galleons that stood for journeys, and the
traces of various events, have been spirited away from the gaze of the onlooker
scrutinizing space. Their place was taken by the border, which has changed from
being a concrete entity (be it a river or a place of meeting and negotiation) to
become an exclusive, abstract quality. The border no longer has any place; it is a
space-in-between, which belongs nowhere. It is intangible and immaterial. This
type of spatial representation is static and unhistorical: it masks the processes, the
violence and the power struggles which have led to the formation of this picture.
Today’s maps reflect a given state of geographical knowledge, and do not indicate
the journey made.26 Yet this spatial representation is inseparable from the nationstate principle. Modern cartography is specifically a power technique, which with
its forced unified and official transparency draws various social spaces under its
discipline.27 As Bauman writes, 28 it is through cartographical practices that it is
24
He presents the radical change through Marco Polo’s account of Kublai Khan. Anderson, Imagined
Communities, 16.
25
He writes: “…I became uneasily aware that what I had believed to be a significantly new contribution
to thinking about nationalism – changing apprehensions of time – patently lacked its necessary
coordinate: changing apprehensions of space.” Anderson, Imagined Communities, xiii.
26
See Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien. 1. arts de faire. (Gallimard, 1990).
27
On the links between modern cartographic representation of space and the exercising of power
in the nation-state see Michael J. Shapiro, “Triumphalist Geographies.” In Spaces of Culture edited by
Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, (London: Sage, 1999), 159–174. Anderson: Imagined Communities,
chapter 10, 163-187.
28
Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences, (New York: Columbia University Press,
1998).
24 |
possible that territory becomes the mirror image of the map – and not vice versa.
The cartographic construction is successful if the place appears as given, objective,
more or less in the same way that today’s maps are the faithful and scaled mirror
images of reality. Ownership of the territory thus acquires not the form of a legal
relationship, which is questionable and temporary, but appears as the result of
natural development.
But the mathematical space which gives space to nations is concretized in
the sense that it is also still a geographical space: it was no mere chance that
led Anderson to consider the modern map as the basic form of this spatial
representation. He does not, however, discuss the fact that in this abstract space
projected onto the Earth, new forms of ‘the sacred’ are appearing. One, for
instance, is the significance of absolute geographical position, in which every
nation is the ‘centre of the world’, just as in the Europe of the nations, there are
many located precisely in the middle. Or we might think of the temperament
of southern nations compared to the coolness of northen ones. This form of
spatial representation, which inscribes the cultural significance of the nation into
geographical space, I shall call national cartography.
Territorialization within the nation-state. In the space within the nation, the
nation-state’s territorial norm defines cultural belonging exclusively as national
belonging, and this latter exlusively as attachment to territory. It organizes a
territory over every point of which sovereignty is divided evenly, and regardless
of the positions of the members of the nation in this territory they are at the same
distance from the agents of power.29 This means that the national territory will
not tolerate local diversity. The creation of locality, as the structure of feeling (the
feeling of being at home) and as the material reproduction of the place created
by community practices, is held within bounds and manipulated by the space
organized by the nation-state.30 Appadurai shows that during its operation, a
nation-state creates a uniform, continuous and homogenous space on the one
hand, and on the other forms places and spaces (prisons, barracks, airports, squares
for demonstrations etc.) with whose help it can create the internal distinctions
and separations necessary for state ceremonies, surveillance, discipline and
mobilization. The ability of the nation-state to produce locality means that in
29
In the dynastic state certain parts of the territory ruled, the centres were ‘more sacred’ than the rest,
and the social position of the subjects was determined by the vertical distance separating them from
the monarch.
30
On this see Arjun Appadurai, “The Production of Locality” in Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions
of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 178–200.
| 25
addition to creating disciplined space, it is able to produce an attachment to it,
which it in fact does by creating this space as national territory.
But the state is not some supersubject: part of the nation-state principle is the
personification of the state, according to which it is the embodiment of public
will, and purports to be a neutral arbiter over the interests and conflicts of society,
or rather it is the natural and consummate form of expression of the nation (‘the
nation acts through the state’). It is more practical to see the state system as a nexus
of various common practices (routines, rituals, policies etc.) of governmental
principles and techniques and the given institutional structure, at the centre of
which lie the governmental authorities.31 Strictly speaking these practices are not
carried out by the ‘state’, but by people – in the name of, and representing, the
nation. This approach, related to Foucault and to the concept of ‘governmentality’,
when examining the state concentrates on the techniques for governing, and seeks
to understand how the techniques contribute to the normalization of the human
population.32 In the operation of a state system viewed this way, the materializing
spatial matrix forms both the conception of the person and that of the place.
National landscape. In the national landscape belonging becomes natural. Seen
as membership of the nation, spatial and environmental location becomes a
part of Nature in the strict sense, and thus falls within the scope of objectivephysical laws. It is in the national landscape that the abstract notion of territory
is concretized in its most extreme form, though to a certain extent state territory
always functions as national landscape in the sense that its size, shape, geographical
position or other traits become national characteristics. A typical example of this
is the cultural direct proportionality in which a great state territory is paired
with a great nation, and a small one with a small nation – while the size of the
territory can be expressed only arithmetically, and the greatness of the nation
always designates a quality, something more than the number of the population.
Flying in the face of this proportionality (saying that even a small nation can be
great) is the comparison which measures the worth of the nation against number
of Nobel laureates or sporting achievements per capita (just who this national
mathematics considers a compatriot and on what basis is another question).
31
Ana María Alonso, “The Politics of Space, Time and Substance: State Formation, Nationalism, and
Ethnicity,” Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 379–405.
32
Michel Foucault “Governmentality,” in Michel Foucault, Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984,
vol. 3: Power, ed. James D. Faubion, (New York: The New Press, 2000), 200-222. The concept of
governmentality is dealt with in detail in chapter four.
26 |
An excellent example of the function of the national landscape is the mapas-logo in which the territory stands metonymically for the nation: one piece
of a jigsaw-puzzle is sufficient to stand for a country, namely a people, namely
a nation, stripped of all map rubrics and legends, the degrees of longitude and
latitude, the place names, the waterways and its neighbours.33 Thus wrenched
from its geographical environment the logo-map can be limitlessly reproduced,
while the shape of the territory becomes natural: in this sense a depiction of
Hungary can be seen as ‘truncated’, just as the depiction of ‘Greater Hungary’ is
recognized not by the size of the territory.
Historically the birth of nations coincides with the change in the concept of
the landscape in which the landscape as a representation of the ‘visible’ becomes
an expression of the aestheticizing nature and becomes saturated with ideals.34
In the concept of the national landscape ‘natural beauty’ is related to the idea of
the nation, thus the state territory and nationhood embodied within it become
congruent. The land(scape) makes the location a spectacle, a visual image, through
which functional perception is turned into observation of and delight in nature
for its own sake.35 The landscape is to be looked at, not understood – which,
like the logo-map, makes it the object of mass consumption. In this respect the
landscape is the place of amnesia and deletion, a strategic venue to bury the past
and mask history with ‘natural beauty’. As Lefebvre put it: there is no innocent
space, and there is no longer nature36 – there is naturalization.
In the national landscape the territory owned, together with its fauna and flora
becomes part of the nation (the Chinese are proud of the panda, the Hungarians
of the bustard), and the picture of the landscape is placed in a national frame. The
inhabitant of the landscape is not the individual, but a type, which contains the
symbolic components of ideals linked to nationhood, it is part of the landscape,
like some modern native, that is, of one substance with it, and its main function
is to express the national character.37 The nationalizing of the landscape means
that in the aesthetics of the national territory beauty per se is related to the drama
of the national narrative, and becomes the expression of the authenticity of the
people. The territory becomes homeland by adapting itself to the romantic drama
33
Anderson, Imagined Communities, 175.
Réka Albert, Tájak és nemzetek. Kísérlet a nemzeti táj fogalmának antropológiai megközelítésére, (Budapest:
MTA Politikai Tudományok Intézete, Etnoregionális Központ, 1997); Réka Albert, “Le paysage
national: de l’émotion à la ‘pensée’ nationale et inversement,” in A nemzet antropológiája, ed. András A.
Gergely, (Budapest: Új mandátum, 2002), 81–91.
35
W. J. T. Mitchell, “Holy Landscape: Israel, Palestine, and the American Wilderness,” Critical Inquiry
26 (Winter 2000): 193–223.
36
Henry Lefebvre, La production de l’espace, (Paris: Anthropos, 1974).
37
Réka Albert, Tájak és nemzetek.
34
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of the nation’s destiny.38 These mountains, this plain, this river, are beautiful not
just in themselves, but also because they are ‘ours’ (where the ancestors of the
nation-family are laid to rest, where their blood was spilt, etc.). In a certain sense
every homeland is a holy land, where the grass is greener, the fruit is tastier and
the people are more virtuous. In extreme cases this consecration of the nation
verges on a climactic theory, in which the climate of the inhabited territory and
the environmental circumstances influence human characteristics. This notion,
once influential in philosophy (Herder, Rousseau, Montesquieu) was shared by
Renan, who in his famous lecture given in 1882 Qu’est-ce qu-une nation39 argued
that geographical features, such as ‘natural borders’ are not constitutive as regards
the national community. Yet in an earlier work he had opined that Semitic peoples
had become monotheistic because the monotonous desert landscape had prompted
them to develope abstract concepts of divinity, and protected them from the
creation of mythology.40
Digression: The cultural concepts of territorialization (place, roots, culture, society and
language). The congruence of state, territory and nation is promoted by extended
and various forms of the social imagination and knowledge. Of these, in what
follows I shall deal briefly with the ideas of the ‘place as social’ and ‘being rooted
in a place’, and also ‘culture’, ‘society’ and ‘language’.
One component of fundamental importance in the modern social imagination
is that culture, space and group form an essential unity.41 In the modern nationstate order the local community taken in the sense of geographical proximity
(inhabitants of the same territory) is the primary level of social life and the basis
38
According to Smith there are two ways in which attachment to the homeland – the link between
nation and territory – may form: the historicizing of the landscape, and the naturalization of historical
features (the latter considering historical buildings as components of the “ethnic landscape”). See for
instance Anthony D. Smith, “The Origins of Nations,” in The Antiquity of Nations by Anthony D. Smith,
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), 181–210. 199 ff.
39
He stated that the land provides the material basis, the arena for battle and work, while mankind is
the soul. Renan, Ernest: “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?” conference given at the Sorbonne, March 11, 1882,
Reproduced in Oeuvres completes de Ernest Renan, (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1958). The paradox is made all
the sharper if one considers Renan’s lecture as an apology for the Frenchness of Alsace-Lorraine. See
Péter Ádám, “Renan nemzetfelfogása,” in Éva Csató (ed.) Mi a nemzet? (Budapest: Akadémiai, 1998),
33–43.
40
Mitchell: “Holy Landscape.”
41
Péter Niedermüller, “A lokalitás metamorfózisai,” Replika 56–57 (2006): 33–44., Péter Niedermüller,
“Transznacionalizmus: elméletek, mítoszok, valóságok,” in Etnikai identitás, politikai lojalitás. Nemzeti
és állampolgári kötődések, ed. Nóra Kovács et al. (Budapest: Az MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató
Intézet évkönyve 4, 2005).
28 |
of solidarity. This principle was built on the ideas of social continuity and cultural
homogeneity, in which the local community was a cultural unit as well as a spatial
and social one. The most important organizing principle of the modern social
order, the group, is always a spatial unity attached to a given point in geographical
space, and is characterized by a homogeneous culture extending to every member
of the group. In this understanding individuals belong to one single social group,
one single place and one single culture, and their social integration is guaranteed
only by this exclusive belonging.
The exclusivity of belonging applies both to relationships between individuals
and to those between individuals and places. For Malkki,42 national geography
is the sum of practices (ordinary and scholarly) which create the relationship
between people and places as a natural link of identity – in other words, they
territorialize it. These practices reproduce the ‘national order of things’ that is,
they construct a global cultural representation of the world which prescribes
national belonging through attachment to territory. The national order of things
is both a metaphysical and moral order: through various botanical metaphors
national geography ties people to the soil as members of a nation rooted in the
nurturing mother land (Malkki terms this the ‘metaphysics of sedentarism’),
and portrays this conceptual order as morally right and valuable, and what is
more, as a spiritual necessity. At the same time, territorial displacement becomes
abnormal, pathological even, or at the very least problematic: thus for instance the
generalized type of ‘the refugee’ is located outside the national order of things,
and is thus defined as unnatural. Through territorialization national geography
withdraws people’s relationship to place and to one another from the sphere
of social care. In other words, in the nation-state imagination territory has no
need of the continuous care of those who inhabit it; on the contrary, it entails
obligations.
The mosaic of nations, namely the territorialized idea of the ‘national order
of things’ is promoted by an understanding of culture whose main characteristic
is inner homogeneity and outer delimitation. Herder’s vision of cultural life
assigns ‘one culture’ to ‘one people’ as an organic unit, whose character it defines
comprehensively and exclusively, thus the world is made up of culturally distinct
islands of peoples (and according to territorial ideal of nationalism this archipelago
is identical to the mosaic of nations). This understanding of culture43 overlooks
the internal diversity and complexity of cultural life, and the fact that the
42
Liisa Malkki, “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National
Identity Among Scholars and Refugees,” Cultural Anthropology, 7/1 (1992): 22–44.
43
For the apprehensions of culture dealt with here see Wolfgang Welsch, “Transculturality – the
Puzzling Form of Cultures Today,” in City, Nation, World ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash,
| 29
various levels of social organization are interrelated, often in a global system of
dependencies. Descriptively speaking, the theses of both inner homogeneity and
outer delimitation are untenable. Similarly, the intercultural view lays emphasis
on the proximity and understanding of the cultural islands, though it presumes
that due to divergences in quality each culture will be structurally unable to
communicate with others (they each form a separate world). Multiculturalism,
although it recognizes cultural diversity within the nation-state, typically seeks a
solution to this ‘problem’ by over-emphasizing otherness, that is, by radicalizing
the idea of delimitation. The idea of tolerance is supposed to compensate for
this, which however remains the recognition of otherness per se. By targeting
the recognition of the ‘culture’ a person supposedly represents rather than that
of the person himself, multiculturalism again reinforces the nation-state concept
of borders, even if it does shift the emphasis. This movement was not able to
live up to the hopes of its supporters because it imagined life in society to be
a sum of, albeit not national, but in subcultural terms is still clearly separate
internally homogenous units (in this case the mosaic of the nations does not fit
onto the cultural islands; there are overlaps between the two grids of borders,
and these borders are of one substance). Multiculturalism not only recognizes
the borders dividing the ‘uniform (national) cultures’ – it makes them the object
of celebration: as opposed to the assimilation politics of the nation-state, it puts
emphasis on the values of one’s ‘own culture’, and of course everyone can only
have one ‘own culture’. Thus it interprets culture as a ‘set of values’ from tradition
and legacy, in just the same way as the nation-state ideology.44
This territory-bound, essential notion of culture, and the vision of the ‘peoples
and cutlures’ of the world has for some time been the object of criticism by cultural
anthropology.45 In this view the various levels of cultural life are mutually
dependent on one another in space (though not necessarily geographically), so
social change is an issue not of a naturally arising separateness, but of context,
of relationship, the former being a possible but not exclusive fulfi lment of
the latter. Furthermore ‘culture’ could be said not to be a neutral territory:
the exercising of power and social inequalities are indispensible elements of
changes in cultural differences. The criticism in hand shows that attachment to
(London: SAGE, 1999), 194–213. On Herder’s view of the nation see János Kelemen, “Herder historicista
nemzetfogalma” in Mi a nemzet?, compiled by Éva Csató, (Budapest: Akadémiai, 1998), 25–33.
44
See Niedermüller, “A lokalitás metamorfózisai”; Brubaker, “Myths and Misconceptions”.
45
See Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson: “Culture, Power, Place: Ethnography at the End of an Era,”
in Culture, Power, Place. Explorations in Critical Anthropology, ed. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Duke
University Press, 1997), 1–32; Akhil Gupta, and Ferguson James. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity,
and the Politics of Difference,” Cultural Anthropology, 7/1 (1992): 6–23.
30 |
a place is not self-evident or a natural given, consequently the spatialization of
(national) culture – including territorialization – is a historical, political, social
process. The organization of cultural difference has to a great extent cast off the
geographical attachment to territory. The interrelationship of culture, nation and
space may take on various forms, one of which is the difference inscribed into
the geographical space, the landscape. The notion of the politics of difference
enables us to examine cultural difference as the dynamic social-power operation
and not as an unchanging, static, territorial mosaic, thus we may investigate this
territorial mosaic as a form of cultural representation. Cultural overlaps, internal
complexity and mutual dependency are all facts which raise the question of the
drawing of cultural ( and national) borders, recognizing that difference is a social
stake for which power games are played. In this approach, which I shall follow
later, emphasis shifts to the cultural marking of differences, in other words to the
struggles and strategies of building and maintaining boundaries. This view of
the problem is made possible by Frederik Barth’s theoretical distinction between
the social and the cultural.46 Ethnicity or nationhood cannot thus be grasped
by some list of values or characteristics supposed to be common, or with the
cultural contents of the ethnical-national group (the ‘definitive’ list of contents
items is continuously changing with the battles of definition of the participants),
but by the manner in which they mark and maintain the borders. The fact that
through the marking of cultural differences some category becomes crystallized
as a group, and that its separateness is designated, is in confl ict with the way
others mark this separateness. If, following Barth’s lead, we understand ethnicity
as the ‘social organization of cultural differences’, then we can investigate the
static, essential and territorial view of culture outlined above.47 Barth writes:
‘[w]e now realize that global empirical variation in culture is continuous, it does
not partition neatly into separable, integrated wholes.’48 Seen this way culture is
not erudition or a set of values, but a continuous flow of sense-giving and sensemaking, and in this changing such permanences as the group bounded by borders
inscribed into the soil can be understood as discontinuities produced by various
actors through various strategies. From this viewpoint, for instance, the notion
of the national minority is far from being as self-evident as it often seems.
The notion of culture to ethnography is like that of society to sociology:
sociological common sense49 often takes for granted the existence of ‘a society’
46
Frederik Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, (Oslo: University Press, 1969).
Frederik Barth, “Enduring and emerging issues in the analysis of ethnicity,” in Hans Vermeulen
and Cora Govers (eds), Beyond “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries” (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2000), 11–31.
48
Barth, “Enduring and Emerging Issues”, 14.
49
Billig, Banal Nationalism.
47
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as a territorial unit, designating a real analytical unit that can be examined
independently of ‘other societies’. The concept of society for sociology has never
been problem-free: the challenge today lies in the fact that the Spencerian/
Parsonian model of ‘society’, which sees it as a unit delimited in space, is
becoming increasingly untenable.50 The idea, widely held and decisive in social
theory, that views the nation-state as a container for social process, is now
without foundation. This – that ‘the boundaries, categories, notions of order
and variables of the national outlook are unquestioningly accepted into the social
scientific perspective of observation and analysis’ – is what Ulrich Beck calls
‘methodological nationalism’.51 The explanation for this view, more precisely for
the scientific practice of national classification, is that social science following
‘nationalist methodology’ was an organic part of the integration into the nationstate frames.
The methodological nationalism of the social sciences is of more than merely
epistomological significance. Beside its thinking in terms of the economy as a
national economy, society as a nation, politics as activity of the nation-state, the
impression forms that social problems can only be given significance and meaning
in the framework of the nation-state. The methodological-ethical problem of the
scientific reproduction of reality arises immediately if we recognize that scholarly
description and understanding form a part of cultural representation. In the case
of nation- and nationalism research this means that descriptions of ethnic, racial
or national ‘characteristics’ at the group level leads to methodological nationalism.
For this reason Brubaker suggests52 the continuous theoretical reflection aimed
at separating the practical and analytical categories. When using a category such
as nation it is worth being aware that the setting up of some categorization as
natural is a part of social struggles. Brubaker writes that ‘participants’ accounts
– especially those of specialists in ethnicity such as ethnopolitical entrepreneurs,
[…] often have what Pierre Bourdieu called a performative character. By invoking
groups, they seek to evoke them, summon them, call them into being. Their
categories are for doing – designed to stir, summon, justify, mobilize, kindle, and
energize. By reifying groups, by treating them as substantial thing-in-the-world,
ethnopolitical entrepreneurs can, as Bourdieu notes, “contribute to producing
what they apparently describe or designate”.’53 The aim of ‘ethnopolitical
50
Dénes Némedi, “Bevezetés: A szociológia problémája – ma,” in Modern szociológiai paradigmák ed.
Dénes Némedi, (Budapest: Napvilág, 2008), 15–69
51
Cited by Némedi, “Bevezetés: A szociológia problémája – ma,” 46.
52
Rogers Brubaker, “Ethnicity without groups,” in Ethnicity without Groups. (Harvard University
Press, 2004), 7–27.
53
Brubaker. “Ethnicity”, 8. Hobsbawm warns historians to be similarly careful in regard to ‘nationalist
32 |
entrepreneurs’ is to frame events, confl icts and actors as ethnonational, and
analysis must find an explanation for precisely this framing, this portrayal as
natural, this process of cultural representation. A favoured cognitive schema of
nationalism is to see and depict groups as a kind of collective subject, an active
unit, a substantial thing with a will and characteristics. Brubaker calls the
scholarly acceptance of this categorization ‘groupism’. Avoidance of groupism
is made possible by a differentiation between the concepts of the category and
the group: the latter is not a constant entity, but variable, whose value, that is,
the objectivity or crystallization of the group may change in different situations
during the categorization (the vision and division) of the world.54 This means
that national categorization may happen to varying extents and significance in
various situations: sometimes it plays no role, and other times it seems to squeeze
out other classifications completely.
Language, if it is seen as a homogenous, cultural value owned as property, is
eminently suitable to be perceived as the expression of the ‘national essence’. The
idea that there exist clearly delimited languages different from one another in
essence, or in their spirituality, is a product of nationalism – and as such deserves
an explanation. People have definitely been speaking every since they became
people, though it is only a few centuries since they believed they have been using
‘a language’.55 This unusual relation to language has a history, which began with
the appreciation in value of vernaculars, the formation of dictionaries and national
grammars, and the enforcement of linguistic standards, which herded differing
usage into the scope of dialect or other languages (the idea of dialect ‘explains’ why
people who speak ‘the same language’ do not speak in the same way). 56 Linguistic
comprehension has probably always run into difficulties – and through various
power struggles nationalism has established these limitations as it has the borders
on the political map of the nations: as if they were internally uniform territories
clearly separated from one another, depicting the world as a linguistic mosaic. Of
course this is not simply a depiction: written (national) vernacular does indeed
myths’: Eric John Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: programme, myth, reality, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991).
54
The vision and division of the world is Bourdieu’s pun, and refers to the representation of the
world always being an endeavour to enforce a given classification. See Pierre Bourdieu, “Identity and
Representation”.
55
See for instance Billig, Banal Nationalism, 29 ff.
56
Language is a means of exercising power, the site of social action, not a property, or a body of
knowledge. On this see for example Kommunikáció. Vols. I–II, ed. Özséb Horányi, (Budapest:
Közgazdasági és Jogi, 1978); Csaba Pléh, István Siklaki and Tamás Terestyéni (eds), Nyelv-kommunikációcselekvés, (Budapest: Osiris, 2001); György Szépe, ed., Társadalom és nyelv, (Budapest: Gondolat, 1975);
Pierre Bourdieu, Ce que parler veut dire. L’économie des échanges linguistiques (Paris: Fayard, 1982).
| 33
unify usage through the printed medium; it creates a single legitimate language,
which the educational system is supposed to imprint on the population. Actual
usage, however, always differs from the norm prescribed as the standard (and
the extent of this difference becomes defined as social distance). In other words,
people will never speak ‘one language’. The differences between actual language
use and the idea of ‘a language’ are well demonstrated by the common occurence
that everyone learns the mother tongue, ‘the language’, that is, the socially valued
legitimate language use, at school, after they have learned to speak. This is not
to say that language use has no role in understanding nationalism; merely this
understanding of language is not sufficient, since it leads to a tautology. As Billig
puts it, the ‘pattern of the imaginings [of nations] cannot be explained in terms of
differences of language, for languages themselves have to be imagined as distinct
entities.’57 The reference to Anderson is not by chance: his theory of nationalism
in Imagined Communities is a linguistic approach that sidesteps the use of language
as a national criterium: ‘While it is essential to keep in mind an idea of fatality, in
the sense of a general condition of irremediable linguistic diversity, it would be a
mistake to equate this fatality with that common element in nationalist ideologies
which stresses the primordial fatality of particular languages and their association
with particular territorial units.’58
The modern idea that social and geographical proximity are of one substance, the
notion of ‘rootedness in the soil’, the once prevalent understanding of culture,
society and language described above all contribute to the territorialization
of the nation. These apparently differing concepts are bound together by the
common characteristic of territoriality, and all form part of the ‘equation of
anthropological place’59 Indeed, the fact that nationalism is simultaneously
universal and particular is perhaps best expressed in its spatiality: every nation
must have exclusive possession of delimited territory, this possession (in the sense
of congruence) is the same everywhere; the particularity of nations is embodied
in their geographical location, and is not up for exchange. Would two nations
occupying territory of identical sizes ever swap with one another?
57
Billig, Banal Nationalism, 35–36 .
Anderson, Imagined Communities, 43. Emphasis in the original.
59
Augé’s anthropological equation: earth (terre) = society = nation = culture = religion. Marc Augé,
Non-lieux. Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, (Seuil: Paris, 1992). Chapter two deals with
the concept of the anthropological place in detail.
58
34 |
Spatial Movement, Dynamic Spatiality
The national order of the world appears static and ahistorical in spite of the
consistent application of the nation-state’s territorial norm entailing continuous
spatial dynamics. The history of aggressive resettlements of groups of people
in twentieth-century Europe, carried out often with international support in
the interests of the consistent realization of the nation-state principle and in
the hope of resolving national conflicts, shows that the very application of the
territorial norm asserting sedentariness (the substantial togetherness of people
and territory), produces ‘uprootedness’. The complete imposition of the nationstate territorial matrix is an ideal which, besides never being realized, entails
the mass spatial displacement of people which it is supposed to prevent. It is
practically a cliché in eastern Europe to point out that spatial displacement is not
only the movement and relocation of people, but may also be a consequence of the
drawing of borders affecting static masses of people. Furthermore, enforcement
of the territorial norm of the nation-state also reproduces people in motion as
abnormal: the refugee as an outcast; the homecomer as someone ‘sneaking back
home’; the immigrant as an internal other. To put it briefly, the grid created by
the borders separating nation-states cannot be fitted perfectly over the peoples
inhabiting the surface of the Earth, and even within the homogenized national
territory the nation-state constantly produces the cultural other and various
forms of the abnormal. This brings about a spatial dynamic which is constitutive
in the working of nationalism.
That territorialization is not visible in the nation-state cultural representation
is part and parcel of its having been made natural. It most probably became
visible when the differing operations of territoriality became conspicuous. These
developments are usually covered by the notion of globalization. As Scholte puts
it: ‘globalization has undermined the modern territorialist premise that social
cohesion is guaranteed through the state-nation-country-society. […] the growth
of global spaces has made it impossible to parcel the world into discrete territorial
units with neatly separated peoples, each ruled by a sovereign authority.’60 What
is important here regarding ‘global spaces’ is that actors who form and maintain
nation-state territoriality carry out the cultural representation of the nation in
a sphere characterized by fierce competition. For one thing the state is merely
one actor in the formation and control of the national identification (though not
insignificant in terms of resources), and for another the territorialized nation
(though not insignificant) is only one variation in the representational space of
60
Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: a critical introduction, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 228.
| 35
cultural belongings. The formation of this space is related to the fact that the
institutional system of nation-states is in many respects losing its sovereignty in
the globalized world, in other words, it must reposition itself, and react to the
order of power relations now prevalent.61
The sphere of the nation’s cultural representation should be investigated with
an overview of the change in general conditions which made the idea of the nation
possible. In this Anderson’s theoretical model may be of assistance, since he was
the first to interpret the nation as a cultural system. According to Anderson’s
‘anthropological definition’ the nation is imagined because its members can never
meet every fellow-member (including those who will follow them in the future),
and yet the image of their communion lives in each one of them. Another element
of the definition is limitedness (every nation has a boundary beyond which
other nations can be found) and political sovereignty. Moreover the nation is
imagined as a ‘community, because, regardless the actual inequality or exploitation
that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal
comradeship.’62 I shall not go into a critique of this definition.63 The salient point
is that the examination of the nation as a cultural system offers an explanation for
the way that, similarly to religious communities, national belonging provides a
solution to existential problems like suffering and death, by giving meaning to
them, and gives certainty (in an ontological sense) to the members of the nation.
This potential makes the expiration of the nation as a cultural form unlikely. The
issue is rather what transformations it will undergo in a changing environment.
In Imagined Communities Anderson carries out a historical analysis of the frames
of cultural representation, describing the transformation through which the place
of the cultural systems of religious community and the dynastic state has been
taken by a new form of imagined community, the nation. His explanation is
that the decline of the two previous cultural systems is neither the cause nor the
outcome of the formation of the nation. The decisive factor behind the decline
of sacred communities/languages and lineage is a change in the understanding
of time. This sea-change consists of a divergence of cosmology and history, and
61
On the concept of sovereignty seeJürgen Habermas, “The European Nation-State – Its Achievements
and Its Limits. On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship,” in Mapping the Nation (ed.) Gopal
Balakrishnan, (London – New York: Verso, 1996), 281–294. On the role of the state see for example Jan
Aart Scholte, “Global Capitalism and the State,” International Affairs 73/3, (1997): 427–452.
62
Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
63
On the narrowing of national feeling to masculine comradeship, i.e. the exclusion of sexuality and
desire, see Alonso, “The Politics of Space, Time and Substance.” On the lack of the ‘sacred’ dimension
of the national conception for Anderson, and that instead of comradeship the idea of kinship is able to
prompt self-sacrifice for the nation, see Gopal Balakrishnan, “The National Imagination,” in Mapping
the Nation (ed.) Gopal Balakrishnan, (London, New York: Verso, 1996), 198–213.
36 |
the formation of what Walter Benjamin terms ‘homogeneous, empty time’.64
Simultaneity is no longer given by divine providence, but by calendar coincidence;
present and future diverge; the here-and-now becomes a link in a process which
advances regardless of the individual to infinity (and not to the end of time).
This however, has created only the possibility of national belonging, insofar
as it has provided a temporal context for the imagining of a community which is
stable, moves ceaselessly in time, and in which everyone carries out continuous,
anonymous and simultaneous actions. The general conditions for imagining the
horizontal-brotherly community are held by Anderson to be the ‘half-fortuitous,
but explosive’ interaction of three dimensions: ‘a system of production and
productive relations (capitalism), a technology of communications (print) and
the fatality of human linguistic diversity’. The interaction between capitalism
and print technology meant that the classical novel and newspaper, which
facilitated the new mode of simultaneity, are consumed as goods on the market.
These two cultural forms, which Anderson sees as variants of one another, form
the technological backdrop to the representation of the imagined community.
The ‘basic structure of two forms of imagining’ ensured that through cultural
representation individuals can imagine themselves as members of a horizontal,
continually existing, secular community. As to why, of the various alternatives,
the nation has been realized, Anderson finds the answer in the interplay of
printing as a capitalist venture and modern languages: Protestantism relied on the
vernacular market ‘in this titanic “battle for men’s minds”’ against the CounterReformation. In the case of publishing, the only constraints on the capitalist
production’s continual hunting out markets are linguistic boundaries (and death).
As a consequence of the interplay between linguistic diversity and capitalism,
the former metamorphoses into the language mosaic described earlier, while the
latter expands according to the boundaries between vernacular standards (e.g.
the size of the vernacular market defines the successfulness of a book-publishing
enterprise). The potential extent of imagined national communities was thus
internally (linguistically) limited, but also in a random relationship to existing
political borders. This explains why linguistic and nation-state borders do not
always coincide – indeed, they rarely do so.
Anderson’s work owes its popularity (which extends far beyond nationalism
studies)65 to the fact that it gave an explanation for the significance of imagination
as a social practice in the working of worldly communities. As Appadurai puts
64
Cf. Koselleck’s analysis of how history is temporalized. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the
Semantics of Historical Time, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).
65
Anderson described his ambiguous relationship to his book in an interview in 2005, saying it is like a
daughter who has grown up and run off with a bus driver. He accepts that she now belongs to someone
| 37
it: ‘The image, the imagined, the imaginary – these are all terms which direct
us to something critical and new in global cultural processes: the imagination as a
social practice. No longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work is
elsewhere), no longer simple escape (from a world defined principally by more
concrete purposes and structures), no longer elite pastime (thus not relevant to
the lives of ordinary people), and no longer mere contemplation (irrelevant for
new forms of desire and subjectivity), the imagination has become an organized
field of social practices, a form of work (both in the sense of labor and of
culturally organized practice) and a form of negotiation between sites of agency
(“individuals”) and globally defined fields of possibility.’66 Anderson described
how the print market and mass literacy disassociated community feeling from
physical presence: the solitary activity of reading together in silence presumes the
population of those who pursue this same solitary activity at the same time in
the same language in relation to the same society. But the general conditions for
imagining communities have radically changed.67 Through the IT and electronics
revolution extensive communications systems are set up and operate, and the
nation-state is unable to keep them under control. The revolutionary changes in
transportation and the operation of transnational systems of production all lead
to the state’s no longer being able to stand good for the guarantees it previously
undertook to the citizens and members of the nation. The two components of the
concept of the nation-state diverge, and begin to live a partially separate life.68
In the space created by the separation of state and nation the national community
rivals with other cultural belongings, just as the state too is forced to face competition
in the construction of national belonging. This is made possible, among other things,
by the spread and multiplication of the means and processes of cultural representation
(in both the social and the geographical sense), and no one single actor (state,
institution, organization, individual) is able to monopolize them completely. While
in the ‘golden age’ described by Anderson, printing, the novel and the newspaper
brought revolutionary changes in cultural representation, today this technology
can be used at home; moreover it has become one of several technologies through
else and does not try to change her. http://www.uio.no/english/research/interfaculty-research-areas/
culcom/news/2005/anderson.html.
66
Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” in J. E. Braziel and
A. Mannur (eds) Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 25–48.
67
This is surveyed by Benedict Anderson, in the introduction to Mapping the Nation (ed.) Gopal
Balakrishnan, (London–New York: Verso, 1996), 1–16.
68
In a metaphor favoured by the literature in English, the hyphen linking the nation to the state
is in crisis, and rather than belonging is increasingly coming to signify separation. See Anderson,
introduction to Mapping the Nation, and Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global
Cultural Economy.”
38 |
which alongside language, there are multiple opportunities for transmitting images,
music and sound. Although the distribution of these technologies and tools is far from
uniform among the peoples of the world, they have nevertheless become accessible
to broad masses. But the belongings constructed by various procedures of cultural
representation are not some ‘free market’, or to put it more simply, somebody cannot
simply belong where she or he wants to. The apostles of the myth ‘choice of identity’
overlook the fact that belonging can only be successful through the recognition of
others, not to mention the fact that the cultural codes of otherness in circulation (skin
colour, lineage, language usage etc.) express unequal relations – relations of power.
The exclusive regulation of the ‘world system of images’ by one single actor,
for instance the state within its own territory, is an impossible undertaking,
because this complex, perhaps unorganized order can be characterized by the
separation of economy, politics and culture.69 To assist in the theoretical grasping
of this separation Appadurai introduces the notions of ethnoscape, mediascape,
technoscape, financescape and ideoscape. The suffix -scape refers to the fact that
each actor in the global cultural economy constructs an image of the world fitting
their own historical, linguistic, and political perspective. The state continues
to have a vested interest in understanding, symbolizing and regulating the
ethnoscape as the national order of things, while a multinational company
or a human rights NGO perceives it otherwise, is interested in a differing
representation, and intervenes differently. These perspectives might not even
overlap. A fine example of the sphere of the nation’s cultural representation is that
while the Hungarian state authorities use and exploit Tony Curtis’s reputation
with a defined marketing strategy to launch national characteristics as goods onto
the global market (national branding), at the same time, completely ignoring the
Hungarian and Romanian states, an eco-community initiative in Transylvania
creates Szekler national belonging, and sells the ‘folk art novelties’ it has invented
via the internet.70 Thus the state located in the world system of images – though
it would dearly love to – is unable to appropriate for itself the ideas related to
nationhood. Among its strategic possibilities are to represent it as non-existent
(for instance in the case of multiple attachment), as useful ‘for us’ or as a threat.
And first and foremost, making the nation natural: culturally attaching those
under its sovereignty to the territory.
The cultural representational sphere, the global cultural economy, which
gives place to the nation, is characterized by forms of territoriality which
are independent of geographical fixity, whether it is a matter of f low of
69
70
Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.”
Ágnes Gagyi, “A GóbéPortál és a Székely Ökoközösség kezdeményezés,” anBlokk (2008/1–2): 149–159.
| 39
people, technology, money, information or ideas and ideologies. In the
literature this is termed (from the point of view of nation-state territoriality)
deterritorialization (though as we have seen the application of the nationstate territorial norm itself deterritorializes). With this set of problems
theoretical attention has focused partly on the factors eroding the sovereignty
of the nation-state, and partly on forms of cultural belonging which sidestep
the nation-state principle. The classical nationalist doctrine, which was
widespread by the early twentieth century (with Wilson’s fourteen points),
aimed to reconcile the heimat as birthplace, national consciousness and the
republican polity.71 Interestingly, this doctrine was not a resounding success
even in the nineteenth-century USA: immigrant communities retained their
linguistic, religious and cultural customs, and their political interest in their
country of origin was restricted, apart from the attraction of America, only
by insufficient means of communication and transport. Since the Second
World War, however, steadily more factors have been undermining this
doctrine’s premises. More affordable transport and new communication
technologies enable émigré communities to maintain regular economic and
political links with their homeland without ever wanting to return ‘home’. It
becomes possible to maintain attachment to multiple places, either by regular
migration to and from, or through electronic media. This happens in tandem
with migration on a global scale targeting countries of the economic center,
which is caused primarily by the unequal distribution of wealth and political
persecution (and makes possible the ‘inverted panopticon’72 which through
the global media displays the opportunities of prosperity and success). New
(non-national) forms of imagined communities come into being, and national
communities that are transnational in the sense that they are not attached to
geographical territory, they stake no territorial claims, they do not aim to
create their own state, and they are structured on several kinds of loyalty.
These dispersed national communities are attached in the emotional, cultural
and legal sense (perhaps all three at once), to the country of residence and that
of origin (they are at home in both places and have influence, in the case of
dual citizenship even politically). They are also attached to the space between
two states, in the sense of the link between them, where the ideas and goods
defining the ‘transnational imagined community’ circulate. Finally they take
part in, and approach, supranational organizations, since they represent a new
71
For this line of thinking see Benedict Anderson, “Long-distance nationalism,” Working Paper, vol.
5 (1992), Center for German and European Studies, University of California, 1992.
72
“Violence et colère à l’âge de la globalisation. Entretien avec Arjun Appadurai,” Esprit 334, (May
2007): 75–90.
40 |
source of legitimacy beyond the state and legal authority.73 The construction of
the transnational nation relies on its members’ identification with an imagined
unit through multiple belongings, yet usually is based on common experiences
(colonization, exile, emigration, travel) and the reference basis is not the
territorial ‘us’ but a nation embodied in diasporical space. The unity of these
national communities then is not given by the awareness of common ancestors
or the desire to achieve national self-determination. National belonging is
constructed not on the principle of kin or blood, nor through territory.
The role of territory is replaced by that of space: these cultural, ethnic or
religious nation-communities are organized in a deterritorialized ‘imagined
geography’.74 The existence of transnational nationalism by no means spells
the end of the significance of national territory and territoriality. If space does
replace territory in the formation of these imagined communities, references
outside the territory are given local significance (they are re-localize), just as
the local boundaries of the community are also redefined. The ‘transnational
space’,75 indeed, draws attention to the importance of territorialization
processes and the relation between space and territory.
By taking into account the spatial dynamic of nationalism (deterritorialization
and national uprooting) it is possible to investigate the application of the territorial
norm of the nation-state: how does the nation-state (or other actors) react to
spatial displacements that cast doubts on national belonging? The construction
of national belonging, even its being made natural, is particularly striking when
it is formed anew. More precisely, it could be said that this forming anew is being
done continuously: the dynamics of nation-state spatiality require continuous
reorganization, territory is a process. Bearing in mind the sphere of the cultural
representation of the nation, we can consider the battles waged between the state
and other agents for appropriation of the national idea.
73
Riva Kastoryano, “Vers un nationalisme transnational. Redéfinir la nation, le nationalisme et le
territoire.” Revue française de science politique 56/4 (August 2006): 533–555.
74
Kastoryano, “Vers un nationalisme transnational,” 551. Kastoryano distinguishes transnational
nationalism from diaspora nationalism, which in both its real and mythical senses aims for a return,
and the creation of a state.
75
See Niedermüller, “A lokalitás metamorfózisai”.
| 41
Homelands and Homes
The constitutive role spatial displacement plays in the cultural operation
of the nation is far from unknown to nationalism studies. Here too the most
important point of reference is Anderson, who understands the formation of
the national community in the fact that ‘exiles did eventually make their place
of exile a heimat’.76 His view is that the two prerequisites for the parallelism
and simulteneity making it possible to imagine the nation were that the spatial
distance between parallel groups be sufficiently large, and that the more recent
should be significant in size, permanently sedentary, and be strictly subjugated
to the older.77 These conditions were first met to any considerable extent on the
American continent, which for Anderson explains why nationalism appeared
there rather than in Europe. So it did in the world’s first nation-states (in South
America), in which citizens assume political responsibility and obligations on the
basis of belonging to the community and the territory. Anderson thus makes a
link between the imagining of the national community and the fact that from
the second half of the sixteenth century, millions crossed the Atlantic to the New
World: both European freemen and African slaves. Regarding movement in the
social space, of decisive importance was the fact that for free Creoles European
paths to fulfilment were blocked (or even in the case of a possible failure of the
war of independence they were not threatened by extermination or slavery, since
as ‘whites’, they were Christian, English or Spanish speakers, and the mother
country needed them as intermediaries, insofar as the economic resources of the
estates remained under European control).
At the same time the Old Continent had to confront the migration of the
peasantry into the towns, (caused by the industrial revolution), and the social
consequences of the centralization and development projects of the nineteenthcentury dynastic states (e.g. ‘internal’ linguistic exile through the introduction
of an official language). In Anderson’s explanation, it is clear that various spatial
movements gave birth to national movements.
Of these spatial movements, the latter was primarily a movement in the social
space. It is not simply that the national idea is a product of a change in social order.
Much rather, that the nature of nationalism is creative, that national belonging is
a ‘cognitive and emotional solution’, it can provide a safeguard in the seemingly
chaotic processes of change. It is in this sense that Miroslav Hroch78 considers the
76
Anderson, Long-distance nationalism: world capitalism and the rise of identity politics, Wertheim Lecture,
(Centre for Asian Studies Amsterdam, 1992), 4.
77
For details see Anderson, Imagined Communities, especially chapters four and eleven.
78
Miroslav Hroch, “From National Movement to the Fully-formed Nation: The Nation- building
42 |
legitimacy crisis an indispensible condition in the formation and success of the national
movement, which crisis is related to social, moral and cultural tensions, and a certain
amount of vertical mobility. Hroch places the formation of national movements,
and through them the nations, on the dual axis between capitalist society and the
constitutional polity. But as the insights related to the ‘new national movements’ in
eastern Europe in the 1990s have shown, the role of the ‘old order’ can be played by
any (accustomed) social formation (in this case state socialism).
Following this lead, Eric Hobsbawm79 follows the path trodden by Hroch
when he seeks the answer to why, in Europe, engaging in ethnic politics often
leads to a nationalist movement aspiring to statehood. His explanation runs that
the political significance of the ethnic, ‘whatever it may be’ must be understood
as a withdrawal from social identity to group identity. In situations of ‘social
disorientation’ the nation as a linguistic-cultural community is able to provide
supreme guarantees, and can thus assume a role of social integration. The
rediscovery of ethnic roots can of course happen in many various ways; it becomes
a movement aspiring to statehood where the borders where drawn according
to Wilsonian–Leninist principles80 after 1918. As well as national separatism,
Hobsbawm also regards xenophobia within the nation-state as engaging in ethnic
politics. While the separatist ethno-nationalist movement defends its ‘own values’,
in the latter case Hobsbawm believes it is highly questionable ‘what exactly is being
defended against the “other”, identified with the immigrant strangers’. Finally he
concludes that it is not a matter of the protection of individual positions, nor of a
way of life: the power of xenophobia lies in the fear of the unknown, which is a
concomitant of social disorientation. In such situations the nation and the ethnic
group may once again appear as supreme guarantees: nothing has to be done
to acquire belonging, and one cannot be exluded from it. In Hobsbawm’s view
through xenophobia it is clear who is the ‘other’ and why, where they must belong
and therefore also where ‘we’ belong. This train of thought, expounded in 1991,81
Process in Europe,” in Mapping the Nation (ed.) Gopal Balakrishnan, (London – New York: Verso,
1996) 78–97.
79
Eric John Hobsbawm, “Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe Today,” in Mapping the Nation (ed.)
Gopal Balakrishnan, (London – New York: Verso, 1996) 255–267.
80
Hobsbawm emphasizes that the union of Soviet states was institutionalized according to a linguisticethnic principle that matched Wilson’s. Cf. According to Stalin, the nation is a historically formed, stable
linguistic, territorial and economic community, which is expressed psychologically in the common
culture. J. V. Stalin, “What is a nation?” Pakistan Forum 2/12. (September 1972): 4–5. See also J. V. Stalin,
Works, Vol. 2, 300–81, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), http://www.marx2mao.
com/Stalin/MNQ12.html. Originally published in Prosveshcheniye, 3–5, March–May 1913.
81
The text of this lecture was later published in several organs. The lecture was held on November 23,
1991 before about one thousand anthropologists in Chicago.
| 43
he closed with the following pessimistic prediction: ‘And because we live in an
era when all other human relations and values are in crisis, or at least somewhere
on a journey towards unknown and uncertain destinations, xenophobia looks like
becoming the mass ideology of the twentieth century fin de siècle.’82
The ‘cognitive and emotional support’ provided by the nation apparently then
means that in a social environment in flux, it is able to appear as fixed, or even
perpetual. Because its cultural importance manifests in its naturalness, the nation
is able to fulfil the role of a facility which is untouched by the consequences of
human action. ‘Although the idea of nation with which we have been familiar
may indeed be past its peak’, writes Verdery, ‘being born in something as a natural
condition will remain fundamental to human experience and to scholarship,
even if in new ways.’83 In other words, the nation as a cultural system is able to
invest with meaning the unknown, the existential and cosmological fears and
doubts that lead to anxiety, and thus it provides its members with security and
attachment. At the same time, through its processes that make it natural the
security is unquestionable, since the individual has no choice but to belong to ‘the’
nation, which fate has chosen for them and which they are powerless to change.
But the production of unquestionable belonging presumes the construction of
equally unquestionable non-belonging of outsiders.
Accepting Hobsbawm’s description of the discursive operation of ethnic
differentiation and identification, let us however sit out on the question of
whether his prophecy has been fulfilled, and then let us replace his view of the
permanent moral crisis with the truly spatial context of the ‘comforting’ function
of the nation. As the prime place of the production of cultural otherness, the
figure of the ‘immigrant’ can, following Augé,84 be re-expressed as follows: the
sedentary population is disturbed by immigrants because they bear witness to
the relativity of certainties inscribed into the soil; that is, in the person of the
immigrant the émigré who has left their homeland awakens uncertainty (in this
respect successful immigration causes more anxiety than illegal variety, since the
‘abnormal’ nature of the latter makes it possible to distance and to maintain a faith
placed in the impossibility of settling). When meeting the figure (rather than the
person) of the immigrant the doubt arises whether a birthplace or domicile can
serve as a refuge in any and every circumstance. According to Augé today’s world
is characterized by spatial abundance: in the changes of scale, the multiplication
of images and imagined references, the acceleration of means of transport and so
forth, as a part of what we defined above as the spatial dynamic. If then we wish to
82
83
84
Hobsbawm, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 265.
Katherine Verdery, “Whither ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationlism’? 44-45.
Augé, Non-lieux.
44 |
grasp the role of the Andersonian ‘great journey’ producing the nation in regard to
the present, we must place it in the context of deterritorialization and the various,
everyday forms of ‘uprooting’. Thus we do not restrict the cultural functioning
of the nation to Hroch’s or Hobsbawm’s legitimacy or moral crisis, but define it
as a broader spatial problem. To rephrase Anderson’s question, we must search for
an answer to the question of how, in the context of a spatial dynamic of everyday
displacements querying belonging, any place of residence can become a heimat,
including the continuous maintaining of this place as a homeland.
The role the national-ethnic category plays in self-identification, by serving
as a supreme guarantee, can be investigated from the perspective of spatiality
through the concept of the homeland. The unquestionable security provided by
the homeland arises from helplessness: in the national order of things the homeland
precedes the person, who cannot help where he or she is born, at most they can,
or are bound to, act for their homeland. Whether they laud it or despise it, the
homeland ‘is there’, in its own helpless state. In accordance with the territorial
norm of the nation-state, being-for-the-homeland can only mean staying, and
doubts and threat come only from outside. The formation of the heimat is not
visible in national representation, yet if we investigate the construction of the
homeland as a part of spatial dynamics, it becomes tangible: a matter of continual
interaction of deterritorialization, ‘uprootedness’ and being at home. This can
all have multiple layers: the cultural forms of being at home and the processes
of making a home are more various in the global world than the construction of
the homeland covered by the nation-state territorial norm.85 The latter holds the
promise that nothing need to be done to attain and maintain a sense of being at
home, and the homeland serves as a refuge per se.
How can this inward-turning movement be described? The authors just cited,
Hroch, Hobsbawm and Verdery come to the conclusion that the confidence,
value-saturatedness and permanence provided by the nation give a sense of
security. But they do not go into detail on this introverted process. Ulrich
Beck’s theory on reflexive modernity86 gives a structural explanation, though
exclusively at the institutional level. Beck uses this term for the process during
which modernization, after it has freed from the bonds of feudalism, and has
abolished the embeddedness of traditional societal forms (he calls this phase first
modernity), then begins to erode its own conditions, liquidating the social forms
85
See for example André Levy and Alex Weingrod, Homelands and Diasporas. Holy Lands and Other Places.
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005).
86
Ulrich Beck, “The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization,” in
Reflexive Modernization. Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order ed. Ulrich Beck, Anthony
Giddens and Scott Lash, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1–56.
| 45
typical of industrialized life. Through its internal dynamic the modern society
thus eliminates its own formations (class, stratum, profession, sexual roles, family,
etc.), and also the prerequisites and forms of technical and economic progress.
Modern rational-technological planning is unable to manage the risks produced
as unintended side-effects by its own self. Beck’s theory of the risk-society87 is
pertinent here insofar as it gives an account of how the boundaries articulating
the institutional system of modern society are being queried: boundaries between
nature and society, work and capital, left- and right-wing, public and private.
More precisely, because at the institutional level Beck uses the concept of countermodernization to describe precisely that movement which from a cultural point
of view we can define as the homeland becoming the ultimate refuge. Countermodernization is a political action in reflexive modernity according to the
apparently unquestionable institutional boundaries of the first modernity. As a
strategy it is not against modernization, but ‘simply’ ignores the consequences of
modernization typical of the industrial social order, of the fact that these cannot
be resolved within the old framework. Beck writes of ‘zombi-institutions’ of the
nation-state, the key institutions of the first modernity, which have long been in
a state of clinical death but which are unable to die. They do not make political
change possible, and yet if there are no alternative institutions for political action,
then the mass ‘flight into the masquerade of old certainties’ becomes tempting. In
other words, both institutional action and the opportunities for change according
to reflexive modernity are blocked: in this situation nationalism holds out the
chance for self-identification, (but it cannot keep this promise).
Intervention according to the territorial norm of the nation-state can be
considered a counter-modernization strategy, and the Beckian flight as making
belongings natural. The concept of counter-modernization makes it possible for
us to interpret the failure of the strategy in question, the price which has to
be paid for practicing it. The nation’s closing in on itself is unable to maintain
the homeland intact from the ‘external world’, and hinders the continuous and
necessary adaptation to the changing context (for instance, by using its resources
almost exclusively to define who belongs to the community and who does not).88
Thus reaching back into the past is governed by the idea that nothing can change
what has already happened, that the lost security can be relived. This paradoxical
undertaking however is able to provide only the promise of security, since the
means and procedures giving access to the past are uncertain.
The construction of the nation and the homeland as the ultimate refuge is a
87
88
Ulrich Beck, Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity. (London–Teller Oaks–New Delhi: SAGE, 1992).
See Péter Niedermüller, “Elavuló fogalmak,” Regio (2002/4): 138–147.
46 |
counter-modernization strategy whose failure is striking if we examine what
kind of security it offers the members of the nation. What kind of refuge can be
provided by the consistent application of the territorial norm of the nation-state,
which exludes and even uproots?
The sense of being at home provided by national belonging can be ‘gauged’
on the imaginary axis between ontological security and existential anxiety.89
We can take for instance the formula described by Hroch,90 in which in the
uncertain atmosphere following the collapse of the state-socialist regimes
(similarly to the nineteenth-century) identification with the national group led
to the personification of the nation, and thus the role of ‘collective integration’
is taken on by the national idea. Hroch points out with the above example that
‘[i]n conditions of acute stress, people characteristically tend to over-value the
protective comfort of their own national group.’91 The glorious past of the
personified nation is relived as a part of personal memory, one of the consequences
of which is, according to Hroch, that people consider the nation (i.e. themselves)
as a single body ‘in a more than metaphorical sense’. This refers to the fact that
the assimilation of certain parts of the multitude held to be ethnically kin can
appear as a threat which the members of the personified nation can take as the
amputation of the national body. The national body, continues Hroch, needs its
‘own distinct space’, which is often justified by two conflicting points of reference.
The first is recourse to a principle of territory defined by the ethnic homogeneity
of a population seen as a common linguistic-cultural group. The other is reference
to a historical territory, which is often inhabited by other ‘ethnic groups’ with
minority status. Hroch’s vivid (and well-known) description of the representation
of the national body is one example of the making natural of national belonging.
Territory and nation merge in this body, which one can belong to through
(imagined) blood lineage, but ‘marrying into it’ is ruled out by the joint historical
fate. Social and historical change leaves the national family untouched, or marks
it only in one way, by destroying (amputating) it. But the image of ‘amputation’
evokes anxiety, grief and anger, which further reinforces the fateful belonging
together. This cultural representation of the nation thus does not provide
ontological security: denying change is no way to respond to change. Then again,
it constructs belonging as utterly exclusive,92 not to mention the fact that with
89
Cf. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1991).
90
Miroslav Hroch, “From National Movement to the Fully-formed Nation,” 90.
91
Hroch, “From National Movement to the Fully-formed Nation.”
92
This link is analyzed in detail in Catarina Kinnvall, “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self,
Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security,” Political Psychology 25/5, (October 2004): 741–767.
| 47
the threat of destruction in a certain sense it reproduces existential anxiety. It
would seem that this mobilizing ontological promise of security arising from
the exclusive nature of the nation-state homeland is after all politically worth
the sacrifice. The nation-state construction of the homeland given as an example
is not, however, homely. The question is, in what sense, if any, we can speak of
the homeliness of the homeland.93 Is it possible to imagine a national home not
based on naturalness?
The contradictions and opportunities inherent in the concept of the homeland
can be borne in mind if we are aware that its benefits, first and foremost its security,
do not arise voluntarily; the sense of being at home is a fragile state of mind, the
home has to be constantly cared for through various practices. Furthermore,
vitally, the concept of the homeland is plural, that is, it covers the space of the
place of residence, the birthplace, the ‘area’, the country, the region or an entire
continent, even simultaneously. At the same time it does not necessarily follow
administrative borders (for example, village, town or country borders), and so
an examination of the construction of the homeland puts the emphasis on the
drawing of borders. And finally, particularly in transnational space, the homeland
is not bonded exclusively to the geographical landscape.
Neither is the chance to experience ‘being at home’ restricted to geographical
territories. In his Proust analysis Vincent Descombes writes in connection with
‘Combray cosmology’: ‘Where does the character feel at home? The question
bears less on a geographical territory than a rhetorical territory (rhetorical in the
classical sense, as defined by the rhetorical acts: plea, accusation, eulogy, censure,
recommendation, warning, and so on). The character is at home when he is at
ease with the rhetoric of people with whom he shares life. The sign of being at
home is the ability to make oneself understood without too much difficulty,
and to follow the reasoning of others without any need for long explanations.
The rhetorical country of a character ends where his interlocutors no longer
understand the reasons he gives for his deeds and actions, the criticisms he makes
or the enthusiasms he displays. A disturbance of rhetorical communication marks
the crossing of a frontier, which should of course be envisaged as a border zone,
a marchland, rather than a clearly drawn line.’94 This quotation is an excellent
demonstration of the discursive nature of being at home (its production and
maintenance), which always includes the drawing of a border. At the same time
the concept of border is considered a place of meeting and negotiation, not of
93
Cf. Szakolczai, Árpád, “Nemzet-eredet-mítoszok és otthon-élmény. A probléma,” Regio (2002/4):
147–159.
94
Quoted by Augé: Non-lieux, 135–136.
48 |
delimitation. Thus the homeland is a homely, not exclusive quality (as in the case
of the national body).
Morley95 may be of assistance in defining the concept of home. This concept
relates at once to physical, rhetorical and virtual spaces, on a scale stretching
from the local, through the national to the transnational communities, each
of which can serve as a ‘space of belonging’. Morley poses the question what
kind of links there are between physical and virtual forms of social and cultural
exclusion. He puts the emphasis not on the destabilizing effects of globalization
in media consumption, but on the ‘reterritorialization’ processes simultaneous
with them: the increasingly important role of drawing and maintaining the
borders constructing the home. Mobility or staying at home is not exclusively
the consequence of a personal decision, just as the cultural and economic capital
essential for forming belongings is also unequally distributed throughout the
population. The question is, who has what opportunities and resources to regulate
and control the effects spatial dynamic has on their lives? What chance do they
have in the struggles over drawing and maintaining the borders of their home?
Accepting Morley’s ‘materialist’ approach I shall make a distinction between
the homeland and the home. Both designate a material place; even Descombes’s
‘rhetorical homeland’ is material, since it manifests itself in sounds and actions,
and the space ‘lived in’ during electronic communication is defined by sight/
spectacle and the human body, as well as by sound. While home is not necessarily
attached to the landscape, I shall use the concept of homeland in the geographical
sense. This distinction enables us to take into account the cases when the homeland
is not homely, i.e. when it excludes, be it culturally or (as in the case of forced
migration) physically. Or perhaps those when the lack of a homeland does not
preclude a sense of being at home (in the case of multiple belongings or constant
movement). Thus we place emphasis on the fact that it is not the homeland itself
that provides security, but the practice of inhabiting it, or some technique for
organizing space creates a home from it. Also important is that these practices
and techniques do not necessarily make belonging natural – this could be seen as
the potential in the concept of the homeland.
95
David Morley, Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity, (London: Routledge, 2000). David Morley,
“Belongings: Place, Space and Identity in a Mediated World,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 4/4
(2001): 425–448.
| 49
Spatial Dynamics and National Belonging
In eastern Europe national belonging defined by the nation-state organization of
space has a significant tradition and extensive institutionalized resources. In order
to examine nationalism, as a discursive prescription of the nation-state territorial
norm, account must be taken of the spatial dynamic inseparable from it. This
means partly deterritorialization, with which it competes and to which it reacts:
territory is a process, unceasing de- and reterritorialization. But it also means
the spatial process set in motion by the consistent application of the nation-state
territorial principle: exclusion (moving the populations and the borders), to which
territorial national representation reacts by offering a ‘solution’.
The spatial dynamic of nationalism, then, entails continuous displacements,
which call into question territorialized national belonging, and to which the
natural construction of belonging offers an answer. As we investigate national
belonging in this way, the homeland loses its self-explanatory meanings, and its
construction, maintenance and ‘being at home’ arise as a problem. The practices
constructing belonging are extremely varied: they may be administrative, violent,
legal, they may be ordinary, ceremonial or scholarly, they may serve individuals
or communities, they may differ in the extent of their objectification. What they
have in common is that they are spatial practices, that is, discursive procedures of
spatial representation, which have material and symbolic consequences for the
construction of belongings.
Also interpretable as spatial practices are the national geography or the
cartography mentioned above. Another good example is Löfgren’s analysis,96 in
which he showed that during the nautical weather forecasts on the Swedish state
radio the almost ritually repetitive listing of the names of the coastal observation
stations acts as a ‘magic incantation’, enacting the delimitation of the nation time
and again. In this case the borders of the homeland are given by the walls of the
household, although the observation stations localize geographically: within the
nation thus delimited, which identifies with the family home, the household can
be located anywhere. Similarly, Chandler has shown regarding the British nautical
weather forecast that the information on the dangers of the sea, appearently of no
use for the majority of listeners, reinforces the sense of security in the national
home.97 Indeed, what could be more homely than to learn from the comfort of
one’s own room of the dangers of the stormy seas?
96
Orvar Löfgren, “The Nation as Home or Motel? Metaphors and Media of Belonging,” in Sosiologisk
Årsbok/Yearbook of Sociology (1/2001): 1–34.
97
Quoted by Morely, Home Territories, 106.
50 |
The everyday and routine flagging98 of the nation-state territory is yet another
example of the spatial practices carrying out the construction of the ‘home of
homes’, the homeland as the place of our personal homes. By flagging Billig means
reminder signs through which nationhood is reproduced. Instead of consciously
waved flags he focuses on the routine signals which are responsible for the
everyday, banal nationalism of existing nation-states: the flag flying on public
buildings has become so customary that it is hardly noticed (though its absence
would be). This is what Billig called ‘unconscious reminder’, which asserts itself
through everyday routines, and makes what it refers to natural. Flagging in the
discursive sense covers language customs and expressions which we do not even
notice, but which form a part of the discourse which continues to produce the
world of nations. Through an analysis of standard language (politicians’ speeches,
newspapers, electronic media) Billig shows how the nation-state territory is
represented as a homeland. Thus for instance the procedures of left-right political
argumentation as the basis of debates presume the permanent and substantial
existence of the national ‘us’ (which is why nationalism is neither left- nor rightwing) – in this sense the homeland is the place of argumentation (topos). Deixis99
is also a flagging which delimits the homeland: ‘the’ country means ‘our country’;
‘the’ prime minister means the homeland’s head of government; just is in regard
to ‘the’ weather, what the weather is like beyond the borders is of no interest. Like
Descombes, Billig emphasizes that home is more than a physical place. Customary
forms of speech make the homeland homely: ‘us’ is identified with ‘here’, and
is the center of the world (for instance in the news what happens ‘here’ is more
interesting than what happens elsewhere: ‘abroad’). Because in the majority of
these cases communication is not face to face, the deixis organizes the imaginary.
In the homely representation of the homeland through the media we learn of
wars, famine, without being harmed; in consumption of sport we share in the
national sacrifices and the concomitant pride without sweating; in hate of the
other, without being hit – and so forth.
Another spatial practice constructing belonging is remembrance.
98
Billig, Banal Nationalism, 93–127.
A lexical or grammatical expression which links the utterance to the context in which it is uttered.
For the most part deixis indicates place (here, there), time (back then, today, from time to time) or
person (I, we, you).
99
| 51
2. Between Place and Memory:
the practices of localization
‘– Why do you only take pictures of the rooms we stay in, and never
what we see outside while we travel?
– Those other things are in my memory. The hotel rooms and the
airports are the things I’ll forget.’
Jim Jarmusch: Mystery Train
In 1986 in Hamburg, Western Germany, an unusual memorial was erected to
the victims of Nazism. The ‘Disappearing Monument’ was an obelisk on which
anybody could write, then when the memorial was ‘full’ it was slowly lowered
into the ground, thus leaving no other trace than the memories of those who
had visited it. It was no accident that the first ‘counter-monument’1 was erected
in Germany; it expresses the ambivalent attitude of the post-second-world-war
generations to the cataclysm and the Holocaust: how could the descendants of
the former perpetrators remember the victims of their ancestors? The monument,
a piece of stone with fixed meanings, in itself establishes a link with the past
which brooks no contradiction, and taking into account the totalitarian regimes’
obsession for exploiting monuments for political ends, it is easier to understand
the endeavour to challenge such an approach.
At the same time the creation of counter-monuments is not restricted to
Germany: an ambivalent attitude to the past can be expressed anywhere. The
‘Disappearing Monument’ was also an expression of criticism of the heritagizing,
musealizing and archiving of the past, as two of its most important properties
indicate: firstly, that it can be used, and secondly that it submits to decay, giving
back to living people the opportunity and responsibility for remembering the past.
Regarding the social use of the past, the road leading to counter monuments has
been long. It is a history that certainly begins with modernity, with the creation of
the past in today’s sense, and also with the radically new cultural forms of society’s
relation to the past. It is not simply that the social and cultural significance of the
past has grown, but also that this significance differs from previous ones. New
1
James Young, “The Counter Monument: Memory Against Itself in Germany Today,” Critical Inquiry,
18/2 (1992): 267–96.
52 |
temporal continuities have formed, different procedures for organizing the past
have come into use and become institutionalized (such are the museum, public
commemorations and national holidays). Thus remembering has social functions
and practices, and to examine them the branches of scholarship known as memory
studies2 have come into being. The history of the scholarly study of social memory
is part and parcel of the ‘history of memory’. It is no coincidence that memory
studies started to flourish just as gaps were appearing on the system of social
construction of the past in the nation-state – since we have been able to speak of
memory politics, in the current sense. Today the circumstances are that as well as
or instead of the community-building and maintaining role of memory, research
is focused on its superabundant, almost counter-productive operation, primarily
on the cultural operation of non-forgetting memory, and throw up the question
of the possibility of reconciliation, beneficial forgetting, in din of battle between
mutually exclusive memorial communities.
The approaches and objects of memory studies have, then, become extremely
varied. While an extensive literature deals with remembering and its temporal
context, it would seem that issues of spatiality have been brushed aside in the
profusion of memory disourses. This is in spite of the fact that scholarly talk
dealing with memory is dominated by a wealth of spatial metaphors, particularly
since Pierre Nora’s concept of lieu de mémoire was taken up worldwide. Nora
gave the introductory study3 to the mammoth scholarly undertaking led by him
the subtitle La problématique des lieux. What is the ‘problem’ with the sites? This is
the question I shall seek to answer below, and though I cannot give a generally
valid explanation to the ‘problematic’ of the sites, I shall answer the question of
how an explanation can be given in regard to the spatial problems of belonging.
Briefly, it is by reformulating the contexts of sites and memory according to
the problematic of spatial practices. As a first step, examining the link between
memory and space, I shall discuss apart from the theory of lieu de mémoire two
traditions which Nora also draws on: the concept of locus memoriae from classical
rhetorical tradition, and Maurice Halbwachs’ collective memory theory.4 In all
2
On this see Jeff rey K. Olick and Joyce Robbins, “Social Memory Studies: From ‘Collective
Memory’ to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998):
105–40; on the life story approach I adopt later see Éva Kovács, “Az élettörténeti emlékezet helye az
emlékezetkutatásban,” in Tükörszilánkok – Kádár-korszakok a személyes emlékezetben (ed.) Éva Kovács,
(Budapest: MTA Szociológiai Kutatóintézet, 56-os Intézet 2008), 9–41.
3
Pierre Nora, “Entre Mémoire et Histoire. La problématique des lieux,” in Les lieux de mémoire. I. La
République. (ed.) Pierre Nora, (Paris, Gallimard, 1984). In English: Pierre Nora, “Between Memory
and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire” (trans. Marc Roudebush), Representations, Spring 1989, 26: 7-25.
4
See Zsolt K. Horváth, “Az eltűnt emlékezet nyomában. Pierre Nora és a történeti emlékezetkutatás
francia látképe,” Aetas (1999/3): 132–141.
| 53
three cases, though in different ways, the system of relations of memories, in
other words memory, is equivalent to some spatial arrangement. Secondly, after
the restricted problem of the distribution of memory images, I shall overview
broader sociological theories and research findings related to spatial practices, in
order to raise the issue of memory as a representation of space. Thirdly and finally
I shall define the concept of spatial practices of remembering.
Space and the Culture of Remembering
According to Francis Yates5 all of the ancient text books of rhetoric, albeit to
varying degrees, began with the story of Simonides, to whom is ascribed the
technique of mnemotechnics. In the three extant Latin sources which Yates
discusses,6 at least, this is the case. Once a dignitary called Scopas held a reception
in his house, to which Simonedes was also invited: his task was to recite a poem
of praise about the host. After bargaining the price, the poet satisfied the request,
but he dedicated one passage of the poem to the praise of Castor and Pollux. At
this, his host informed Simonedes he could ask for only half the fee, since the
remainder was owed to the other two persons he had lauded. Shortly afterwards
Simonedes received a message that saying two strangers were waiting in front
of the house, but when he went out he found nobody. Scopas’s house however
collapsed, burying alive the haughty noble and all his guests. The gods had
paid the poet, who then assisted the relatives of the deceased, mangled beyond
recognition, by remembering who sat where, and thus identifying the bodies.
Cicero wrote that Simonedes realized that ‘persons desiring to train this
faculty (of memory) must select places and form mental images of the things
they wish to remember and store those images in the places, so that the order
of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things
will denote the things themselves, and we shall employ the places and images
respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the letters written on it.’7 The key to the
method lies in the location of the memory images, in the spatial arrangement, for
if we store our images of things within a system, they come into a relation with
one another, and we can move in order from one to another. One should try to
imagine the orators, as they speak, taking a mental stroll round a place, usually a
building, and thus the necessary things came to their mind. Quintilian describes
5
Francis A. Yates, The Art of Memory, (University of Chicago Press, 1966).
These three works are Ad Herennium, of unknown authorship and the only complete text book on
rhetoric still extant, Cicero’s De Oratore, and Quintillian’s Institutes of Oratory.
7
Quoted in Yates, The Art of Memory, 12.
6
54 |
the procedure: ‘they place, as it were, their first thought under its symbol, in the
vestibule, and the second in the hall, and then proceed round the courts, locating
thoughts in due order, not only in chambers and porticoes, but on statues and
other like objects.’8Memory, which was one of the five parts of ancient rhetoric,
was spoken of as the inner perception of words and things.9 Two varieties were
distinguished: natural memory, which is a gift of nature, and the art of memory,
with which the former can be developed. In this renowned definition the latter
is formed by the images of things and the places of memory (loci memoriae). As
regards the rules relating to the places of memory, classical writers expressed
themselves in general terms. In the scene of the memory (say in a building) one
can set out from any locus (not necessarily the entrance) in a direction chosen at
random, the masters believed the places should be neither too light nor too dark;
neither too small nor too large; there should be no mass of people in them; they
should be neither far nor near to one nother; the recommended distance was given
as about nine metres; finally they may be real or imagined places.
As can be seen, the relation between image and place, as the manner of
organizing memory images, is not remotely problematic. The author of the only
complete text book of rhetoric extant, Ad Herennium, gives a mere three examples
by way of illustration of the art of memory. The interesting thing is that the
rulebooks leave the choice of imaginary or real location to the orator, whose
imagination is thus given free reign (not necessarily a building – Quintilian also
points to the example of a city). The idea that in order to memorize the places
of memory another locus memoriae might be needed is not even touched upon.
Because the territory of memory is the mind, every pupil had to develop their
own methodology regarding the places of memory, naturally taking into account
the general principles above. The type of arrangement is self-explanatory for
Quintilian, who for his part attached little importance to this early version of
mnemotechnics, saying this dual task of remembering both a speech and places is
too great a burden for the orator. Instead, he crystallizes the analogy with which
his predecessors showed the essence of the method. As in the above quote from
Cicero, the place of memory is much like a wax tablet, on which the images of
things are the letters, and their arrangement is the script. Quintilian suggests that
the orator learn by heart from their own handwriting, because its own individual
style provides them with marks (monitoring their own ability to memorize) and
thus while making a speech it is as if they were reading and it is harder to ‘get lost’.
8
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, Institutes of Oratory. 11.2.20 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856), 336.
The first related to ‘things’ the selection of the object of the speech (inventio), the second to how they
were arranged (dispositio), the third to the selection of fitting words (elocutio), then after memory the work
deals with the use of voice and body appropriate to the words and things (pronuntiatio).
9
| 55
The structure of the places of memory is not provided by ‘objective’ physical
space but by the mind – and if we think about it, this should come as no surprise,
for before modernity and the standardization of units of measurement, distance
was measured by the proportions of the human body and social relations. And
not two inches or ‘day’s marches’ were the same. Yet this is not as self-evident
as it seems. Unlike his predecessors, Quintilian proposes an apparently rational
argument for the mnemotechnical use of places of memory. He writes that in
this case too, practice is the source of theory, since everyone knows from their
experience that if they return to a scene of their earlier life, not only do they
remember it, but the people whom they met there also come to mind, and even
unspoken thoughts float back into the mind. This idea – that through the psychic
mechanisms evoked within us a spatial place is able to conjure up our past –
survives to this day. Thus when considering the relation of remembering and
space, as well as the link between the memory images we must also investigate
the connection between each single memory and the places in space. In what
follows, while acknowledging the power of the spirit of place, I shall argue that
the various techniques of the culture of remembering enact not only inscription
into the memory, but also the arrangement of space, which in a discursive sense
can be understood with the concept of writing.
The spatial order which for the classical orators took the form of an imagined
building, city or some territory, is provided in Halbwachs’s theory by the social
milieu. And this orderliness is the main element of his definition of memory.
Halbwachs finds the main argument for the social determinedness of remembrance
in the difference between dream and recollection:10 it is only during sleep that the
individual is completely free of the social milieu – and even then not completely.
While dream images are diffuse, timeless and undefined in space, memory images
are ordered: we are confronted with the reality of the (reconstructed) past. For
Halbwachs the ordering of memory images is provided by the social frameworks
offered by the group, and with the help of these individuals localize the events of
their past.11 Thus when somebody remembers, the current needs and mentality
of the social milieu around them give them the points of reference which make
certain elements of the past worthy of conjuring up. The social frameworks
mentioned are not permanent, they may change with the social environment,
and certain of their expressions decay (this can be termed forgetting).
10
Maurice Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire,. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994).
The social frameworks of memory are time, space and language, the last of which forms the basis of
every collective framework. I shall return to this at a later stage.
11
56 |
The issue of space arises in two respects in Halbwachs’s work, and this duality
can be linked to the uncertainty with which he alternates between using the
adjectives ‘collective’ and ‘social’ in discussing memory. Since the oeuvre of
Halbwachs is fragmented on the topic, it is a moot point whether the frameworks
of memory can be linked to a concrete body of people with boundaries (in this
case the memory is ‘collective’, for instance a family’s) or whether they are
simply societal in the sense that they are not constructions of the individual.12
Consequently the issue of spatiality arises partly as the relation between the
group and the material environment, and partly as the individual arrangement of
memories, that is: localization (Halbwachs stresses that only individuals are able to
remember). The former points to spatial practices, though not remembrance, and
the latter to the process of remembrance, though not a spatial concept. In what
follows I shall resolve this conflict by defining localization as a spatial practice.
For the moment let us look at what Halbwachs says of the relationship between
group and space in the context of memory.
One of the social frameworks is space: we can only remember abstract intangible
contents if they are crystallized in space, and linked to places. Halbwachs wrote:
‘When we talk about spatial framework we do not mean anything resembling a
geometrical shape. Sociologists have demonstrated that, in many primitive tribes
space is not represented as a homogeneous milieu, but the various parts of it
are differentiated through the characteristics of the mystic nature attributed to
them.’13 In his study ‘Space and the Collective Memory’14 Halbwachs gives a long
list of examples which all prove that every social group outlines its particular
12
Dénes Némedi, Klasszikus szociológia 1890–1945, (Budapest: Napvilág, 2005). Although by the 1930s the
reception of Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (published in 1925) had decided unanimously for the concept
of ‘collective memory’, Halbwachs’s notes show that by the time of his arrest and deportation in 1944
he was thinking in terms of ‘social memory’ (Gérard Namer, Postface, in Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire
by Maurice Halbwachs [Paris: Albin Michel, 1994], 320).
13
Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux, 97. ‘Quand nous parlons d’ailleurs d’un cadre spatial, nous n’entendons
rien qui ressemble à une figure géométrique. Les sociologues ont montré que, dans beaucoup de tribus
primitives, on ne se représente pas l’espace comme un milieu homogène, mais on distingue ses parties par
les qualités de nature mystique qu’on leur attribute […].’ He does not mention which sociologists exactly,
but in all probability this includes Durkheim and Mauss, who in their study Primitive Classification say
that the most primitive form of classification, the totemistic, is followed by the spatial. ‘In one case, the
framework was furnished by the clan itself, in the other by the material mark made on the ground by
the clan. But both forms are of social origin.’ Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, Primitive Classification,
(University of Chicago Press, 1963) 66. Regarding the relationship between society and frameworks,
they state that society was not simply a model in which classification found some kind of raw material,
but the very framework of society became the framework of the system.
14
Maurice Halbwachs, “La mémoire collective et l’espace,” in Maurice Halbwachs, La mémoire collective,
(Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1950), 130–167. English translation of the book: The Collective
Memory, trans. Francis J. Ditter and Vida Yazdi Ditter, (New York: Harper and Row, 1980)
| 57
form in space, and its collective memories are recollected in the resulting spatial
framework. In other words there are as many forms of representing space as
there are groups.15 In this sense space is a crafted material environment, which is
practically identical to the group which lives in it: as Halbwachs puts it, objects
surround us ‘like a silent and immobile society’ . Thus for instance a church is not
simply a place for the religious community to gather, but a space whose division
and internal arrangement meets the needs of worship. Interestingly Halbwachs
does not consider this delineation of space to be a memory work, which is always a
non-recurrent action linked to the birth of the group: the formation of the spatial
framework, i.e. a condition for memory. For Halbwachs it is more important to
show that the structure of space is consubstantial with the structure of society,
and consequently every group clings to the place in which it lives, to which it is
bound by its memory, which is a condition for its very existence.
Space as a material environment made into a system of connected places.
Halbwachs places the emphasis on materiality. This echoes the tenet Durkheim’s
theory of representation which states that the expression of ideal truths can only
be accomplished with the aid of physically perceptible objects. Every collective
representation has a material aspect, which takes on the aura of sanctity. At the
same time the material dimension may point beyond the visual presence, insofar
as it provides to the group an intangible permanence, a sense of stability. ’It is
the spatial image alone that, by reason of its stability gives us an illusion of not
having changed through time and of retrieving the past in the present. But that’s
how memory is defined. Space alone is stable to endure without growing old or
losing any of its parts.’16
It follows from the above that what Halbwachs calls religious geography or
topography serves to enable the religious community to conjure up its founding
story, which is bound to defined, real places. In his last work, dealing with the
context of the holy places of the Christian tradition in Palestine,17 he argues
that the Christian religion had to place in space its own idealogical truths, in
order to invest them with the reality of the past. Furthermore, he explains the
exceptional success of Christianity with the rivalry of the sects jostling for space
in the symbolic universe of the time with the fact that it located itself in the
(radically different) religious-social reality surrounding it: in order to legitimize
15
This is true of time as well. See Maurice Halbwachs, “The reconstruction of the past,” in On Collective
Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992): 46-51.; or “La
memoire collective et le temps,” in Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, 101, (1996): 45–65.
16
Halbwachs, “La mémoire collective,” 167.
17
Maurice Halbwachs, La topographie légendaire des évangiles en terre sainte, (Paris: Presses universitaires
de France, 1971).
58 |
itself as an already existing religion, it used several of the holy places from the
Judaic tradition. We might even say that it bound its religious ideas to existing
places.
Perhaps Halbwachs’s most important insight is that the Christian tradition’s
topography of holy places is based not on the personal witness of Christ’s disciples,
but in accordance with the meanings of the evolved cult, developed with a
subsequent reconstruction. This reconstruction, the way that Christ’s ordinary
life, similar to the leaders of countless other religious movements, was made into
the story of the passion of the Redeemer preparing for death, was made possible
by the detachment of the Christian community (which was becoming the church)
and its religion (becoming universal) from the objective-material environment in
which they formed. According to Halbwachs this explains why the topography
of Christian places was restructured: instead of the locations of Christ’s ordinary
life spent with his disciples, the places to have become central are those related
to Calvary. He writes: ‘The Christians outside Palestine could invoke Jerusalem
without fear of being contradicted by a clashing reality. The image had to adjust
itself to beliefs, not to real places. So, while the actual places became effaced, the
group’s beliefs became stronger. The Christians of Jerusalem, had they been left
alone, without the help of other Christian communities, would have found it
increasingly difficult to replace evangelical history in an entirely transformed local
framework. Although the memory of these events was at risk of disappearing, the
Church replaced that same history in a made-to-measure dogmatic framework
in which the most vivid beliefs of contemporary society could be expressed. It
is hence not surprising that Christians who returned to Jerusalem believed they
found the city of Jesus’s passion as it had been in his days.’18 Thus the system of
places of Christian memory was constructed, the ‘legendary topography’, whose
arrangement is termed by Halbwachs as the logic of places: who passes from one
to the other becomes a part of a story which encapsulates a tradition. Jerusalem
is a theatre where the Passion is played out.
In his study Between Memory and History Nora writes that while previously memory
had milieu, today it has only lieux. He refers to Halbwachs also when he states that
the memory communities in whose collective memory the individuals could have
a place, in whose framework they could localize their memories, have now broken
up. Nora interprets this change as the division of history and memory. With the
end of historical memory, in which the collective (national) memory provided
18
Maurice Halbwachs, “The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in the Holy Land,” in On Collective
Memory, 205.
| 59
the historian (and everyone else) with points of reference, these two methods of
referring to the past have split up. Now it is possible to make a ‘dangerous’ swap of
the meanings of the two terms: on the one hand, the pluralisation of history, the
fact that every group which endeavours to have, publicly and symbolically, its own
existence recognized, writes its own history, which it refers to as memory; and on
the other the transformation which reduces spontaneous lived-through memory
to a never-ending reflexive, fastidious collecting of traces. In this terminology
the two concepts are set against one another: while memory is non-reflexive and
lived through, history is critical and reflexive. The former has ceased, and the role
of the latter is to make accessible the past that has fallen away from the present,
by traces and transmissions (there being no other means).
Nora sees the reasons for this in the uncertainty due to the all-penetrating
experience of change in the present become continuous (which he terms the
acceleration of history) and in the process of emancipation which guarantees every
real or ideological grouping the right to own an independent past. The result is
depressing: in the now uncertain present the future becomes unpredictable, so
the hand-holds with which certain aspects of the past become worthy of keeping
are lost. According to Nora, this is the source of our desperate attempt to record
and collect everything possible which, as past, contrasts with the present. Thus
the spontaneous working of lived-through memory becomes the conscious
compulsion to conserve heritage: heritagization.19 But this compulsion penalizes
the individual: instead of experiencing their identity, they ceaselessly have to
remind themselves who they really are. The arrangement of the places of memory
thus disintegrates into discrete traces, and the selection of events from the past
according to the perspective of the present is replaced by the imperative ‘preserve
everything’.
Nora’s theory is based on the reporting of a loss. Historical memory, or the end
of spontaneous, lived-through memory is in close relationship with the division
between history and memory mentioned above, and with the appearance of a
new phenomenon, ‘memory transmitted by history’. This latter is the equivalent
of the transformation of memory into heritage: it is no longer a lived-through
memory, but a consciously archived one. The historian, indeed, mourns national
history.20 The cooperation which (the historian feels) was characteristic of the
19
On the concepts of heritage and heritagization see A kulturális örökség by Péter Erdősi and Gábor
Sonkoly (Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2004). Péter György, Barbara Kiss, István Monok, (eds), Kulturális
örökség – társadalmi képzelet, (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2005).
20
Régine Robin puts it aptly in an interview: ‘In essence, Nora’s work constitutes a complaint about
the fact that history and memory do not coincide. As long as there exists a grand national narrative,
the scientific study of the past by historians, the ‘mémoire savante’ coincides with this grand narrative.
Naturally, never perfectly. When they no longer coincide at all, the historians make their history but
60 |
mutual relationship between memory and history. In this scheme, there was
a single history, which essentially expressed the nation, just as the nation was
essentially expressed through history, since it became history’s frame, its ‘casting
mold’. Scholarly work in history consisted in correcting and enriching memory:21
‘entire tradition has developed as the controlled exercise and automatic deepening
of memory, the reconstitution of a past without lacunae or faults’.22 In addition
there existed particular memories (decidedly in the plural), the private memories
of groups, which were transmitted by the immediate social milieu. Nora writes
that the collective identity of the nation was constructed in this dual register,
and the task of the state was to watch over their balance.23 To report the end of
national history then is to render problematic not only the supposedly harmonic
relation between memory and history, but also that of the role of the historian,
and indeed the nation itself. In this view ‘the nation is no longer the binding frame
which reinforces the sense of community’, instead of the national community
there are the masses, a loose set of atomized individuals independent one of the
other, ‘a society that tends to recognize individuals only as identical and equal’.24
The undertaking of Les lieux de mémoire can be understood in the context
of the above diagnosis of the era. ‘If we were able to live within memory,’ –
every group does its own questioning, makes its own memory, its own victims and heros, who are not
necessarily recognized by the old grand national narrative. (…) It is no accident that this corresponds
to the desire that history be ‘renationalized’, or to our falling under the spell of the discourse on the
past.’ (‘Au fond, l’œuvre de Nora constitue une plainte devant la non-coïncidence de l’histoire et de la
mémoire. Tant qu’on a un grand récit national, l’élaboration scientifique du passé de la part des historiens,
la « mémoire savante », coïncide avec ce grand récit. Jamais parfaitement, bien entendu. Quand cela ne
coïncide plus du tout, les historiens font leur histoire mais chaque groupe a ses propres questionnements,
sa propre mémoire, ses propres victimes et héros qui ne sont pas forcément reconnus par l’ancien grand
discours national. (…) Ce n’est pas pour rien qu’elle correspond à la volonté de « renationaliser » l’histoire
ou à un réenchantement du discours sur le passé.’ (Régine Robin, “L’histoire et ses fantômes, entrevue
avec Régine Robin,” conducted by Jean-Claude Ravet, Relations 665 (2000). http://cjf.qc.ca/fr/relations/
article.php?ida=2392, accessed February 13, 2012.)
21
Pierre Nora, “L’ère de la commemoration,” in Les lieux de mémoire. III. Les France. 3. De l’archive à
l’emblème (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 975–1012.
22
Pierre Nora, Between Memory and History, 9.
23
Pierre Nora, L’ère de la commémoration. The studies in seven-volume Les lieux de mémoire, made
with the participation of 130 historians, including Nora’s theoretical writings, deal exclusively with the
history of France and ‘French identity’. This emphatically French historiography functions in a national
framework, more precisely it aimed to reappropriate the national framework, so it is no coincidence
that its adoption internationally has not been automatic: The publication of the German Realms of
Memory was preceded by scepticism (K. Horváth, “Az eltűnt emlékezet nyomában” ; Péter Bihari, “A
német emlékezet helyei,” Mozgó Világ (2005/8), http://epa.oszk.hu/01300/01326/00066/13bihari.htm).
On the reception in Hungary see Aetas (1993/3), and Gábor Gyáni, Emlékezés, emlékezet és a történelem
elbeszélése (Budapest: Napvilág Kiadó, 2000).
24
Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 12.
| 61
writes Nora – ‘we would not have needed to consecrate lieux de mémoire in its
name.’25 And there would be no need of the concept of lieu de mémoire, we might
add. However, since the continuity of historical memory, the link between past
and future provided by the national myth, has been broken, and the nation has
been uprooted from ‘its historical framework’, national history can no longer
be written (part three of the seven-volume work bears the title Les France, in
the plural). According to Nora the national history of the past today finds its
continuity in memory, so another history is needed; rather than the history of
the nation, the history of the national memory should be written.26 Les lieux de
mémoire is in fact the conscious reappropriation of the national past by scholarly
means. This is what Nora’s oft-quoted phrase refers to: we no longer celebrate the
nation, rather we study its celebrations. Moreover, he sees the heuristic value of
the concept of lieu de mémoire in the fact that because it justifies the reunification
of objects of a highly disparate nature, it makes it possible to reconstruct the
fragmented nation.27
Nora’s grand historian’s undertaking was designed to save what can be saved,
and if spontaneous memory has had its day, at least to take into account the French
lieux de mémoire. This concept, which at once has the meaning of a realm of
memory and that of a monument, relates to the material or ideological places
where history and memory run crosswise to one another and meet. As Nora puts
it, memory dictates at the lieu de mémoire, and history takes the dictation. He
defines these places as their own references, purely as signs. The lieu de mémoire
has the self-referential characteristic of the ancient rhetorical tradition’s locus
memoriae, and in the latter case the sites of memory were themselves memory
images. But they are also self-referential in the sense that we have seen with
Halbwachs: lieux de memoire, or the sacred sites of Christianity, are the forms
of representation of the collective memory of the group, and tradition itself
supplies them with meaning and thus makes them (sacred) places. For Nora,
the lieu de mémoire is a refuge in which history and memory, whose mutually
complementary operation would otherwise be lost in the past (which of course
renders significance to the person of the historian, who otherwise is merley one of
the individuals fulfilling the obligation of memory), can be made into the present.
The relationship of place and memory in this case occurs as a system of lieux
de mémoire. Since Nora questions the previously self-evident relationship between
memory image and memory, he constructs the principle of arrangement theoretically:
25
Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 8.
Pierre Nora, “La nation-mémoire,” in Les lieux de mémoire. II. La Nation, vol. 3 (Paris, Gallimard,
1986), 647–658.
27
Pierre Nora, “L’ère de la commemoration,” 1011.
26
62 |
he asserts, by definition, that the only place to be a lieu de mémoire is one which is so
in a material, symbolic and functional sense. Then the types of places can be defined
in this three-dimensionsal coordinate system. As he puts it ‘The value of a first attempt
at a typology would lie not in its rigor or comprehensiveness, not even in its evocative
power, but in the fact that it is possible. For the very possibility of a history of lieux
de mémoire demonstrates the existence of an invisible thread linking apparently
unconnected objects. It suggests that the comparison of the cemetery of Père-Lachaise
and the Statistique generale de la France is not the same as the surrealist encounter
of the umbrella and the sewing machine. There is a differentiated network to which
all of these separate identities belong, an unconscious organization of collective
memory that it is our responsibility to bring to consciousness.’28 The concept of the
‘invisible thread’ is not entirely clear, and probably refers to the fact that in spite of
the disintegration of the national milieu the lieux de memoire still retain the sanctity
(or more precisely they construct that space of sanctity) in which through the nation a
‘French memory’ has remained extant. To be sure, Pierre Nora’s theory does not lack
essentialism.29 Instead of construing an invisible thread it would be more worthwhile
to say, that together with the assumed disintegration of the (national) community
the unity of Halbwachs’s topography disintegrates into traces, among which, and
turning them into places, relations are created by scholarly means. Nora’s intention
was to provide a register of lieux de mémoire, by lifting these sacred places in the
pantheon of French national memory. But the search for lieux de mémoire became
the search for memory, and the concept introduced as a scholarly term became a
means of commemoration.30 It was ‘carried away’ by heritagization, reducing the rich,
primarily not material layers of meaning of the concept of place to the meaning of
topographical scene. As the historian said at a conference31 almost two decades later,
whatever he and his colleagues touched became a lieu de mémoire. While making
the register Nora intended to review the nation’s sacred places, the memory had
vanished from them. Nevertheless, perhaps in spite of his intention, in a certain sense
this proved his theory.
28
Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History”, 23.
In his study “Les mémoires d’Etat. De Commynes à de Gaulle” he analyzes the memoirs of statesmen.
He considers these, the greatest achievements of the ‘memory of state’, to be the source of the ‘truth of
truths’, and holds the memoirs of Louis XIV, Napóleon and de Gaulle to be the basis of the superego
of the French. He makes a similarly mystical claim when in footnote 106 he points out that the rhythm
of the first sentence of de Gaulle’s Mémoires (“Je me suis toujours fait une certaine idée de la France.”)
matches that of the first sentence of À la recherche du temps perdu (“Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne
heure.”). Les lieux de mémoire, II. La Nation, vol. 2 (Paris, Gallimard, 1986), 355–400.
30
Pierre Nora, “L’ère de la commémoration.”
31
Pierre Nora, “The Reasons for the Current Upsurge in Memory,” http://www.eurozine.com/
article/2002-04-19-nora-en.html.
29
| 63
This goes to show that instead of any kind of restoration or reappropriation of
some lost completeness, when looking at remembrance and spatiality we are forced
to admit that the orderliness of the places is the result of active and continuous
works of arrangement, the stake of which, given the now customary struggles of
memory politics is difficult to question. The ‘memory boom’ of recent decades
provides many examples32 behind which or as a means of which operates some
spatial demand, be it the recognition of a symbolic position or the declaration of
belonging to a piece of territory. One’s own past guarantees one one’s own place
in the world, and this place often means the declaration of exclusive rights over
a piece of geographical space. As Edward Said has shown,33 the now constant
social polemics around the object and form of remembrance and commemoration
in the widest variety of disciplines is evidence that the art of remembrance is
simply not at the disposal of the modern world, but has become an object of abuse
and exploitation. He emphasizes that we must think of geography as a notion
socially constructed and maintained, which in tandem with the remembering
seen (after Hobsbawm and Ranger34) as invention, is capable of a vast range of
power manipulations. The order which in the classical tradition was the structure
of a building, and for Halbwachs is provided by the ideological unity of Christian
dogma, is subject to constant rearrangement. The process of locating memories
thus becomes the stake for political and power games.
Nora was the first in the scholarly literature on memory to raise the questions
of space and belonging, and to give an explanation for the explosive growth
of significance of memory works (the sense of loss) and for certain changes in
structure (for instance on the clines of individual/collective or public/private). But
it is not worth following down the track he has beaten out, which with its romantic
view of memory (essentially a synonym for an unconsciously repeated routine)
and its exclusive identification of the (nineteenth century) idea of the nation as a
‘social milieu’, is actually a step backwards. What is called spontaneous memory
is nothing other than the presence of the past, and thus not the past, which always
presumes some break, in order to enter into a relationship with it, and thereby
be able to talk at all about memory.35 Furthermore, (national) historical memory,
which he considered unified, was far from free of conflict: even in the nineteenth
32
As well as Nora’s lecture quoted above, see also Maurice Aymard, “History and Memory:
Construction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction,” Diogenes 51/1 (2004): 7–16.
33
Edward W. Said, “Invention, Memory, and Place,” Critical Inquiry, 2000: 175–192.
34
Eric John Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983).
35
Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
64 |
century fierce battles were for participation in the nation, more precisely for the
symbolic monopoly over defining its membership, and thus, for instance, it was
debated which events could be considered constitutive in the national sense.36
Finally the scholarly, emphatically anti-commemorative perspective taken by
Nora was not able to cope with the new situation where legitimate access to the
‘real past’ is less and less the exclusive realm of experts. Gillis goes so far as to
say that today everyone is their own historian. This democratization of the past,
he notes, annoys certain professionals, who still write in the national tradition,
though in everyday life national history is no longer an accurate benchmark of
what we know and what we actually use from the past.37 As the political career of
the concept of lieu de mémoire shows, the question of memory is both scholarly
and socio-political, and these two spheres often overlap or interact.38
Instead of taking into account the various ‘collective memories’ and their
elements ‘held in common’ it is more useful to investigate those remembrance
practices, and their social actors, which and who construct the past as memory.39
Thus memory defines itself as a process, and not as a kind of storehouse. So for
instance when examining national belonging, instead of taking account of the
elements (or ‘realms’40) of ‘Hungarian memory’, more worthwhile would be to
scrutinize the process in which a certain representation of the past is constructed
as Hungarian memory in some historical context. An examination of the practices
which reconstruct the past has the further advantage of making the historical and
local-cultural variety of various mnemotechniques an object of enquiry. The
notion of a culture of remembrance41 is suitable for encompassing the variety of
36
See for instance John R. Gillis (ed.), Commemorations. The Politics of National Identity, (Princeton NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1994).
37
John R. Gillis, “Introduction. Memory and Identity: the History of a Relationship,” in Gillis,
Commemorations, 3–27.
38
Marie-Claire Lavabre, “Paradigmes de la mémoire,” Transcontinentales, 2007/5: 139–149.
39
Jeffrey K. Olick and Joyce Robbins, “Social Memory Studies”; David Middleton and Derek Edwards
(eds) Collective Remembering, (London–New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1990).
40
An interesting parallel with particularlites of Nora’s concept of “realms of memory” dealt with above
is Tamás Hofer’s points for discussion on the exhibition “Hungarians between ‘East’ and ‘West’. National
symbols and Legends” held between March 25 and September 16 1994 in the Museum of Ethnography
in Budapest. The exhibition was conceived in the spirit of Les lieux de mémoire insofar as rather than
showing a ‘national historical’ process, in presenting ‘national themes’ it focused on their juxtaposition.
The spatial arrangement of the individual exhibits as symbols is perhaps even more striking in the case of
an exhibition than it is in a series of volumes containing scholarly studies. Yet the issue of arrangement
arises in both cases. As Hofer points out, these ‘national themes’ are often in practice not national, or in
quotidian practice relate to one another in quite incidental combinations (Tamás Hofer, “Kiállíthatók-e
a magyar ‘emlékezet helyei’,” BUKSZ, (6.1994/4): 465–470).
41
Andreas Huyssen, “Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia,” Public Culture 12(1) (2000): 21–38. The
concept of a culture of memory, used by Jan Assmann, may also be a point of reference, though only
| 65
practices, knowledge-creating procedures and various techniques which organize
the relationship to the past, and present the past as a reality that happened. Huyssen
uses the concept primarily to refer to the fundamental change of temporal
structure that from the 1980’s replaced the basic relation of the ‘present futures’
with that of the ‘present pasts’. The cultural practices of remembrance have the
paradox that while they hold the promise of providing survival strategies for
the fear of and danger of forgetting, these very strategies, such as musealization,
are subject to constant change. Thus reconstructed pasts are always doubtful. In
Huyssen’s words, turning toward remembrance is subconsciously driven by the
ever unfulfilled hope that we anchor ourselves in a world which is characterized
by increasingly unstable time and space experienced fragmentarily. This hope is
unfulfillable because meanwhile we are aware that compensation strategies42 like
musealization are themselves transient and imperfect.
The relationship to the past has become global, which in respect to the change
of temporal structure mentioned above means that the models of representation
of the past, the procedures for managing it and political actions in the name of
the past show considerable similarities, regardless of their geographical location.
Another feature of the globalization of memory is the appearance and operation
of public space disregarding national borders.43 Beyond the competition from
rival representations of the past, a peculiarity of this space is that those who speak
up in it often call into question not only national history, but also scientifically
established history. A vast gamut of groups speak out in the name of ‘forgotten
history’, in order to get their own past recognized. A typical actor in this space
is the witness and the victim, sometimes both at once, who speaks in the name
of those who have suffered grave losses and injuries in the recent past during
wars, genocide, violent resettlement of population, dictatorships and colonial
oppression. As well as the duty to remember (devoir de mémoire),44 justified by the
insofar as we overlook the fact that he defines it as opposed to the individual art of memory. One of
the disadvantages of this opposition is that he links the former to time, and the latter to space: “On
the temporal plane we think in terms of simultaneity or timelessness, the merging of past, present
and future. The corresponding phenomena in the dimenison of space are the way in which “above”
and “belove” mirror one another. Both time and space are merely the metaphorical figurations of a
fundamental distinction.” Jan Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory: ten studies (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2006): 161.
42
These strategies can also be scholarly. Among them, as well as Hermann Lübbe’s muzealization
theory, Huyssen includes Les lieux de mémoire.
43
Henry Rousso, “Vers une mondialisation de la mémore,” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, 94, (2007):
3–11.
44
This concept refers to the common moral imperative according to which we must remember in
order that history not repeat itself. In this line of thought, remembrance per se is good, since it makes it
possible to avoid repeating the tragedies (traumas) of the past. Reference to the ‘duty to remember’ is
66 |
imperative ‘it must never happen again’, a further peculiarity of these voices is
that in addition to bearing witness they often demand justice, and legal symbolic
or financial reparation. In this space characterized by presentism 45 the new form
of political action aims to make people aware of crimes committed in the past
and to win recognition of the losses suffered. The politics of memory conducted
also performs the existence (and as a collective) in the public sphere of those
in whose name it speaks (so much for identity politics, then). In the space of
rival interpretations of the past a vast variety of social actors are at battle, which
incessantly raises the possibility and necessity of peace,46 and the ‘politics of
hope’.47
The various procedures for dealing with the past also flow independently
of nation-states in this space. The memory of the Holocaust has shaped new
forms and models of organizing the relationship to the past, which historically
are as much without precedent as the historical event itself was. In addition to the
political action described earlier, such is the model of ‘coming to terms with the
past’ or ‘confronting the past’ developed in the BRD (Vergangenheitsbewältigung),
which arises whether in relation to genocides committed against other ethnic
groups, or to the crimes committed by recent (communist) dictatorships.48 By
way of example one could point to the joint French-German history book, on
which is modelled a planned Japanese-Chinese, a European Union and even a
Hungarian-Slovak project.
Another arena for the increasingly globalized culture of remembrance is the
capitalist world market and popular culture industry, which makes memory
images, memories and the widest variety of nostalgias consumable, and the
mass media, which making a spectacle of the past provides a feed of pictures and
often nothing other than a mere political practice which aims for symbolic advantage (construction of
one’s own group, the advantages attendant on the status of victim, etc.). Several scholars have criticized
the concept, or more precisely the common practice of remembrance it covers, for instance Tzvetan
Todorov, in his work L’abus de la mémoire (Arléa, 1995.). The title refers both to the abuse of memory
and to the exaggeration of remembrance. Paul Ricoeur also makes the ‘duty to remember’ the object of
criticism (La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, [Paris: Seuil, 2000]). The appropriate remembrance (as opposed
to the inappropriate or damaging forms thereof) is held by Todorov to be exemplary remembrance,
and by Ricoeur to be memory work.
45
François Hartog, Régimes d’historicité : présentisme et expérience du temps, (Paris: du Seuil, 2003).
46
It is in answer to this problem among others that Ricoeur raises the ssues of the ‘happy memory’,
‘good forgetting’ and forgiveness (Ricoeur: La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli).
47
See for instance “Violence et colère à l’âge de la globalisation. Entretien avec Arjun Appadurai,”
Esprit 334, (May 2007): 75–90.
48
A good example of the dispersion of the techniques for representation of the past, in relation to the
Holocaust, is that American social movements also adopt them, using the Holocaust as a symbolic
resource: Arlene Stein, “Whose Memories? Whose Victimhood? Contests for the Holocaust Frame in
Recent Social Movement Discourse,” Sociological Perspectives 41/3 (1998): 519–540.
| 67
narratives of possible knowledges of the past. On the other hand the practices
of remembrance have become localized, that is in their use they take new
forms, they may alter, create or take on new meanings. Part of the culture of
remembrance is the uses of tools made accessible by technological change, the
interpretative schemes and various techniques for visualization of the past, from
commemorations through museums to personal testimony.
As for the spatiality of memory, we must bear in mind that the relationship
between memory and place is far from obvious; the procedures for managing the
past, and what is at stake, depart from the natural or other ‘given’ space, through
which arises the question of localization as a spatial practice. Accordingly, when
defining the production and arrangement of the places of memory, it is worth
setting out from the notion of a culture of remembrance. Meanwhile we must bear
in mind the three theoretical traditions dealing with memory already discussed,
which link remembrance with spatiality: Pierre Nora’s theory, which gives an
explanation for the separation of memory and places – though he attempts to
compensate for this vacuum with lieux de mémoire; Halbwachs’ thinking, which
we have only touched upon, on the social process of localization – although it
is not defined as a spatial practice; finally the classical mnemotechnique, which
draws attention to the importance of the role of imagination – though it treats it
as an individual characteristic and not as a social practice.
Spatial Practices
Such a broadening of the problem area of remembrance and spatiality, through
the notion of the culture of remembrance, makes it possible, when defining the
techniques performing spatial arrangement of memory, to start out from the
process of cultural representation. At the same time instead of the techniques
performing the spatial arrangement of memory we investigate the techniques of
memory performing the spatial arrangement. Thus the problem of places arises as
a question of procedures of spatial representation. Questioning the previously selfevident relationship between the places of memory and the memories has several
theoretical consequences. Apart from the fact that as the form of remembrance
the site of memory also becomes part of theoretical questions asked, the role of
the rememberer also becomes problematic (as Nora’s insights already predict). In
examining cultural representation the emphasis shifts from the represented reality
to the method of representation, to the power relations in which it is realized, and
at the same time to the representer themselves. Researchers’ attention is directed
not at demonstrating the differences or ‘distortions’ between the depiction and the
68 |
reality, but the role of representational practices in constructing reality becomes
a central issue. In what follows I shall review the main theoretical approaches
dealing with the practices of the cultural representation of space. I discussed
earlier the research findings which brought criticism to bear on the congruence
of space and community/culture/group, and their organic interdependence. Now
I shall focus on the practices which are responsible for the relationship between
the two factors. First I shall indicate the political, power and imaginative nature
of the spatial practices, then to their material dimension, primarily through a
reflection of cultural anthropology related to the field and place. In every case it
can be said of spatial practices that they have a role in constructing identity: they
spatialize cultural otherness and sameness.
Behind the growing relativization of places is the now everyday experience that
on our planet, spatial location and social interaction do not always coincide.
One of the things that intensifies the issue of places is physical displacement, for
instance in what is known as postcolonial discourse, in which the well-trodden
and apparently natural modern Western spatiality is far from self-evident. Salman
Rushdie takes up L. P. Hartley’s famous metaphor when he states that the past is
a foreign country, from which we have all emigrated.49 The émigré Indian writer
says that the spatial-physical distance dividing him from his homeland makes the
split from the past a fundamental experience, and while he views the London
townscape through his window, he is unable to regain the past he has left behind
and lost. He creates fictions, referring not to existing Indian cities and people,
but creating imaginary homelands, the Indias of the mind.
Halbwachs too writes of the creative nature of (religious) imagination,50
when he compares the relationship to holy places of the crusaders arriving
from the West and the Christians living in Palestine. But because, like his
contemporaries, the French sociologist considered social milieu and spatial
proximity as consubstantial, he contrasted the imaginary city of Jerusalem with
the reality of the traditions rooted in the land of the ‘real’ Jerusalem. Thus the
highly telling fact that the crusaders who found the city of the Passion altered
details contradicting, missing, confusing but in any ways mismatching to their
religious imagination (erecting buildings or altering the material environment
in some way) is put down by Halbwachs as a disturbing circumstance, which
makes it more difficult to distinguish between real places and those borne of
the imagination. Yet the armed pilgrim can be seen precisely as a symbol of
49
50
Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, (London: Penguin Books, 1991).
Maurice Halbwachs, La topographie légendaire.
| 69
the way that imagination and the exercising of power act hand in hand. This is
what the concept of imaginary geography relates to in Said’s book Orientalism.51
The discourse (both generally held basic truths and the body of institutionalized
knowledge produced by discipline) of orientalism has created the East in the West,
for westerners according to the (dominating) needs of westerners; the category of
East which in the taxonomic system of characteristics, qualities and tendencies is
analogous to the undeveloped, fearsome, needy of assistance, or even exotically
attractive, sensual and irrational, does not exist in the East. Why should it exist
if (as Said claims) the East as such serves the self-construction of the West, in this
sense it is a ‘Western’ invention, through which as the mirror-image of the West
shows what is ‘not’ the West. The East always plays the role of alterego and origin.
The stage whose props are in Halbwachs’s example embodied in the holy places
of Palestine, detaches from its material environment, and the geographical places
are made by Said’s orientalist, as a director, into parts of the set: ‘the Orient is the
stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose
role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate.’52
The concept of imaginary geography, however, although it refers to spatial
practices, frequently loses something of its heuristic power, insofar as it relates
to a geography which so to speak ‘exists only in the imagination’. Indeed, Said
sometimes contrasts it with real geography (which has no more precise definition),
that the discourse of orientalism would distort. In this case the adjective ‘imaginary’
is a synonym for fantasy, and the concept of discourse is whittled down to the
equivalent of the ideological text of the often deliberately malicious orientalist
writer. All this is related to the methodological inconsistencies of Orientalism,
the most important symptom of which is that Said’s critical position vacillates
between that of a Foucauldian discourse analysis and that of a cosmopolitan
humanist carrying out an analysis of the history of ideas.53 Most certainly it is
the former quality of Said’s work that have made it a practically compulsory point
of reference in cultural studies. Thus imaginary geography is the form of practice
of cultural representation (of space) which originates people’s characteristics,
tendencies and scheme of values from the geographical place where they live (or
where they come from). ‘Thus on the one hand the geographical Orient nourished
its inhabitants, guaranteed their characteristics, and denned their specificity; on
the other hand, the geographical Orient solicited the West’s attention.’54 Said
51
Edward W. Said, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 63.
53
James Clifford, “On Orientalism,” In The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography,
Literature, and Art (Harvard University Press, 1988), 255–276.
54
Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 216.
52
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criticizes the concept of culture rooted in the soil, in other words territorialized
culture, when he demonstrates the role that the spatially embodied East–West
dichotomy plays in self-identification; in other words, the conception which
assumes that spatial distance is also cultural distance and vice versa: that identical
spatial location implies communal and cultural cohesion. After he has shown that
the East as a place is a constructed entity, he states that ‘the notion that there are
geographical spaces with indigenous, radically ‘different’ inhabitants who can
be defined on the basis of some religion, culture or racial essence proper to that
geographical space is equally a highly debatable idea.’55 He draws attention to the
societal aspect and role of the imaginary. While in the case of classical orators the
game of imagination remained a personal matter, today we are witnesses of the
societal production of the ‘imaginary’.56
Said’s explanation is that early orientalism tames an essentially unknown and
perhaps for this reason threatening, wild and attractive world, through the power
of the creative imagination. The discovery and learning about the blank patches
on the map, that is, the discursive creation of the East, means the extending of
dominion. But when the pilgrims of modern orientalism visit the East in person,
their gaze, their experiences and their convictions are defined not by the personal
presence in the ‘living geographical reality’, but by orientalism’s system of images,
now fossilised into a topos. Said emphasizes that Chateaubriand’s advice to
travellers to Palestine was to use the Bible as a guide book. The pilgrim looks at
the text, not the landscape, or more precisely the landscape as a topos becomes
the embodiment of the text. Hence, according to Said, the spatial practice of
pilgrimage is ‘after all a form of copying’.57
Something quite similar happens when the West extends not eastwards, but
westwards: in this case the Wild West is subject to civilization. Michel J. Shapiro
analyzes the spatial representation practices58 which during the conquering
of the New World rewrote the natives’ spatial usage procedures by applying
the principle of the nation-state (which in Europe was being consolidated),
thus making them non-existent, wild, and perhaps targets for the civilizing
process. Shapiro gives the name triumphalist geography to the form of spatial
representation which prescribes the ‘European state model’ of space, and which
is characteristically concentric, monocentric and has a exclusive relationship to
55
Quoted by Clifford in “On Orientalism”, 274.
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1996).
57
Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 177.
58
Michael J. Shapiro, “Triumphalist Geographies,” in Spaces of Culture (ed.) Mike Featherstone and
Scott Lash, (London: Sage, 1999), 159–174.
56
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the land. Seen from the perspective of this model of sovereignty, the ‘nomadic
territoriality’ of natives is invisible, and thus the Wild West appears as no-man’s
land, which can freely be taken possession of by the brave pioneers. The product
of the practices of triumphalist geography is the modern, static and ahistorical
map, which according to Shapiro however is in need of supplementary legitimacy.
The narrative of the unified nation, which presents this representation of space
as natural, and the state as an evolutionary achievement, is an indispensible
accessory of the historically mute maps that reproduce the state-centred structure
of global knowledge. Shapiro analyzes the colonizing process as a result of which
‘changing existing geometry, the lineary logic of the state dominates, favouring
what is sedentary, and diminishing and hampering what travels or flows across
the borders. It binds work to the land, and opposes migration, giving no space
whatsoever to the legitimate existence of nomadism (in every sense of the word
space)’.59 Importantly, he also sheds light on the ethical aspects of representation
of space. There is more at stake than just certain things not being shown on the
map. Shapiro reminds us that in the history of the occupation of North America
there was an initial period when the conquerors recognized the native peoples of
the continent as a nation, by right of their own use of territory. They engaged in
diplomatic relations, they made alliances, they battled with them, but in any case
they viewed them as a collective factor in American foreign policy. The decisive
change came in the Jackson era, when as a result of the narrative of a unified nation
(and significantly the European’s appetite for land) the president and congress
revoked the treaties in force made with the native Americans. From this point
on, through the agency of various methods of producing knowledge (including
American anthropology) the Native American peoples gradually became a
problem of domestic policy. In other words, the national borders within the
North American continent were abolished. This excluded a significant part of the
population from the opportunity to start a legitimate dialogue, and they became
threatening or at any rate incongruous elements of the prevalent ‘geographical
world of the imagination’.
Naturally, a critique of the territorial notion of culture, society and the nation,
and the issue of related spatial practices, arises not only in the case the geography
of regions subject to actual colonial domination. With the scientific questioning of
the mosaic-like representation of (national) cultures, that is, with the issue of the
politics of cultural difference, researchers’ attention simultaneously shifts to the
procedures which carry out this arbitrary representation. For instance, to how the
discourse of cultural anthropology presents the native as subject. The ‘metonymic
59
Shapiro, “Triumphalist Geographies”, 48.
72 |
imprisonment’60 of human populations essentializes, makes them exotic and
totalizes. In other words it assigns everyone living in a given place characteristics
thought to be formative, which it then uses as the basis for comparison with other
‘cultures’ and peoples, and projects these cultural characteristics onto society as
‘the whole’.
In a similar spirit, James Clifford places fieldwork, the normative and selfdefining method of classical cultural anthropology, into the history of the spatial
practice of travelling.61 The field is not ‘otherness’ found on location, but the
result of discursive procedures, a peculiar form of travel, in which the field as a
place is interpreted much rather in a framework of distance than of connection,
of context. Apart from this, ‘on field’ nothing is given, it must be worked, it
must be shaped into an independent social space, the method for which is in the
canonized version a special form of travel – defined in contrast to other forms
of travel, primarily tourism, conquest or religious missions. The intensive and
extended presence there characterized by ‘deep’ interaction, physical displacement
and temporary dwelling away from home, as Clifford puts it, the ideal type of
which is Malinowski’s tent, which he pitched in the dwelling place of the natives
he was studying. Fieldwork as a spatial practice is a specific style, quality and
content of living. It creates a cleaned work territory, where nothing disturbs the
researcher’s gaze. This discursive creation and shaping (in both senses of the field,
the conceptual and the material) requires a special discipline of the researcher’s
body. It is the embodiment of a spatial practice: in the normative practice of the
researcher, being there is more important than getting there (or coming back);
during their contact with ‘the field’ certain feelings and attitudes are necessary,
and the power, racial and sexual dimensions of contact are subject to further
normative regulation. The practice typical of the discipline can be characterized
by a sexless, colourless and sexually inactive subject engaging in interaction with
their interlocutors. The normalized body of the subject carrying out the fieldwork
and the assigned repertoire of practice form a part of the distance between the
subject and the object of research, which typically is promoted by maintaining a
position of cultural separatedness.
This briefly outlined critique does not deny the importance of the places, on
the contrary: it makes them the subject of research, instead of ‘common sense’
or the evidence of scientific practice. It draws attention to the fact that this form
60
Arjun Appadurai, “Putting Hierarchy in its Place,” Cultural Anthropology, 3/1 (1988): 36–49.
James Clifford, “Traveling Cultures,”. in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century,
(Harvard University Press, 1997), 17–46, and James Clifford, “Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel and
the Discipline of Anthropology,” in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, (Harvard
University Press, 1997), 52–91.
61
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of ‘locality’ is often a part of scientific activity, which takes no account of the
fact that there are no secluded places or isolated cultures, and that the ‘local’ is
always embedded in a broader spatial network, and thus is to be understood in
and through its external relations, and the way it is in continual interaction with
them.62 At the same time this critique relates primarily to the ‘exotic framework’
of cultural representation. That the places and the spatial practices constructing
them arise as a scientific issue is due in part to the attitude known as the ‘return
of the anthopologist’.63 This is the insight that one’s ‘own society’ can usefully be
made the object of research, and personal spatial movement is not necessary to
understand the ‘us’, in the mirror of the ‘other’. This is partly because in a world of
global cultural flows64 displacement does not necessarily entail a change of place,
or more precisely, it happens without it too. Another reason is the recognition that
the construction of places and the relationship with them requires constant work.
Underpinning this statement is the simple and everyday experience that over
their life, or at a given time, a person can feel attachment to several places at once.
Although the social investment which plays a role in the competitive and
organized production of places is visible primarily in the geographical distance
which separates the one carrying out the representational practices from the
geographical places to which their work relates, it can hardly be said that staying
in one place, the continuous maintaining of a place as place, lacks continuous care
and work. In other words in the case of ‘sedentariness’ the procedures which shape
a parcel of space into a place and maintain it as such, with the related attachments,
can be examined in a similar way. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the social reality
termed by Marc Augé the ‘anthropological place’ and the scholarly problem of
its maintenance, has arisen concerning the non-lieux.65 The former designates the
inhabited space, organized by ‘organic society’, while the latter refers to two
complementary but separate realities: on the one hand, to the spaces constructed
in relation to certain purposes, primarily transport, business and leisure activities
62
On this see for instance Clifford Geertz, “Cultures,” in After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades,
One Anthropologist, (Harvard University Press, 1996), 42–63. and by way of summary Miklós Vörös and
Frida Balázs, “Az antropológiai résztvevő megfigyelés története,” in Településkutatás. Szöveggyűjtemény
(ed.) László Letenyei, (Budapest: L’Harmattan–Ráció, 2005).
63
Mariza G. S. Peirano, “When Anthropology is at Home. The Different Contexts of a Single
Discipline,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 27 (1998): 105–128.
64
Ulf Hannerz, “Flows, Boundaries and Hybrids: Keywords in Transnational Anthropology,”
(Working Paper no. 2 in the Research Program on Transnational Communities, Stockholm) http://
www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/hannerz.pdf; Accessed February 6, 2012; Cecília Kovai,
“Három metafora és egy történet a transznacionalizmus antropológiájából. Ulf Hannerz: Flows, Boundaries
and Hybrids: Keywords in Transnational Anthropology című esszéjéről,” anBlokk (2008/1–2): 167–175.
65
Marc Augé, Non-lieux. Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, (Paris: Seuil, 1992).
74 |
(e.g. airport, supermarket, hotel room, road or even hospital); and on the other to
the relationship which individuals maintain with these spaces. The spatial forms
of places and the non-places (non-lieux) represent two poles of a single continuum,
and a good example of this is the difference in the relationship to each of them.
While they are linked to the anthropological place by communal attachment, seen
as natural and self-evident, to the non-places the link is individual, temporary
and contractual.
In Augé’s phraseology the spatial over-abundance brought forth by
‘supermodernity’, i.e. the plurality and constant variation in scales, speeds,
attachments to real and virtual places, and the multiplication of transit places as
non-places sheds new light on the dual illusion relating to the anthropological
place. On the one hand, on the illusion of indigenous peoples of their rootedness
by birth since time immemorial in the untouched homeland soil, beyond which
nothing is conceivable; on the other hand on the illusion of enthnologists in
which society is completely transparent to itself, so much so that its completeness
is expressed in the smallest of its practices and institutions. Augé points out that
this image of a closed and self-sufficient world is (was) not only an image, i.e. not a
lie, but a myth inscribed into the land, which founded the singularity of the place.
The interesting thing is the real basis for the dual illusion, i.e. the arrangement of
space and the construction of places. The conception and realization of sameness,
relation and difference take place through symbolization one means of which
is the arrangement/treatment (traitement) of place. Augé uses the notion of the
anthropological place for this concrete and symbolic construction of space: a
partially materialized idea, created by those who inhabit their relationships to
the territory, their acquaintances and to others. The result of this construction is
an identical, relational and historical place. Identical insofar as it is an ensemble
of possibilities, prescriptions and prohibitions, whose content is at once spatial
and social; relational because its elements are distributed according to some
order; and historial insofar as it evades historical reflection: the inhabitant of the
anthropological place lives in history, and does not form it.
What was evident for Halbwachs, namely that every society constructs
its own space, hereby arises as a problem. In this spirit Appadurai urges the
rereading of the scholarly literature of anthropology, and the investigation of
the production of locality.66 In his terminology locality is not a spatial concept,
but a characteristic of societal life, which ‘is created by a sense of social directness,
66
Arjun Appadurai, “The Production of Locality,” in Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization, (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 178–200. The author writes: ‘Drawn
into the very localization they seek to document, most ethnographic descriptions have taken locality as
ground not figure, recognizing neither its fragility nor its ethos as a property of social life. This produces
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and a series of relations between the technological and now relative contexts of
interactivity’. In contrast to this he retains the concept of neighbourhood for
the concrete spatial (be it virtual or material) forms of communal life, in which
locality may variously appear as a dimension or value. This dual definition is led
by the endeavour to be able to distinguish between locality as a spatial form and
locality as a dimension of societal life. Thereby it becomes possible to examine
locality as being at home in a world where the realizations of communality are
highly varied, where ‘spatial location, everyday contact and the articulation of
society do not always coincide’. Appadurai captures the relationship of locality
and neighbourhood with the notion of context. He establishes two basic relations,
one of which we can call context-generative, the other context-dependence.
If neighbourhoods were insular and closed off, then they could unhindered
create those forms of locality which organize societal life. But even in this
(hypothetical) case, it is important to note that locality as one aspect of societal
life is not given by nature, but is produced performatively. Appadurai mentions
transitional rites, and techniques of spatial production of locality (for instance,
building a house or mapping uninhabited territories), during which and as a result
of which locality gains material form – it is embodied. The former shapes the
body of the member of a given community (neighbourhood), in a broader sense
the subject, and he terms this the local subject: to be a relative, a friend, to belong
to a community, etc. The latter creates the material form of locality. At the same
time the ritual process socializes time and space. Appadurai writes: ‘One of the
most remarkable general features of the ritual process is its highly specific way of
localizing duration and extension, of giving these categories names and properties,
values and meanings, symptoms and legibility.’67 As a result of the work and care
invested in the production of locality, at a given moment the neighbourhood as
the context of the local subject seems self-evident; it is materially embedded,
socially appropriate and naturally unproblematized – and this context is always
a historically given context.
However no community exists per se: to use Appadurai’s words neighbourhoods
have contexts too, and for the ensemble of these contexts he uses the notion of
ethnoscape. Thus while Augé raises the issue of the anthropological place, albeit
as opposed to non-places but as an ideal type, in itself, Appadurai sees the aspects
of the issue of locality in its historical-social context. The context-dependency
of the social formations known as neighbourhoods derives from their contextgenerative activity (in other words that they define themselves in contrast to
an unproblematized collaboration with the sense of inertia on which locality, as a structure of feeling,
centrally relies.’ Appadurai, “The Production of Locality,” 182
67
Appadurai, “The Production of Locality,” 180.
76 |
other social, material and environmental territories) taking place in unequal
competition. the free production of locality faces several challenges. Among these
Appadurai mentions population mobility, the electronic mass media and such
‘large-scale social formations’ as the modern nation-state. Let us take Appadurai’s
lead in calling the production of locality localization, thus a spatial practice that
both constructs place and the relationship to it (since I take into account the
spatial-material dimension of the production of locality, there will be no need to
distinguish between neighbourhood and locality). The question now is whether
memory practices are capable of producing locality.
The concepts related to spatial practices surveyed above have made possible the
insight that the relation between people and places, and the relationship between
the locality as a material place and as an emotional structure is not self-evident,
but is a social problem. The concept of spatial practice gives an answer to this
problem. This digression was necessary to make comprehensible the spatial aspect
of the culture of remembrance, in other words to arise it in the broader issue of
representation of space. It is now possible to grasp the concepts of representation
of space and remembrance, and to do this through the concept of localization.
Localization is a spatial practice which, through construction of the past carries
out cultural representation of the self, of ‘us’, and the other – with all the spatial
and material consequences thereof. In other words localization arranges not only
the relationship to the past, but space too: it constructs locality, in other words,
a place and belonging.
This aspect of the culture of memory has the characteristics detailed above.
Firstly, it forms a part of the social operation of imagination. In addition, it is
used in a field of power, just as implied by the concept of memory politics in the
context of the issue of identity. Moreover it is always an embodied discursive
practice, which has a material end product. Localization is the spatial practice of
remembrance.
Like every spatial practice and procedure, in a performative sense localization
too can be exploited, appropriated, and its uses cannot be defined by territory or
by discipline. It may be used in the name of the individual and the community,
private or public, everyday, ceremonial-ritualistic or scientific, it may be directed
at constructing one’s own place, or that of the other (and thereby one’s own). But in
every case it can be said that a power relation in the Foucauldian sense is produced,
and during remembrance it arranges the space, or more precisely the relationship
between person and space. It localizes, but does not necessarily territorialize.
It would be far from the truth to claim that every spatial practice is localization.
Only ones which arrange space through a discursive representation of the past
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come into this category. Anthropological fieldwork is not remembrance, though
undeniably it uses localization procedures (primarily writing). Mapping however
is localization, moreover a practice of forgetting, for it constructs the past by
deleting it. A journey made as a tourist is not in itself a localization procedure,
but it becomes so as it archives the journey by various techniques (photography,
video camera, purchase of souvenirs etc.) which objectify, group and make visual
the story of spatial displacement. That a young Japanese fan of Carl Perkins should
travel with his girlfriend to Elvis Presley’s final resting-place in Memphis, and
take pictures only of hotel rooms and airports, the explanation is that a pilgrimage
to these non-places is ineffective, indeed, it is meaningless. Just in whose steps are
we treading in these transit places?
An excellent example of localization is what is known as nostalgia tourism.68
The concept originally applied to the Germans sent in mass exile from eastern
Europe during and after the Second World War, as they regularly visited their
old birthplaces. Whether they did this individually, in groups, as part of ‘patriotic
alliances’, or through tourist agencies specializing in this, visiting home without
the need to return home is a spatial practice (‘going round’) which constructs the
past, in other words it has a role in constructing memory. This is a matter of a
reappropriation of the past and space, one which in addition to having individual
psychological significance, insofar as it localizes the events of the individual’s
past, can be considered a kind of reconstruction of the homeland, a community
practice. The symbolic repossession of birthplaces can be realized in various ways.
Normally a monograph of local history of the settlement is made (Heimatbuch).
A book of local history guides people round the regions formerly inhabited by
Germans, and there is extensive documentation on the state of the village in the
mid-1940s: a map of the village, house numbers, a list of inhabitants; through old
photographs the birthplace can be visited, virtually, but in its state at the time,
as it was when they left. Furthermore the consumption of formerly German
villages and mini-regions as places for recreational purposes is typical: many
buy old houses, and give donations for the preservation or construction of what
is considered the authentic village image. Finally an important point is that the
construction of the material environment takes place through heritagization:
buildings, cemeteries, churches and squares are reconstructed in their mid-1940s
state, memorial plaques are affixed to walls, ‘regional houses’ (Heimatstube) and
museums are run.
68
See for instance Zoltán Ilyés, “Az emlékezés és az újratanulás terei – a ‘honvágyturizmus’ mint tér- és
identitásszervezés,” in Helye(in)k, tárgya(in)k, képe(in)k. A turizmus társadalomtudományos magyarázata (eds)
Zoltán Fejős and Zsolt Szijártó, (Budapest: Néprajzi Múzeum, 2003), 51–58.
78 |
Spatial Practices of Remembrance
In works dealing with memory the truly spatial aspect of the ‘localization of
memories’ occurs only sporadically. As a result of the narrowing of the issue of the
places of memory, the question of spatiality arises primarily in discussions on sites
of memory and memorials, and in this case commemoration obviously has spatial,
material and symbolic consequences (in the sense of a memorial).69 Furthermore
the ritualized forms of the relationship of remembrance and space, the ‘sacred
places’ deserved special attention.70 Approaches inspired by Durkheim71 put the
emphasis on the nature of rites to form beliefs and collective meanings.72 In this
approach the explicit issue relating to space would arise in respect of how the
various ritualized commemorative practices create or modify the meaningful
relationship between the human community and the soil.
A good example of this is the work of American anthropologist Lloyd
Warner. For him too commemorative ceremonies are interesting primarily from
a temporal aspect; he interprets the concept of culture as communication between
69
See for example János Potó, Az emlékeztetés helyei. Emlékművek és politika, (Budapest: Osiris, 2003);
Zsolt K. Horváth, “Harc a szocializmusért szimbolikus mezőben,” Századvég, (2005/1): 31–68. or Margit
Feischmidt, “Lehorgonyzott mítoszok. Kőbe vésett sztereotípiák? A lokalizáció jelentősége az aradi
vértanúk emlékműve és a milleniumi emlékoszlopok kapcsán,” in Mindennapi előítéletek. Társadalmi
távolságok és etnikai sztereotípiák, (eds) Boglárka Bakó, Richárd Papp, and László Szarka (eds) (Budapest:
Balassi, 2006), 370–392.
70
For instance, Gábor Gyáni sees not only historicizing architecture but also the process of sanctification
as part of the context of the cultic meaning of memory and urban space, where the latter process is
the result of ritual use of space: through the example of Heroes’ Square in Budapest he demonstrates
how a sacred place attracts public events organized in the name of the nation, which want to partake
of the sacredness. (Gábor Gyáni, “Kollektív emlékezet és a terek kultusza,” Hungarológiai Közlemények,
(2004/1): 30–39. An examination of the practice of localization would in this case seek an explanation
to how a piece of physical space becomes the ‘square of national heroes’ (national in the literal sense),
and at the same time what space is constructed of the nation, and the extent to which the various uses
modify this space.
71
On this see Jeffrey C. Alexander, “Introduction: Durkheimian sociology and cultural studies today,”
in Durkheimian sociology: cultural studies, (ed.) Jeffrey C. Alexander, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988).
72
Barry Schwartz for instance examines the ritual process during which the fi gure of American
president Abraham Lincoln was transformed, during the funeral ceremony and other rituals, from
an ‘imperfect martyr’, i.e. from a controversial mortal politician into a national symbol. Lincoln’s
assassination on April 14 was followed by a period of official mourning, during which the president’s
earthly remains were transported from Washington to Springfield Illinois by May 5, where they were
laid to rest. This became a mass ritual as many folk made a pilgrimage to the funeral procession pay
their respects. This was a re-writing of the past in which through ceremonies a unified nation was
forged in mourning (Schwartz does not touch on the power of the rite to construct space). See Barry
Schwartz, “Mourning and the Making of a Sacred Symbol: Durkheim and the Lincoln Assassination.”
Social Forces, 70/2 (1991): 343–364.
| 79
the deceased and living generations, which is carried out by way of symbols
created and maintained with ritual actions. During his five-year fieldwork in a
small American town called Yankee City the anthropologist subjected the series
of celebrations organized for the three-hundred-year existence of the city to a
detailed analysis.73 The most popular event was a procession in which various
events from Yankee City’s history between 1630 and 1930 were presented in
chronological order. Forty-two floats made their way through the town, and
on each one, among historically realistic scenery, living people played out the
events of the past. As well as this, many locations, buildings and objects in Yankee
City were given distinguishing marks, with a brief text attached describing the
historical significance of the landmark. In both actions Warner sees an essential
phase of the ritualization of the past. He analyzes the principles for choosing
each historical event and site, and the procedure for legitimizing it, but he pays
no attention either to the spatial representation of each scene, or to the marking
of certain sites in the city – and these can be considered localization practices.
The material-spatial nature of rites becomes emphatic in Warner’s study on the
cemetery.74 On the one hand he considers the procedures to be secular rites of
transition by which the body of the deceased passes through many transformations
to be placed in the earth: from the realm of the profane to the sacred (and the
‘technicians of transition’ include the priest or minister, the lawyer, the doctor,
the undertaker etc.). On the other hand he sees the cemetery as a collective
representation which expresses the fundamental beliefs of the community, the
relationship of its members, and the way the secular world of the living and the
spiritual one of the dead are connected. The cemetery is the designated place for
communication between the living and the dead. One of the questions he poses
is: what happens if someone excavates their ancestor’s remains, and has them
reburied in a more illustrious part of the cemetery? Based on the above, the answer
is that the socially mobile descendant localizes their own place (their situation) in
the communal hierarchy, and thus rewrites the hierarchy.
Indeed, the spatial-material relevance of commemorative ceremonies is
perhaps the most obvious in the case of burial or reburial. On the one hand,
through the rite the lifeless body goes through a transformation, becoming a
sacred dead, embodying meanings that go beyond the personal qualities of the
formerly living individual – in other words, it gains communal significance. The
human body, by virtue of its materiality, in any case lends itself to being the
object and medium of construction. This magical effect is due to the human
73
W. Lloyd Warner, The Living and the Dead. A Study of the Syimbolic Life of Americans, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1959).
74
The City of the Dead, in Warner, The Living and the Dead, 280–321.
80 |
body being conceived of as a part of space, with its own boundaries. The body
is a heterogenous and hierarchized space, eminently suitable for imaginative
investment: territories can be conceived of as an image of the human body,
and the human body as a territory.75 This is particularly true of dead bodies:
their materiality is more emphatically marked than that of living bodies, and
besides their palpable reality they nurture the need to place them somewhere; in
addition they are surfaces of ambiguity on which a wide variety of meanings can
be inscribed, while their significance (not their meaning, over which battles are
fought) is accepted by everyone; finally they are related to cosmic uncertainties
and fears (they raise questions of life, death and meaning).76 On the other hand
during burial or reburial, that is, placing the body in the final resting place, the
meaning inscribed in the body are linked to the materiality of the earth, and vice
versa. Thus it is possible that the rituals associated with the dead carry out the
rearrangement of the symbolic universes of the living (in both space and time).77
This then is a ritual localization which constructs the place (the habitation) of a
human community, and also forms the attachment to this place, moreover by
making the human relations a part of the natural environment.
Where do rites get this creative power? Through the commemorative
ceremony the ritual re-enactment of the memorial narrative is a performative
act that gives the illusion of the unchanged repetition of past events. The rite
also defines the relationship which is binding on the action and those who carry
it out. Connerton uses the concept of a rhetoric of re-enactment for the creative
nature of the action consisting of the carrying out of prescribed procedures
and the revival of images, which is characterized by a triple articulation.78 The
first is the structure of sacred time, which has been qualitatively different since
calendars began; the second is the verbal reperformance (liturgical language); and
the third is articulation made at the bodily level (gestures, posture, movement).
Connerton is most preoccupied by this latter dimension, bodily automatism,
or as he calls it, the transmission of habitual memory. However, in addition to
75
Marc Augé, Non-lieux. In connection with the memory of noble families, Halbwachs writes that the
noble quality of a landed gentleman manifests itself in his land, in which we perceive the figure of the
person of the landed gentleman. The totality of land, forests, hills and plains gained through conquering,
royal bequest, marriage or inherited have a personal physiognomy: they reflect the figure and history
of the noble family. Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux, 225.
76
Katherine Verdery, The Political Life of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change, (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999).
77
See Katherine Verdery, The Political Life of Dead Bodies; Susan Gal, “Bartok’s funeral. Representations
of Europe in Hungarian Political Rhetoric,” in American Ethnologist 18 (1991/3): 440–458.; Andras
Zempléni, “Sepulchral Land and Territory of the Nation: Reburial Rituals in Contemporary Hungary,”
in A nemzet antropológiája, (ed.) András A. Gergely, (Budapest: Új mandátum, 2002), 73–81.
78
Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember? (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
| 81
the bodily articulation of commemoration, we should not forget that during
the re-enactment the ceremony creates a space of differing quality from the
everyday – a sacred space. The declaration of ‘in this place’ as identical produces
commemorative site, that of the cultivated past event, and its relationship with the
‘world’ – in a similar way to that which Connerton describes in regard to time.
Although the practices of localization are always performative, they are not
exclusively ritualized. For a non-ritual definition of them, it is once more worth
taking Halbwachs’s work as a starting point. Though Durkheim’s influence is
undeniable, a key difference between their theories is that Halbwachs places
the emphasis on everyday and personal communication in the maintaining of
memory understood as social reconstruction, as opposed to the Durkheimian
equivalences of individual-profane and social-sacred. As I mentioned earlier,
Halbwachs dealt with the space-arranging aspect of the memory process only
indirectly, in his study on the Holy Land. He too uses the concept of localization,
but without any bodily-material context in regard of its spatial aspects.79 For him,
localization is a form of individual reflection, the rational process during which
an individual reconstructs their memories in a social framework, adjusting them
to the memories of others.80 At the same time localization is a social activity, since
when it creates a located memory it uses and interrelates communally produced
and maintained concepts, ideas, judgements, belief systems, collective notions,
material places, etc. In other words, the most fundamental component of the
‘social frameworks’ is language. While Halbwachs ascribed a role in localization
only to ‘linguistic conventions’, today we can say that language is the chief
medium of representation of the past.
Based on this, we can define the practices of localization in discursive terms.
In relation to the Foucauldian concept of discourse81 used here, three factors merit
79
See Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux, 98.
This is the reason he states there is no such thing as purely individual memory, or that remembrance
is not the reliving of the past: through localization the individual reconstructs the memory placing
it in the perspective of others. Halbwachs’s starting point is thus that the past in its entirety is never
a given for us. Here he is taking issue with the view of contemporary psychology that localization is
the positioning of pre-existing individual memories, in other words, that there is no social dimension
to the creation of memories. One of Halbwachs’s examples of the reflection that takes place through
localization: we search for the circumstances in which we first met someone. During this, we reason
that they are probably too young for us to have met them before a certain period; nor can it have been
at another time, because then we were abroad; because their job is such-and-such, perhaps we may have
met them in such-and-such circumstances, etc. Thus periods, significant places and events serve as points
of reference, and these are always collective representations. Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux, chapter 4.
81
On the linguistic-discursive social science approaches see among others Márton Szabó (ed.),
Szövegvalóság: Írások a szimbolikus és diszkurzív politikáról, (Budapest: Scientia Humana, 1997); Márton
Szabó, Politikai tudáselméletek: Szemantikai, szimbolikus, retorikai és kommunikatív-diszkurzív értelmezések
80
82 |
particular attention. The first, is that discourse is not identical to text: it is a form
of social action, a series of acts, which has a history. Every utterance is made in this
historical context, and additionally every utterance alters the discourse, which is
thus embodied in practices.
At the same time, and this is the second factor, although knowledge and power
manifest through language, the excercising of power also has a non-linguistic
dimension. The notion of knowledge-power refers to the fact that there is no
power relationship without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge,
nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time
power relations.82 In discourse analysis Foucault goes as far as establishing power
techniques responsible (also) for the production of knowledge. The non-linguistic
manifestation of the various forms of exercising of power is the constitution
of the visible, or in other words, of space.83 Thus for instance panopticism is an
arrangement which automizes power, and robs it of individuality (which is why
Foucault calls it a machine): it is embodied not in the person, but in the division
of bodies, surfaces, lights and gazes. In this respect the power techniques of spatial
arrangement subjectify (discipline, for example, individualizes: the designation
of place in the analytical space individualizes bodies).84
For Foucault power and territory are complementary concepts,85 and the various
types of exercising of power can be distinguished by what kind of space they constitute
as their own field of operation, and how. Foucault describes the different ways of
constitution of space with the notion of technology, which is different for each form
of power: in the cases of exercising legal or sovereign power, of discipline, and of
the dispositive of security.86 Thus, to simplify, the disciplining power organizes an
artificial and analytical space, divides it into elements according to functions, classifies
a politikáról, (Budapest: Universitas–Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, 1998); Márton Szabó, Balázs Kiss, and
Zsolt Boda (eds). Szövegváltozatok a politikára: Nyelv, szimbólum, retorika, diskurzus, (Budapest: Universitas
– Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, 2000); Dávid Kaposi, ed. “Diszkurzív pszichológia,” Replika 53, (2005):
21–87;Zsuzsanna Géring and Máté Zombory, “Kritikai diskurzusok,” in Modern szociológiai paradigmák,
(ed.) Dénes Némedi, (Budapest: Napvilág, 2008) 383–461.
82
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison (London: Penguin Books, 1977): 27.
83
On Foucault’s conception of power and on how the linguistic and non-linguistic are related in the
organization of knowledge-power, see Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, (Paris: Minuit, 1986), particularly the
chapter “un nouveau cartographe (“Surveiller et punir”),” 31–51.Foucault sets out his view of power
in detail in volume one of the History of Sexuality: Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The
Will to Knowledge, (London: Penguin [1976] 1998).
84
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, (Knopf Doubleday, 1977).
85
A brief summary is given in Frédéric Gros, “Entre pouvoir et territoire: Deleuze, Foucault,”
http://1libertaire.free.fr/pouvoirterr.html. Accessed February 6, 2012.
86
The concept of the dispositive refers to the fact that some operation of power taken generally (in
Discipline and Punish Foucault calls this the abstract machine) takes on a concrete-material form in its own
linguistic and spatial arrangement. To put it another way, the concrete use of technology, the method of
| 83
and distributes them, and through training and constant surveillance prescribes some
conduct down to the minutest details according to an optimal model enforced as a
norm. This kind of division of space also uses the human body as a surface of power: in
Foucault’s words, surveillance is exercised over the human body. However, the surface
of intervention of the dispositives of security is the population seen as a natural reality,
and its main method is laisser-faire.87 In this case we are dealing with a constitution
of space which for the population serves as the milieu for life, existence, and work.
Thirdly there is the question of performativity. Foucault does not use this
concept, since he considers power relation the expression of a relation of force,
and a relation of force is stimulating, exciting, combinative type of function (thus
power is productive and operative). Performativity refers to this ‘creative’ power
of discourse.88
I will restrict the examination of the localization practices to narration, and
I shall follow Michel de Certeau89 in defining narration (as a discursive act)
as a spatial practice. De Certeau writes that narration carries out the task of
transforming places into spaces, and spaces into places. The concept of place here
in essence represents the Foucauldian principle of disciplining division of space:
an order in which elements are distributed in relationships of juxtaposition, and
where the law of the ’proper’ rules, since in the system of categorized positions
no element can be substituted. Space, by contrast, is space for movement, and is
created within the order of the ’proper’ by the way it is used, space is a practiced
place.90 To define the spatial practices of narration de Certeau introduces the
criteria of the ‘map’ and the ‘journey made’ as two ways of description. While
intervention, is one way of operating power relations according to a function, and a function through
these power relations. Deleuze, Foucault.
87
Michel Foucault, Sécurité, territoire, population, Cours au Collège de France 1977–1978, (Seuil/Gallimard,
2004).
88
For the concept of the performative see John L. Austin, How to do Things with Words: The William James
Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955, (ed.) J. O. Urmson, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962). On the
non-intentional concept of performativity seeJudith Butler, Bodies that matter: on the discursive limitations
of “sex”, (New York, London: Routledge, 1993).
89
Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien. 1. arts de faire, (Gallimard, 1990).
90
According to de Certeau, it is within the forced milieu of strategic categorization, own places and
the functions assigned to them that practices of resistance, distortion and diversion develop during use.
This means that the discursive constraint and performativity (resistance) are inseparable one from the
other. One may fully concur with this statement; less so however with the idea that the means of use
are qualitatively different from the operation of the discourse. Rather, drawing on Foucault, it could be
said that resistance itself is strategic use in the field of power relations. It is relatively easy to criticize
de Certeau for taking as a given the authorities’ map-like drawing of space, in which he examines the
tactical modes of use. In other words, he takes no account of the fact that the authorities’ formation of
the system of places is also created through practices. Interestingly however, this does not pertain to
his thinking on narration. See de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien.
84 |
the former can be understood as a way of seeing, and relates to the projection of
one order of places on a totalizing plane, the latter refers to spatializing practices
through the notion of walking. He writes that in narration ‘ journeys made’
dominate, which provide the prerequisites for the ‘map’. Based on this, we can
say that narration is a spatial practice which carries out description in both senses,
and its main function is to designate, maintain or displace the boundaries.
The explanation of the problem of places has to do with localization, that is,
through the methods of cultural and material production of place and belonging,
it questions the construction of home, or being at home, in the construction of the
relationship to the past. One possible way of examining localization is by investigating
the construction of place and belonging in the national representation.
National Localization
In the context of spatial dynamics the construction of national belonging is nothing
other than a continuous positioning in a space of constant change, i.e. the use of
spatial practices: drawing a border, using space, spatializing relationships. Of the
spatial practices of the national discourse in what follows I shall deal with memory
seen as localization, for memory after all is, alongside the other forms of spatiality, the
key factor of national belonging. National localization constructs belonging, in other
words a heimat and a belonging (a home), spatial national attachment.
The spatializing practice of remembrance I examine is narration: I shall
analyze national narratives of the past given as a reaction to spatial challenges.
Narration is a discursive practice which is not identical to text: the utterance
has a bodily-material dimension, and the narration localizes not only in time,
but also in space. It delineates boundaries and produces a spatial relationship, in
other words it constructs belonging. This means that during the analysis account
must be taken of the representation of space not only in the text, but also in the
discursive practice of narration (e.g. the performative act of ‘here and now’).
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3. The Return to Europe:
state politics of memory and Hungarian belonging*
In a literary history published in 1941 George Călinescu proved that the
Romanians were an ‘ancient people’ by saying that they withdrew up into the
hills and lived in villages. ‘The new, nomadic peoples on the contrary are noisy,
gesticulating, and obviously receptive to civilization, (…) the Hungarians, being
a people of recent origin, are attracted by urbanization and architecture, without
their becoming incorporated into nature. They have no villages, only cities and
towns.’1 This argument might strike many experts familiar with the customary
‘critique of orientalism’ as somewhat unusual. Firstly, in this case cultural disdain
is directed from east to west rather than in reverse; secondly, achievements of
civilization such as urbanization and aesthetics of architecture, rather than
inspiring admiration, are seen as expressions of decadence, and testify to the
breaking up of the harmony with Nature, they are thus the denial of ancientness,
the expression of cultural inferiority. This Romanian author is quoted by Tamás
Hofer, who characterized the linking of the history of the origins of Hungarians
with the mystic-stylized image of the East or Asia as ‘Hungarian orientalism’.
He wrote that the Hungarians ‘rather than attempting to trace their ancestors,
who settled in the Carpathian Basin, back to old ancient homelands, classified
themselves into “great holy Asia”’.2 By Hungarian orientalism he therefore means
primarily the ‘orientalisation’ of the history of Hungarian culture, and since he
* An earlier version of this study appeared under the title “Nemzeti rítusok kartográfiája”, Replika
56–57 (2006), 61–81; see also Máté Zombory, “Le retour des Hongrois à l’Europe. Appartenance
nationale et représentation de l’espace mémoriel,” in L’Europe et ses représentations du passé. Les tourments
de la mémoire, (ed.) Marie-Claude Maurel and Françoise Mayer, (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008), 147–166;
and Máté Zombory, “The Cartography of National Rites,” Res Publica Nowa, Special Issue – V4 “Are
we East or West?” (2009): 21–31.
1
Quoted by Tamás Hofer, “Paraszti hagyományokból nemzeti szimbólumok – Adalékok a magyar
nemzeti műveltség történetéhez az utolsó száz évben,” Janus, (1989): 67.
2
Tamás Hofer, “Paraszti hagyományokból”, 66.
86 |
uses this concept not in a discursive sense, he states that in the proud emphasizing
of easternness ‘the Hungarians have not grasped the difference between the
way orientalism is interpreted in Europe and in Hungary’,3 – compared for
instance to Edvard Beneš’s consistent mentioning of the Hungarians as Asian, in
all probability not with the intention of expressing political admiration for an
ancient and proud people.
On the one hand, Hofer points out that the values ascribed to East and West,
the relative signification of and value hierarchy between the features expressed
by these spatial directions, or as he calls it the ‘geographical sense of position’,
may and indeed does change as history progresses,4 thus in the period referred
to above the main point was to differentiate oneself from ‘the Austrians’, from
the West. The construction of national identity is always carried out via (spatial)
distancing from another or others. On the other hand he makes a distinction
between ‘Hungarian’ orientalism and presumably other types, thus showing that
orientalism is not necessarily the same everywhere: indeed the ‘eastern origin’ of
the Hungarians is a structural difference that affects the construction of the image
of the East, and also self-identification.
The reason this is important in the following analysis is that the meaning
of ‘returning to Europe’ and its social significance is inseparable, as regards its
role in constructing identity through spatial self-definition, from the East-West
differentiation. It will suffice to remark just briefly that the concepts of Europe
and the West are today used as synonyms. Since I will analyse the procedures of
Hungarian national localization post-1989, it will be worth examining in what
way (if at all) the ‘critique of orientalism’ affecting the eastern European region
might be of assistance. Following Said’s Orientalism, there have been a whole
series of analyses of eastern Europe, of ‘the relationship between East and West’
or ‘eastern European orientalism’.
3
Tamás Hofer, “Paraszti hagyományokból”, 66.
See also Tamás Hofer, “Bevezető. Témák és megközelítések,” in Magyarok Kelet és Nyugat közt. A
nemzettudat változó jelképei, (ed.) Tamás Hofer, (Budapest: Néprajzi Múzeum – Balassi, 1996), 7–23.
4
| 87
Disdainful Imperial Gazes
The first criticism generally levelled in relation to a critique of eastern European
‘orientalism’ is whether it is at all possible to speak of post-colonialism in
eastern Europe, where there was no actual colonial domination.5 This question
proves to be rhetorical, since the aim of post-colonial criticism,6 the unequal
power conditions of identifying others and oneself, pertains in cases other than
that of colonialism in the historic sense. Violence exercised on another is not
necessarily military. A colonial gaze, cultural disdain, and exclusion may take
place anywhere; the main contribution of post-colonial criticism is to show that
utterances are made in a context of unequal power relations.
The eastern European ‘critique of orientalism’ has in many cases demonstrated,
analysed and criticized the unequal relations between ‘East’ and ‘West’. In spite
of the fact that it sheds light on important aspects of existing power relations in
cultural representation, it often considers the oppressed ‘East’ and the oppressing
‘West’,7 and the relationship between them, as uniform and constant.8 It is no
coincidence that post-colonial criticism started with the (cultural) violence
committed by the ‘West’, since during colonial rule some were offenders and
others became victims. Bearing in mind the theoretical and methodological
insights of post-colonial criticism, it is worth asking the question: how do space,
belonging and power become enmeshed? Cultural disdain may be directed not
only from west to east, and a colonial gaze is not necessarily directed eastwards,
just as the ‘West’ and the ‘East’ take on different meaning depending on the
hierarchical context of the utterance.
Milica Bakić-Hayden takes as her starting point the utterance, the use of the
East–West differentiation. She examines the reproduction of the dichotomy of the
5
See for instance Csaba Dupcsik, “Falak és faltörők,” in 2000, 7–8 (2000): 17–30.
Edward Said and Christoph Burgmer, “Die Konstruktion des Anderen. Gespräch mit Edward Said,”
in Rassismus in der Diskussion (ed) Christoph Burgmer (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1999): 27-44.
7
In his historical work Larry Wolff seeks the answer to the question of how the authorities’ construction
of the ‘European East’, the shift from the North–South division to the East–West division, has taken
place. He goes so far as to claim that the concept of Eastern Europe has become entangeld with the
evolving orientalism identified and described by Said. Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1994).
8
József Böröcz, for example, demonstrates that the European Union’s ‘geopolitical game called
eastern expansion’ has brought the newly acceded and associated countries into a situation which
overall circumstances of these countries akin to certain forms of colonial rule (“dependent territories”,
“protectorates”). However, he sees in this the preservation of the global privileges of the former colonial
powers (western European countries). Empire’s New Clothes. Unveiling EU Enlargement, (ed.) József Böröcz
and Melinda Kovács (2001), http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~eu/Empire.pdf
6
88 |
positive West and the negative East, or as she terms it ‘nesting orientalism’.9 This
concept refers to the gradual nature of the image of the East, that what is further
east is ‘more different’, wherever the one who applies the East–West division
may be located. In this concept East is not a priori located geographically, though
the West is. Through the example of Yugoslavia Bakić-Hayden demonstrates
how the designation of ‘other’ has been appropriated and manipulated by those
whom orientalist discourse has signified as ‘other’. Thus while Europe devalued
not only the ‘real’ east but those European territories thereof covered by the
Ottoman Empire, the Yugoslavs who lived in the territories of the former
Habsburg Empire distinguished themselves from those ‘improper’ ones who lived
in territories of the former Ottoman Empire. In this latter territory Orthodox
Christians considered themselves ‘more European’ than European Muslims, who
differentiated themselves from those who lived further east as non-European. In
the struggles of cultural representation of the self and the other, those who scored
fewer points on the ‘hegemonic western scale’ (‘westernness’, ‘Europeanness’)
found their own ‘others’ whom they evaluated as even lower. One concomitant
of this discursive logic is that Europe appears as uniform, and internal diversity
is banished from it: the homogenous ‘European’ essence as civilized, enlightened,
and advanced, becomes a benchmark with which countries on the periphery
of Europe judge their diversity. Meanwhile this ‘essence’ (‘Europeanness’) also
becomes an instrument for internal division, showing just how instable is an
essence constructed as eternal.
Attila Melegh invests the power logic of the cultural representation described
by Bakić-Hayden with the metaphor of the East-West slope.10 He sets out from the
idea that the relationship between the competing modernities in the Cold War,
with the collapse of Europe’s communist regimes was replaced by the cognitive
structure of the former, imperial-colonial hierarchy. Melegh analyses the semiperipheral, ‘intermediary’, i.e. eastern and central European utterances and
strategies which are situated and situate on the slope of civilization which slopes
downwards to the east, and how through the use of the East–West differentiation
actors portray themselves as ‘more western’, and the disdained other as ‘more
eastern’. In the concept of the East–West slope neither party is localized a priori, and
any number of East–West relations can be constructed, for during the discursive
9
Milica Bakić-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,” Slavic Review, 54/4
(1995): 917–931.
10
Attila Melegh, On the East–West slope: Globalization, nationalism, racism and discourses on Central and
Eastern Europe, (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2006). Márk Áron Éber,
“Sziszifusz hegymenetben. Meg jegyzések Melegh Attila On the East–West Slope című könyve kapcsán,”
anBlokk, 1–2 (2008): 85–97.
| 89
struggles the participants attempt to position themselves via the differentiation
between the positive West – negative East. The cultural disdain operative in the
region, the actions defined by the civilizatory mission, is termed by Melegh as
petty imperialism, showing that this is not the prerogative of states with colonies.
However, he allows petty imperialism only on the East–West slope.
The ‘East–West schema’ considered as permanent in the discourse, and
characterized with identical meaning and value relations, is inadequate for
an explanation of how the intermediate becomes ‘central’, and gains cultural
significance in the spatial construction of identity. Melegh, for instance, considers
the Central Europe debate of the 1980s an embodiment of the ‘slope’, insofar as
he sees in it the strategy of eastern European intellectuals, positioning themselves
as the ‘West kidnapped by the East’, in order to symbolically distance themselves
from the Soviet Union. The ‘centre’ however distinguishes itself from the West
too, or more precisely it questions the exclusive centrality of the West. Not to
mention the metaphors of the ‘bridge’ or ‘crossroads’ between East and West,
neither of which are negligible strategies of the politics of cultural belonging.11
In the same way, the topos of the ‘defence’ or ‘bastion of Europe’ ascribes crucial
importance to the periphery, to the ‘ends’ (and, true enough, thus excludes those
further east). The extent to which others, such as those who speak in the name
of the West, accept this or indeed acknowledge it at all, is another question. In
brief, ‘Eastern Europe’ engages in the discourse, thus participating, albeit with
unequal conditions, in the drawing of the map of civilization. The saturation
with value of the categories of space or direction, and their relations of meaning,
are not constant, and in every case their use is also a spatial self-identification, or
localization, the enactment of the ‘here’ through the construction of the speaker’s
position.
The question arises, then, to whom the East–West discourse is addressed, and
who takes part, with what conditions; how are the ‘schemas’ applied, how are the
spatialized power relations are reproduced or modified in cultural representation?
In her work on the representation of the Balkans Maria Todorova12 takes account
of the possibility that even those designated by the word ‘Balkan’ participated in
the formation of its negative connotations. She writes that orientalism is about
a pejorative confrontation, while ‘Balkanism’ is about ambivalence. West and
East are represented as incompatible and complete counter-worlds in Balkanism,
in which however the Balkans always conjured up the picture of a bridge or
crossroads, thus they are situated between East and West, and also with an
11
12
On this see the journal anBlokk 1–2 (2008), the section entitled “Égtájak és tájolások,” 74–122.
Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, (New York – Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
90 |
intermediate level of development. Compared to the East (as the constitutive
other of the West) the Balkans, due to their intermediate, transitory nature
can be only an imperfect Other, an imperfect self image: geographically they
are inseparable from Europe, and culturally they are constructed as an internal
‘Other’. Todorova thus shows the limitations of the interpretative framework
of the ‘East–West schema’, but she supports this referring to the ‘special internal
specificities’ of the Balkans, saying that the special objective (geopolitical)
intermediate position requires a special research perspective. For her orientalism is
feminine in nature, while Balkanism is masculine. With this statement Todorova
moves beyond the discursive approach, since she traces cultural representation
to a sort of real geography, and the special characteristics of this are the causes
(not the consequences) of the current meanings of self-identity and otherness.
The operation of power of the cultural representation of space cannot be defined
by its content, since the cultural values and meanings conjured up by the spatial
designations ‘East’ and ‘Balkan’ are not constant; an explanation must be found
for the practices of power in the construction of identity through knowledge of
the other.
Rather than orientalism or Balkanism, which are defined by content as a
discourse about the East or about the Balkans, perhaps it is more worthwhile to
use the concept of symbolic or imaginary geography, always bearing in mind that
the context of power relations, spatiality and cultural representation is always a
part of geography.
One strategy in the discourse of cultural representation of space and
belonging, as Bakić-Hayden and Melegh have shown, is through the exclusion
and locating of the other further east, to locate the subject in the West, or further
west, thus reproducing the power relation of positive West, negative East, and
thereby the social ontology according to which the geographical location defines
the character and essence of the individual and the community. Sorin Antohi
terms this operation as ‘horizontal escapism’ (from the stigma of the east) or
geocultural bovarism.13 Together with this he identifies another strategy which
he terms ‘vertical escapism’, the result of which is the ideology of ancient origins,
or in other words, an ‘ethnic ontology’. This latter serves to liberate the nation
from the tyranny of history and geography by representing it as transcendent,
homogenous, closed and timeless. This escapism is vertical because it creates
an exclusive and protective relationship between the nation and the divine-
13
Sorin Antohi, “Romania and the Balkans. From geocultural bovarism to ethnic ontology,” Transit
– Europäische Revue, 21 (2002): http://www.iwm.at/t-21txt8.htm
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transcendental principle. What does this strategy derive from and how does it
operate?
The answer is given by Alexander Kiossev, who provides an elegant solution
to the problem of the appropriation of western schemas or models in his theory
of self-colonization.14 His starting point is that there was no colonial power
in eastern Europe. The western models of modernization and symbolic selfidentification, primarily national self-definition, were taken on voluntarily by
the local elites during their travels to the West, where they were confronted with
their otherness, and then imposed this on the local communities. According to
Kiossev the nations of the region were born of the trauma of absence, through
the shameful realization that ‘here’, ‘at home’ ‘everything’ is missing (i.e. the
achievements of western civilization). Since the modern is identified with the
western, the local absence of the western model of civilization is the ‘East’.
Kiossev establishes several compensational consequences of the absence of ‘we as
a nation’, more precisely of the trauma that the nation was born of absence. The
first strategy is that the birth of the nation is always represented as a Rebirth,
the Awakening of the Nation – the nation is eternal. The second strategy
is the formation of two symmetrical, rival, mutually confl icting and equally
erroneous doctrines: in contrast to westernization/Europeanization the nation’s
lost or endangered ‘authentic essence’ (Antohi’s vertical escapism). The third
‘sublimating rationalization’ of the birth trauma, perhaps the most important
and one which defines all the others, encompasses a deeper semantic level. This
strategy is an attempt to reverse the hierarchy of the Symbolic Order borrowed
from Europe (from the West, the civilized world, genuine humanity). While in
non-traumatized communities (in the sense used here) ‘Ours’ is ideally expressed
in concepts such as Presence, Good, Beauty, Truth, Cleanliness, Harmony, and
the ‘Other’ in concepts such as Absence, Chaos, Uncleanliness, Lies, Ugliness,
Formlessness. Traumatized communities are created by internalizing the gaze and
attitudes of the the ’Other’ and making it their own norm, and they experience
themselves as what is unclean, deficient, a lack of essence. Kiossev terms this
reversal of opposites as nationalist sublimation, during which there is an exchange
of places between the signified and unsignified parts of the dual oppositions,
which form this Order and which articulate the asymmetrical relation between
‘Ours’ and ‘Other’. Thus the shame of birth becomes a source of pride. To put it
in a less Lacanian manner, the strategy in question is one through which the ‘self’
or the ‘us’, through the gaze born of discursive constraint, becomes a subject, i.e.
14
Alexander Kiossev, “Notes on Self-colonising Cultures,” in Art and Culture in post-Communist Europe
(ed.) Bojana Pejic and David Elliot (Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 1999), 114–118.
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it becomes capable of action, and thus of resignifying the stigmatized identity
category.
Based on Kiossev’s theory, in what follows I shall analyse the discursive use
of the East–West differentiation. I shall attempt to demonstrate the functioning
of the discourse which ascribes values, human characteristics and hierarchies
to spatial directions, and derives values, human characteristics and hierarchies
from spatial location. This problem, of course, interests us only as a part of the
Hungarian state’s localization as reaction to the spatial dynamic.
Hungarian National Cartography
In this analysis I shall take as my starting point not the trauma of absence, but
the collapse of the bipolar world order, the spatial dynamic that had such a farreaching influence, and indeed provoked, cultural belonging. In what follows
I shall deal with the restructuring of the economic-political world order as a
destabilization, deterritorialization process, more accurately with the response to
this of state localization in the name of the Hungarian nation: with the prescription
of the territorial norm of the nation-state, with the attachment to place as a
way of making it ‘homely’ (the construction of the heimat), with the creation
of belonging to the nation, more concretely with the cartographic rites through
which the Hungarian state leadership has redrawn the ideological world map that
disintegrated with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. As far as the Hungarian nation
is concerned, the seismographic movement that started with the collapse of the
bipolar world order, though it has not settled with EU accession, it has calmed,
and transformed, so in the following discussion I shall examine this ‘transitional’
period through an analysis of the commemorations of the state feast.
The rites of commemoration for 20 August are political rites that can be considered
as localization: national belonging is constructed through the bodily and narration
forms of retelling the past. These commemorative acts, which make state, nation and
territory congruent, I shall term national cartography. In the discursive construction
of the naturalness of belonging somewhere (to a place and to a nation) the metaphor of
‘nature’ is of decisive importance: the landscape, the soil, the root and other botanical
metaphors, kinship, blood and last but not least, as we shall see, the self-evidence of
geographical location. Each of these acts refers national belonging to the inviolate
and romantic realm of nature. During the state commemoration the arbitrary link
between nation and territory is overlooked, and thus the ‘ever-present’ helpless
homeland comes into being. In this way it becomes possible to interpret the loss of
territory as the amputation of the national body.
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The state localization tracing out the space for national belonging thus
produces a map that creates the characteristics of the subject constructed by the
commemoration, the nation – in other words, (narration) national identity.
In examining the discursive figure of the ‘return to Europe’ it should be
born in mind that the speakers at the commemorations were members of the
official Hungarian state representation, that is, prime ministers and presidents of
the republic. This is important because merely based on these narrations of the
past one might easily drawn the erroneous conclusion that the drawing of the
East-West border applied here always happened in this manner in other contexts
too, and spatial directions in regard to the ‘entire nation’ always brought up these
contents of value and meaning. Although the ‘schema’ of positive West – negative
East, which as regards state commemorations and even with the exception of
the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP) parliamentary sessions (1998–2002),
remained predominant in the period under examination, this does not mean that
eurosceptic, or ‘Hungarian orientalist’ viewpoints, critical of Europe, were not
to be heard in other areas of everyday life. Attention should also be drawn to the
historical precedents of the use of the topos of Europe, for it is not an invention
of the 1990s: the commemorators featured in the analysis cite it in a performative
way, and in doing so reconstruct it in the discourse. The over-determined nature
of the metaphoric value of Europe in the 1990s may be explained by the fact that
the opposition’s discourse in the 1980s became, through attempts to expropriate
it by the state power, the language of power negotiations.15
In the ‘power vacuum’ produced by the ‘central and eastern Europe landslide’
(to use Árpád Göncz’s phrase, president of Hungary between 1990 and 2000.)
there began the official rewriting of the past, the symbolic distancing of the
recent past, and the open rivalry between representations of the past.16 Through
this, the political elite inserted the national version of the past, according to the
15
On this see Susan Gal, “Bartok’s funeral. Representations of Europe in Hungarian Political Rhetoric,”
in American Ethnologist 18 (1991/3): 440-458.
16
This complex and multi-actor process in post-socialist societies goes well beyond the utterances
made by official political representations at national commemorations: it includes among other things
the changing of street signs, feast days and text-books, the fashion for scholarly research into state
socialism and nationalism, the boom in personal testimonies and recollections, and even reburials.
The commemorations of August 20 however provide an excellent opportunity to examine close up
the far from negligible role of the state as an actor in this process. On the struggles of symbolism and
categorization related to the change in regime, the rival interpretations of the past and the cultural
role of national ideology see among others Tamás Hofer, “Harc a rendszerváltásért szimbolikus
mezőben. 1989. március 15-e Budapesten,” Politikatudományi Szemle, (1992/1): 29–51;Péter Niedermüller,
“A nacionalizmus kulturális logikája a posztszocializmusban,” Századvég 16 (2000): 91–109; Violetta
Zentai, “Győztesekből tettesek, vesztesekből áldozatok? Kétosztatú társadalomképek a rendszerváltás
magyarországi kritikájában,” 2000, (September 1999): 10–20.
94 |
predominant interpretation it ‘reinstated’ the history which had gone awry, been
falsified, and lied about because of ‘communism’. As part of this process, up to the
second third of the 1990s the commemorations were characterized by a vigorous
and mythologizing turning to the past, by the detailed expounding of the ‘real’
i.e. national past, by the search for causes and the stating of a diagnosis – and with
this, the redrawing of the world map. Following this the intensity of the attention
directed to the past waned, but the structure of the commemorations remained
identical right up to Hungary’s accession to the EU in 2004. All this raises the
question of periodization. The period from 1989 to 2004 might be termed a ‘long
transitional period’; if so, account needs to be taken, of the fact that, particularly
after 1998, references directed at the past increasingly took the form of allusions.
What this meant is that speakers at the commemorations no longer felt it necessary
to go into the details of national history, as they had done in the early 1990s. They
did not demonstrate the narrative structure of the national version of the past,
but rather relied on it. The ‘short transition period’, by contrast, would take as
its boundary markers the withdrawal of the last Soviet occupying troops (1991)
and the entry into NATO (1999).
The period that commenced with the 1989–90 regime change proved to be
transitional in regard to the texts of the festive commemorations, and moreover in
the sense that the nation achieved independence not as a result of its own efforts,
but rather for reasons in which it had played no part. As we shall see, right up
until the ratification of EU entry, the end of the transition period was placed in
the near future, and after 2004 the attainment of EU membership is regarded as
unequivocally marking the end of an era.
In his speeches in 1990, the first president of the Republic of Hungary dealt
with the difficulties and challenges that the nation would inevitably have to
confront. Then Árpád Göncz advised peacemaking, so that ‘our newly budding
democracy should not be nipped in the bud by the icy wind of the past’ (GÁ1990a), and he
also warned against later strife, in which peoples ‘[would] even now have to win the
battle to be free citizens, in their own selves: to vanquish in the very depths of their hearts the
tyrannical little Stalin; that part of them which has its mouth open wide in expectation of a
roast pigeon from the state; the unscrupulous poacher filching from the public purse.’ To put
it another way, these two commemorative addresses were both concerned with
the imminent future; they did not ‘see’ the past, so they afford no scope for one to
speak, as yet, about a rewriting of the past. There may be several reasons for this:
one may be that the celebration of August 20 was as yet in a semi-official state,17
17
March 15, August 20 and October 23 were made into state commemorations by Act VIII of 1991 (on
the State Festivals of the Republic of Hungary).
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and neither is the presence of Soviet troops in Hungary a negligible factor (cf.
‘newly budding democracy’). In the light of the above, it will be the official speeches
delivered in commemoration of August 20 by successive presidents and prime
ministers of Hungary between 1991 and 2005 that are subjected to examination.18
The Dynamics of the Map: from Europe to Europe
During the commemorations the history of the Hungarian nation were linked
to a narrative whose focal points were as follows: there was a Golden Age,
which functions as the object of the commemoration, in this case the era of the
Hungarians’ occupation of the Carpathian Basin and the founding of the state; it is
followed by a decline, leading to the imperfect present; and there will be another
Golden Age in the near future.19 In accordance with this structure, whose ideal
type is to be found in the Bible, the point of the commemoration is to seek out
and state the reasons for the decline, and to learn lessons from it, in order that
the coming Golden Age be realized as soon as possible. This temporal frame for
recounting the past is meaningless per se, and is invested with meaning precisely
by the spatiality of the commemorations: by where the nation is situated on the
map. The Golden Age is that the Hungarian nation is a part of Europe, with
everything that implies: it is ‘European’ in the moral and anthropological sense.
All of the speakers recall Stephen, the first king (1000–1038) as being the one
who formed a European state, and in the Golden Age branded with his name,
the nation ‘ joined Europe’, ‘it became part of ’, ‘it integrated into Europe’ or became ‘an
organic part’ thereof.20 In all cases, the decline is a change in Hungary’s spatial
situation, namely that the nation found itself outside Europe. The Golden Age of
18
For the corpus and sources of the analysis see the Appendix.
Cf. Dénes Némedi, “Nemzet, Európa, NATO: Az államfői beszédek elemzése 1991–1997,” Jel-Kép
(2000/3): 63–85.
20
King Stephen ‘creates a European Hungarian state’ (GÁ1992);It was Géza who first said that ‘the Hungarians
will only survive if they adapt to their environment, contemporary Christian Europe’ (GÁ1993); ‘This ancient culture
was able to transform easily, and could provide a good basis for the faith of modern Europe of the time, and so for us
Saint Stephen means that our nation is deeply rooted in its ancient culture, and this ancient culture easily formed
an organic unity, and became an organic unity of Europe, together with Christianity.’ (AJ1993); ‘the creation of a
European-type apparatus of state, (…) the adoption of norms and morals native to Europe’ (HGY1996a); Stephen
‘made the country into a modern European state’ (HGY1997);Stephen ‘dared to believe that in the heart of Europe
a strong, rich, independent, free European country would be born. The country of the Hungarians’ (OV2000); ‘he
built up Hungary, in conformity to the European order, accepted and esteemed by Europe’ (MF2001); ‘Our King
Saint Stephen created the apparatus of state modern at the level of the time, and forged the international relations of
the country so that Hungary became an integral part of Europe’ (MF2004); ‘Hungary converted to Europe with
Saint Stephen’ (MP2002).
19
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the future is accordingly nothing less than the nation’s return to Europe, which
thereby takes on the symbolic content of a Promised Land.
Just as becoming ‘European’ is not simply a displacement, neither could
the idea of a ‘return to Europe’ be understood without the cultural, moral and
anthropological connotations of spatiality. Göncz expressed this as follows:
‘The question of [Hungary’s] fate of one thousand years ago is still the same: is Hungary
capable of joining Europe?’ (GÁ1992), a question that may now be settled, since ‘our
homeland […] for a second time in history stands at the ideological gateway of Europe. The
first time, Géza, then ruler of Hungary, and his son Stephen led the country through the
gate’ (GÁ1997).21 József Antall, the new republic’s first prime minister (1990–1993),
closed his own address in 1993 in the following way: ‘May our national consciousness
safeguard all this, for only thus can we be Europeans, and world citizens in the good sense’;
while in Gyula Horn’s speeches (prime minister between 1994–1998) the coming
EU accession brought the renewed possibility of creating Stephen’s ‘open country’
where all peoples coexist peacefully regardless of borders. More particularly,
‘European integration, the European Union, offers in the first instance the chance for the
creation of a uniform Europe that Christianity already attempted’ (HGY1996b). For that
to happen, however, the nation itself would have to change: ‘We ourselves will
have to become Europeans here, within the Carpathian Basin.’ (ibid.) It can well be seen
firstly that to the spatial location are attached morally judged characteristics, a
scheme of values, or more precisely, human characteristics arise from the location.
Secondly, in this regard, that the return to Europe is accompanied by a change in
the characteristics of the nation.
The stronger version of the discourse of a return to Europe is when the
Hungarian homeland finds a place within the heart of Europe. That is the case
in the addresses by Viktor Orbán (1963–), prime minister from 1998–2002. His
oration on 20 August 2000, given in Budapest’s Kossuth Square, in front of the
Parliament building, stated:
‘With the composure that is given by a thousand years, we say that there must be a Hungarian
dream anew. A rich and strong Hungary. A nation in the heart of Europe that free and proud
persons who trust in themselves build for themselves in accordance with their own tastes.’22
21
Or see also: ‘Today we attempt to adjust not to a foreign, hostile Europe, but we search for the path back into our
own larger homeland, built jointly with the other peoples of Europe.’ (GÁ1995); ‘The task of today is in essence similar
to the time of Saint Stephen’s. There is no way back to the East – that is beyond doubt. But we must not forget about
the East, even though we have to stay here and in the interests of our prosperity we have to become part of the painfully
unifying Europe, voluntarily accepting every inevitable requirement of membership’ (GÁ1993).
22
Or in 2001: ‘So far, Europe has been truncated. Yet there was no reason for it to remain so. (…) Now, we shall
unite our continent, Western and Central Europe, in the spirit of freedom and independence. Now, Hungarians shall
| 97
In this version the Hungarian nation in the strict sense is not placed outside
Europe, but becomes truncated within Europe, the heart becomes disembodied.
In this case the statement is that ‘we Hungarians have always been Europeans’,
but the dismembered parts of the organism of Europe clearly do not represent
the ideal wholeness of ‘Europeanness’. The ‘Hungarian dream’ can only be realized
again through unification.
With the assured approach of EU accession, the sense of the future that had
been employed before now disappeared. Thus, in 2002 Ferenc Mádl, second
president of the Republic of Hungary (2000–2005), declared: ‘Since then, we have
been at home in Europe. Saint Stephen created peace,’ while the following year, in 2003,
Péter Medgyessy, prime minister from 2002 to 2004, noted: ‘Next year [we shall
greet] Europe, and within it a Republic of Hungary that has finally returned home.’
Whatever values the speakers attribute to the Golden Age of King Stephen,
the narrative structure alluded to above means that the return to Europe in
every case brings about a complete fulfilment of them. One concomitant is that
Europe, in its representation as a Promised Land, becomes a moral yardstick of the
nation’s judgment, a moral absolute, the defence or attaintment of which demands
human sacrifices. A Promised Land nationalized in this way, i. e. in the service of
the Hungarian nation is of course not the only player on the map, and national
cartography distributes the units on the map, which are in a certain motion,
with the delicate logic of oppositions. Accordingly, national cartography, unlike
the scientific practice of modern cartography, displays a tendency to produce a
dynamic and historical map, even though the homeland is given and remains
unchanged. The Hungarian nation returns to Europe without movement.
The characteristics of people thus derive from the geographical position
they occupy. Of course, the moral category of Europe-as-Promised Land is not
peculiar to state commemorations; use of this category interwove public discourse
in the 1990s and even personal interactions.23 The imperative of ‘Europeanness’
leads the politicians representing the state and speaking in the name of the nation
to investigate the reason why the Hungarian nation’s Europeanness has been
questioned. The analyst, however, must investigate this imperative. Before I
present the changes the map and its players have undergone during the history
participate in this European unity, protecting their independence and maintaining their national pride. (…) Now,
once more we shall walk down the main street of European history’ (OV2001).
23
This is no different in the case of EU-sceptics or those critical of Europe, the difference being merely
that the polarity of the imperative changes. In this case ‘western’/‘European’ is all that is not Hungarian,
and therefore to be condemned. Throughout its history ‘Europe-discourse’ has already changed the values
ascribed to the basic categories, East and West – and this itself shows that the meanings it takes on can
change as a function of the current context and the performative use. In any case, in the period analyzed
in the commemorative discourse of the official political elite there is no trace of a Europe-critical tone.
98 |
narrated, let us examine where various commemorative speakers place the
homeland. This is merely an analytical division made for the sake of clarity. The
act of locating is inseparable from the emplotment of the narrated story and vice
versa.
The Location of the Nation on the Map: between East and West
That map is constructed, first and foremost, as a (strategic) field of force which,
as will be seen, plays a decisive part in the formation of the history that is being
narrated; it has a role that is literally of vital importance. This field of force is
composed of opposed spatial directions (exclusively in the form of East and West),
or other actors that substitute for them. At the same time, the map also portrays
the peoples who inhabit the space. It represents solely ethnic groups, and in every
instance the relation pairs of unity-diversity, or togetherness-fragmentedness,
appear as problematic. This is the problem of the representation of the national
body, whether the narration takes on the internal viewpoint (the problem of the
peoples ‘within the nation’), or the external (the problem of nation among other
peoples – that of a nation fragmented between various countries). As I shall later
show, through the special nature of the emplotment, in no case is the Hungarian
homeland located by the actors of the narration; rather it is a given (designated
by ‘fate’).
In Antall’s speeches, the homeland of the Hungarians is a place to which the
great powers always laid claim in the course of history:
‘We lie along major historical and strategic lines of force. This country was never peripheral;
it was never easy for us to pull through. It was not given to us to experience anything in one of
Europe’s more wind-protected places, because it was never sheltered from the wind! This truly
was the highway of peoples: every war passed through here, trampling on us time and time again’
(AJ1993).24
The proper running of the state is thus based on the recognition of the location
of the homeland. Géza and Stephen knew ‘what kinds of lines of force cross through
this region from east to west. Whether danger threatened from the East or from the West, if
necessary a third force was relied on. That is why relations with the church state were of such
importance, [as was] a settled European foreign policy, between Byzantium, the Holy Roman
24
Cf.: ‘In this country shall the archaeologist’s shovel scrape out the crumbling walls which in happier countries rise
still today as cathedrals?’ (AJ1992).
| 99
Empire, and other eastern empires, right up to the most recent times, with the vast Russia, the
Soviet Union and others’ (AJ1993).25 It is worth noticing that apart from ‘the region’
being dangerous, danger can threaten only from the west or from the east.
In Göncz’s commemorative speeches the ‘modernization’ branded by the
names of Géza and Stephen and the nation’s becoming European took place
because the Hungarians of the time realized that there was no other place for
them.
‘The most important recognition of the tenth century Hungarian was that he must needs accept the
European order if he was not, following the fate of other eastern peoples, to pass into the oblivion
of history. This great lesson (…) may have been taught by the raids: there was no place in Europe
safer for them than the Carpathian basin. The East threatened with newer waves of peoples.
The path did not lead back there. In the west were solidly structured countries. To be wedged in
between was destruction itself.’ (GÁ1992).
In this view the Hungarian is an ‘eastern people’ who has no choice but to settle
in the Carpathian Basin. This European place is only safe if this people ‘accepts the
European order’, so they have no other choice. To put it another way, ‘the gate of east
and west has shut’ (GÁ1995).26 The president of the republic calls this ‘a historical and
geographical borderline situation’, ‘the borderland of the East’, or ‘no man’s land’,27 which
is just as valid for the tenth century as it is today. Then it was Géza who realized
that ‘the German–Byzantine pincers are closing’. It can clearly be seen that the ‘path’
on which the Hungarians can progress is in an east–west direction. In Göncz’s
speeches (like those of Antall) a geopolitical narrative can be identified in which
events, we might say the nation’s fate, are determined by spatial location. In this
sense the acts of the Hungarians are almost irrelevant in the formation of history,
since the great powers encompassing them make decisions about them above their
heads. In addition Göncz’s speeches also refer to ‘a mosaic of majority nationalities and
minority national fragments’(GÁ1995).
25
He expresses the same idea in his 1992 speech: ‘more than anything, Saint Stephen took care that in that
time, when in the western half of Europe the great powers of today and yesterday formed their boundaries, laid the
foundation for their order of power and in the east the Byzantine empire lay in wait, and when unknown peoples of
the migrations poured one after the other into Europe, then in the most difficult geographical point of Europe, he was
able to create Hungarian statehood.’
26
See also in 1995: ‘In both cases [in the time of Géza, Stephen and today] – though for different reasons and
in differing circumstances – the door of the East slammed shut behind us, and we prised, we prise open the door of the
West before us’ (GÁ1995).
27
‘[B]etween [Hungary] and Europe lies a no-man’s land forty years wide, though politically and economically and
especially in terms of thinking ever narrower’ (GÁ1997).
100 |
The latter is a motif that also recurs in Horn’s commemorations.
‘The populace here, in the Carpathian Basin, was not ethnically homogeneous. Even those who
occupied the country [at the end of the ninth century] included a mix of Ugrians, Turks and
Iasians. Then came the Cumans and other ethnic groups that did not abandon their language and
customs on settling down. It is a fact that one out of four people in this homeland has relatives who
live beyond the country’s borders. It is also a fact that its structure of balanced industry, factories,
sites furnishing raw materials, and main thoroughfares broke down, and frontiers have been far
from following the distribution of ethnic groups. All this became a source of disputes and hostilities
for decades.’ (HGY1996a).
The source of problems is once more ethnic diversity, more precisely the fact
that the borders of state and the ‘ethnic borders’ do not coincide. This is the
classic expression of the architectonic illusion that by settling territorial disputes,
with the ‘ just’ borders national confl icts will cease. The strategic projection
depicting state borders and the ‘ethnic distribution’ both presuppose and reinforce
the geographical and territorialized understanding of space.
In regard to the location of the Hungarian homeland, Horn had the following
to say:
‘The Hungarian Conquest was an undertaking that was historically sound and in itself has
proved successful. It was an undertaking that signified the adoption of norms that are indigenous
to Europe; the adoption of Christianity in place of a pagan nomadic lifestyle, and attachment
to the Roman Catholic Church rather than the adoption of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.’
(HGY1996a).
In this passage of the text, as in the previous ones, an east–west axis is operating
in which the spatial directions may be substituted by other exponents of the
map (Europe, Byzantium, the Roman Catholic Church, etc.). Moreover the two
appear as mutually exclusive spatial directional alternatives between which a
choice has to be made.
The main actor of Orbán’s speeches is a nation that lives ‘in the middle of Europe,
in the Carpathian Basin’ and yet on the territory of several countries: ‘There is no
other nation in Europe, and perhaps the whole world, which has been dismembered into so
many countries and nevertheless lives with one heart’ (OV1999).For its perpetuation,
the fact that it had not become a ‘dust-cloud that a great nation of yore kicked up on the
highway of history,’ it could give thanks that, ‘with his clarity of vision’ and ‘his iron
will’, ‘Stephen founded a homeland, in a ring of foreign peoples, on the border of the eastern
and western worlds’(OV2000).As mentioned earlier, the nation living in the centre
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of Europe can find itself ‘outside Europe’ if Europe is amputated. European and
Hungarian, though different, are no longer conceivable without one other. ‘It
will one day be that at home too we all understand that the European spirit does not start
where our freedom and independence end. It is not Europe that starts there, but once more
homelessness, no man’s land’ (OV2001).
This transitional, in-between character of spatiality which provides the basis
for the temporal transience subsequently stays unchanged, but this is only referred
to in the form of allusions, as in the case, for example, of the following comment
by Mádl: ‘We might mention the establishment of a Christian political system, the Holy
Crown that was received from Pope Silvester II, which so bound us to the western half of
Europe that it created community through the Christian faith and on its moral foundations’.
The East is not mentioned, and there is only one single sentence that refers to the
dangers inherent in the situation of the Hungarian homeland: ‘A good, favourable,
political and world political situation is an important factor to increase our continuation and
our chances of life, to success and to our advancement’ (MF2002). Similarly, from the
speech that Medgyessy made on 20 August of the same year, all that emerges is:
‘with a resolution commensurable with a new founding of the state [with an internal alliance
with Europe’], Hungarians, after many long years, once again find themselves on the winning
side.’ It is left obscure as to who the ‘winning side’ was before, how the Hungarians
became detached from it, whether there is/was a ‘losing side’ and, indeed, that those
sides correspond to West and East.
Europe, or the West used as its synonym, appears and acts on the map in the
form of the Other, as a point of comparison for the Hungarian nation. Similarly,
the East is also another Other. As is seen in the previous examples, these spatial
directions can be replaced by other actors, primarily by empires, great powers
and the two Christian Churches. East and West then, either as themselves or
personified, are actors in the past narratives and thus in the imaginary map of the
Hungarian nation: they act, with intentions, they are determined and wilful, they
kill and die. But this dynamic space of memory is inhabited by people, and if the
commemorators mention this, it always means the manifestation of the difficulties
incumbent in ascertaining the boundaries of the peoples (nations). Accordingly
they refer to the Hungarian homeland as follows: ‘the highway of peoples: every war
passed through here’, ‘a mosaic of majority nationalities and minority national fragments’,
‘the populace […] was not ethnically homogeneous’, ‘dismembered […] and nevertheless lives
with one heart’, or the region ‘surrounded by a ring of foreign peoples’. In any case, the
imperfection of the present derives from the spatial arrangement.
The most important characteristic of the practices of national cartography
is that the characteristics of people are derived from their spatial location rather
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than from their deeds. That in turn means that relations between the spatial
forces vying with one another are turned into relations between nations or ethnic
groups, that is to say, conflicts, or at least oppositions. This has several significant
consequences. The first is that the Hungarian nation, which inhabits, as just
indicated, an intermediate territory that belongs neither to East nor to West,
likewise belongs nowhere. That is true only of the representation of the present, of
course; when the Hungarian nation, in the Golden Age, belonged to the West, it
was ‘part of Europe’; when it was not part of Europe, it belonged to the East. The
second is that the dangers that weigh on this strategic territory – in other words,
the fact that East and West wage a continual battle over it – are at one and the same
time threats to the Hungarian nation. Thus it is precisely national cartography
which makes possible the attribution according to which ethnic diversity is a risk.
The topos of the ‘welcoming nation’, so popular in the 1990s, was supposed to
compensate for this, and was itself an essentializing category. The decision of the
first king to allow into the country’s territory men of the church, craftsmen, and
so-called settlers, that their activity might become useful to the young kingdom,
becomes a property of the nation. The expression ‘host’ (unlike that of acceptance)
with its biological, bodily connotations implies that the Hungarian nation, the
‘body’ does not eject the body of ‘the other’.
Thirdly, in order that Hungarians should survive, they must confront those
perils that derive from the homeland’s spatial location. Since national cartography
will only admit freedom of movement to other nations and peoples, staying in
one place and confrontation with its attendant dangers is represented as a selfsacrificial gesture. The fact that the nation’s place is localized between East and
West explains why the Hungarians, despite their ‘return’ to Europe, do not move.
Other peoples are permitted to move because they are embodiments of either East
or West, whereas the Hungarian nation, given that it belongs to neither spatial
force, stays in one place, and the possibility that it might move does not even arise.
Fourth and finally, another consequence is that the events that are narrated and
the deeds of the Hungarian nation are determined by the position they occupy on
the map. As a consequence of this location, this ‘belonging nowhere’, the nation
is obliged to choose between East and West, and that exhausts its opportunities
for action. Thus, it is a matter of a timeless geographical situation which always
and under all circumstances determines the nation’s possible actions. The key
element in the portrayal of King Stephen I is the recognition that a choice has to
be made between the two spatial forces in the interests of the Hungarian nation’s
survival. In the commemorations, without exception, reference is made to the
fact that Stephen (or perhaps his father, Géza, before him) chose the West when he
adopted western Christianity and models of state. To put it differently, he chose
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Europe, and as a result of the temporal characteristics of the commemorative
rituals, this choice appears as the sole decision that could be made in the interest
of the Hungarian nation’s survival, moreover, as a morally correct decision,
which is exemplary for generations to come even a thousand and more years
later. Stephen’s example therefore must be followed in the present, so the nation
has to choose the civilized, victorious, innocent and good West instead of the
barbarian, vanquished, sinful and bad East.
Later we shall see that in addition to conflicts in the past the nation’s ‘being
left outside Europe’ and its current possibilities too derive from the location of the
homeland. The nation’s history becomes fate through generations’ facing up to
the dangers arising from the location of the homeland, and their jointly bearing
the consequences. Renan’s famous remark about loss being nobler in national
memory than victory proves in this case to be pertinent. This loss turns the region
occupied by the conquering Hungarians into a homeland.
It can be seen, then, that the place in which the Hungarians live is determined
by the localization practices of national cartography as an absolute value: neither
eastwards nor westwards from a reference point but at the collision point, perhaps
at Europe’s geographical centre. This place is a blank spot on the map. It belongs
neither to the East, nor to the West. The location of the nation in this vacuum in
space, its transient non-existence, is a good example of how national cartography
includes spatial dynamics (here meaning the deterritorialization of the Eastern
Bloc) in the representation, precisely in order to name, exert its power over,
neutralize and find a ‘solution’ to its challenges.
In what follows I shall show how the ritualized practices of national geography
move the borders.
Border Changes on the Map: getting ‘left out’ of Europe
The spatial situation of the Hungarian homeland changes through decline: the
nation is ‘left out’ of Europe, without having moved. That is to say, on the map
of national cartography it is the borders that migrate, not the people. However,
the statement that a nation remains in one place through history requires a little
clarification, since it only holds its place after the Hungarians have found their
place – by conquering it. In the narrations of the past, the nation’s story, the plot
begins at this point, and earlier times are referred to only by allusion. Prior to
the conquest the Hungarians were characterized by the state of a ‘nation with no
homeland’, which they broke with by finding the ‘empty territory’ designated
for them. A nation had found ‘its’ homeland, and vice versa. The concept that the
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nation finds its own homeland is an accessory of the territorial norm of the nationstate, which immediately becomes apparent if we compare it to the expression
‘acquiring territory’.
As far as the movement of borders is concerned, national cartography employs
two procedures, which it relates to one another strategically. Let us call one the
stroke of fate, and the other the falling into sin. In the former, the nation is passive
and subject to the force of an external power; the latter, by contrast, ascribes an
active role to the Hungarians. In both cases the location of the homeland is the
source of the events.
The stroke of fate happens because the ‘little Hungarian nation’, squeezed
between the great powers appearing in the images of East and West, lives
in a strategically important territory they have their eye on. The role of the
stroke of fate in narrative is well demonstrated by this excerpt from Antall’s
commemorative speech in 1992:
‘History and geography are cruel. Geopolitics, geographical location, and the force of circumstances
have forced us into alliances, forced us into wars, which the Hungarian people did not feel to be
their own, which they did not want to fight, but were obliged to do so. If they had to fight, then
they always fought bravely. But let no one censure us for being on the wrong side, because usually
constraint put us on the wrong side. With defeated wars for independence, and proud national
revolutions we always wanted to show our true intention, and when we were abandoned, we were
left alone, we were forced into a state framework and political alliances as a logical consequence of
which we found ourselves on the wrong side. Then afterwards we had our share of punishment’
(AJ1992).
The ‘logical consequence’ mentioned by the prime minister arises from the location
of the Hungarians’ homeland, from the ‘ force of circumstances’, rather than from
human deeds. The consequence of this ‘logic’ of the stroke of fate is finding
oneself on the ‘wrong side’, or the bad side, in the moral sense. In this excerpt Antall
alludes to the 1848 revolution, and the following freedom fight defeated by the
Habsburg Empire and Russia; the ‘punishment’ was the Peace Treaty of Trianon,
and the ‘wrong side’ the alliance with the Third Reich. The ‘wrong side’ can be to
the west, but can never be ‘the’ West.28 The scheme can be applied to the recent
past, as Antall suggests: In 1956 the Hungarian nation showed its true intention,
but the West left it to fend for itself, so it was ‘forced into’ a dictatorial ‘frame of
28
In Antall’s speech of 1992 only one remark refers to the time of the Second World War, and it depicts
a world turned on its head: at the end of the siege of Budapest Matthias church was being used as a
stable for military horses.
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state’. In this latter case the ‘wrong side’ is represented by the USSR. The ‘wrong
side’ is always the side that does not belong to the West with a capital W.
And because the strategic constraints of space are also the constraints weighing
on the nation inhabiting the space, the ‘true intentions’ can only be realized if the
nation does not fight alone – in other words, if it belongs somewhere, particularly
to the West, and possesses all the value contents of ‘Europeanness’. The hopeless
struggle thus becomes self-sacrifice.
In his 1992 speech Göncz also gave exclusive determinedness to space:
‘The peculiar bitterness of the central European fate that this second defeat [the Second World
War] and peace treaties, contrary to the first, also brought the de facto loss of sovereignty. True,
this would have happened even if the country had ended the war on the victors’ side. The region
became a Soviet sphere of influence’ (GÁ1992).
From this excerpt it can also clearly be seen that spatial location overwrites
human deeds: the deeds of the Hungarians have no influences over the loss (or
maintaining) of national self-determination. Thus spatial location has an exclusive
role in the forming of national fate too; remaining in one area turns history
into destiny. Yet remaining in one place is not a deed in the narrative sense; the
discursive technique of the stroke of fate reduces the nation’s possibilities for
action to choosing between the East and the West.
The next excerpt is a longer section of Göncz’s 1997 speech, which well
demonstrates how the nation struggles (in vain) against the constraints arising
from its location:
‘For centuries our homeland trod an ascending path: the development of its society, its system of
institutions, its special culture, receptive to every intellectual vibration from Europe had its place
in the dappled meadows of our wider home – Europe. Right until the currents from the Ottoman
Empire engulfed the countries to our south and even filled the greater part of the Carpathian
Basin. Just when Europe was turning her gaze away from the Mediterranean and towards the
region of the Atlantic Ocean. From this great adventure, the adventure of discovering the world,
Hungary and her southern neighbours, were excluded. It was one-and-a-half centuries before
the current receded from the Carpathian Basin. Destruction lay in its wake, ghosts of villages,
the population decimated, a petrified social organization, and a culture in atrophy. The country’s
knowledge of the world, its perspective, had shrunk, and its self-determination (to which it clung
to its last breath, and for which it struggled for freedom though doomed to failure in the ancillary
scenes of European power struggles) became for a prolonged period nominal. The country was
relegated to the periphery of Europe, right up until 1848: then as the last in the series of European
revolutions, the closing chord of a long reform era, of a sudden it created a modern system of state,
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it liberated the peasants living under serfdom, and in the last resort took up arms to try and defend
the achievements of this successful revolution. In vain: the command of the balance of the great
powers once more stood its ground this time the Tzar rushed to assist his counterpart, the Austrian
emperor, and downtrod the newly-won freedom of Hungary.’
As regards its narrative role the stroke of fate may be a foreign occupation or
subjugation (Habsburg, Turkish, Russian, Soviet), one concomitant of which is
that the Hungarian nation finds itself on the ‘wrong’ or the ‘losing’ side: outside
Europe. The consequences of the stroke of fate are, furthermore, always expressed
in metaphors of the nation’s death: destruction, the fading away of the nation,
oppression. In every case this is a narrative turning point accompanied by the
drawing of a border on the map. This is necessarily so because the commemorative
speeches trace the origins of the events of the strokes of fate back to the spatial
location. Formally this practice of localization constructs the natural belonging
of man to the earth (the helpless homeland) according to the following logic: the
inevitable dangers arising from the spatial place also threaten the existence of the
nation living there, and since the strokes of fate necessarily happen, the series of
events become the destiny of the nation. The movement expressed by being ‘left
out’ of Europe or finding oneself ‘on the wrong side’ makes the remaining of
people in one place unquestionable.
A falling into sin, by contrast, formally ascribes an active role to the nation.
More specifically, the nation has offended against the morality established in the
Golden Age, which speakers variously refer to as St Stephen’s legacy (Antall,
Mádl), undertaking (Horn), model, pattern, starting-point (Göncz), dream
(Orbán, Mádl), creation or work (Mádl) and even example (Sólyom). Also related
to this is the frequent citing of [Stephen’s] book of Admonitions, which are made
pertinent by the fact the nation has fallen into sin, and whose renewed observance
will lead to ‘the earthly paradise of Europe’.
The scale of values is always constructed within a framework of the imperfect
present, and generally speaking it involves ideals of independence, correct foreign
policy, liberty, unity and tolerance. Thus in Antall’s speeches
‘the legacy of Saint Stephen means that sovereignty, national independence, comes before
anything. It means that this independence and self-sufficiency can only subsist if it is rooted in
a profound moral foundation. Simultaneously, it means the solidity of state power. A solid state
power is also a guarantee of the rule of law, because chaos leads nowhere: always to anarchy or to
dictatorship, and the vicious circle begins once more. (…) The legacy of Saint Stephen is what
teaches the Hungarian nation’s host capacity.
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Falling into sin is nothing other than the disavowal of this legacy: ‘Hungary
has always been held by constitutionality, unless foreign peoples overran it or forced on her
their foreign rule’ (AJ1993).
In Göncz’s speeches the model of St Stephen represents primarily the ‘recognition
of reality’ and ‘actions dictated by reality’. As in Antall’s case, in foreign policy the
recognition and staving off of the risks arising from the location of the Hungarian
homeland (primarily the creation of an independent state).29 For Göncz, though,
the decline and falling into sin can have internal causes too: the factious and divided
nation, the unwelcoming nation and the dream-chasing Hungarian gentry.
According to the topos of the factious nation the members of the nation place
their selfish interests above those of the nation, thus engaging in a struggle against
one another instead of joining forces against threats from outside.
‘The model of Saint Stephen worked for centuries. Right up until the source of royal power
guaranteeing the country’s unity dried up, until the royal estates waned, until the “private
interests” of the lords became overriding, defeating those of the state, “subjugating” the king
himself. With the defeat of György Dózsa [leader of the peasant rebellion, executed in
1514], the model of Saint Stephen too was cast into the grave’ (GÁ1992).
Failure to recognize reality and the nation’s ‘inability to welcome the alien’ meant that
‘with a few exceptions, the noble reformers failed to understand that the ethnic groups in Hungary
whose self-awareness had been stirred had every right to claim the same right to freedom that the
Hungarians wished to gain from the Kaiser, that basically their case was in common with ours.
A settlement reached not at all, or too late, and thus in vain, amd so was seeded the end of feudal
Hungary, and two lifetimes later the loss resulting from the Trianon Peace Treaty’ (GÁ1997).
Finally, regarding the dream-chasing Hungarian gentry, Göncz paints the nadir
of decline in the following terms, referring to the regime of Regent Horthy
between the two world wars:
‘The country that was dreaming of the restoration of the thousand-year empire of Saint Stephen
renounced the very tradition of Saint Stephen’s sense of reality when instead of that, it chose a legal
fiction, a kingdom symbolizing tradition, the formal and substantial restoration of the kingdom
of Franz Joseph instead of a republic, in place of the king seating the king’s former aide-de-camp
on the “nearly” royal throne’ (GÁ1992).
29
See for example ‘Even today it is telling how [King Stephen] strives for accurate, almost exact information, to
survey and assess the power relations in Europe and the closer environment’ (GÁ1992).
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The illusion-chasing Hungarians failed to recognize that the form of state
suited to the realities was not an empire but a republic, which would have
guaranteed self-determination to the nation and the ethnic minorities in the new
world order following the First World War. This non-recognition resulted in a
denial of the ‘model of St Stephen’, due to the falling into sin.
In Horn’s speeches the ‘ founding a home’ is also a ‘millennium-long alliance with
the peoples who inhabit, in larger and smaller groups, the Carpathian Basin’ (HGY1996a).
The Stephanic scheme of values here too builds on the topos of the welcoming
nation, thus in this case the decline resulting from the fall into sin means mutual
hate between the peoples:
‘The country was open. In the course of our history ethnic groups have often appeared, sought
admission and settled. Some from the immediate vicinity, some from farther away. […] I hold it
to be one of the greatest injustices of history that some of the settlers who declared this country as
theirs, and undertook this land, as a consequence of the blind nationalism of this century became
outlaws. Just as another injustice is that in the past the descendants of Hungarians living there
since the turn of the millennium became homeless beyond the borders. Those who were persecuted,
resettled, were temporarily robbed of their human and civil rights’ (HGY1996a).30
The use of the word ‘settlers’ is an allusion to the age of Stephen, and due to the
refusal of the Stephanic gesture, or the ignoring of it, the direct consequence of
the diversity of peoples was strife (as I quoted earlier: ‘ frontiers have been far from
following the distribution of ethnic groups. All this became a source of disputes and hostilities
for decades.’).
After 1998 the public dignitaries speaking on 20 August spent less time on
the nation’s history, including the decline, which thus shrank to a more or less
succinct listing rather than a plot, though its structural role remained the same.31
30
See also: ‘Great damage has been done by the endeavours of the past aimed at belittling the neighbouring peoples,
which consider the Hungarian people to be a nation endowed with some special ability’ (HGY1996b); ‘The hate of
peoples and nations, one for the other, brings immeasurable suffering’ (HGY1997).
31
In his speech in 2000, Orbán summarizes the decline as follows: ‘Someone who always stands at the top of
the hill, ladies and gentlemen, does not know the joy of climbing up. This danger threatened us rarely. The twentieth
century tried us Hungarians particularly harshly. It was a bitter, arrogant century, almost breaking our dream, the
great dream of Saint Stephen. We endured nine changes of regime. We survived six forms of state, four revisions of
the borders, three revolutions, two world wars and withstood the fact that three times foreign troops marched on the
country’s territory. For sure, the turbulent passing of time weighed heavily over us. (…) for our type of nation one
step in error, a single turn of the head, would have been sufficient to endanger our independence, our freedom, and our
existence for good. (…) A series of grave lessons and irreplaceable losses lie behind this knowledge. In the last sixty years
alone we have lost more than one million people. Those who fell in the Don Bend, our deported Jewish compatriots,
those of German origin who were resettled, those sent to labour camps in the Soviet Union, the martyrs of 1956 and
the 200 thousand vigorous, talented Hungarians who fled. Such a series of blows is painful. Other nations, perhaps
| 109
Like the stroke of fate, the falling into sin is nothing other than the cause of
decline, and takes on the connotations of the Golden Age (as constructed from
the present), but with a negative sense: it is always woven into the narrative as
something not complied with, or lacking. As an event, formally linked to the
deeds of the protagonist, since it is he/she who keeps or denies the legacy of values.
This practice of localization enacts the drawing of the boundaries between the
peoples of the imaginative map: in the narration it signifies the modification of
the ethnic boundaries and thus discursively reifies them. The commemoration
essentializes by creating an identity of quality between the ‘nation of the Golden
Age’ and the ‘nation of the future’. The present is imperfect precisely because
the nation is no longer what it once was, it has ‘begun to deteriorate’.32 Thus the
source of sin is the expression of some ‘bad (characteristic)’ which is always a nonEuropean characteristic, thus spatial significance.
At first sight the topos of the factious nation dispenses with spatiality, but even
in this case the East-West opposition is at work. By reason of the Hungarians’
eastern origins, ‘easternness’ and ‘westernness’ become elements of the
more populous ones, would have been reduced to dust. No wonder that Hungary had enough of the invitations to lunch
where Hungary was the main dish’ (OV2000).
In Mádl’s speeches too, only from the moral imperative of ‘Saint Stephen’s legacy’ can we deduce the
nature of the decline. ‘This legacy, these orders give us strength and charge us with responsibility. Strength and
responsibility, when we have to overcome our problems, lack of agreement, individual and community poverty, and
inequalities. So that we should not, through factiousness lose sight of our common national goals: when we have to
do more for the fallen, for those in minorities, for ethnic Hungarians beyond the border, for a successful security and
integration policy, for an improvement in individual and public morals, for a rising up of our country and nation’
(MF2001). Introducing the topos of the ‘welcoming nation’ into the story testifies to the fact that the
Stephanian deed has currency today: ‘Let us remember that, considering ourselves a welcoming nation, we
gave a home to other peoples’ (MF2001). Mádl referred to decline in 2002 as well: ‘Saint Stephen and the
subsequent generations in the midst of trial and bitterness, but also many victories and far-reaching successes, learned
and experienced the ancient truth. “Keep good order, the laws, and they shall keep you and your community, when
you come into difficult, desperate straits.” ’ (MF2002).
In Medgyessy’s speech of 2002 we learn only from a vague list that the past of the Hungarian nation is
not unblemished: ‘During our thousand-year history fate has dealt us both success and challenges. Since Stephen,
Saint Stephen, the country has partaken in good and bad alike.’ His sentence quoted earlier, saying that the
nation entering into an ‘inner alliance’ with Europe ‘once more came onto the victors’ side’ only indirectly
refers to the fact that at some time it was on the defeated side.
32
The ode To the Hungarians by Dániel Berzsenyi is a splendid example of the discursive logic of the
falling into sin. In this poem the ‘beastly morals’ stand in stark contrast to the ‘virtues of yesteryear’:
‘That’s why the firm foundation of every land / must be morality untarnished: / which, if destroyed,
Rome will fall and founder.’ Moral decline entails the ruin of the national body, see for example: ‘Arpad,
our Chief, the founder of Hungary/ had braver troops to fight the Danubian shores.’ In this poem,
naturally, the falling into sin is not a means of spatial localization. (Translation from: http://www.
magyarulbabelben.net/index.php?page=work&interfaceLang=en&literatureLang=hu&translationLa
ng=all&auth_id=121&work_id=24605&tran_id=24606&tr_id=0&tran_lang=en)
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Hungarian character, and for Hungarians to become European means they lay
aside their antagonistic, quarrelsome attributes.33 Thus in the nation’s history the
Hungarians’ ‘easternness’ is often the cause of decline: ‘placing self-interest before
the national interest’. It is worth noting that in the context of the commemorations
in focus the ‘East’ is a priori incapable of taking into account national interests,
since this direction points to a lack of homeland; it is however able to take out
the sins latent in the topos of the factious nation from the sphere of human
action. Similarly, the nation’s lack of ‘welcoming the other’ or ‘sense of reality’
is interpreted in opposition to Stephen’s ‘Europeanness’, and thus is assigned to
the ‘eastern direction’.
But falling into sin most often lies beyond the sphere of human activity, and
its reasons are to be sought in the location of the homeland, more precisely in the
risks and constraints seen to originate in the national-ethnic diversity. The sin
committed may accordingly be an external war waged between the Hungarians
and other nation(s), or internal, in the form of oppression, genocide, resettlement,
strife within the nation – in other words, once more some metaphor of the death
of the nation.
Through the skilful interrelation of the stroke of fate and the falling into sin
national cartography manages to portray the sins as being without a perpetrator,
citing protagonists such as geopolitics, geography and the resultant ‘ forces of
circumstance’ (Antall); ‘the current’ ‘the dictates of the balance of the great powers’, ‘the
central European fate’ (Göncz); ‘blind nationalism,’ ‘a whim of history’ (Horn); ‘the
troublesome and arrogant twentieth century’ (Orbán); ‘ fate’ (Medgyessy).34
On the imaginative map in fact only one frontier moves, and it is that which
divides East and West. This is the border which, since it is embodied in formations
of state or in peoples, does not move of its own accord: the conquests of empires
and/or nations displace it eastwards or westwards – according to the ‘turbulence
of history’. In this way national cartography refers to the geographical space as
a natural reality. The unsignified ‘staying in one place’, the helpless homeland, is
constructed in opposition to this movement. The border movements carried out
‘over the heads’ of the Hungarians, always in an east–west direction, localize the
33
See for example: ‘ “The Hungarians were a proud, combative, adventuring people”– to use Endre Ady’s words.
“A two-edged sword, which when it stirred, dealt injury left and right”. The great aim and great achievement of
the foundation of the state is that this unruly people changed its lifestyle and soul such that they retained their finest
characteristics, and if they drew their swords, they now did so only in their own defense – or in defense of Europe.
The unruly and proud people of the steppes learned to work on the land, learned to swell its economy not by carrying
off booty from incursions. It also learned to leave behind its old religion, with its ceremonies and spells, and learned
humility’ (HGY1996a).
34
For more detail on this see Máté Zombory, “A bűnös nemzet és Európa. A bűn reprezentációja az
ünnepi diskurzusban,” Jel-Kép (2004/3): 47–59.
| 111
national home in an absolute sense, and this location forms the fate of the nation;
in other words, this place is the source of the nation’s identity.
The discursive localization practices identified relate to the past, yet due to the
narrative structure of the commemorative speeches the borders will change again,
in the near future, so I will now present the future border movements.
National Cartography and the Future
The future Golden Age always lies in parallel to St Stephen’s Golden Age, and
decline puts an end to it, thus complementing the imperfection of the present.
National cartography moves the future borders in such a way as to dissolve them:
in the Promised Land there are no borders to divide the nations. Since in Antall’s
addresses the self-sacrificing nation, which has a Christ-like role, 35 a nation whose
bleeding body assumes the meaning of corpus Christi, is represented as the victim
of the ‘forces of circumstance’, it is only to be hoped that one day the world will
change, and redemption will come:
‘Now too we endeavour to be good stewards of the freedom we have been given, the opportunity
we have. We trust that the world will be wiser, we trust that in this region there will not be more
and more wars’ (AJ1993).
Göncz puts the emphasis on becoming ‘European’: ‘we would do well to develop in
good time the skill of international cooperation, not forgetting that against neighbours or
without the friendship of neighbours no house can be lived in peacefully’ (GÁ1992). In the
ideals of ‘European-like-ness’ and ‘Europeanness’,36 Horn names the ‘conduct’, ‘in
which self-esteem is coupled with respect and admiration for others’ (HGY1996a) in the
future. He states that ‘Our vision of the future is a Europe which to our west has already
begun. Where the frontiers dissolve, and can be crossed’ (HGY1996a), where the country
‘has the opportunity to put an end to opposites, to settle every conflict that due to the whims
of history have poisoned relations with its neighbours’, and the ‘historical peace between
peoples’ can come about (HGY1997).
Orbán says that ‘After a painful century the hope of the Hungarian nation opens to the
calm, secure future’ (OV1999), and ‘Now what we shall do is to carry out the reunification
35
For example: ‘the Hungarians here, in this strategic point of Eastern-Central Europe, its most dangerous strategic
point it could be said, not only survived, but provided a service to the whole of European civilization, to Europe and to
the world. The price of this was in part our destruction, and in part our dispersion and flight’ (AJ1992).
36
‘We adjust to the norms reflecting European-like-ness’ (HGY1996a).
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of the Hungarian nation stretching across the borders. Because the future knows no frontiers’
(OV2001).37
Naturally there is no talk that national cartography would, with the cessation
of the future borders, abolish the nations too. Only the death of the nation
disappears with the ‘return to Europe’. By ‘belonging to somewhere’ the death
of the nation represented as a stroke of fate loses its significance, while the death
implied by falling into sin (through the vindication of the values of the Golden
Age) ceases with the termination of the wars between peoples. The desired future
state can be expressed in the statement that the ‘border links rather than divides’.38
This was expressed by Mádl in 2001:
‘We must follow the example with which [Saint Stephen] showed us how the self-aware
declaration of our Hungarian nature, and preservation thereof, can be reconciled with the modern
demands of the European and world order and the realization of the resulting resolutions. How to
let the world into us, in such a way that we preserve both our Hungarian selves and for ourselves
the world, as a recognized member thereof ’ (MF2001).
This future homeland is represented in the same way in 2003, when Medgyessy
quotes the motto of the European Union: ‘United in diversity’. The natural
relationship between people and territory thus remains unchanged: national
cartography in the future terminates only the border movements, i.e. the stroke
of fate and the falling into sin. In this way it finds a ‘solution’ to the ‘danger’ of
deterritorialization.
The above two localization techniques presented create the natural belonging of
the Hungarian nation and the territory by moving the border between East and
West. The stroke of fate does so by moving the state frontiers, while the falling
into sin, which defines the ethnic borders, moves the border of East and West
through the movement of non-Hungarian peoples. In both cases the position of
the homeland is the cause of events. Yet, as we have seen, falling into sin never
37
See also: ‘With the millennium we have closed the door on the long, sickly, conceited and bitter twentieth century.
We slammed the door shut on it at the last minute, because it threatened to continue, and our future would have been
the same. But with the millennium we have opened new doors, on [new] vistas, we have sketched [new] horizons.
And we have set forth. Hungary shall no longer be as it was in the twentieth century. We have to date been navigating
a treacherous ravine. We have arrived in a broad, open country. It is time to disembark, for it seems that the century
that lies before us in an excellent opportunity for us to live, to be young, and to remain Hungarian. We feel that all is
ready for splendid things to happen to us’ (OV2001).
38
‘If the peoples of the Carpathian Basic see the borders not as the lines of conflict with enemies’ (HGY1996a); ‘the
homeland will be out of reach for as long as the border separates, rather than connects’ (OV2001).
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occurs due to the nation’s will; in national cartography this localization practice
is implemented as a stroke of fate.
Through these spatial practices of memory then, the territory and nation
are linked through the unquestionable nature of geographical position. This
procedure of the Hungarian people’s attachment to place moves the homeland to
the sphere of nature, to beyond the scope of human activity, nobody can alter the
fact that this place harbours such threats for those who live on it. Nevertheless,
it is not simply the case that the ‘jointly experienced’ great suffering creates a
community of fate. Far more strikingly: the source of the suffering originates
in the location of the homeland. Thus the symbolic dimensions of life and death
are both condensed into the concept of the homeland. I have shown how in the
commemorative addresses the events of the nation’s fate take place not merely
on a territory, but due to the territory. The naturalness of space thus transforms
into the naturalness of the relationship of territory and nation. What is at stake
in examining the memorial space is much greater than the demonstration of the
changes of spatial orientation. The replacement of ‘USSR’ with ‘EU’ is merely a
surface feature of discursive changes.
This rewriting enables and enacts the attachment to the homeland, and thus the
construction of the permanence of national belonging. The attachment of people
to a place of such absolute value through the naturalness of the geographical
position, and thus to one another, means that the coordinates of the homeland
can be given in degrees of latitude and longitude. Thus also the extension of the
group of people populating the homeland gains a spatial dimension, the nation
becomes a ‘body’ whose materiality is defined by space and land. The national
home becomes a palpable reality. The representation of the materiality of the
national body is supported by a rich system of metaphors, including declarations
that the nation has ‘given its blood’, ‘been blitzed’, ‘downtrodden’, and various
forms of the metaphor of amputation also belong here, and ‘the nation’s host
capacity’. In an absolute sense one is linked to a localized, helpless homeland by
exclusive belonging, an attachment before or through birth.
The broad scope of application of the metaphors mentioned above also implies
that the localization practices identified are set into operation at other times,
not just on national feastdays. Their scope of application is far broader, and may
include quotidian interaction, various situations of institutional communication
and even personal life stories. They may operate in text books, on maps stuck onto
classroom walls, in weather forecasts, media events, national parks, memoires,
interviews and so on. These techniques have become widespread, they can
(always as a reaction to the spatial dynamic of nationalism) be appropriated,
used, and their use also entails the modifications necessary for the given context.
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The territorialization practice of the national commemorations analyzed is
distinguished by its rather ritualized nature, which in this case can be understood
as the basis for their performative operation.
Redrawing the Map
The 2003 commemorative address moreover was located on the cusp of the
period under examination: Hungary’s accession to the European Union was
legally completed, though it would enter into force only the following year.
This ‘borderline situation’ gave rise to several peculiarities in the text too. This
speech was no less than the announcing of the ‘homecoming’ to Europe, on the
threshold.39 Thus the speaker too prefers to look forward, peeping into the longdesired new homeland:
‘Our sense of being Hungarian in Europe, our existence as a state is an important millennial
virtue. But perhaps more important than this is Hungary’s future. Peaceful homes, people living
in prosperity, children growing up in safety. Clean courtyards, tidy doorways, finely plastered
houses. This will be the ordinary Europe, now Hungarian’ (MP2003).
The speaker prophesying the ‘European rebirth of the Hungarian state’ can now state
with confidence that ‘Hungary will be successful. And, for the first time in many long
years, this depends on us’. The now familiar narrative structure shows peculiar
features: in parallel to the theme of ‘ordinary Hungary’ the future as it draws near
is being desecrated, and the imperfection of the present becomes a socio-political
problem:
‘The fact that both at home and across the borders, similarly to in developed Europe, unfortunately
fewer and fewer children are born, is a threat to the nation. Yet it is children who take up our
traditions, the values of our culture, and our mother tongue. In future steadily fewer earners help
an increasing number of elderly citizens. They will help us, Ladies and Gentlemen. They are
our future. And this is the future we must work at, as individuals, families, and as a country’
(MP2003).
The fading away of the nation, which in Antall’s speeches was represented as a
sacrifice made for Europe, is now a European characteristic. Ferenc Mádl spoke in
39
‘Tomorrow [the speech was given on August 19] on the last August 20 outside the EU, we shall salute the
independent, free Hungarian state. Next year, Europe, and within it the Republic of Hungary in Europe, finally
returned home. The Hungarian Europe and the European Hungarian nation’ (MP2003).
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2002 of a transitional period, thus indicating that we were drawing near to its end:
‘Today, thanks to the efforts of the past ten years, the basic values of our life are unavoidable’,
and ‘Every government to date has made serious praiseworthy efforts in the interests of
European integration. These are also the tasks of the future! Protecting our national values,
we must carry through the accession to the European Union’40 (MF2002).
However, the change in the narrative structure of the speeches at the state
commemoration on 20 August was fi rst made absolutely clear at the fi rst
ceremony, addressed to the Hungarian nation, following EU accession. László
Sólyom’s speech has several characteristics that refer to another, though smaller
scale rewriting of the past. In his 2005 speech the president of the republic, began,
after the greetings, with the past tense of the transitional period:
‘For fifteen years, since we have been freely celebrating Saint Stephen on 20 August, from year to
year we hear Stephen’s wise Admonitions to his son, on how a monolingual country with one
custom is weak and frail; how a king must judge with patience and mercy, how he must listen to
advice before making a decision. All this is true, and worth considering. And year after year we
remember Stephen’s great deed, that by founding the kingdom of Hungary he prepared a solid
place for the Hungarians in Europe, to which we owe our survival’ (SL2005).
As it continues it transpires that this is merely a kind of ‘obligatory round’, an
introduction to the speaker’s distancing himself from prior commemorative
addresses.
‘But does anyone translate these messages to today’s language, do they show us what, in Saint
Stephen’s personality and work, was the determining feature which we have need of now and in
the future? Stephen did not merely found a kingdom, and thereby did not just join Europe. Many
in his time did this; on the verges of Europe a whole series of Christian kingdoms and principalities
sprouted up. His true greatness lay in the fact that in sovereign manner he defined Hungary’s place
in the world of the time’ (SL2005).
Besides the president’s naming the first king’s ‘true greatness’, counter to prior
addresses, the basic innovation is that he refers to the previously regularly
40
In his speech of 2004 signs that indicate a change in the narrative structure can be found. I shall not
analyze this commemorative address in more detail, because it was not addressed to the Hungarian
nation (it was given at a reception in Tallin). In spite of this I consider the conditional used in the
following quotation worthy of note: ‘The opportunity for us to retain our independent statehood has often been
in danger. We might mention many examples of this from previous centuries, or even thinking of the most recent, the
twentieth century. Yet Saint Stephen’s opus has proved solid enough to see the Hungarian nation through the most
difficult of times’ (MF2004).
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overlooked fact that Stephen’s action was far from being unique in the region.
Stephen’s portrait is thus redrawn, and in this the ‘joining Europe’ is merely a
secondary characteristic.
Furthermore it is important that the ‘sovereign determination of place’ relates not
to the independence of the Hungarian state founded squeezed between East and
West; Stephen ‘retained the country’s complete independence between the Kaiser and the
Pope’. The example of Stephen, which is to be followed even in the present, is none
other than the determination of place, the context of which is no longer Europe:
the map spans the entire world.
‘In the time of Saint Stephen the world was Europe, and at most stretched as far as Jerusalem.
Today we have to place Hungary in the global world. News and culture does not flow on the
pilgrim route to the Holy Land, nor do traders travel that way. The Earth is enmeshed in a dense
communication web, it crackles, buzzes and clunks, and with incredible speed news, money and
knowledge flows. This artificial world is almost frightening. Everywhere there are land and air
corridors, full of people and goods. In this global view it was a necessary and right decision for
Hungary to become a member of the European Union. But the example of Saint Stephen is valid
for this new situation too: the sovereign determination of place, self-awareness and self-esteem’
(SL2005).
Even the dangers threatening the Hungarian nation are not a result of the
homeland’s intermediary position, squeezed between East and West, but are
global, one might say the threats might arise anywhere:
‘Our expanded world has created its own global threats. Such is terrorism. To take a stand against
this is the right and duty of every country; it is the vital interest of every country to defend itself ’
(SL2005).
Regardless of where it is in the world, we might add. With the repeated redrawing
of the world map, those who feature on it also undergo changes. The small nation
languishing in the shadow of East and West is now a power factor, and Europe,
the previous Promised Land is whittled down to Brussels, which is not above
criticism and has something to learn from the Hungarians. In some regards, the
Hungarian nation is ‘more European’ than Europe.41
41
‘Besides the Admonitions it is customary to mention the laws of Saint Stephen; this is the source of the thousandyear river of Hungarian jurisdiction. It should be known of these laws that they were far more humane that the laws
of other countries in contemporary Europe, furthermore, the king was able to ensure the observance of these strict, but
just laws’ (SL2005).
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‘Let us be aware that among the countries of the EU in terms of greatness we are a medium power;
that we too shape what will and may happen in the Union. It is true that the decision-making
of the European Union is not sufficiently democratic. But we should exploit democracy at home
more, for what we represent in Brussels!’42 (SL2005).
A fundamental change, then, is that the decline as part of the narrative structure
generally used previously is now absent; furthermore the parallel with salvation
story is less significant, if it appears at all (i.e. it is now far from being a question
of destiny whether or not Hungary is capable of being European). Of course
the present still leaves much to be desired, but the failure to recognize the
opportunities that come with EU membership are not interpreted as sins –
Hungarians are ‘inherently good’:
‘But the consumer values unleashed on us after 1990, the monocracy of money, repugnant
politicizing has at most veiled the virtues in us. For the country lives, and although it is not on
the front pages of papers, people have held their ground in the tough years’ (SL2005).
The special narrative features of the commemorative address are related to the fact
that in the speech after EU accession, through the treating of EU and Europe as
equivalent, the Golden Age has once more come round, the ‘Stephen’s opus’ has
been completed, and simultaneously to this the previously self-evident centreperiphery relation has been relativized.43 Generally speaking it is true that a given
speaker has to take account of the paradox that time does not stand still, but in
the case of the end of an era so weighed down with symbolism as EU accession,
it is all the more to be expected that the sacred nature of the occasion, though it
obviously comes into conflict with profane everyday experience, may influence
42
See also: ‘Why, in our international relations, should we always adapt, follow a model? Let us learn from King
Stephen, that we be capable of our own, independent contribution in Europe and in the world! Indeed we can set forth
solutions which are designed for our problems, and with patient work we can get them accepted’ (SL2005).
43
In 2006 the Defence Minister gave the commemorative speech, the larger part of which was addressed
to newly sworn-in officers, and whose central theme revolved around defense and the military. It is
however worth quoting a brief excerpt from which it transpires not only that Hungary’s situation has
become firmer, and has changed from being on the periphery to ‘a part of the center’, but also that the
Hungarians have completed ‘Stephen’s lifework’. The quotation is as follows: ‘For centuries the Hungarian
nation retained and protected the legacy of Saint Stephen. Nearly one thousand years later, we have completed the great
king’s lifework. We have once more entered the system of alliance of the West. Today the Republic of Hungary stands
not alone in the world, but is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and a member of the European
Union. (…) Alliance with the other European states meant security and the opportunity for development for our
homeland when Saint Stephen founded the state, and it means the same today. Through this alliance, the situation
and security of Hungary has improved fundamentally. A new dimension has opened before us, we have become part
of one of the decisive military, political and economic centers of the world.’
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commemorative utterances for years to come. This well goes to show that every
participant acts in the history of the discourse, i.e. in the series of prior utterances,
and there is no such thing as an absolute beginning or end (only in the narration).
Salvation always withdraws into the future.
In the address of 2005, there arose a form of localization different to the
previous ones, which ideal typically created belonging not in relation to the
national body located in geographical space. In this case then (linked to the fact
that threats can come from anywhere, not just from the East or the West), the
national home must be continuously built; it is not a given ‘body’ which by way
of nature belongs to the individual, thus providing the promise of security. The
‘sovereign localization’ affects everybody: the distance between the self and the
other, the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ cannot be measured in kilometres; rather it is a social
distance. One must constantly dare, i.e. judge. The security factors, however,
the state and law, could be said to be artificial, that is, they are debatable and
transformable.
What lies behind this structural change is that the localization practices termed
the ‘stroke of fate’ and the ‘falling into sin’ seem to retreat simultaneously with the
‘threat’ of deterritorialization that brings them into play; their narrative nature
is reduced and they condense into signs, they are dispersed as traces, ready to be
put to use again, or in the last resort to disappear into oblivion. However, this
change well demonstrates that the discursive repertoire which is the object of this
analysis may undergo change during use. Moreover the to date solitary nature of
the localization form above indicates that the procedures of national cartography
cannot be deduced from the events of spatial dynamics, they are not functions
thereof, although without the latter they could not be subject to examination.
We have seen that the localization practices include deterritorialization in the
representation, and in such a way that they try to portray it as a threat, indeed in
the representation of the future they even find a solution for it. In this operation
a mutual interaction is at work, rather than some unilateral determinedness, and
this field can be made the subject of examination in the frame of the historical
context. National cartography existed prior to 1989 too, and will do so in the
future, for some time in all likelihood, but it may take on new forms. The state
and national commemorations between the regime change and EU accession have
in any case proved to be a research field in which, by virtue of their elaborate
nature, the practices constructing a national home are difficult to overlook.
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Summary
The map produced by national cartography implementing state normalization
operates in discourse, which divides, separates, names, relates and in their
materiality produces the phenomena depicted. A Vincent Descombes-type
‘rhetorical homeland’ is produced, with which speakers of the language are
familiar, and they have no communication difficulties. This space both consists
of new discursive formations and makes new use of earlier topoi. However the
space constructed by national cartography in the period analysed has its most
salient feature that it identifies with geographical space as a natural reality.
The localization practices of national cartography presented, the ‘stroke of
fate’ and the ‘falling into sin’, impose the territorial norm of the nation-state, in
other words they territorialize belonging. They derive national belonging from
the territory, and in such a way that they represent the geographical position
given by nature as a relationship, given by nature, between the people and the
territory. This kind of attachment to place by the nation would secure homeliness
by ensuring a natural, permanent and unquestionable place in the world for the
members of the nation, as opposed to the events categorized as ‘the other’ by the
continuous drawing of boundaries. In this operation the main means of drawing
boundaries was the East–West opposition. The East–West border, as the boundary
between ‘easternness’ and ‘westerness’, during the nation’s history has moved in an
east–west direction such that the Hungarian nation (compared to this movement)
has remained stationary, and its fate has been formed by the constraints arising
from its location. This location thus is given an absolute local value: in the space
of national memory everything is in flux except the homeland. In line with the
territorial norms of the nation-state the Hungarian homeland is localized as a
territory, in the absolute sense, in geographical space.
The geographical extension also lends ‘body’ to the nation, which thus
becomes delimited in space. Localization also prescribes the manner of belonging
there: one is linked to the ‘national body’ by a natural, organic and therefore
exclusive relationship. This construction in fact only allows two relationships:
the positions of the compatriot and the alien (‘one has to be born here’). All this
naturally means a deceptive homeliness, since the homeland ‘is there’, just as it
always ‘was there’, whatever history brought, it did not need to be cared for. Just
as the changes affecting the homeland all seem to be threats from outside, and
resistant to influence by human deed. The topos of the given helpless homeland,
beyond human power, promises immutability in a world which shows itself
through images and examples of constant change, insecurity and loss of values.
What is happening is that the localization practices turn deterritorialization into
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a burden weighing on the nation, and overcoming it would secure success for the
nation’s survival.
The materiality of spatial representation of the nation does not however end
with the construction of the national body: the discursive materiality of the
commemorative addresses is complemented by the sites and accessories of the
rituals. The historical sites bring the commemorative speakers into a material
relationship with the former members of the nation, who ‘trod the same
ground’. The sacred nature of the sites of the commemorations is thus imparted
to the gathered crowds, yet one should not overlook the fact that the rite also
carries out the consecration of the place: the performative here-and-now of the
commemoration (re-)organizes the spatiality, even if this entails the maintenance
of a given structure. The declaration of ‘in this place’ masks the reconfiguration
of space, and it is the site, assumed as identical in time, that creates a link to the
reconstructed past. These national rituals form the meaning of the relationship
between the human community and the soil.
The practices of national cartography exemplify the memory politics of the
post-1989 Hungarian state. Although I have examined their operation in political
discourse in the traditional sense, they are by nature cultural: as a reaction to
the uncertainty expressed in spatial movements their enactment aims to give an
answer to ontological questions such as ‘Where is our place in the world?’ ‘Where
did we come from and where are we going?’, ‘For what purpose were we born?’.
They are a part of cultural representation, thus their political nature is not related
to public affairs. These practices create a homeland to which one is bound not
by political loyalty, but by natural attachment: belonging is not a question of
choice. The national body constructed through them is not a body politic (corpus
politicum), but a pre-political, for it is represented in its corporeal-spatial extension
and expression, regardless of the public apparatus or historical era. The homeland
described by national cartography exists not in a ‘relation between the state and
its members’ (Rousseau), 44 but in a geographically defined place; it is the nation’s
44
For the history of the political idea of the homeland see the works of Jenő Szűcs, for example
Nemzet és történelem. Tanulmányok, (Budapest: Gondolat, 1974). Szűcs examines not the practical concept
of the nation, but sets out from the apprehension of nation and patrie of the French Enlightenment.
Characteristically, he takes account of only one element of Renan’s dual definition of nation (a common
respect for the past and a present will to live together as a community), and gives no attention to the
importance of the national past: ‘On the other hand – and this is key – belonging to the national
community is in essence a different kind, a different nature of relationship, from “organic”, “natural”
relation referred to by the image of “root”. Far rather Ernest Renan’s famous definition (1882): “The
existence of a nation – a referendum repeated day by day”. National belonging, the conscious undertaking
of the national community, is a qualitatively different image from some mystical “organic” relationship.’
( Jenő Szűcs, “A nemzet historikuma és a történelemszemlélet nemzeti látószöge. Hozzászólás egy
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physical home, which may extend beyond the state borders; its borders are defined
not by agreements, but by fate. This homeland is formed not by the free and
responsible partnership between citizens, but by mythical congruence, fateful
kinship, the corporeal-physical identity of the place. By consequence of this its
members are not obedient to it, but make sacrifices for it; they do not choose it,
but are chosen by it.
The first commemoration on 20 August following EU accession brought the
innovation that, apart from dispensing with previous localization practices, it
relativized the position of the homeland. Partly by representing the threats to
the nation as global, and partly by portraying the relationship between Europe
and the Hungarians as multilateral, in which the two parties can learn from one
another, in a way not currently framed. This form of localization may be termed
relative, since it is flexible in the way it brings into play the centre-periphery
structure, previously applied exclusively and in a geographical sense (cf. ‘sovereign
determination of place’). A further study might examine why the relative localization
practices have not had a significant role in the years after 2004. The procedure
operating with the centre-periphery structure is, as we have seen, not new to
Hungarian ears, for they have often heard it referred to. However, either in the
sense that Hungary, the heart of Europe must return to the body to which it
belongs, or in the sense that the periphery must catch up with Europe, the centre.
In both cases meanings are generated by the absolute rather than the relative
situation of the centre.
vitához,” in Nemzet és történelem. Tanulmányok, by Jenő Szűcs (Budapest: Gondolat, 1974), 183. Emphasis
in the original). As I reasoned in chapter one, the main issue is precisely how, in spite of this normative
criticism, the nation as a practical category is able nevertheless to take on mythical-organic meanings
and to induce them in everyday life.
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4. The Nation as Imaginative Laboratory
‘There are people who would never have been in love
if they had never heard love spoken about.’
François de la Rochefoucauld
The state has a special role in forming national belonging, since it has at its
disposal considerable institutional resource to prescribe and enforce the ‘right’
cultural form of belonging based on the territorial nation-state, and through this
to carry out the discursive normalization of the population. If however we wish
to understand the internal (spatial) dynamic of the national discourse, and we are
interested not only in the role of the ‘elites’, then we shall have to investigate the
appropriation of the norm of the territorial nation-state, namely the possibilities
of resistance to its enforcement within individual identity strategies. This issue is
as confusing as it is obvious: how is it possible to examine the individual utterance
in the context of the state as an actor?
In respect of the relationship between the state and the individual two
theoretical problems arise. One relates to the concept of politics. Political action is
not restricted to state institutions; the individual and private life become political,
thus the personal memory and personal identity also become political. Firstly
then I shall deal with the politics of belonging, in respect of which theoretical
issues of identity will surface. The other problem consists of the way how, in the
power relationship between the individual and the state, are we to interpret state
normalization and individual identity strategies. The matter here is the discursive
relationship of subject and power, in which moreover account must be taken of
the significance of (state) institutions. Following the discussion of the theoretical
issues I shall make a brief digression into research methodology: I shall lay out
the structure of the research, and then answer the question of how we are to
analyze ‘national subjectification’, considered as an individual identity strategy,
and finally there follow some important methodological remarks on the recording
and analysis of the interviews.
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Identity and Politics
In Bauman’s artful phrase: ‘“Identity” owes the attention it attracts and the
passions it begets to being a surrogate of community: of that allegedly “natural home”
which is no longer available […] in the fast globalized world […].’1 This quotation
could almost be used as a motto, since it links the role of identity (in inverted
commas) in substituting for community to the lack of a natural home (in inverted
commas). The reason it instead became part of the text is that Bauman stops at
the grandiose assertion of this absence, whilst this research takes it as a starting
point: in the aspects of the question of ‘identity’, the issue is the production of a
‘natural home’. Bauman’s declaration is a good starting point, because in relation
to the concept of identity perhaps the most basic understanding is that it always
tries to fill the gap of something missing. The first point is the lack of the selfevident sense of security provided by traditional communities (or the uniform
self), which can be seen as one of the basic experiences in today’s (globalized)
world – Giddens for instance goes as far as to say that the close and everyday link
between modernity and radical doubt is ‘existentially troubling’ for individuals.2
For his part Bauman considers the disorderliness and randomness of (life) purposes
the source of anxiety and insecurity. He maintains that while in an earlier period
pilgrims (as a metaphor for constructors of identity) faced the question of how
to reach their destination, which for them was a given, and to choose the means
correctly, today’s identity workers must make good with the experience of
being continually on the road, while there is a superabundance of means for selfaccomplishment and self-fulfillment.3
Finally the virtues of the Bauman quotation above are further augmented
by the fact that it brings the concept of identity into the context of that of
globalization. This cautions us that the problem of identity exists not per se, but
is to be interpreted in a defined historical and societal context. In what follows I
shall set out from this context, the societal process of individualization.
1
Zygmunt Bauman, “Identity in the globalizing world,” Social Anthropology, 9/2 (2001): 128.
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1991).
3
Bauman illustrates the postmodern problems of identity through the figures of the vagabond, the
tourist, the stroller (flaneur), and the player. Zygmunt Bauman, „From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short
History of Identity”, In, Questions of Cultural Identity, (ed.) Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, (London–
Thousand Oaks–New Delhi: SAGE, 1996),18-37.
2
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Individualization
The problem of ‘non-per se’ identity is a modern problem, and therefore
a historical one. What makes it pertinent today is that the order of modern
industrial societies and the philosophical tradition of the Englightenment
have undergone radical changes and criticism respectively. These changes are
referred to by the concepts of late modern (Giddens), the postmodern (Bauman)
or reflexive modernity (Beck).4 While Giddens’s work is unclear about what
separates the modern from the late modern, according to Bauman5 the
postmodern is distinguished by a ‘fluid’ state: while in modern circumstances
the social ‘places’ which people had to fit into in their identity-building projects
were solid (for instance, through class and gender definitions), today they are
being questioned. The transformation of the modern industrial order, or the
transition from an industrial to a risk society is interpreted by Beck as the success
of modernization:6 while in the first phase it freed us from feudal constraints,
from the second half of the twentieth century it sweeps away the self-evident
circumstances of the industrial social order. The concept of reflexive modernity7
refers to the fact that the process of modernization affects itself, its bases and its
consequences are confronting one another. Beck compares the embeddedness
of the collective life models offered by classic modernity to Russian dolls: the
class assumes the nuclear family, which assumes sexual roles, which assumes the
division of labour between men and women, which assumes marriage, and so on.
In other words the possible ways of conducting life and life situations support
each other. During the ‘great transformation’ known as reflexive modernity
the mutual embeddedness ceases, possibilities and compulsions open up before
action, knowledge and desires, and a choice must be made in the absence of all
manner of pre-given certainties – Beck calls this the crisis of industrial society’s
security fictions.
4
I draw on the thinking of these three classics of the ‘second modernity’ on individualization only
in order to raise the problem of identity and identity politics. I shall not go into the repercussions
or a critique of the concept of reflexive modernity, because my view is that the problem of cultural
belongings (as a project and politics of the self) can be raised in relation to individualization in regard
to the Hungary of the 1990s and the surrounding region.
5
Bauman, “Identity in the Globalizing World.”
6
Ulrich Beck, Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity, (London–Thousand Oaks–New Delhi: SAGE,
1992); Ulrich Beck, “The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization,”
in Reflexive Modernization. Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (ed.) Ulrich Beck,
Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1–56.
7
Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (eds.), Reflexive Modernization. Politics, Tradition and
Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994).
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If we investigate the issue of identity from a socio-historical perspective, then
we must start from individualization, the social transformation affecting the
individual. Beck gives this name to the process through which the lifestyles typical
of industrial society first become disembedded, then continually re-embedded
with new ones – individuals now have to produce their own biographies, and
can no longer rely on unquestionable models. The social belonging and place
of the individual is not obvious (neither by virtue of their origin, marriage nor
career), and it must be created and maintained continually. Marriage and the
institution of the family is a good example, having moved from tradition to being
dependent on decision and planning, and its contradictions have become personal
risky experiences. The ‘pure relationship’ (Giddens) which replaces marriage in
which both parties negotiate as equals on the one hand opens the door to new
possibilities for intimacy, and on the other becomes a fragile and risky bond.
Individualization assumes the individual as an actor, who for themselves becomes
the subject and object of their own continuous interventions. Identity in this
sense is an ever-present constant problem awaiting a solution, the consequence of
individualization. It is a new form of life conducting which is defined by the work
of continuous life-planning. Identity then is not a given feature or (acquired or
inherited) characteristic, but a process, a project, which burdens the individual
with a constant task and responsibility.
It is not simply a matter of liberation: the consequence of individualization is
compulsory and continual self-identification, moreover, in unequal conditions.
As Bauman says, the compulsion of identification is constantly incumbent on the
individual. Rather than identity, it is more accurate to speak of identification: the
unending, always imperfect, incomplete and open work the individual carries
out upon themselves.
Why is the biographical work carried out on oneself continuous and
incomplete? Partly because of the constantly changing circumstances, or rather
because all knowledge and values can be subject to revision.8 And partly
because this continuous work on identity is triggered by the fact that there is no
‘biographical’ solution for systematic contradictions, although the individual is
urged to seek just such solutions.9 This is what Bauman refers to in the quotation
above, when he calls ‘identity’ a substitute, in place of a solution. Put simply
then, the uncertainty that weighs on the individual is not individual in origin;
life conduct and the forces that define life situations are incompatible with one
another. Thirdly and finally, the compulsory individualization also prescribes
8
In Giddens’ vocabulary this means the reflexivity of modernity, which undermines the promise of
the Enlightenment regarding sound and secure knowledge. Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity.
9
Beck, “The Reinvention of Politics.”
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that the individual’s biography be consistent. The biography must be constructed
such that it leads from somewhere to somewhere, but among circumstances which
are characterized by equally important directions, opportunities for choice and
a diversity of outcomes.
All this shows that identification is not a free choice of the autonomous
individual, but compulsory both in respect of the possible choices of life conduct,
and the way they are managed: not choosing is not an option, and the individual
takes the consequences for a ‘bad’ choice. Furthermore, the compulsory decisions
in life conduct are not resolved by rational deliberation, because the knowledge
available on the possible outcomes of the decisions is limited and casual, not to
mention the scope for individual action. The decisions arising in planning one’s
life represent risk-taking for the individual.
The Politics of Belonging
An individual’s reflexive action on themselves is a political action. The individual,
private life, skills and procedures related to life and conduct of living become
a part of the endeavours to change power relations and shape society. Just as
individualization is not a private matter, neither is identity a characteristic of
the individual, not affecting others. Politics is not restricted to state institutions.
Beck calls this a ‘category error’, seeing it as a misuse of the category of ‘politics’.
Indeed, to what extent can manifestations termed by Beck subpolitics be linked
to the state and to the traditionally understood public matters? Is sexuality,
consumption and gender obviously a private matter? Perhaps the classic example
of politics understood in this sense is feminism – but we can point to any action
of identity politics, or reform cuisine, consumers’ boycotts, and the ecological
movement. Beck distinguishes subpolitics from politics (in the traditional sense)
by the fact that actors outside the state institutions appear on the stage of social
planning, and not only collective actors, but individuals too compete to shape
the world. Private life becomes the terrain for scientific-specialist theories, public
debate, contradictions and conflicts.
It should be added that in the sense above politics may relate not only to
the institutional reflexivity of modernity. Not for nothing does Lash point out
that his co-authors do not pay attention to the cultural dimension of reflexive
modernity.10 Thus the cultural or discursive constraints and opportunities
10
Scott Lash, “Ref lexivity and its Doubles: Structure, Aesthetics, Community,” in Reflexive
Modernization. Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, (eds) Ulrich Beck, Anthony
Giddens and Scott Lash, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 110–173. See also
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to which the individual has to adjust as consequences of individualization are
not to be overlooked. One such constraint is that the individual has not only
to manufacture his own biography, but must be able to give an account of it,
they are compelled to present their ‘own’, ‘coherent’ life story in order to appear
as a morally responsible and capable person.11 As for the opportunities opening
up for the individual, we can speak of them in the sense that the struggles of
cultural difference and identity, and of social classification can now be waged by
individuals too – at the same time that the nation-state loses its monopoly on the
production and surveillance of belongings.
This is well demonstrated by the currently decisive role of identity politics
in everyday life. The concept refers to political actions12 which are based on the
common experiences of members of each social group; they are not exclusively
linked to state institutions; instead of being organized around systems of ideas
and programs the campaigns of identity politics typically aim to achieve the
political freedom of a marginalized group; its members endeavour to recognize
their own difference, and they demand (reclaim) the acceptance of their differing
self-recognition, and finally their movement subverts the prevalent (oppressive)
categorizations. All this assumes that the members of certain groups are more
subject to oppression, violence and marginalization, than others. Identity politics
is nothing less than the politics of recognition, a social organization whose basis is
precisely that thing by which recognition is denied (as a Hungarian, as a woman,
as a black, as a homosexual etc.).
The basis for identity politics is not an ideological community, or a commitment
to attaining some goal in the future, but a past experience considered as common.
It is no coincidence that memory politics is such an important sphere and means
for this kind of political endeavour. Furthermore, identity politics action sets the
recognition of difference as its aim. In this regard the term ‘identity politics’ is
particularly justified, since at stake is the chance for an own, legitimate difference
and belonging of equal rank with the ‘others’. Finally, the aim of identity
politics is to subvert the prevalent categorization (or the hierarchy thereof), to
consolidate the stigmatized, disdained belongings. It intervenes in the power
struggles being fought for the division and classification of societal reality, and for
the construction of meaning and value relations between categories describing
existing groups.
“Expert-systems or Situated Interpretation? Culture and Institutions in Disorganized Capitalism” in
Beck et al. (eds) Reflexive Modernization, 198–215.
11
Paul John Eakin, “Breaking Rules: The consequences of self-narration,” Biography, 24/1 (2001): 113–127.
12
Based on an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Cressida Heyes’s piece is available on the
internet: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/.
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The politics of identity however cannot be narrowed down to identity
politics. Apart from the fact that it considers access to experience independent of
interpretation, identity politics draws its strength from the fact that oppression
is based on past events, thus it designates an unchangeable community. Yet
the community is designated not by the existence of common experience, but
by the meaning-producing practices which make experience accessible at all.
Furthermore the conception (the ‘metaphysics of substance’) is untenable that
the self-identical subject ontologically exists a priori compared to any form of
social injustice, i.e. that ‘unique experience of identity’ precedes subjugation.
And this is precisely what identity politics asserts: the ‘substance of the self’ (e.g.
nationhood) is the reason for subjugation and oppression. Without denying the
reality of oppression, in what follows I shall postulate that subjectification is a
procedure of power, and the acting subject is the result of subjugation, not the
reason for it. The subject is thus compelled to take up the position designated
by the normalizing discourse, and self-identity starts with identification (by
others): there is no woman without the male gaze, no Roma without the gaze
of non-Roma. Only through this is the individual capable of any action as a
subject. This includes the political act of overturning the hierarchy between the
identity categories (‘black is beautiful’), or subverting the normativity of the
prevalent categorization (subversion). Classic identity politics aims to provide
a new meaning to the identity category, which could be the basis of belonging.
This resignification means that in some way it liberates the category from the
stigma. Subversion is political resistance which becomes possible through the
impossibility of perfectly realizing the (institutionally) prescribed normative
ideal. It is a discursive strategy which points precisely to this impossibility, or in
some other way suspends the naturalness and obviousness of the enforced norm.13
In the politics of identity the consolidation of marginalized belonging means far
more than gaining recognition for difference, or more precisely, than attaining
the state in which ‘our suffering’ is ranked equally with that of other groups. The
identity categories on which social groups are based are never equal, and strategic
action aims to either restructure or maintain the power relations inscribed in
meaning and value.
Thus politicized belonging is not the same as the political community. The
struggles of identification include identity politics, but they are not identical,
since the politics of belonging is more than claims based on common experiences.
To use Foucault’s words14 the aim of the struggles against the ‘government of
13
On this see Judith Butler, Bodies that matter: on the discursive limitations of “sex”, (New York, London:
Routledge, 1993).
14
Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” Critical Inquiry: 777–95, 781.
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individualization’ around the question ‘Who are we?’ is to question and change
the way in which knowledge flows and operates, and how it relates to power (in
other words, to subvert the regime du savoir).
Government of the Self
What conceptual framework can be used to grasp the politics of belonging? The
concept of governmentality15 developed in a fragmentary manner by Foucault
fulfils both requirements: it is able to relate the individual and the state on the
political level, and also to link everyday power relations with well-established
institutions. In the fourth lecture of the course in the Collège de France in 1977–
78, when Foucault first brought it up, the main characteristic of the concept of
governmentality was that it is historically bounded and of limited application.
In western European history it designates the form of power established by the
eighteenth century, the centre of which is the population defined by its own
laws, whose main form of knowledge is political economy, and whose prime
technical means is laisser-faire. In contrast to the excercise of sovereign power, in
governmentality the population (its wealth, health, life expectancy etc.) features
as the ultimate goal of government (and governmental techniques). In order to
achieve these aims the governing powers use means belonging to the population:
such as encouraging birth rate, controlling activities by intervening in various
ways, like taxes and duties, subsidies or vaccinations.
Later Foucault defines governmentality as the way people’s conduct is directed
(people are governed), and the concept is thus then used for a general analysis of
power relations, departing from the issue of the modern western state. Government
is formed by the techniques and procedures that serve to direct people’s conduct:
to govern souls, consciences, children, households, a state. In this sense (and the
one I use in what follows) governmentality means the strategic space of power
relations in which these relations are mobile, able to transmutate and be reversed:
Within this field there form types of conduct, or types of conduct of conduct,16
which are the characteristics of governmentality. At this level of analysis the
‘event’ no longer designates a historical happening, but a strategic movement.
Above I quoted Foucault on the battles fought against the ‘government of
individualization’. Foucault’s much-cited standard example of these struggles
15
Michel Foucault, Sécurité, territoire, population, Cours au Collège de France 1977–1978, (Seuil/
Gallimard, 2004).
16
In French conduire means to guide or lead, while se conduire is to behave, to “conduct oneself”. As a
noun la conduit refers to behaviour, to conduct.
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of subjectivity is the Reformation: the demand that the individual take part in
spiritual life, in winning salvation, in the Truth laid down in the Book, can
be interpreted as a struggle for a new subjectivity, as an endeavour for reform
in the leading of souls. On the aim of similar struggles today he writes: ‘It is a
form of power which makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings of the
word subject: subject to someone else by control and dependence; and tied to his
own identity by a consience and self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form
of power which subjugates and makes subject to.’17 Foucault explains the fact
that today the struggle against the prevalent forms of subjection has gone into
overdrive, that since the sixteenth century a new political form of power has been
continuously developing: the state. In contrast to the usual understanding of the
state18 he emphasizes that it both individualizes and totalizes, as a result of the fact that
the modern Western state integrated pastoral power, the power technique rooted
in old ecclesiastical institutions, into a new political form. The characteristic of
pastoral power is that in leading souls it cares both for the whole community of
believers, and for each believer individually. In addition it assumes knowledge
of their conscience to be able to analytically separate evil and sin, and the ability
to govern souls. The techniques for governing souls include confession (as a
technique for acquiring true knowledge on the soul) and penitence (as a practice
of renewal and purification). Foucault’s view is that in the eighteenth century
the new division and organization of this individualizing-totalizing power took
place: this is the birth of governmentality as a new political rationality. From
then on ‘the state is a highly refined structure, into which individuals can be
incorporated’, thus the state can be considered the modern matrix of individualization
(or a new form of pastoral power) – the concept of salvation also takes on new
meanings, becoming mundane: importance is ascribed to health, welfare, security
or protection against accidents.
In Foucault’s vocabulary a power relationship is an action affecting an action,
a ‘relationship between partners’. The other on whom power is exercised, is
accepted as a capable person, since power (unlike violence) can only be exercised
over free subjects, who have a field of opportunities for action. In resisting the
power a whole field of responses, reactions, results and possible innovations opens
up (to differing degrees).
Foucault demonstrates the peculiarity of power relations through the
ambiguity in French of the word conduire. He writes: ‘…to “conduct” is at the
17
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” Critical Inquiry, 781. (emphasis in the original).
“But most of the time, the state is envisioned as a kind of political power which ignores individuals,
looking only at the interests of the totality or, I should say, of a class or a group among the citizens.”
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 782.
18
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same time to “lead” others (according to mechanisms of coercion which are,
to varying degrees, strict), and a way of behaving within a more or less open
field of possibilities. The exercise of [governmental] power consists in guiding
the possibility of conduct and putting in order the possible outcome. Basically
power is less a confrontation between two adversaries or the linking of one to
the other than a question of government. […] To govern, in this sense, is to
structure the possible field of action of others.’19 The concept of ‘government’
refers not only to political structures or the administration of states, but already
in the sixteenth century applied to a continuum from individuals (the government
of children, patients, and souls), through communities (e.g. the government of
families, monasteries) to the running of the state.20
In methodological terms it is crucial and exemplary that for Foucault
the relations of power have priority over institutions: the level and form of
institutionalization itself is also an analytical criterion. Although many forms
of power relations refer to the state, this is not because they are derived from it,
but rather because power relations have come increasingly under the scrutiny
of the state. To use Foucault’s expression, power relations are being continually
‘governmentalized’, that is, they are extended, rationalized and centralized in the
form of state institutions. Thus ‘one sees why the analysis of power relations within
a society cannot be reduced to the study of a series of institutions, not even to
the study of all those institutions which would merit the name “political”. Power
relations are rooted in the system of social networks.’21 Historically the state is an
institutionalized power technology, the ensemble of centralized power practices
crystallizing into institutional structures in the space of governmentality.
The techniques for producing true knowledge about ourselves change
historically; what they have in common is that people use them in order to find
out who they really are. Foucault distinguishes between several types of such
techniques,22 and the techniques of the self, are those that enable the individual to
carry out various procedures on their own bodies and souls, their thoughts,
behaviour and lifestyle, to change themselves. The techniques of the self shape
19
Foucault: ‘The Subject and Power’, Critical Inquiry, 789–90.
Literature on the ‘art of governance’ criticizing Machiavelli establishes the continuity of modes of
government in two directions. Bottom up: whoever wants to govern the state must first learn to govern
themselves, then their family and fortune; and top down: if the leader of the state governs it well, then
the heads of families will govern their families well etc. See Michel Foucault,”Governmentality,” in
Michel Foucault, Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, vol. 3: Power, James D. Faubion (ed.), (New York:
The New Press, 2000), 200–222. The concept of governmentality is dealt with in detail in chapter four.
21
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” Critical Inquiry, 792–3.
22
Michel Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault
(ed.) Martin, L. H. et al. (University of Massachusets Press, 1988), 16–49.
20
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the individual into a subject, inasmuch as they make him/her into the object of
knowledge and the subject of action.
Foucault never provided an analysis of the technology of the self related to
governmentality, because his interest in the field was directed at antiquity.23
The ancient ‘art of selfness’ included such practices as writing (making notes,
correspondence) as a part of asceticism.24 The techniques of governing the self
help us to attain self-knowledge, and by using them people shape themselves into
subjects. Asceticism, says Foucault, propounds a discourse of rational principles
for action, considered to be true, in which writing and truth play a decisive role
in its transformation into an ethos. The individual strives to appropriate the true
knowledge latent within, so that he can form it into a principle for action, and
thus be capable through their lives to choose the correct deeds. We can call this
the ethics of conduct, or of living.
In what follows I shall examine the construction of identity as the question
of practices carried out by the individual on himself. These are carried out in
the strategic field of power relations, in which, in line with the various layers of
meaning of ‘government’, the techniques used in conducting others and the self
come into relation to one another. The field of power relations can be strategic25
in three senses: that of the modes of power and the adequate means to maintain
it, that of the strategic games which structure the field of actions of others, and
that of the sense of domination referring to the asymmetrical relationship of
power. This means that the outcome of a struggle between the parties of a power
relationship is always, to some degree, dubious: as soon as one force is victorious,
the power relationship breaks up: as was said earlier, power can only be exercised
on freely acting subjects. In the field of governmentality every confrontational
strategy attempts to become an (institutionalized) power relation, i.e. to make
permanent the subjection of the other with the given technology. This is precisely
what the previous remark regarding subversion refers to: the subject is compelled
to take up the position designated by normalizing discourse, and from there to
alter the power relation. In other words, governmentality is at once the field of
subjection, and of resistance. The strategies of resistance must exploit the potential
for freedom latent in the power relation, the fact that it is never able to fully
realize the normative ideal. The various forms and procedures of subjectification
23
See the courses he gave in the 1980s, especially Michel Foucault, L’Hermeneutique du sujet, Cours au
Collège de France 1981–1982, (Seuil/Gallimard, 2001); and Michel Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi et
des autres, Cours au Collège de France 1982–1983, (Seuil/Gallimard, 2008). Foucault’s investigation of
sexuality also altered in line with this after the publication of volume one.
24
Michel Foucault, “Self Writing,” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (New York: The New Press, 1997),
207–221.
25
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” Critical Inquiry, 793 ff.
134 |
collide, the stake of the strategic and uneven battle of conduct and of resistance is
in the broad sense the way of conducting life, others’ lives and our own: identity.
And its product is the subject.
Importantly, what has been said on the ‘governmentalization’ of power relations
does not mean that we can no longer speak of the exercise of surveillance or legal
power. In the apparatus we today know as the nation-state, not only have techniques
of governance been centralized and institutionalized, but so have the technologies
which prescribe surveillance, just as legal regulations are characteristic of it, with
the exclusive duality of forbidden-permitted. All three types of power carry out
the normalization of some human population; it is a matter of subjection and the
different possibilities for action in this regard (subjectification as subjection and as
construction of the subject). Governmentality is a concept that serves the analysis,
a tool to grasp the link between power and subject, a strategic field in which the
operation of power may play a role at various levels of institutionalization through
forbidding-permitting, prescribing or management (laisser-faire).
Foucault’s concept of governmentality meets both of the requirements above
for the concept of a politics of belonging. Firstly it is a political concept which
puts identity at stake, and which relates the individual and the state, that is, the
ensemble of institutionalized practices. Secondly, methodologically it starts from
the priority of power relations as opposed to that of the existing institutions,
but it recognizes and takes into account the efficiency of institutionalization
in the exercise of power. Thus I have answered the two questions posed in the
introduction relating to the politics of belonging. It remains to clarify how
the struggles of the strategies of identification (of others and of the self) can be
analysed in the individual’s relation to himself.
The Laboratory of the Self
The metaphor of the factory has already been used by others to get a theoretical
grasp on national identity. George Perec for instance writes: ‘Ellis Island was to
be nothing other than a factory for making Americans, for turning emigrants
into immigrants, an American-style factory as quick and efficient as a Chicago
pork-butcher’s. At one end of the assembly line, they would put an Irishman, a
Ukrainian Jew or an Italian from Apulia, at the other end—after their eyes and
pockets had been inspected, and they had been vaccinated and disinfected—there
emerged an American.’26 This image is highly suggestive because it makes use of
26
George Perec, Ellis Island (New York: New Press, 1995). 12.
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many elements of the imaginary world of the nation, just linking the maintenance
of the geographical border with interventions carried out on human bodies,
with the politics of population and in a broader sense Foucauldian biopolitics. In
addition Ellis Island actually exists, it is a border territory in a geographical sense
through which one has to go to get to America and to become American. When I
speak of laboratory, I mean it not as some geographical place (such as the ‘melting
pot of peoples’), but as the operation of a discourse that unfolds in the individual’s
relationship to himself, and where, in the field of governmentality, identification
is realized. It is in this ‘laboratory’ that the national subject is formed.
Self as the Other
The subject is not a unit, but a relation, in other words an indirect and mediated
relationship. This mediation is cultural, since understanding ourselves, like all
understanding, assumes both meanings and procedures that produce meaning.
Whether the critique of the ‘Cartesian subject’ is psychoanalytical or literary
theoretical-philosophical, the individual’s access to himself always presumes
the mediation of some semiotic system. The self enters into an ‘internalized
interaction’ with itself (Ricoeur), and the prime instrument of this communication
is language. Language, which is not merely the instrument of this communication,
but also its medium: what we find within ourselves depends on what concepts
we approach ourselves with, on what knowledge we assume of ‘the person’, and
on the procedures and methods according to which we consider our ‘personality’
approachable. To put it another way, the connection of the self to itself is realized
through cultural representation, moreover, through discursive practices. It is a
matter of culturally mediated self-identification, and of the various forms of
subjection.
In relation to individualization, it has already been mentioned that the
individual’s self-identification which becomes a reflexive project, means the
manufacturing of a coherent biography, and the individual must constantly make
decisions in the life situations that arise. All this relates to the objective biography,
life trajectory, which each individual travels along until their death. Yet if we
accept that the individual’s relationship to themselves is culturally mediated, then
the concept of biography must also be taken seriously, in the strict sense of the
word, as ‘graphy’ – writing. If the result of life-writing is the life story in the
literary-theoretical sense of the word, then identity is a problem of narrative.
According to the narrative theory of identity, self-identity is produced and
maintained in the narration of the life story.
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In his book Oneself as Another27 Paul Ricoeur develops the narrative theory
of self-identification and self-understanding.28 Its basic thesis is that in discussing
identity we must involve the temporal dimension, since the theories of personality
and action take no account of the fact that the individual in question has a
history – his own story. The question is, therefore, how the individual ensures
permamence in time: how do they remain themselves, if they are no longer the
same as they once were?
This is possible, Ricoeur claims, by the self becoming refigured through
the reflexive application of the narrative confi guration. Confi guration is a
concept from literary theory, the art of composition, which ensures mediation
between concordance and discordance in the emplotment. In other words,
narration enables change and transformation without the disintegration of the
concordances responsible for the composition of events, and necessary for the
story not to fall apart. The emplotment, or the model of relationships between
events, enables variety and discontinuity to be incorporated into temporal
continuity. This means that through narrative techniques the self is able to relate
to itself, to deal with itself, such that in spite of changes and transformations it
remains itself. A good example of this is diary writing, but in a broader sense,
even without keeping diaries, every day we write and rewrite our life stories. It
is in this sense that Ricoeur speaks of the detour made into the field of literary
fiction, which is the self ’s path to itself. I shall take ‘literature’ to mean not
only the canonized works of literary scholarship, but also the use of narrative
techniques.
The permanence of the self is realized through temporal and narrative
mediation. In line with the dual meaning of identity, Ricoeur distinguishes two
models of permanence in time. One is that of the character and is characterized by
sameness (idem-identity): the character is the sum of distinguishing traits which
make it possible to re-identify a human individual as the same (the permanence
of character). A decisive step towards a narrative understanding of identity is the
recognition that the ‘discordant concordance’ described above is also the dialectic
of character: ‘[i]t is indeed in the story recounted, with its qualities of unity,
internal structure, and completeness which are conferred by emplotment, that
the character preserves throughout the story an identity correlative to that of
the story itself’.29 In other words the character itself is a narrative category, and
the person is a character in stories – who understands themselves to be such. ‘The
person, understood as a character in a story, is not an entity distinct from his or
27
28
29
Paul Ricoeur, Soi-même comme un autre, (Paris: Seuil, 1990).
See also László Tengelyi, Élettörténet és sorsesemény, (Budapest: Atlantisz, 1998).
Paul Ricoeur, Onself as Another, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 143.
| 137
her ‘experiences’. Quite the opposite: the person shares the condition of dynamic
identity peculiar to the story recounted. The narrative constructs the identity of
the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing
that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the
character.’30
The other pole of permanence in time is characterized by ipse-identity (the
permanence of the person). Calling it selfhood, Ricoeur defines this model of
identity as constancy of the self. The model for this is keeping one’s word: if
someone keeps their word, that is regardless of whether or not others identify
them as the same person. Temporal permanence here means the denial of change,
the mineness which links the self to its own body and its own story.
Ricoeur goes further than the dialectic of character, and claims that it is
equivalent to the dialectic between the two models of permanence in time, and
in which the narrative mediates. To put it another way, the narrative identity
mediates between the character’s sameness and the constancy of the self. ‘The
mediating function performed by the narrative identity of the character between
the poles of sameness and selfhood is attested to primarily by the imaginative
variations to which the narrative submits this identity.’31
With this becomes apparent the significance of the distinction Ricoeur draws
between lived experience and emplotment, and he states that life story and
narration complement one another. Literary narratives teach us to view ourselves
as another: ‘[i]t is precisely because of the elusive character of real life that we
need the help of fiction to organize life retrospectively, after the fact, prepared
to take as provisional and open to revision any figure of emplotment borrowed
from fiction or from history’.32 Ricoeur gives several examples of the ‘help of
fiction’. They include the prop provided by narrative beginnings and endings.
In lived life story there are not actual beginnings or endings: one’s birth is part
of other people’s stories, as is one’s death. Faced with death and the unknown,
we draw support for interpretation from literature. With the help of narrative
beginnings and endings we have become accustomed to from our reading, we
ourselves fix the true beginnings, initiatives, and with the help of literature set out
the temporary endings. The ‘help of history’ is also mediated through literature,
since historiography, indeed in a broader sense reflected remembrance too, use
the tools of narrative.33
30
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 147–8.
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 148.
32
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 162.
33
Cf. Hayden White, “The historical text as literary artefact,” in Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse.
Essays in Cultural Criticism by Hayden White, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 81–100.
31
138 |
We are now treading back on the detour mentioned above, and can pose the
question: what is the relationship between the character’s (narrated) identity and
the identity of the person? How do we return from fiction to real life?
This is not simply a matter of literature giving the individual models with
which to face the unknown. Literary fiction forms a part of personal identity, the
medium through which the self relates to itself. In Ricoeur’s terms, literature is a
vast laboratory for experiments,34 where the identity of the character is submitted
to imaginative variations, and where the ‘refiguration’ or re-formation of the self
takes place through the appropriation of the reader (the individual is the reader
of their own story). Appropriation, which ‘leads back’ out of fiction to real life,
is nothing less than the self-understanding and self-formation realized through
narrative mediation. The reader appropriates the identity of the fictional person
(or their loss of identity), and thus they are confronted with the constructedness
of the personality: the self, who has in some way taken shape. Appropriation is
at once identification, the process of identifying ourselves as well as identifying
with others, on the ‘real plane’ through historiography, and on the ‘plane of
fiction’ through literary narrative: ‘the mediating function performed by the
narrative identity of the character between the poles of sameness and selfhood is
attested to primarily by the imaginative variations to which the narrative submits
this identity’.35 Thus the self relates to itself as to another.
When speaking of the narrative identity of the self, we also mention
remembrance, since narration construing permanence in time organizes the past
of the person. As Ricoeur puts it, narratives ‘teach us how to articulate narratively
retrospection and prospection’.36 However, it is important that through the
attributions between the story of the past and the narrator (whose story is it?) we
can speak not only of the identity or memory of individuals – without presuming
some collective subject able to remember.37
34
The metaphor of the literary laboratory is defined by Ricoeur in opposition to the thought experiments
for personal identity designed by analytic philosophy, and he emphasizes the significance of narrative
mediation. Perhaps the most famous of these thought experiments is Derek Parfit’s teletransporter, a
device which makes a perfect copy of a person. One enters the machine, which records every detail of
the body and brain, and on the basis of this the so-called replicator makes a perfectly matching copy of
the person at any point in space. The body and mind of the replica are the same as those of the person
who entered the device: the appearance, memories, intentions, convictions, thoughts and goals of the
replica and the original are the same.
35
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 148. emphasis in the original
36
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 163.
37
On attribution see Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago: The Chicago University Press,
2004): 412–507.
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The Imaginative Laboratory of the Nation
One of Ricoeur’s favourite examples of literary fiction functioning as a laboratory
of the self is Robert Musil’s novel The Man without Qualities, which he considers a
bordline case in which the reader is confronted with a loss of identity. For Ricoeur
it is striking that as the character approaches his destruction the novel loses its
proper narrative quality. The character’s loss of identity entails the loss of the
configuration of the narrative, that is to say, through the crisis of the narration’s
closure (Musil worked on the novel, which in the event remained unfinished, for
ten years). With this example Ricoeur justifies not only the narrative nature of
the dialectic between emplotment and character, but far rather he is interested in
the reader’s loss of identity through appropriation. The problem, he says, arises
when fiction returns to life, insofar as the self (the reader) during the narration
is confronted with the hypothesis of its own nothingness. In other words, in the
literary laboratory it subjects itself to an imaginative variation which endangers
its identity. The imagined ‘nothing’ nature of the self may lead to an existential
crisis.
Ricoeur’s example well demonstrates the possible existential consequences
of the imagination. What remains, if selfhood loses the support of sameness?
Ricoeur’s answer runs: ‘[i]nsofar as the body as one’s own is a dimension of
oneself, the imaginative variations around the corporeal condition are variations
on the self and its selfhood’.38 Corporeality mediates between the self and the
world, for ‘my body’ (selfhood) is a body among the other (living and lifeless)
bodies on the Earth. This is what Ricoeur calls existential mediation, which
in another borderline case of the literary laboratory, that of science-fiction and
fantasy, does not necessarily operate.39
This is important in order to be able to express the national operation of
the laboratory of the self. Unlike literature, national discourse, though it
obviously uses the tools of fiction, always operates on the ‘real plane’ of history,
as Ricoeur puts it, whereas this cannot necessarily be said of literary fiction. In
the framework of historical ‘homogeneous, empty time’ the national discourse
operates referentially: national communities are located alongside one another.
Territorialization portrays the nations in the reality of the surface of the Earth.
While literary figures often live in social reality, they cannot necessarily be ‘read
together’, that is to say while we cannot place Švejk in Josef K’s world, the national
pasts and presents are positioned in the same real world ‘in the national order of
38
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 150.
Ricoeur’s thinking is not clear on this point, since the readability as real of literary fiction is not
necessarily a question of genre.
39
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things’. The product of Anderson’s print capitalism, the daily newspaper, serves
up news of ‘our world’, in the same way that the novels he analyzes are set in the
reality of society. All this points to the corporeal quality of national belonging,
to its belonging to the real world.
In spite of this possible difference there are many similarities between the
imaginative laboratory of literature and national discourse. For instance, as Gellner
puts it, that culturally speaking nationalism has great imagination and is extremely
resourceful. It resurrects dead languages, naturalizes traditions, rehabilitate fictive
objects and so on,40 and organizes the imaginary domain. Good examples of the
imaginative power, inventiveness and creativity of the national discourse are
the construction and functioning of national history, national charaterology or
national philosophy.41 In this sense, the national reading of ourselves certainly
bears similarity with the narrative mediation described by Ricoeur.
The nation is a cultural system through which the self identifies with itself.
Stuart Hall writes: ‘We only know what it is to be “English” because of the way
Englishness has come to be represented, as a set of meanings, by English national
culture. It follows that a nation is not only a political entity but something which
produces meanings – a system of cultural representation.’42 In the national relationship
of the self to itself cultural mediation provides access, gives interpretation and
organizes actions for the individual, but is also the medium of self-knowledge.
‘A national culture is a discourse – a way of constructing meanings which influences
and organizes both our actions and our conception of ourselves.’43
The narrative identity is not always national, only insofar as it is constructed
according to the meanings arranged by national culture. Of course, in the present
case it is this latter quality and function which is of interest: identity as normative
identification and as identification with oneself in the national discourse.
Above I clarified the concept of personal identity. I defi ned it as an action
the individual directs at themselves, i.e. reflexive, as a problem arising from
individualization, which cannot be ‘solved’ entirely. Identity is a process of
identification, and not a characteristic, a property, or an inner essence. The
40
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 54.
The idea of Hungarian national philosophy contradicts both philosophy’s concept of generality and
the Englightenment concept of the mind. Its former popularity can be explained not by its philosophical
merits, but by its social function.The thorough discreditation of the Hungarian-character discourse was
the work of István Bibó. László Perecz, “Változatok a magyar filozófiára. A ‘nemzeti filozófia’ toposza
a magyar filozófiatörténetben,” Magyar Tudomány, (2002/9): 1242–1251.
42
Stuart Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” in Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies (ed.)
Stuart Hall (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996): 612. Italics in the original.
43
Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” 613.
41
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strategic space in which the politics of identity and identification is realized is
covered by the concept of governmentality. The practices of ‘governance’ may be
institutionalized, rationalized and centralized – thus state-based – but at the same
time they can operate as techniques of the self. In other words subjectification can
be examined on both the state and the individual level, and the state techniques
for normalization can be compared with practices the individual carries out
on themselves, including the strategic possibility of resistance. Identification,
whether that of others or ourselves, assumes cultural mediation. Earlier I defined
mediation as discourse – more precisely as the discursive practice of narration, as
a sum of narrative techniques.
The approach phrased as the imaginative laboratory enables us to examine
the internal dynamic of the national discourse. Through the mediation of the
identifications (interpretations of the past, stories, heroes, etc.) prescribed in
national discourse the individual carries out experiments on themselves, and thus
constructs themselves – with the corporeal and existential consequences of selfarticulation. In other words the individual becomes a national subject. Unlike
Ellis Island, the site where experiments are conducted on oneself can be visited
only in the imagination: the ‘laboratory’ is the discourse in which power struggles
of national identification take place, and in which the state’s and the individual’s
techniques of governing and conducting come into use. Thus individual identity
strategies can be examined in the context of the imposition of the state-prescribed
territorial norm, as a reaction to the spatial displacement caused.
Remarks on Methodology
Drawing the Border of the Hungarian Nation post-1989: state and individual localization
The most important player in the imposition of the territorial norm of the nation
state is the state, which carries out the discursive normalization of the population.
To begin with, then, I have analyzed the localization of the Hungarian state
post-1989, in chapter three. One of the most significant deterritorializing events
of the recent past has been the collapse of the bipolar world order in Europe.
After the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc, actors in the government of the state
of Hungary repositioned the nation through a national rewriting of the past. In
analyzing this process I was interested not by the strategies which Hungarian
political forces followed to govern the state, thus to represent the nation officially,
but by those followed by official representatives of the Hungarian state, regardless
of their political affiliation. Since I have defined the localization reacting to the
142 |
displacements of the spatial dynamics of nationalism as a practice of memory,
strategies of state and government arise as a problem of the politics of memory.
In line with this I have analyzed the national localization in reaction to the
disintegration of the Eastern Bloc through the official commemorations of the
state feast day, 20 August, making the object of my examination the narrations
of the past given by the country’s prime ministers and presidents.
In the case of individual actors I seek the answer to the question of how
national belonging is constructed in the strategic space of governmentality, if
doubt has been cast on it by the imposition of the territorial norm of the nation
state. How is one to resist an excluding normative identification?
The individual is confronted with the norm prescribed by the discourse as a
constraint, because spatial displacement does not happen of their own free will.
Their national-spatial belonging is questioned such that it is not ousted from the
territorial world of nations; they have to react to the forced identification of ‘You
belong somewhere else, not here!’, which is like saying ‘You belong to another
nation, not to ours!’. To be able to react to this identification the individual must
accept the forced identity category since only in this way will they become
national subject capable of agency. It is within the world of nations that they must
resist the forced normalization; only in this way can they resignify the identity
category that organizes national-spatial belonging – i.e. alter its meanings.
The displacements triggered by the territorial norm of the nation-state fall
into two types. One is forced migration, exile, in which the drawing of the
national border is realized through the movement of the individual; the other is
alteration of the state border without the movement of the individual. In both
cases we must define the role and strategy of the relevant state from the viewpoint
of the national identity category, in the context of which individual reactions can
be made the object of examination.
As a benchmark case of the drawing of borders through forced migration,
in chapter five I analyze biographical interviews whose subjects, due to their
German origin, were expulsed from Hungary following the end of the Second
World War as a consequence of the internationally supported enforcement of
the nation-state norm, but who have since returned. They had to face the fact
that the stigmatizing German identity deprived them of Hungarian national
belonging, or the possibility of identifying themselves as ‘non-guilty Germans’
in their ethnic affiliation. These constraints determine their utterance to this day,
since the narrative construction of personal identity is continuous, and forced
migration is a traumatic biographical experience that cannot be forgotten by
being omitted from the construction of the self through life story.
It is not merely this aspect that makes the interviews pertinent; mainly, it
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is that with the political changes of 1989, the public space for memory politics
was opened up, and in it national-ethnic belonging could be articulated free of
political restrictions – and through remembrance becoming free, the (memory
of the) stigmatizing German identity goes public, and so does the compulsion
to reconstruct Hungarian belonging. The most significant actor in this memory
politics arena is the Hungarian state, which imposes the territorial norm in the
manner demonstrated in chapter three. For the interview subjects, the return
and the remembrance thereof raises the issue of constructing a homeland within
the nation-state.
Another benchmark case, that of displacement without the movement of the
individual, I analyze in chapter six through the biographical interviews conducted
with ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia. With the Trianon Peace Treaty three million
three hundred thousand Hungarian citizens found themselves outside of Hungary
without having left their homes. In this case, the fact that the reorganization after
the First World War was carried out in the name of the territorial norm of the
nation-state is irrelevant, since the laying of the borders arising from this are no
longer in living memory. For this reason I define the context of the interview
utterances through an analysis of the diaspora politics made possible and exercized
by the Hungarian state post-1989. I shall present the territoriality organized and
prescribed by the diaspora politics of the Hungarian government agencies, and
more broadly the discourse aimed at the ‘Hungarians beyond the border’, living
in the neighbouring countries. The question to answer is how spatial displacement
without movement can be realized several generations after the peace treaty that
concluded the First World War. I shaped the interview situations so that the
utterance would be a reaction to this spatial displacement. The identity strategy
determined by the discursive constraint arising from this raises the issue of the
construction of the homeland outside the nation-state.
Thus I shall be making an empirical analysis of a total of three cases in the
way Hungarian national belonging is made natural in discourse. In each of the
three cases I shall seek to answer the question of how the past narratives taken
as a localizing practice construct national belonging in response to the spatial
displacements that question it. All three empirical analyses have as their context
post-1989 Hungarian memory politics, and thus although they hold their own as
individual case studies, together they say more about the problem than they would
taken separately. Although the interview subjects were not reacting directly to
the August 20 commemorations, the context of the interview analyses can be
compared with the findings of the analysis of the state celebration. In addition,
I analyze all three cases in a context of social history. The events branded with
the years 1920, 1944–1946, and 1989 have on the one hand deeply influenced
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Hungarian nation-state territoriality, and on the other are marked chapters in
the Hungarian social history. The narratives analyzed, whether they stem from
presidents of the republic or ‘nameless’ Hungarians of German extraction, or
those in Slovakia, all through the historicity of the discourse confront the legacy
of this history, positioning themselves within it, and continue the spinning of
this story.
The Life Story Interview
In examining life story narrations many are inclined to consider the narrative
schemata, such as the individual’s story of progress and development, as universal.
Psychological approaches are particularly wont to draw conclusions about the
personality from the structural features of the narration. Thus a coherent life story
narrative in a certain sense becomes the designation of a healthy person, while
an ‘irregular’ narrative is interpreted as a symptom. It is doubtful whether the
individual’s life story, and the narrative structrue that gives it form, is universal;
it can however be taken for granted that they are cultural forms that have taken
shape historically.
Not only does the individual have a life story in which they live, but they are
expected to have some form of knowledge about it.44 The history of cultural selfrepresentation casts appropriate light on the myth of the autonomous person,45
according to which everyone says what they like about themselves, in just the way
they please. During the self-narration the individual is confronted with a series of
discursive constraints, and in bending to these they are able to present themselves
as a person responsible for their words.46 In other words the individual is a person
because of being able to represent himself as responsible, capable, autonomous
– and can thus be made responsible and called to account. Now although every
person is unique, the representation of personhood is culturally determined. At
the same time the self-narration is more than mere (literary) convention: not only
is it one possible manner of self-representation, but also a fundamental practice
of self-experience and passing on experience. In mentioning autobiography I
am always referring to the social practice, not to the literary genre. The issue is
not the categorizing by genre or the characteristics of literary texts, but the role
44
Paul John Eakin, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves. (Ithaka and London: Cornell University
Press , 1999).
45
Eakin, How Our Lives Become Stories.
46
Eakin, “Breaking Rules.”
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of the self-narration in constructing identity, ‘self-biography’47 as a practice. As
Lejeune puts it: ‘the channelling of life into narrative is simply experience it self.
We are narrated people’.48
Thus in a narrative analysis of texts of life story recollections I do not draw
conclusions regarding the personality. Accounts of life story not only provide
empirical material about the people that recount them, but also about the cultural
practices of (self)-interpretation and belonging. ‘The narrated life story leads
through series of events and happenings to the innermost level of everyday life,
unstitching the interpretive mechanisms and strategies with which the individual
and the community organizes their own life-world, and with which they place
themselves in a broader context, social spaces and historical time.’49 We are
interested in precisely these placing techniques and the spaces delimited by them,
thus it would be an error to consider them as expressions of the personality. We
are dealing with techniques which have been put to use and thus appropriated.
Perhaps the most significant peculiarity of the methodology of narrative
or life story interviews50 is that the researcher/questioner attempts to form an
interview situation, in which the interview subject structures as possible his or
her narrative of the past. This means that the interviewee defines the selection,
order, and chronology or characters, painting a portrait of them in their own
words. In other words they have an opportunity to choose the narrative tools for
self-representation. The life story interview method attempts to ensure all this
by the questioner, after giving the exact thematic framework of the interview,
instructing the respondent to tell his or her life story. Thus the subject has a
relatively broad room for manoeuvre to define the structure of his narrative
and what is at stake in the communicative act (or the ‘autobiographical plan’).
Following this the respondent can speak/remember freely, without interruption,
and the material of their past is formed by the cultural boundedness of the life story
structure, the thematic framework of the interview, and the temporarily silent
questioner’s helping non-verbal signals. At some point the life story narration
comes to a close: this first part of the interview is called the main narrative. After
this comes the real dialogue, during which the interviewer prompts the subject
on the basis of what has been heard to give a more detailed narrative, if possible
47
Zoltán Z. Varga “Önéletírás-olvasás,” Jelenkor, 43 (2000/1): 87–93.
Philippe Lejeune, “Le pacte autobiographique 25 ans après,” in Signes de Vie by Philippe Lejeune (Paris:
Seuil, 2003) http://www.autopacte.org/Pacte_25_ans_apr%E8s.html. Accessed February 12, 2012.
49
Péter Niedermüller, “Élettörténet és életrajzi elbeszélés,” Ethnographia, (1988/3–4): 383.
50
See for example Éva Kovács, “Interjús módszerek és technikák,” in Kvalitatív módszerek az
empirikus társadalom- és kultúrakutatásban by Margit Feischmidt. http://szabadbolcseszet.elte.hu/index.
php?option=com_tanelem&id_tanelem=835&tip=0.
48
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using their own words. Thus, within the thematic framework of the whole of the
interview, the subject continues to define the thematic structure of the narration.
This second stage, the so-called follow-up questions, serves to obtain a more
detailed narration of certain contents of the life story. The interviewer then ‘…
should listen to the narrator in such a way that he gradually steps into the place
of the virtual interlocutor created by the subject’s discourse. This forces the data
provider, if one can put it this way, to make clear their imaginary listener through
the transmission directed at the data collector.’51 The ‘experimental subject’s’
discourse also forms the narrative position(s): ‘to whom’ they are speaking, and
in relation to this, ‘where from’.
The empirical material obtained during data collection consists of the life
story narrations, the sound recordings and images of the interview, and the
interviewer’s experiences. Life story accounts are usually written down with
the help of various transcription techniques, and because of the peculiarity of
the interview recordings the transcriptions can be considered texts (not merely
sources) whose authors in the sense of literary theory are the interview subjects,
and whose co-authors are the interviewers. Thus the ‘data collector shall not
judge the operation of memory to be a deformation, but rather a form which itself
becomes an object of knowledge (individual and collective memory). Information
obtained from other sources will thus be simple points of reference, in ordefor
us to evaluate the memory as a thing experienced per se, and not as an account of
things experienced previously’.52
The life story method gives ample space for interpretation.53 This most
definitely arises from the fact that the life story account can equally be used as a
51
Philippe Lejeune, “Emlékezet, dialógus, írás: egy élettörténet története,” in Philippe Lejeune:
Önélet- írás, élettörténet, napló. Válogatott tanulmányok. (Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2003), 132, emphasis in
original. Translated from: Lejeune, “Mémoire, dialogue, écriture: histoire d’un récit de vie,” in Je est
un autre (Paris: Seuil, 1980): 32–59. See Lejeune in English: On Autobiography (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1989); On Diary (Honolulu: Published for the Biographical Research Center by the
University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2009)
52
Lejeune, “Emlékezet, dialógus, írás,” 138, emphasis in original.
53
A few Hungarian examples, not counting oral history research: Éva Kovács, “Narratív biográfiai
elemzés,” in Kvalitatív módszerek az empirikus társadalom- és kultúrakutatásban by Margit Feischmidt. http://
szabadbolcseszet.elte.hu/index.php?option=com_tanelem&id_tanelem=840&tip=0; Éva Kovács and
Attila Melegh, “ ‘Lehetett volna rosszabb is, mehettünk volna Amerikába is’: Vándorlástörténetek
Erdély, Magyarország és Ausztria háromszögében,” in Diskurzusok a vándorlásról (eds) Endre Sik and
Judit Tóth, Yearbook of the Nemzetközi Migráció Kutatócsoport of the MTA Politikai Tudományok
Intézete, (Budapest: MTA PTI, 2000) 93–152; Éva Kovács, and Júlia Vajda, Mutatkozás – zsidó identitás
történetek, (Budapest: Múlt és Jövő, 2002); Éva Kovács (ed.) Tükörszilánkok – Kádár-korszakok a személyes
emlékezetben, (Budapest: MTA Szociológiai Kutatóintézet, 56-os Intézet, Budapest, 2008); Attila Melegh,
“Amerikás élettörténetek,” in Migráció és társadalom (ed.) Pál Péter Tóth and Sándor Illés (Budapest:
Központi Szatisztikai Hivatal, 1999), 27–42; Number 58 of the journal Replika (September 2007).
| 147
historical source and as a text. ‘The life story is after all not only a set of a mass of
information (which can also be obtained by other means), but primarily a structure
(the reconstruction of the experience in discourse) and a communicative act.’54
During the analysis on the one hand I will take account of the peculiarities of the
interview situation: the historical context of the theme, primarily the discursive
constraints influencing the utterance, when necessary the location of the recording,
the non-verbal characteristics of the interview, and the role of the interviewer (this
is possible because all but one were conducted by me). Localization is realized
through the narration, however narration as a communicative act is not identical
to the text. Narration is a discursive act which also has a non-textual dimension,
for example bodily expressions such as the gaze, gestures, volume and intonation of
the voice. These are the corporeal-material sphere realized during the interviews,
the declaration of the here-and-now in the communicative act, which is inseparable
from the reconstruction of the past. On the other hand, I will analyze the text of
the life story interviews with the analytical tools of narratology.
In analyzing the texts of self-narrations I draw a distinction between
(empirical) author, narrator, and the narrated self (or protagonist).55 While in the
interview situation I take account of the empirical author, the flesh-and-blood
person recalling their past, during the analysis I draw conclusions exclusively
regarding the narrator, the narrated self, and the relationship between the two
as the relationship of the individual to themselves, to their past. This is all in line
with my endeavour to focus the study on the techniques of the self employed,
and not on the person.
Another key concept in text analysis is the narrative. In using this concept I
shall take as my starting point the idea of Ricoeur and Hayden White,56 that the
application of a narrative structure is interpretation. That is to say, the scheme
of the story is not part of the course of life;57 time and the way it is experienced
are culturally defined. We interpret the world, and within it our internal world,
by projecting formal coherence onto it: ‘We do not live stories, even if we give
our lives meaning by retrospectively casting them in the form of stories.’58 The
coherent life story narrative, often considered healthy or universal, is nothing
other than a culturally sanctified and evaluated type of configuration – the way
the narrative has to be organized in a given context.
54
Lejeune, “Emlékezet, dialógus, írás,” 131, emphasis in original.
Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, (Harvard University Press, 1994).
56
White, “The historical text as literary artefact”
57
Among others, David Carr, Alasdair McIntyre and the narrative psychologist Kenneth J. Gergen
hold a confl icting philosophical view. This problem is dealt with by Tengelyi, Élettörténet és sorsesemény.
58
White, “The Historical Text as Literary Artefact,” 90.
55
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The narrative is the formal structure of emplotment, a type of configuration
in the Ricoeurian sense, which creates a relationship between events, and at once
interprets them, and though it aims to focus on the past and interpret it, the
perspective of the present is also expressed in it. Depending on its emplotment,
a given event may be depicted as tragic or as comical, and thus is ascribed a
different meaning. Narrative is the organizing principle of the past, which
creates a linguistic relationship between events. It is a narrative structure (a way
of writing) that as well as organizing the theme constructs an evaluative and
emotional relationship. That is to say it does not simply depict the events, but
it also determines how we evaluate them, and how we should feel towards them.
In this way it articulates the individual’s relation to themselves: the narrator’s
relationship to the protagonist. While narration is a corporeal-material concept
(too), narrative is a cultural form which determines the organization of themes,
the relations of action and passivity, the characters and relationships of the actors,
and the topography of the locations.
The analysis, which reconstructs the narratives, also has a significant
ethnographic inspiration. Since emplotment is a part of the work of interpretation,
of the act of meaning production, narratives are not merely models of the past, but
also figurative expressions, which traditionally we use to provide our lives with
culturally sanctified meanings. Interpretative strategy hints at both the stakes
of power and constraints of interpretation. At the same time, identity strategy
is also a strategy for meaning production. Accordingly, during the analysis I
reconstruct the narrator’s world of meaning, with special regard to the practical
use of identity categories.
I always analyze the main narrative in its entirety, since it is nothing less than
the response to request for the life story. Though for reasons of space I do not
provide the full text, in the structural analysis of the main narrative I ‘follow’
the entire life story which the narration leads us through. The text’s thematic and
formal organization is thus accessible for the reader. The narrative anlaysis of the
narration is always preceded by a chronological biographical summary, which
the structure of the main narrative can be compared to. I examine the other parts
of the interview text in the context of the problems arising in the structural and
thematic analysis of the main narrative. It may easily happen that certain parts of
the interviews, expressed in response to follow-up questions, are omitted from
the analysis, because in effect they do not contribute to the conclusions made in
the analysis of the main narrative (they repeat it).
In analyzing the narrative structure of narration one must analyze both the
life story significance of the theme and the narrative organization, i.e. the use
of identity categories and spatial references (deixis, reference words etc.). An
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examination of spatiality is insufficient ‘in itself’, without taking into account the
meaning and significance for the given life story, and this is because in the structure
of the life story spatiality operates inseparably from it. This is always the case, but
is particularly important in regard to the interviews analyzed, for the interview
subjects start their self-narrations as a response to some spatial displacement. It is
not sufficient, therefore, to examine only the (spatial) belonging in the text, for
instance place names and ethnic categories; the place and significance of them
in the life story must be understood in order to reveal the practical and strategic
operations of localization. On the basis of the case study in chapter five one might
say that an examination of the identity category of ‘German’ and the place names
in the texts are insufficient. The former because it is unable to take account of
the not insignificant strategies whose essence is that they do not take on or distance
this category, or those which arise from the fact that the non-equivalence of the
belonging categories of ‘German’ and ‘Swabian’ provides a space to play with
the construction of meanings. The latter is insufficient because it does not take
account of the spatial boundaries of home, or its link to identity categories, yet
this is actually the object of the analysis. Thus the considerably differing stakes
of the life story, in other words the life story constructions of the given theme,
must be reconstructed case by case.
The interview subjects were selected on the basis of being affected by
forced spatial displacement. The interview transcriptions are provided in the
‘adaptation close to speech’ according to the Lejeune grouping (see Appendix
for the transcription signs). During transcription it was necessary to meet the
requirements of readability and the expectations of the public: the ‘adaptation
close to speech’ makes for difficult reading, although it renders the interview
subject with ethnographical authenticity, and makes detailed analysis possible.
The life story accounts have been kept anonymous, with personal data altered,
so that nobody who took part in the research can be recognized.
In the following chapters a series of life stories can be read, whose unique
elements are linked by a common issue. Lejeune points out that making the
repetition of analogous narrations obvious prompts the reader to lay aside the
illusion of individuality, and to consider them as elements in a series. A series of
life story texts ‘somehow sheds light on the absurdity of the individual life story
text: not only is the data provider not the true author of the account the researcher
uses them to produce, but their life itself appears as the product of a mechanism
which surpasses them, and which they will not be able to understand.’59
59
Lejeune, “Emlékezet dialógus írás,” 160.
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Through a detailed analysis of the life story narrations which follow it is
not possible to draw conclusions about those whole (supposedly objectively
existing) groups or communities, to which the individual respondents are linked
by national or ethnic belonging. It is precisely the operation of this belonging
which is interesting, as it constructs the categories of identification of oneself and
others, as it enacts and spatializes them. The case studies then are representative in
the qualitative sense; they do not provide a description of ‘the’ Swabians/Germans
in Hungary or ‘the’ ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia, but rather identify possible
and non-exclusive identity strategies in the context of the spatiality produced by
the localization of the Hungarian state since the regime change of 1989. These
strategies are characterized precisely by the way they practically use and spatialize
the categories of ‘Swabian’, ‘German’ or ‘Hungarian’, and construct the imagined
communities of belonging.
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5. The Museum of the Self:
national-ethnic belonging and the memory
of expulsion*
‘The stories we are dealing with are shocking. Between 60 and 80 million people
lost their birthplace in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. The
central arena of this process of becoming rootless was the central and southern
part of Europe. There are few families who were unaffected – directly, indirectly,
at least indirectly – by violent changes of place’, writes Karl Schlögel in his piece
‘The Tragedy of Expulsions (a European story)’.1 In what follows we shall be
dealing with stories in which people were directly affected by forced migration.
I analyze the construction of national-ethnic belonging through biographical
interviews made with persons of German origin who experienced at first hand
forced resettlement, or captivity in the Soviet Union. The ‘European perspective’
recommended by Karl Schlögel, which interprets forced migration not as
emigration or immigration, enables us to focus the examination on the identity
strategies which construct belonging in response to forced displacement.2
In spite of the fact that the internationally supported3 population movements
in Europe after the Second World War were executed in spirit of the modern
* An earlier version of this study was published under the title “‘Szóval ez már nincsen, ezt így
emlékezetből megfestettem,’” in Tükörszilánkok – Kádár-korszakok a személyes emlékezetben (ed.) Éva
Kovács (MTA Szociológiai Kutatóintézet, 56-os Intézet, 2008), 41–80.
1
Karl Schlögel, “Az elűzetések tragédiája (egy európai történet), Magyar Lettre Internationale, 51 (2003):
60. Originally: “Tragödie der Vertreibung,” Lettre Internationale 60 (2003): 78.
2
Regardless of the direction of movement, expulsion, resettlement, deportment, exchange of
population and being sent to labor camps can be considered violent transfers of the population, in
other words, forced migration.
3
The Potsdam Conference held in summer 1945 states in Article XIII that the governments of
United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union ‘recognize that the transfer to Germany of German
populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be
undertaken.’ Quoted by Mathias Beer, “A németek elüldözése Magyarországról és beilleszkedésük a
megosztott Németországba,” Regio, (2003/1): 75.
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nation-state paradigm as an attempt to resolve and prevent ethnic confl icts,4
forced migration has become another source of conflict. In what follows I deal
primarily not with the failure of this attempted solution and the potential for
conflict, but I treat forced migration as a phenomenon that kindles and provokes
national belonging, in other words as the spatial dynamic of nationalism. Forced
migration is the consequence of the imposition of the territorial norm of the
nation-state, and as a reaction to this the individual is forced to recreate, restore,
and maintain their national belonging.
On the one hand personal remembrance locates the self, as a response to the
forced migration most often interpreted as ‘uprooting’, ‘drifting’, ‘belonging
nowhere’, and on the other as a spatial practice it reconstructs the lost home. This
perspective of the examination is made particularly important by the fact that the
subjects of the analyzed biographical interviews returned to Hungary – legally or
illegally.5 Although half a century has past since these events, their consequences
cannot be considered closed, since the construction of belonging is continuous,
and a part of everyday activities. This process is partly linguistic-narrative, and
partly corporeal-material. Thus the practices of localization are both rhetorical and
physical. In the former sense the ‘place’ is a topos, a linguistic configuration (the
place of the ‘self’), which provides homeliness to the language user in a way similar
to a comfortably furnished building (a ‘place’ in the latter sense). I regard individual
localization practices, in other words the narrative techniques of remembrance,
as the techniques of the self applied in the sphere of governmentality, which I
examine in the context of the imposition of the territorial norm of the nation-state
(in this case expulsion). In this strategic space of power relationship the subject is
compelled to confront the identification of ’not being a Hungarian’, and thus ‘not
belonging here’. The question is what strategies they can use to counter this.
Through the historicity of the discourse many constraints influence the
utterance, including the localization procedures examined. One can be called the
logic of collective guilt and justice. In this regard, forced labour in the Soviet Union
is not different from resettlement: in both cases German origin was the reason for
the migration, which was enforced as a collective punishment. Prime ministerial
decree M. E. 12330/1945 of December 29, 1945, regulating the resettlement of the
German population of Hungary in Germany, has under its scope those Hungarian
citizens who in the 1941 census declared themselves to be of German nationality or
of German mother tongue. The provisions did not affect the issue of citizenship;
a later decree issued in 1946 stated that those who were resettled in Germany lose
4
Rainer Münz, “Az üldözések évszázada,” Regio, (2003/1): 36–56.
On those who returned from resettlement see Ágnes Tóth, Hazatértek. A németországi kitelepítésből
visszatért magyarországi németek megpróbáltatásainak emlékezete, (Budapest: Gondolat, 2008).
5
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their Hungarian citizenship when they leave the country – including those who
had been resettled earlier.6 The Soviet military command’s general order no.
0066 of December 22, 1944 provided for ‘mobilization of all active persons of
German origin’ ‘for public work to be carried out in the immediate hinterland’
and ‘reconstruction work immediately behind the front’, and was executed by
the Soviet Army with the cooperation of Hungarian public administration.7
The normative identification of collective guilt and justice provokes national
belonging in the following manner: ‘you are German, therefore you are guilty,
so go back where you came from, to Germany, that’s your place, and the assets
you leave behind will compensate your victims’, or ‘you are German, therefore
you are guilty, so go back to the place where you caused destruction with your
weapons, and restore what you have done’. I shall deal with this issue only to
the extent and in the manner that this discursive constraint operates in the life
story accounts – primarily through the stigmatization of the identity category
of ‘German’: what I am interested in is how it is possible to liberate this category,
or how this liberation is linked to the localization carrying out the re-creation
of belonging. Another discursive constraint arises from the paradox that the
interview subjects would return ‘there’, ‘from where’ they were expelled. All
this puts the focus on the problem of Hungarian national belonging, through the
fact that the heimat before the deportation was Hungary.8
Practices of localization must be examined in the historical context in which
they are used in the interview situation, which in this case means the post-1989
liberated Hungarian sphere of memory politics. The state politics of memory has
enforced the territorial norm of the nation-state such that it has made national
belonging culturally homogeneous and natural. Thus another constraint in
utterance is that the governmental normalization excludes politics of memory
of minorities, and conflicts with it. Minority memory politics is squeezed into a
narrow frame, one which took shape and was institutionalized before the 1989
change of regime. Neither should the social-political milieu following the forced
migration be overlooked, one which influenced utterance at that time. Regarding
the articulation of ethnic belonging, the story from the deportation to the regime
change leads from utter physical and legal reprobation to the opportunity of
engaging in politics as a minority, so as the historical context of ethnic belonging
6
This was Prime Ministerial Decree M. E. 7970/1946. See Tóth, Hazatértek, 18.
This provision affected men between 17 and 45, and women between 18 and 30. Quoted by Lóránt
Tilkovszky, Német nemzetiség – magyar hazafiság, (Pécs: JPTE TK Kiadói Irodája, 1997), 148–150.
8
Bindorffer Györgyi, “A magyarországi németek hazaképe. A magyar és német együttélés a közös
hazában,” Barátság, 8(2) (2001): 3151–3153; and Györgyi Bindorffer, Kettős identitás: Etnikai és nemzeti
azonosságtudat Dunabogdányban, (Budapest: Új Mandátum – MTA Kisebbségkutató Intézet, 2001).
7
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the interesting point is not what was forbidden by the nationality politics of the
one-party regime, but what was permitted.
The citizenship status of those expelled who then returned to Hungary was
regulated by a governmental decree of 1950; until then (no exact figures are
available) they were not only persona non grata but legally did not exist.9 The
people forced into labor camps in the Soviet Union did not lose their citizenship,
but the taboo after their return affected all those of German origin equally.
The Communist regime attempted to ‘resolve’ the nationalities issue by the
organization of associations, but the Democratic Association of Germans in
Hungary was only able to form in 1955.
From the beginning of the 1960s the associations of the nationalities, which
were under the direct control of the state party, had relatively more room for
manoeuvre (for instance, they could hold regular congresses). The single-party
system dispensed with what was known as the principle of automatism, according
to which the nationalities issue would resolve automatically with the realization
of communism, in other words the ‘nationality’ as such would cease to be. From
then they permitted, in a strictly limited fashion, the strictly apolitical linguisticcultural articulation of ethnic belonging (teaching of languages in schools, folk
song associations, dance groups etc.). This relatively free scope for action was
however still markedly limited: the nationality politics was until the 1980s the
exclusive domain of the centrally controlled nationality associations, and even
there was strictly limited to educational and cultural policy. From 1983 a kind of
grass roots movement started,10 and at the end of the decade the state party started
drawing up a law on nationalities. Simultaneously, from the late 1970s on steadily
more space was given to scholarly research on the topic.
This continuous thaw however shall not distract our attention from the fact
that until the regime change ethnic belonging was, after the initial taboo on it,
restricted to the fields of ‘culture’ and education. Thus the contradiction arising
from this remained – namely that national categories were continuously used
9
In the work cited above Ágnes Tóth estimates the number of those affected at between 10 and 20
thousand. The so-called decree reinstating equal rights (84/1950. MT sz.) states: ‘All those persons
falling under the force of resettlement, who were no resettled, and also those whose resettlement was
implemented but at the time of this decree’s entering into force are sojourning in Hungary (…), are
Hungarian citizens, and enjoy in every respect equal rights with the other of the People’s Republic of
Hungary.’ The previously issued restrictive measures relating to resettlement remained in force, and
there was no opportunity for compensation. Tóth, Hazatértek, 55.
10
The change in approach was signalled when György Aczél gave a speech at the congress of the
Association of Hungarian Germans, condemning the way the German community had been made
into scapegoats, and denying the existence of ‘fascist peoples’ (Lóránt, Tilkovszky, Nemzetiségi politika
Magyarországon a 20. Században, [Debrecen: Csokonai Kiadó, 1998], 170).
| 155
and institutionalized by the state (‘socialist nation’, ‘socialist patriotism’, national
associations, the ‘case’ of Hungarian minorities beyond the borders, etc.), while
at the same time nationalism, in other words the free use of these categories and
the articulation of ethnic belonging in the public sphere, was forbidden.11
Of course, the construction of identity can be realized in ways other than that
prescribed and made possible by the state. However, my analysis will be limited
to this: I am interested in how the national-ethnic identification, made possible
before and after the regime change, can be applied strategically. The life historical
significance of Kádár era (1956-1989) is thus not simply a matter of how it is
remembered, but much rather of the extent to which the procedures of identity
construction, made possible by the state in that era, lived on after the regime change.
The interviews were conducted in Hungary between 2003 and 2005 as part of
a memory research project,12 and the reason for contacting the interview subjects
was their German origin. Forced migration was not designated as a topic, thus
enabling the interview subjects to present its place and role in their life story.
Beyond their network of contacts and research there were the national German
minority self-government and local minority self-governments at my disposal to
find interview subjects. In what follows I shall analyze the spatial representation
of national-ethnic categories in five narrative interviews as reactions to forced
migration; three are organized around the experience of expulsion, and two
around that of being deported to the Soviet Union. Two narrators participated in
nationality politics prior to the regime change of 1989. Four of the five interviews
were conducted by me, and these were done in the homes of the interview subjects.
The stories we are dealing with are shocking – but it is also worth pointing out
how wonderful they are. If we give not only the referential reading of the past,
but also reconstruct the relationship with the past (as the narrator’s relationship
to the narrated self), the strategic nature of the construction of identity becomes
apparent. In this regard the most characteristic feature of the life story recollections
examined is that they perform a kind of self-muzealization, heritagizing the
personal and family past.13 Historically the museum is a modern institution,
11
Cf. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
The research project no. T 38025 entitled “A Kádár-korszak társadalmi emlékezete” (The social
memory of the Kádár era) was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, and was led by
Éva Kovács. My thanks are due to the interview subjects for all the books, sound recording, objects
and their assistance in research.
13
François Hartog has pointed out that the principle of heritage has come into the field of culture
through nature from civil law (UNESCO adopted the Convention concerning the Protection of the
World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1972) Hartog, François, “Patrimoine et histoire. Les temps du
patrimoine,” in Patrimoine et société (ed.) JeanYves Andrieux, (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes,
12
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linked to the nation-state, and a crucial institution for the national representation
of the past alongside public education and national scholarship (to which it is,
incidentally, closely bound). The main task of the modern museum was to
present, celebrate and convey the idealized unity of the nation-state through the
national representation of the past and the creation of national culture. But just as
musealization can no longer be identified with the operation of a sacred institution
put to the service of the nation-state principle,14 so the practices of representing
the past in this traditional form are no longer centralized in the museum.
Research has already demonstrated that the principle of cultural heritage and
musealization is linked to the use of national-ethnic categories, and thus enacts
the construction of the ‘collective identity’.15 At the same time, the collection
and retaining of personal and family objects through the ‘life story narrative of
objects’ may be a procedure for articulating personal identity.16 In the life stories
below, however, techniques of national-ethnic cultural heritage institutionalized
by the state are applied strategically to the personal past. It is as if the process of
heritagization had turned back (or spread further?): heritage, blossoming from the
individual to the cultural, returns to the personal. Hartog concludes his study with
the ecomuseum – below there follows a presentation of the ‘museum of the self’.
Ethnic Belonging as the Nurturing of Cultural Heritage
‘On the 25th of (…) 1987 a small group was gathered, M. E. And his wife, at D. H.’s place. Years ago this
house was the home of W. L. and his wife E. T. It was here that T. T. bandaged the head wound of General
Görgey in 1848.17 There is written documentation of this. Since then the building has been altered. The
members of this group would like to look up and gather our ancestors’ customs, songs, and prayers. In an
1998), 3–17. It invites interesting associations to wonder about the analogy between the destruction of
nature and personal-family losses.
14
On power-politics and ethical questions concerning museums seeMieke Bal, “The Discourse of
the Museum,” in Thinking About Museums, (ed.) Reesa Greenberg, Bruce Ferguson, and Sandy Nairne
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 201–18. http://www.exsymposion.hu/cikk/919. Cf. Gábor Ébli, Az
antropologizált múzeum. Közgyűjtemények átalakulása az ezredfordulón, (Budapest: Typotex, 2005); Péter
György, Az eltörölt hely: a museum, (Budapest: Magvető, 2003).
15
For example Flora E. S. Kaplan (ed.) Museums and the Making of “Ourselves”. The Role of Objects in
National Identity, (London – New York: Leicester University Press, 1994); David Boswell et al. (eds.),
Representing the Nation: a Reader. Histories, Heritage and Museums, (Routledge, 1999).
16
Lene Otto, and Lykke L. Pedersen, “Collecting oneself. Life stories and objects of memory,” In
Ethnologia Scandinavica 28 (1998): 77–92. See also Mieke Bal, “Telling Objects: A Narrative Perspective
on Collecting,” in Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum (ed.) Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago
(Ashgate, Aldershot: 2004), 84–102.
17
Artúr Görgey got his famous head wound on July 2, 1949 in the Battle of Ács.
| 157
exhibition in 1984 we showed the old objects our ancestors used and made. Unfortunately we are not able to
maintain a permanent exhibition, because there is not an appropriate location for the objects. [Participants
introduce themselves] In the coming work we will rely completely on tradition, which dispenses with all
manner of preparation. We gathered voluntarily at the sound of one hesitant word, and we try to convey
what has remained of our forefathers’ lives and of our past.’
Thus begins the recording ‘Presentation of the religious and everyday life of the
native population settled in P’,18 which I received on CD from a member of the
group, one of the life story narrators participating in the research. The informal
nature of the project is shown by the fact that the participants feature only by
name, and the ethnic nature of the group is not made clear; we do not know
the affiliation of the ‘ancestors’ (though the names of the families and the place
are obvious, the point still stands). The partly public nature of the gathering is
explained by the date of the recording, for indeed they gathered at the sound of
‘a hesitant word’. The special nature of the historical context (mentioned in the
introduction) is apparent in the fact that the original recording was made before
the regime change, but I received it in the form of a ‘recorded’ CD.
The aim of the work consciously undertaken by the group is, despite decay, to
conserve the ‘past that has remained’ and in this respect historical documents have a
key role, as does the location of the gathering. Because there is no location for the
objects, the work of memory focuses, even though the exhibition is temporary,
on there being a ‘place’ for memories.
‘In the Middle of the War’
Mária was born in 1922 in the village of P in County Pest. Her ancestors arrived
from Germany in the eighteenth century, and there is documentary evidence
that Mária’s great-grandmother bandaged General Görgey’s head injury. Her
maternal grandfather was a mason who worked nine years in America, and with
his earnings built the house where Maria lives to this day. After returning to
Hungary her grandfather worked only with vines: before the war the family had
five vineyards, and sold the wine to the restaurateurs in the area. Her father is a
locksmith with an independent workship in the neighbouring village.
After four years in primary school Mária completed the Catholic burgher
18
I have made the transcriptions anonymous. Since the settlements are significant, as we shall see, in the
construction of locality, I decided to designate them instead of imaginary names with the „variables” P,
Q, R, S, and T. Thus the reader can participate in the imaginative work playing a role in recollections.
For purposes of clarity the short case studies are preceded by a biographical summary.
158 |
school, where she was taught by the St Vincent Nuns (Sisters of Charity). After
school and in the summer she helped her mother in the vineyard (the family took
on day labourers too). After finishing school first she worked as a shorthand typist,
then went to Budapest to work in a health products supply store.
In 1944 two German soldiers lodged with the family, and helped them to
bury their valuables to hide them from the approaching Soviet soldiers. At the
beginning of December the front reached them. Maria’s family and another
family hid away in a cellar. The young mother of two children hiding with them
was raped. Maria too was threatened, but she resisted, and so they beat her. Then
they ran off to their grandmother’s cellar.
At the beginning of January 1945 they were searched for by name, then with
others they were driven on foot into a small town. After being herded into trucks
they travelled for a good two weeks, finally arriving in a camp consisting of four
or five buildings with 230 people, including 206 women held captive in a stablecum-hostel. With the two others from her village there are three of them from
Hungary. One of them, aged 16, gets typhoid and is sent home, the other dies,
and Mária, wearing number 470, buries her with the help of the others. In the
brigade she works with a girl from Timisoara who speaks only German, and they
become good friends. Mária teaches her Hungarian, and learns German from her.
They keep in contact after the war too.
Mária escaped frequently from the camp, and got to know some Russians, one of
them, a like-minded woman, became a good friend to her. She learned Russian, and
she wrote the camp register, and handled the post (it later transpired that the letters
were not sent). Thus unlike the others she receives not eight but ten dekagrams of
sugar each month. She worked for Russian families too, for food. She worked in
a woodyard, a quarry, and later thanks to her language skills as a works manager.
In 1948 the camp was liquidated, and Mária was placed in a temporary
Hungarian camp. Here she met a girlfriend from the village, who was completely
exhausted, and died a week later. From the beginning Mária wrote everything
down in a notebook, which found its way to her girlfriend’s elder brother in
Vienna. For the journey home she put on a dress sewn by her Russian girlfriend.
On the way home they had to vote in Máramarossziget (Sighetu Marmaţiei), then
in Debrecen they were put in a temporary camp. In Szolnok they were given five
forints and hot soup. They made a national flag out of old rags. Her father was
waiting for her at Nyugati station, and she went by train then taxi to the village
she was born. She arrived at the same time as four other women from the village.
Her mother was ill, and for a long time it was uncertain whether they would be
able to provide medicine. She went back to work in the medical supplies story,
where she was also paid in retrospect.
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In 1949 she married. (Her husband also spent three years in the Soviet Union,
where he practised his trade as an iron turner, and was well paid. He tried to
escape three times, but each time he was caught.) The same year Mária’s first child
was born, and she left her job. They sold a few vineyards. Her husband became a
foreman at the Hungarian State Railways, where there were repeated problems
arising from the fact they sent all three children to religious instruction. Her
husband died at the end of the 1970s.
In the 1960s and later, she visited an acquaintance from the Soviet Union, now
in Dresden. At one point she spent one month with relatives in West Germany.
In the 1990s she received compensation, in the form of a life annuity, and a
pension for her husband. She sold another vineyard, leaving only one.
In 2003 a memorial was erected in the village, and a 20-25-head German
delegation arrived.
Mária has three sons, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and
currently works in the church community and on the vineyard.
‘My name is Mrs. J. H., I live in P, I was born here, and I’ve lived here all my life. I went to school
here, four years at primary school and later in (…) in the (…) Catholic School I did four years
of burgher school. Later I went to the shorthand and typing course, but then came the war, which
got in the way. And during the war, you know, right in the middle of the war, on 2 January 1945
they rounded us up here in P, the young folk, and took us to the Soviet Union for forced labour, to
the place where I spent three years. Three hard years. But thank the Lord I came back healthy.’
The life story narrative begins with the declaration of belonging in P, then with a
gesture referring to ‘here’ she reinforces the belonging to this place three times. The
listing of the schools and the account of her jobs can be viewed as the beginning
of a career narrative, in which the protagonist’s development is interrupted by
the war. ‘Then came the war’, and it prevented her life continuing in its own way.
This sharp contrast drawn between the normal course of everyday life and the
war distances the experience of being deported, which is placed ‘right in the middle
of the war’. In this story, then, deportation is one of the wartime experiences. This
is worth bearing in mind in what follows. The narration continues:
‘And when I got there I took care to learn Russian as fast as possible, so I could talk to people, so
I could explain myself, that I’m no criminal, I haven’t done anything, they just took me away
because of my na… German name.’ And I managed.’
On the CD quoted above, Mária says that they set out eastwards in January 1945
‘with a Hungarian heart and a German name’. The compelling force of the discursive
160 |
logic of collective guilt and justice apparent in this extract is resolved by the sound
of the name being given as the reason for deportation. It can be surmised that the
construction of deportation as a wartime event is also a part of this strategy. As to
where exactly the protagonist of the narration was taken, that is not made clear,
only that the place is not ‘here’ (‘When I got there’). A glance back at the previous
quote shows that the Soviet Union was not the final destination: ‘they took us to
the Soviet Union for forced labour, to the place where I spent three years’ We shall see that
the mutually exlusive localization of ‘here’ and ‘there’, which is parallel to the
application of the opposites of everyday life – ‘war’, runs through the text of the
entire interview and is of considerable significance.
The main narrative continues by saying that due to her language skills Mária
wrote the daily reports, we also learn about the special features of the camp, then
comes the journey home, and the fact they had to vote in Máramarossziget.
‘Well, then I came ho… And I didn’t even say that before the war I worked a bit … (…) in the
health supplies store in Budapest. Right until December 44, when the Russians broke through the
front, and we were only able to come home on the last boat, only on the Danube, by boat. That’s
how I came home – and – this is where they took me from on 2 January ‘45. Yes. So three years
later I came home, and then er … my mother was very ill wasn’t she.’
We have already seen that in this story how ‘then came the war’. This detail also
bears witness to the fact that the life story narrative continues not from the return
home, but from before the war. Life at home and the ‘war’ are related only by
the pair of opposites ‘here’ and ‘there’, not by emplotment. The storytelling sticks
at the return from the Soviet Union, at the words ‘I came home’, and after the
interpolation about the eventful ‘homecoming’ from Budapest to P, it continues
from this point. The concept of homeland, through the locality of P, means
Hungary, which does not even feature on the map drawn by the narration, since
‘here’ refers only to P, just as ‘there’ refers not to the Soviet Union, but to the site
of the forced labour camp. The two homecomings are divided by the ‘war’.
From the fact that the mother knew nothing of her daughter for three years,
the narration switches back to the interrupted story of homecoming, and we
arrive at the site of the temporary camp in Debrecen, where the returning captives
were asked their provenance.
‘And we said we were from P. And they said, of course we could go home, there would be no
problem, nobody from P has been resettled, because here was neither a Volksbund house or an
Arrow Cross one. They couldn’t organize it. --- And so they didn’t bother us.’
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On the basis of this excerpt it would perhaps be an exaggeration to state that the
narration places P outside the logic of collective guilt and justice mentioned above,
but it can be ascertained that the protagonist of the narrative is not maltreated
due to the declaration of her belonging. The source of the threat, however, is
most telling.
The story continues with the narration of everyday life interrupted by the
‘war’: the protagonist returns to her job, then gets married. At this point we learn
her husband was also deported to the Soviet Union. After the difficulties related to
their sending the children to religious instruction, the narrator quickly introduces
the family, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
‘Well that’s how I live my life. Yes. I work, even at eighty-two… at the church community. I
love to work. And I work on the vineyard with my son, I work in the kitchen garden. So… I’m
the kind of person who can’t sit down and do nothing (laughs). --- That’s how it is ---.’
With the the main narrative comes to a close. ‘That’s how it is’ rather than ‘that’s
how it was’. Life has returned to the regular mill upset by the ‘war’. Now let us
take a thorough look at the issues that have arisen.
The times before the ’war’ period, characterized as ‘lovely’, are presented as
a kind of Golden Age, where there was order and things worked properly. In
regard to school, for instance:
‘There was an overseer who took great pains to get us to greet out loud anyone we came across.
These days people pass their acquaintances without even greeting them! But then we had to greet
them out loud, because if we didn’t then the teacher would be told, and then the… the… stick
taught us a lesson. He was right to do it that way. That’s what should be done now. That’s right!
--- Fine times they were. Very fine. They were the best of times.’
The old village landmarks are located in the village’s present too.
‘And then he came in, well there was ten minutes, so we played outside on the …. street, ‘cause
the school didn’t have a yard, now the shop is there, the big shop. It wasn’t this one, but the one
up there under the church.’
This nostalgia for the pre-war times is operated in both extracts by the difference
shaped via the opposing relationship of then–now: things are no longer as
they were, and that is why it is important to note what can be found at the old
landmarks. I, however, believe that the construction of the pre-war emphasizes
continuity, more precisely the state of ‘not interrupted by the war’. This is why
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there are some folk customs of the times that live on only in memory, and that is
why we learn that the narrator took her son to the funeral of a former nun teacher
of hers, to show him what the nuns were like (‘I took him to the funeral, because she
was laid out on the bier in her nun’s dress, and I showed him that she taught me, and those
were the clothes they taught in. That’s what nuns were like.’) The ‘war’ is absent from
the difference between then and now; the decline following the Golden Age is
not related to this.
The continuity with the past leads the topic of ‘ancestors’, which arises when the
narrator tells that only one of the vineyards is left, and she has given it to her son.
‘And we inherited it from my ancestors who first came here from Germany. They, they got it, our
great-grandparents, so well I’m now, I’m… the sixth generation who’s been born here.’
This refers to her personal ancestors, not the origins of an ethnic group. To one
question Mária says that deeds of marriage and baptism from her ancestors (‘I put
them all aside, and keep them.’), then she tells the story about Görgey.
‘This is part of the history of P. The grandmother took out a white wimple from the cupboard,
and bandaged Görgey’s wounded head. Yes. It’s part of history! Of P’s history.’
Then she moves on to the topic of name-giving customs (‘This is a tradition.
A tradition. And I liked them very much.’). Then she continues with the ‘ancestors’:
‘Now they, how they chose this region, here at P precisely, there are woodcuts of this, drawings,
[showing that] when they arrived everything was covered by forest. And that was when they
divided up the … land to them. Mainly the houses on the lower row, these were the first houses.
There’s still --- well, perhaps two of them left. Two. Two. Some houses were pulled down because
they were nearly falling in, recently in the … fifties… in the fifties. Yes. And when they dug
new foundations, they found coins from the time of Emperor Franz I. That was the husband of
Maria Theresa. And it was during his time that our ancestors came here. Right? And they found
the coins from the time of Emperor Franz I’s time in the foundation. Yes. ---”
The past of her personal ancestors becomes a part of ‘official’ history, whether
through documents extant and kept (deeds of baptism and woodcuts), or through
people like Görgey, Maria Theresa and Franz I. This all proves that the ‘ancestors’
make part of Hungarian history. But history and lineage are intertwined in the
locality of P, and the family documents and stories are parts of ‘the history of P’.
The past of the village tells both of persons and events known to everyone (at least
the members of the nation), and erects a memorial to the ancestors who arrived
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from ‘Germany’ (‘conquerors of homeland’ as they are referred to on the CD). The
lost wholeness which the ‘war’ put an end to dispenses with ethnic categories,
and as we have seen, the topic of ‘ancestors’ was drawn into the narration by the
single vineyard, which ‘is still there today’, in other words this is a narrative of
family history, not of ethnicity. Immediately after the extract above the narrator
mentions that in West Germany she liked to look at the tombstones. But not
those of her ancestors; she found local folk over there. (‘And there I looked at the…the
tombstones. And I discovered… ones with names like… like they have here.’) Likewise,
this extract informs us that in West Germany she liked to go to church and hear
German masses, which reminded her of her own times before the ’war’ past.
In the world of the ’war’ ’there’, as has already been intimated, national and
ethnic belonging becomes emphasized. The terms Hungarian and Swabian first
arise in connection with friends:
‘I had several girlfriends too. And there, in Russia too… three of us were Hungarian… in
that camp, the others… There were seven nationalities. There were Saxons, Saxons from
Transylvania, they were the largest group. Then …Swabians from Temesvár [Timisoara],
Swabians from Temesvár. There are… they said they were Nanas Swabians from Temesvár.’
The narrative of ‘war’ mobilizes the national-ethnic categories. Most probably
the reason the narrator does not use the term Swabian for herself is that it is
operated by the logic of collective guilt and retribution. The fact the three
women from P were Hungarian (the national discursive ‘us’) makes it possible
to skirt round the issue of guilt. It can be said of the entire narration that it
successfully resolves the discursive trap normally concomitant with collective
ethnic retribution. I will give two further examples showing that the category
of ‘Swabian/German’ in this sense is ‘reserved’. One is an episode about the camp
in the interview, when a graphic artist is forced by the captors to paint soldiers’
graves on the wall of the hostel, with the title: ‘Hitler inspects the troops’. The other
is a remark about the end of the time in the Soviet Union, that ‘they recognized
that we were Hungarians’.
In the ‘war’ extract the category of ‘German’ operates in opposition to that of
‘Russian’, and not in the first person plural; more precisely the discursive groupforming ‘us’ actually excludes the ‘Germans’. For instance in relation to the cruelty
of the Russian soldiers:
‘Not because I don’t… I don’t like the Germans, because what Hitler did, I don’t… I don’t think
it was right, it was awful, what he did to the Jews. It was beastly, wasn’t it. It, it was a there
aren’t words to describe! --- But I dare say that German soldiers were lodged in our house. But
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there was no reason for us to fear them. No reason to fear them! To the contrary! They said… It
was they who warned us to be very very careful!’
It should be noted that the cruelty of the ‘Russians’ relates only to the soldiers, the
difference of ‘war’ – ordinary times gives a considerable polish to this category
too. In any case the national and ethnic categories operate in the narrative of ‘war’,
and we have seen how, as a part of this, captivity in the Soviet Union is placed
in the life story.
To sum up, it can be said that forced migration, and even the (discursive) constraint,
is constructed as ‘war’, and thus is outside everyday life. This distancing is also
served by the spatial localization of ‘here’ and ‘there’, the former always referring
to P and the latter to the Soviet Union camp, but sometimes also to Germany
and what is ‘German’. The narratives of the ‘war’ and of everyday life organized
as an organic continuation of family history do not intersect; they are separate,
with the narration distancing the former, placing it outside. Thus the losses of the
present are not part of the ‘wartime’ narrative, but take on meaning as the absence
of the former everyday wholeness. Since no explanation is given, this absence is
presumably a necessary concomitant of the passing of time, the ‘changing times’.
The relationship of the narrator and the narrated self is constructed as a loss, an
absence, which the work of memory is supposed to fill.
The self constructed in the narration is primarily ‘ from P’ rather than German
or Swabian; and during the ‘war’ it is ‘Hungarian’. The limits of this identity
strategy are shown by the fact that neither of the two narratives can be omitted
from the self-narration, in other words it is impossible to imagine a situation in
which either of them would organize the life story independently. I sought out
Mária because of her German origins, and by narrating her life story, she accepted
this identification. She however does not identify herself either as German or as
Swabian, the belonging to P (produced by the localization) makes it possible to
avoid the use of the stigmatizing national and ethnic categories, while still giving
space to the ‘ancestors’ from Germany: history and family lineage are intertwined
in the history of P. In this regard I would quote a chapter entitled ‘In praise of
becoming Hungarian’ on the CD recorded in 1987:
‘I think that from this day on we have to try and demonstrate how our ancestors became
Hungarians. Conserving the customs and language of our ancestors, and respecting the laws of the
new homeland, they tried to learn to speak Hungarian, to pray in Hungarian. In church the acts
of worship were in Hungarian and German alternately. In school teaching was in Hungarian and
German. When we sought out the souvenirs and objects left to us, we found a school photograph.
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In the picture the teacher H. B. sits among 124 children, and the pupils are our grandparents and
parents. Under the picture is the inscription: “124 children, one teacher, in one classroom in 1902.”’
The locality of P in the narration analyzed serves as a frame in which German
ancestors fit alongside the descendants who became Hungarian. The work of
memory (group work, it must be said) directed at collecting the ‘life, customs and
prayers of the ancestors’ accomplishes this discursive placement in framework.
The Destruction of Swabian Culture
Zoltán was the second son born into a well-heeled Swabian family in 1935 in the
village of Q near Budapest. He spent his childhood in the two-storey peasant
house looking onto the main square of the village, and on the lower floor of
the corner building is his maternal grandfather’s pub and balloom. His maternal
grandparents died before he was born. His paternal grandfather had two sons
and all of them were barbers: his father had an independent barber’s shop with
an apothecary in the middle of the village. His parents’ marriage was decided
by the pub landlord and the barber grandfather. He went to the Hungarianlanguage primary school, where he learned the language, then to a convent
school. His brother, five years older, went to a Franciscan grammar school. In
the 1941 census his father declared himself to be of German mother tongue and
Hungarian nationality.
During the war German officers were sent to lodge with them, and when the
Soviet army came the soldiers offered them the chance of escaping with them. In
the end they stayed, though their effects were lost.
At the end of the war the front ran through Q for three months.
In 1946 the whole family, together with the maternal grandparents, was
resettled in Germany. They were put in a house with a single woman, who was
able to offer them one room. The step-parents of Zoltán’s mother were also given
accommodation in this village. His brother and he went to school, and his father
cut hair and shaves in the village.
In 1947 his father escaped to Hungary with his elder son, then later his mother
with the other child, after his father informed her he has rented a one-room-andkitchen flat in Budapest. Zoltán went to his aunt in H, a town in eastern Hungary.
He finished school here. Not long after the decree granting equal rights, he moved
in with the family into a larger one-room-and-kitchen service flat in Budapest.
His brother graduated as a mechanical engineer. In 1956 he defected to the
West and started a family. Zoltán was admitted to the Technical University at
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the third attempt, where he graduated in engineering. He worked at the Budapest
Electric Railway, where he retired as a head of department. As a pensioner he
took part in the Metro 4 project.
With the family fortune and with help from his uncle he managed to salvage
a pressing house and a small vineyard. He tried to arrange for the graves in
the cemetery in Q to be renovated, but in vain. Zoltán has two sons, and five
grandchildren.
The narration begins with his introduction: Zoltán gives his name, his place of
birth (Q) and his date of birth. After explaining the family names on his mother’s
side he continues:
‘Now you can see from the names that --- that my origin is Swabian, because in Q 90% of them
were Swabian, my name …’
Then he tells of how he looked up the origin of his father’s family name, and
found that his ancestors moved to Q from Italy in the nineteenth century.
‘In the end I think that, although not on the basis of the name, but --- on the materal line I
definitely feel like I’m of Swabian origin.’
With this ends the introduction, which is nothing other than the declaration of
Swabian belonging. This lineage is ‘proven’ by the family names of his mother’s
line and the ethnic composition of the population of Q, his birthplace. After a
brief pause the narrator continues with this latter: ‘Well as I said, most of the village
was inhabited by Swabians, after the war came a law’ – and related to the resettlement
comes the story of the 1941 census, and of how his father declared himself of
German mother tongue and Hungarian origin. As Zoltán puts it: ‘That was
enough, as the language knowledge, for the family to be resettled pursuant to the decree.’
The reason for the resettlement was German ‘language knowledge’; perhaps this
explains the importance of the maternal lineage in declaring his ‘Swabian origin’.
This life story narration starts, as a matter of fact, with resettlement, and
continues with deportation from the village, and the journey right up until getting
accommodation in Germany. Zoltán consistently keeps to a child’s viewpoint,
and this has a dual significance. Firstly, because of these childhood experiences
he finds it hard to take on the narrative position of an authentic witness in the
present. After saying that his family was put in the last wagon from the village,
and that his father hoped in vain that they would perhaps not after all be resettled,
because he had declared himself Hungarian, he continued:
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‘Well I was quite young then (…), so as a child there are plenty of things I don’t remember, I
know that my parents, and well the people in the village who were repatriated, experienced the
whole thing as a really big trauma, because see… well my parents were quite well-off, my family
was quite well-off and the things were, a horsecart, a peasant cart with two horses pulling it, it
pulled into the yard and they said what we could pack up on there we could take, we couldn‘t
take anything else from the house, --- for sure very few things fitted on it, we lived in a large
peasant house.’
The historical testimony is thus accomplished through childhood experiences
and ‘retrospective conclusions’ made with an adult mind: ‘I experienced my parents’
bitterness, and weeping and to a certain extent I empathized with it, but actually I didn’t
understand all the things that were going on round us.’ A testimony is then woven into
the narration, that Zoltán heard with regard to the other transport wagons, that
several preferred to commit suicide than leave the village. The next scene has
the same role:
‘Then we went with the last wagon, there were lots of empty Swabian houses by then in the
village, and we saw --- left empty and derelict, animals wandering round without owners, peaple
broke through the doors, stole what was left, made off with the valuables, so it was a sad sight the
village life in those times.’
The other significance of the small child’s perspective he uses is that in many
respects the resettlement takes on the characteristics of an eventful journey. The
narration continues with the fact that since Q had no railway station, they had
to go to the neighboring village with the cart.
‘They took me with the cart, and there were several tracks there, that was the first time in my life
I saw a station, there were several tracks and trains, steam engines puffing, we kids experienced
this with some enjoyment. (…) We sat on the train in the open doors and dangled our legs over
the side, as a child I enjoyed the whole thing, we went through foreign parts, I’d never travelled
anywhere in my life.’
From this perspective, the parents’ desperation is refracted through the prism of
the excitement of childhood in the text. The experiences take the form of a list,
thus this is not emplotment in the strict sense, and the text is often interrupted
with such retrospective interpolations as ‘Well what else can I remember?’, or ‘Well
again I can’t remember much or the details’ or post-fact conclusions. In this narration
the resettlement is apparently then part of the life story narrative, which is
organized by childhood experiences, discoveries and the themes of growing up.
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This gives rise to the dual narrative endeavour which tries to give an account both
of personal experiences and of the historical event of resettlement.
This narrative continues with a description of the cattle wagon, the railway
stations, an account of the medical examination tight up to the destination, a town
in Germany under American occupation, where they travel in a cattle truck to
the site of resettlement:
‘it was a small village in the countryside, not large, perhaps it might have been --- about one
hundred and fifty houses, mostly inhabited by peasants, farmers, who worked on the land, and
there was a village hall in the middle of the village, and there in front of the village hall they
unloaded us, all of us, with our few belongings. Then the trucks went off, people came, villagers
too, they looked at us curiously, to see who we were. “The Hungarian Gypsies have come” that’s
what they said of us, Hungarian Gypsies.’
The locals picked out the people they liked, and Zoltán’s family was chosen
by a widow who gave them one of her rooms. From this point on the story
simultaneously presents the interesting points of the eventful journey and the
experience of being an outsider, the difficulties of integrating: the hardship
of everyday life, language problems, and humiliation. The main narrative
continues with the living circumstances, then with finding food, and the paltry
earnings.
‘What was interesting, what I still remember, that every… every, they called us frischlings, every
such family was given a little --- a little patch of land where --- where they could organize, or
make, a kitchen garden, this village… it was quite far from the village but a great advantage
was that it was on the bank of a little brook, and well they created – wonderful… wonderful
gardens, these Swabians, who we were settled with. True, they had plenty of time for them, so
--- you could find… seeds, for instance the Germans knew only the beans with green pods, I
don’t know who, one of the Swabians took yellow podded beans and the villagers were amazed at
it, a yellow runner bean. We also took paprika seeds and grew paprika and got incredible results
[with manure]’.
The term frischling probably refers to the resettled families’ being treated as ‘new
arrivals’ in the village, who were thus given smaller patches of land where they
could farm. The identity category of ‘Swabian’ is used in the narration for the
settlers from Hungary, clearly distinguished from the ‘German’, which means
those from Germany. The intersection of the two and their cultural difference is
given an organic meaning: for instance, the Swabians achievements derive from
the fact that they grow yellow-podded beans or paprika in German soil. The
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Swabian–German difference is expressed in regard to language too: ‘Well, there
were problems there too, because actually we didn’t speak German, only Swabian’.
The narration continues in the familiar manner with difficulties at school,
mainly linguistic, which Zoltán and his brother had to face. A new twist in the
story is when the family decides to flee to Hungary.
‘Well it was a fairly hard --- hard decision for the family, because although my father thought
likewise, he couldn’t swallow the fact he’d lost everything in Hungary and there we had nothing,
and of an evening there were lots of family arguments about what to do next, what would happen,
how should it happen, you could hear of several families who’d escaped back to Hungary.’
The reason for the decision was thus the lost family assets, the deprivation. Twelveyear-old Zoltán returned to Hungary with his mother only nine months after his
father and the elder son, so the next turning point in the life story narrative is not
the return home, but when the family moved into the same house (their own at
that) near two-and-a-half years later.
But the path that led there was long indeed. The splitting up of the family
meant that the mother and little Zoltán had nowhere to live, there was nowhere
to go home in their homeland.
‘My parents wrote lots of letters to each other, my mother always knew the letters my father wrote
by heart, and she too really longed to come home, I would happily also have gone home, now… as
I recall… I too was pining for my land of birth and --- well the letters were always asking when
we could go, when we too would set off home. Well a good six or nine months passed, (…) so we
got to a point where father arranged a rented house on (…) street, not far away, an old gentleman
had a flat with a room and kitchen, (…) and my father wrote we could set off, we should try and
escape home and then we would have somewhere to live.’
As a kind of intermezzo, proving that a return home in the strict sense, moving to
Q was impossible, the narration continues with when the father went in secret by
night to his mother’s funeral bier, he was reported, and in the morning the police
was looking for him at the uncle’s who had remained in Q. This interpolation
closes with the following words: ‘Well the thing was the family had split in two, half
was already in Hungary, and my mother and I were abroad there.’
The main themes for the ‘ fantastic escape’, ‘our escape home’ over the occupied
zones and borders were the dependency on others (‘it was markedly dark and every
so often lights would be on in the village, we knocked, but they didn’t open the door
anywhere, not anywhere’), exhaustion, and luck:
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‘And we were incredibly lucky, we were shuffling around and it was already daylight, if somebody
had seen us, it was written all over who we were, but fortunately nobody did, we got to the next
village and there was a family there that took us in, my mother said who we are, what we are, they
gave a --- we could lie down in a room, we could rest there, they hosted us, gave us something to
eat (…) there were four or five in that peasant family, for sure, they sat round a large table and in
the middle put a big dish in which they gave us the cooked food, they gave everyone a spoon and
we ate lunch from the one dish. So no… how can I put it… they weren’t put off by the fact we
were strangers and we would contaminate the food, or between us it was so natural that… that
there the folk ate out of the same thing.’
This charming scene of home hospitality and acceptance gains its life story
significance particularly in the light of the experience of being called ‘Hungarian
Gypsies’. The mother and son cross the Austro-Hungarian border twice. First
on the train, with Zoltán hidden in the toilet, but the train turns back from
Hungarian territory to Austria. The second time ‘distant relatives’ help them across
the green border: ‘And, amazingly, they put our effects in a wheelbarrow, and two people
came through the green border with us --- we didn’t even know where the border was’.
The narration continues with Zoltán, because of the cramped rented
accommodation, moving to his aunt in H. Coming home to Hungary means
another putting down of roots.
‘Then comes the second problem, that after they enrolled me into school, since I already spoke very
good German, during the year-and-a-half I went to school, I had to switch back to the territory
of Hungary, so that --- I had to learn the Hungarian alphabet again --- all the things which…
which… which they taught in German, I’d missed out on, I hadn’t learned Hungarian history,
I hadn’t learned geography and so I was a bit ignorant compared to my classmates.’
The ‘escape back’, similar to previous ones, does not simply mean catching up
with schoolwork. We learn the following about the town of H.
‘Now the town of H is Hungarian through and through, where nobody clicked who I was, where
I’d come from, so I was in no danger there, but in spite of this, I constantly felt --- if I saw a
policeman, I always took fright, and I always thought well now they’re going to stop me and they’ll
take me back or arrest me or something.’
It transpires from the excerpt not only that H is a ‘Hungarian town’ as opposed
to the Swabian Q, but also that the perspective of the small child continues to
operate. While in the village in Germany the protagonist manages to blend in
(‘with the children I didn’t feel --- what’s the word --- either marginalized or discriminated
| 171
against’) in H, (though it was the same situation) the difference arising from
illegality appears as a threat.
Until the decree instating equal rights, when ‘we were legalized’, and the family
moved together the actual return home could not take place. Illegality does not
simply mean that the members of the family had no identification or other official
papers. It also meant ‘lying’ about the past.
‘Well we had to tell lots of lies. A shocking amount, my brother, right, always had to write
curriculm vitae under the Rákosi regime, we denied all the things I’ve said here flat out… we
always had to… I learned to as well --- my brother taught me to write that our father --- before
the war he was a barber, or hairdresser, but due to health problems after the war he couldn’t
continue his trade, so we moved to Budapest and then father went to the (…) hospital and we
simply glossed over the whole --- awkward --- period, that’s how my brother and I managed to
get into university, by denying our origins.’
The interview subject is thus telling what then had to be denied, and the lies related
to his personal life story are expressed as a lie of the political system. While under
the Rákosi regime the resettlement had to be lied about, it was possible to get on
through th denial of ‘the whole awkward period’ and the ‘Swabian origins’, the strategy
of the narrator in the present is to present his life story through his origins and
the denied ‘period’. It is not then the case that he supplements the ‘autobiography’
with parts previously compulsorily left out, but that he constructs his life story
in the framework of origins and the resettlement, and accordingly his life story
begins, after the introduction, with the resettlement, not with birth. He takes
on the stigmatized, scorned identity category he has been made to lie about, and
tries to resignify it, to free it from the discursive constraints.
The next thing in the narration is the death of Zoltán’s grandfather in Q:
his father buys a house in Budapest with the inheritance. The interview subject
points out of the window: ‘it’s this house, here opposite.’ In a structural sense this
brings to a close the ‘fantastic escape home’, because now the ruptured family is
reunited, this time legally. Importantly, they own their own house, and also it
is physically close, it can be pointed at in the interview situation, thus localizing
it as a home.
Then Zoltán tells exactly how they came by the property, how they gradually
took possession of it, and that his brother was by then working as an engineer,
while he was at grammar school. Then he adds: ‘well what else can I say, that’s
when our life started to sort itself out’. Since the life story narrative began with the
resettlement, with the actual return home, or that fact that life sorted itself out,
effectively there remains nothing to be said. The life story significance of the
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return is highly complex: it represents at once the unification of the ruptured
family, their own home, and legal status.
Since however the life story narrative organizes both the events of the
resettlement and the experience of self-development, the narration continues,
indeed in the form of the customary career narrative, with education and
qualifications and a succession of jobs and occupations. Sometimes there are
interpolations such as ‘well I don’t know whether to carry on’. The life story arrives at
the retirement and the [Budapest] metro 4 project, then closes as follows:
‘Well that’s about all I can say, I would perhaps say that you know they took everything from
us during the resettlement. My father --- my maternal grandfather had a building in Q,
his pub, it was one of the largest buildings in Q, still stands today, I was born there actually
upstairs, that’s my house of birth, then my father had a separate house --- we had three or four
pressing houses, several hectares of vineyards --- and the farm that went with it, so they took
stuff of considerable value from us, and we didn’t get anything back, nothing at all --- we got
a ridiculous sum from the compensation notes, because I looked up these old documents which
we drew up very superficially at the time, a written record of what was left after the resettlement
of the Swabians and on the basis of that we got some compensation notes, but I wasn’t able to
do much with them.
After what is practically the conclusion of the life story the narration continues,
moreover with an account of personal and family losses, and with the fact that
the family received no true compensation. Then follows what they managed to
salvage from the family assets, and with an uncle’s help they managed to keep a
vineyard and a pressing house. In sharp contrast to the losses, there is the story of
the population who were made to settle in Q.
‘They brought population from Upper Hungary, from the Trans-Tiszanian region, from the
Great Plane --- from several places --- and what happened was that the population came, and
whichever house they liked they made a claim for it and they got it. Then you would often hear
that they’d burned, eaten and drunk everything, and when it was empty they went into another
house. (…) Because [of] the Hungarians from Upper Hungary it is often said what an injustice
they suffered, they they were resettled back home, that they were resettled out of Upper Hungary.
But they could even take their threshing maching with them, the Hungarians from Upper
Hungary bround their own chattels with them by the wagonload. They could bring
everything. But we couldn’t take anything away. --- It’s a very sad thing.’
The account of the family losses closes with the story that Zoltán’s family went
to the new owners of their former house (‘old inhabitants of Q had moved into our
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house’) so they could take their chattels: ‘they wouldn’t give anything. They wouldn’t
give a chair. Folk are strange.’
The main narrative then closes as follows, this time permanently:
‘Oh yes, then my brother you know defected in 56, now he lives in (…). He was the main reason
we came home and he is the one that finally doesn’t live here in the country, he’s started a family,
so he won’t come home now. And I feel, that I feel Hungarian, although --- although I’m proud
of my Swabian origins, but… I think that this is my homeland --- and…and it’s very good
that I came back. --- And well my descendants … feel, lets say, very little of this, it’s more me
that tries to nurture this… this feeling in them, but actually they feel very little of it. My wife
is Hungarian too, so --- this is now --- association --- assimilation, it’s … it works here in
that sense. It’s a shame because Q… had it’s own culture formed by the Swabians, their own
dialect --- I mean in the countryside around Budapest it was a special Swabian language, which
incidentally I speak to this day, but there’s nobody to talk to and… these have come to nothing…
they have ceased, they have come to nothing… everything… everything is ruined. Because the
folk that went to live there, they… they there… there they had to blend into the environment
there, they couldn’t carry on their own culture, and there weren’t enough left here for this to have
been retained. --- So these are now --- in this sense they’re sad things… but… that’s the truth.
--- Well that’s all I can say about my story.’
The family material loss becomes a kind of cultural loss. The life story significance
of the material loss derives primarily from the fact that it is the objectification
of the loss of the self. There is nobody with whom to speak Swabian, nobody
with whom to share the former ‘special Swabian culture’. This is referred to by
the metaphorical meaning of the word ‘compensation’, just as the value of the
non-returned family furniture is not expressed in money. The narration changes
from the ‘loss’ of the brother to the Swabian origins and assimilation, which can
be seen as a synonym for cultural loss. This loss is embedded in a process of decay,
in which everything valuable (personal, material and cultural) ‘is ruined’.
This is an identity strategy realized through the positioning of loss. The
narration transforms the personal sense of loss to familial-material injury, then to
cultural loss; the knowledge and presentation of cultural values like an inventory
also represents compensation. Thus it is significant that the narrator’s ‘descendants
feel little of this’, or elsewhere: ‘that old… sometimes I go into the village centre and look
around… there isn’t the old feeling there used to be. There can’t be now’.
This strategy is served by the fact that the narration portrays the various
national and ethnic categories as separate worlds, incomparable one with the
other: in the self-narration the Hungarians, the Swabians and the Germans (and
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elsewhere the Roma and the Cumans) have determined cultural traits specific to
them alone. Every world has its own scheme of values, they cannot be compared,
so none of them can be more or less valuable than another. The Swabian category,
which the narrator assigns to himself, is bound to the locality of Q, it is ‘rooted’
there, in the familiar organic metaphor. He also takes on the identity category
of Hungarian, but the former has a greater stake in the presentation of the self,
and the possibility of showing the Hungarian–Swabian cultural differences is
significant. H, in other words the town that is ‘Hungarian through and through’
features in the story as though Zoltán had been abroad there, as in Germany,
and acquired cultural values (in the current case, learning Hungarian popular
songs). This identity strategy draws a sharp distinction between the ‘Swabian’
and the ‘German’, and the border between them creates existing, stable, almost
unconnected cultural differences – separate, organic worlds.
Because of the strategy of forming the family past into an ethnic cultural
treasure through the construction of locality, the collection of objects also
becomes significant. Such is the case of the non-returned furniture, or later the
example of the bar stool (‘There were Thonet chairs in the pub, which to this day, we
managed to retain one chair from that pub’), the narrator’s ‘all sorts of memorial books about
Q’ or the resettlement law. For the same reason it is important to take account
of the Swabian children’s games in the narration (‘it was a game culture, which –
which formed beyond what you could call folk costume culture, or other usual culture’) and
of course not least the role of the Swabian language, which is markedly different
from German. And the list could go on.
The formation of the personal-familial past into a cultural heritage through
the ethnic category is realized in the construction of the locality of Q (which, as
we have seen, once had its own Swabian culture). Beyond the narration analyzed,
this localization is enacted by the collection and keeping of objects, the regular
visits to the cemetery in Q, the role undertaken in the renovation of the graves
(eventually not carried out), and also the fact that the narrator can see at any
time the apartment, which (because it was the family’s first property after the
resettlement where they could be legally together) is placed at the peak of the
life story narrative.
Home as a Place of Absence
Ernő grew up in poverty in the village of R, which is now part of Budapest.
In 1903 his mother’s one room and kitchen peasant house was built; Ernő was
born there, and was living there at the time of the interview. In 1913 his maternal
| 175
grandfather died, leaving his grandmother with three children; his mother was
eight at the time. From the age of seven his father worked as a labourer in return
for full board. The landlord terminated the contract in 1925 after Ernő’s parents’
wedding.
Ernő was born in 1926 in R, and his mother tongue is German. His sister
was born four years later. In 1932 his father died form an illness, and there was
not enough money to bring him home for the funeral, so they sold raffle tickets
in the village for the saleable chattels (his father’s winter overcoat was won by a
relative, who later returned it, and Ernő has it to this day). His mother was sick for
a year, so they lived from his grandmother’s earnings: she was a maid in the guest
house of a factory. His sister ate at a free kitchen, Ernő sold vegetables bought at
wholesale price, and took on seasonal work as a day-labourer. After his mother
started work, he was brought up by his grandmother.
After primary school he went to secondary school; one summer a teacher
gave him tuition for a bridging exam, and he started in the third grade. He had
free time if his grandmother found no work for him (carrying wood, picking
potatoes, helping at the cane factory etc.). He started work in the factory where
his grandmother worked, he got on with the director, and German was spoken
(his grandmother spoke no Hungarian). As a protégé he was sometimes absent, but
was found out and punished. The factory director flees abroad because of the third
anti-Jewish law: Ernő moves to an aunt in Budapest as an apprentice hairdresser.
In 1944 he was called up for labour service: as a member of the paramilitary
youth organization Levente he dug trenches. Once an SS officer took him as an
interpreter, and he was caught in fighting, but managed to escape, although his
letters patent was ripped up. He was given an SS uniform, from which he got lice.
In January 1945 he applied to a request for those of German origin (his mother
and sister were put on the list for resettlement). He was put onto a wagon.
In mid-February Ernő was taken to a camp in the Soviet Union. There was
disinfecting, then after two weeks’ quarantine he started work. He worked in a
coal mine packing wagons. He was paid, but he has to pay board and lodging, the
‘work fee’ and even the electricity. He got friendly with the guards and personnel.
In 1947 the camp was liquidated, and Ernő was put in a new one. When the
new rubel was introduced his pay increased fivefold. The deportees earned more
than the Russians. That year his grandmother died.
He worked in a four-head brigade, which got through several times more work
than the others. The brigade members earned well, and conditions improved: they
could spend moeny in restaurants on the Hungarian chef’s dishes, ‘bull’s blood
of Eger’ wine, or dance evenings. Ernő met his future wife there, who like him
had been deported to the Soviet Union.
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In mid-November 1949, the last working day, the brigade did their work, then
after a musical farewell they set off for Hungary. They arrived at the beginning
of December. His wife worked too, and Ernő went to the factory he had worked
in before. He got the papers to certify his experience, then was transferred to
another factory, where he was the foreman.
In the early 50s he completes technical school, becoming a mechanic. In 1956
in Mester Street he tore off his ID as candidate for party membership, and threw
it in a fire.
He worked in the factory as a section head. When his membership candidacy
time is over the Party wanted him to join. He wrote a letter saying that as long
as the current management is in power, he refused to join, and then he was fired
from the factory. He went back to his previous workplace (where once more he
pulled strings). He was a middle manager. He was invited to an assembly of party
members, but when questioned he answers back. He was not fired.
In 1966 at his boss’s request, he joined the Party. He became a shop-manager.
In 1976 his wife visited her home village in Transylvania, and Ernő made
drawings.
In 1982 he received a disability pension. The factory director wanted him as
an advisor, but he declines. He bought a palette, brush and paints, and painted
his former environment from memory.
In 1990 his mother died. At the time the interview was recorded he was
working on an autobiographical series of paintings, and he had published two
books in which he drew the world of his childhood. Two other books were
forthcoming. He has one child and one grandchild.
Ernő begins his life story with ‘I wasn’t at home any more’ at the resettlement,
because he was taken to the Soviet Union where he spent five years and where he
met his future wife. He switches from mentioning her birthplace to the journey
to Romania, when they visited his wife’s village of birth.
‘I was there in er 1976, it’s a very pure Swabian village, and what really struck me there was
that… that… Ceauşescu I… considered him the harshest of dictators, and still do, thank goodness
he’s not alive, but there were eight German soldiers’ graves in the cemetery, and he had them
dismantled. He had them dismantled one day, and at night the villagers put them back, and
restored them. He did this two or three times, then he felt he had to resign himself to it, these graves
are there. When I was in (…) in 76 these graves still existed, and they were tended graves. Well
my wife’s whole family has migrated now to Germany.’
| 177
The tending of the graves of German soldiers, despite the wishes of the ‘harshest’
communist dictator is certainly exemplary, and gains meaning compared to the
situation in Hungary, where although the dictatorship was ‘softer’ it was rarer to
see such a brave declaration of German origin (in the Romanian example this is
probably related to the purity of the village). Then Ernő tells briefly of the life of
his wife’s relatives, who were resettled in Germany, with the comment ‘well, they
got to heaven didn’t they, from hell to heaven’. Then there starts a theme of poverty,
which is perhaps the main motive in the life story narration. After a description
of the well-being of the relatives in Germany comes what is actually the personal
life story.
‘Well what can I say about myself, you’ve read it on the cover,19 I was born in nineteen-twenty-six
here in R. In this house, just not in this room, because then the house, it was built in nineteenoh-three in this road, and was only a one-room-and-kitchen peasant house.’
He continues, mentioning his maternal grandparents, his grandfather’s death, and
that the widow was left with three children. Then:
‘Well, listen! I very dare say, and I’ll say it in public anywhere, that a church mouse, compared
to me, was like Baron Rothschild. In the street I was and am the poorest. Well, my life didn’t
go the way it should have, but now I’ll show you that this house, there’s a room there, a room
here, I inherited half of that house, and over forty-two years it… sadly this relates to the Kádár
regime, forty… er like, because here they counted pre-war work too, but during the Kádár regime
I earned a bedroom, a bathroom, a pantry and a kitchen. With forty-two years’ hard work --yes, hard work, I tell you.’
The Kádár regime is placed within the theme of poverty–well-being, moreover
in such a way that the ‘essence’, i.e. make a living is indifferent (‘I was and am the
poorest’). The life story is localized in the parental house: the work of a lifetime
is embodied as the completion of the building. In what follows the narrative
of poverty continues, organized around the theme of ‘hard work’. There thus
follows the first job, which the narrator got via his grandmother, then he tells
of his father’s death, and how they set up a raffle with tickets costing one pengő
[ca. one farthing – transl.] for the things he had left which were saleable. As in
the excerpt above, poverty is shameful, to which the narrator reacts with proud
bearing. He continues:
19
Ernő refers to one of his books, which he gave to me. This reference, that all we need to know
about the interview subject can be seen on the cover, well demonstrates the book’s autobiographical
significance, although as transpires later, it is not a life story.
178 |
‘Because as I wrote on the cover, we were very poor, but I didn’t write it as a complaint, because
to put up with poverty, it was made easier by helpfulness and depending on one another, … we
simply took note of the act we were poor, we didn’t make a fuss about it. I have to tell you, to quote
my grandmother’s saying, she said that poverty is here in the saucepan on the table, nobody can
see into it, and you don’t have to take it out into the street.’
The narration continues with his father’s objects sold through the raffle as episodes
in poverty, like the bicycle, which one of the neighbours won.
‘For a long time, every time I saw this man cycling I always ran after him as far as my legs would
take me, it was my father’s bicycle, but there was nothing to be done.’
Then his father’s winter coat:
‘Then… his winter coat was won by my grandmother’s brother. My grandmother’s brother,
who was resettled in Wiesensteig, and Wiesensteig, when he died, my grandmother’s brother,
this winter coat, well the next of kin sent the winter coat back, and I guard it preciously, I still
have it today, I’ll show you.’
There is a brief pause in the interview, as Ernő gets the coat out of the wardrobe.
The monogram in it is the same as his, and he shows me. Then he continues:
‘And think, that in 1925, this coat, what it meant, then this, well er… I’m going to keep it.
And I told my grandchild, my grandson, that when I die, he should take it, put it away, because
decades later this will be very valuable, and this… So on the basis of this actually you could call
it Swabian costume. Sort of half-peasant, peasant, peasant Swabian costume you could say, and
the --- wore this.’
The coat could be said to be Swabian based on its value, not vice versa. The value
is partly intangible, because the narrator inherited it from his father (whose
monogram in the coat is the same as his), and further value is given by the fact
that it stands as a memory of the peasant life, and that is why it is important that
they wore it. Thus a family heirloom through the theme of poverty becomes an
objectified memory of peasant life, and through this of the Swabian costume,
and through the Swabian category gains cultural value and significance. It could
even be said that the discursive work through which the (poor) peasant lifestyle
is constructed as a Swabian tradition produces value.
The narration continues with the fact that his father was already a labourer
at the age of seven.
| 179
‘I have a German article, if you like I’ll search it out, I wrote in it, the title is Herr und Schnicht
so The Farmer and the Labourer.’
In his articles and books Ernő erects a memory to the events and customs of
everyday life before the war, presenting children’s games, writing of agricultural
procedures and implements no longer used, of what it was like to be a day labourer
or – again because of his father – a hired hand, all as a part of Swabian traditions.
The capturing for posterity of the stories of the old, bygone world is a testimony.
The objects in question, be they utensils or the objectified results of memory
work (newpaper articles, books, pictures) are all parts of the narration practice,
they feature as a kind of evidence that the story told is true to facts. The person
revealing himself in the narration is carrying out a kind of cultural mission to
remind as many people as possible of the lost world in its reality, as a part of
Swabian culuture, or to touch them as a novelty: he publishes books, writes
newspaper articles, photographs paintings and gives away the photographs, and
he has exhibitions.
After two more short episodical stories of poverty there is a kind of closure
in the narration:
‘That’s how I’ve struggled through life. The resettlement didn’t find me at home, as I said, they
took me to the … Soviet Union. I was there five years. --- I have to pause a bit here, because
everytime they ask me, always about this captivity, here everyone expects me to tell tales of horror.
Well now I can’t tell tales of horror, I’m telling the truth, and I say, indeed, on the twentieth of
January forty …. five they rounded us up, we set off from here, that was horrific, when they took
us on foot er… through Erzsébet to Lajos Kossuth Street, someone tipped a chamber pot over us
from an upstairs window, saying they’re taking the Swabians, that kind of thing, you know.’
And the story of the deportation begins. The significance of forced migration,
similarly to the stories and experiences of childhood, is defined through its
reference to reality. The narrator, sticking to reality, cannot meet the general
need to ‘tell tales of horror’ – thus this need is a false expectation.
There follow, in hindsight, opportunities for escape, being put in the wagon
(‘but quite sparsely’), then back in time to the callup to labour service in 1944.
The episode stories of labour service follow one another in succession, and how
the villagers of R got the company captain to let them sleep in the stable of an
‘acquaintance’s’ house, then each morning they milked the cow, and the farmer
was amazed the animal gave so little milk. This and similar stories were common
in the narration, where the protagonist appears as a crafty prankster, whose mind
is sharper than others, so he worms his way even out of tight corners.
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Then, again jumping in time, we are thrust into the story of when the forced
labourers reach the ring of the siege, and after the company captain ‘took his leave’
the labourers also start to flee.
‘Well there was nothing for it but to set off, we came home too, and the Germans after us, like they
were fleeing. Not all Swabians will be pleased at what I say, but I’m compelled to say that well
I tried to er clamber up running after a German military car. Well if you please, they stepped on
my ha…my hand, they wouldn’t let me… they didn’t lift me up. They didn’t help me.’
This narration too draws a distinction between Swabian and German, but the two
are not exclusive opposites, much rather some expected community. There follow
the adventures, when the SS officer took him as an interpreter, they got caught in
fighting, his letters patent was lost, and he finds his way home.
Then comes the deportation story again: the call-up (‘they put up posters saying
those with German-sounding names should register – because if you didn’t, Siberia’), the
lice-ridden soldier’s coat, the wagon, arrival, disinfection, the camp, quarantine,
and work in the mine. Then the work outside in minus thirty degrees. In
connection to this Ernő once more digresses from the narration.
‘The folk with me, they tell it like, minus fifty degrees, minus forty degrees, we never experienced
that. No. They always, someone always adds some horror. What the purpose of that is, I don’t
know, I’m not adding it. Because I declare that that camp --- it wasn’t a gulag. We weren’t taken
to a gulag, but to a camp.’
The events of the time in the camp can be seen as a testimony, and the stake of the
narration is to record the ‘real camp’ as opposed to the expectation to ‘tell tales
of horror’, or to the ‘rivalling’ of memory politics about who suffered more, who
to consider more of a victim. This includes an explanation of the real difference
between civilian and military camps, a description of the brigade’s work, and that
when the new rubel was introduced the pay multiplied – presumably in contrast
to the stories of suffering of ‘malenki robot’ (forced labour – incidentally a similar
point of reference is Holocaust memory, such as the remark about being packed on
the wagons ‘quite sparsely’). The narrator constantly reacts to possible objections,
for instance in relation to the brigade’s performance:
‘If someone hears this, well he’s sure to think that like er I’m a communist. No. No. This is the
truth, it’s a fact, this is how it was. It happened.’
| 181
‘Communist’ likely in the sense of Stakhanovite. For the sake of accurate recollection
free of exaggeration, he breaks the emplotment with another digression:
‘Don’t misunderstand. We weren’t carefree. But it was bearable, we walked about freely. I saw
the first Hungarian film out there, Mágnás Miska [Mikey the Tycoon – transl.].’
The ‘rivalry of stories of suffering’, which the narration wants to set aside, is
very likely linked to the fact that in the sphere of memory politics, in the freer
atmosphere after the regime change in 1989, there were many moves aimed at
public recognition of former oppression, persecution and suffering, be it due to
Jewish origin, victims of state socialism, or of resettlement. In this situation the
injustice and tribulation suffered due to German origin was more difficult to
voice, because the ‘Germans’ were designated as the culprits. Nevertheless in
this discursive milieu it is almost obligatory for deportation to the Soviet Union
to tell of suffering, and Ernő’s narration revolts against this, since in essence he
presents the fact that, in a life story lived in poverty, despite the vulnerability
during deportation it was easier to get by.
‘So much for the Soviet Union. --- I have to say now, because it’s the truth, but I daren’t write it,
because I say all the folk I heard speak of this, they speak of everything but not this. --- They…
are scared to speak of this. But I don’t know why they should be scared. Because we worked for
it, and very hard. And we lived there. And the fact that… that they treated us better, that was
in their interests. And that, you know, we weren’t subject to any laws. So we were there as folk
on labour service, and if they had wanted to, they could have kept us there.’
The series of ‘real camp stories’, it seems, could go on and on; the narration
does not organize events chronologically, and the plot switches from episode to
episode, which gain meaning in the strategy above. Ernő suddenly remarks: ‘Well,
if you please, let’s end the Soviet… part, and let’s say, I’ve come home.’
After the return home the narrative of poverty, interrupted by jobs, the
difficulties of getting by and deportation, continues. I shall not go into detail
about the various jobs, and further episodes in the story of poverty; in terms of
narrative structure the narration remains unchanged. The small folk making ends
meet, the narrative construction of the ‘unheroic hero’ is the consequence of the
narration operating as an authentic testimony of reality. By way of example, let
us look at the comment related to tearing up his party membership book, which
well demonstrates that every regime, every order of power is distanced from the
self, who is actually ‘nothing’ whatever enemy or hero they may see in it.
182 |
‘Then they pinned loads of stuff on me. Well first I was, as a levente member I was the scion of
communists. Well, okay, um… that’s what you have to do. Then um they put me down because
later I became … er a communist. --- The in fifty-six I became a counter-revolutionary. But I
was everything, so even I don’t know who, but I certainly wasn’t a counter-revolutionary. So for
sure, apart from the fact that I tore up the book, and that there are folk that beat their chest saying
they weren’t even there, I don’t. That’s all --- I --- wasn’t --- anything. I chickened out, I
said. Honestly I chickened out. I said it’s better if – I say nothing, but I’m not saying anything.’
Although in a structural sense the same narrative organizes the episodic string
of events, the narration sometimes suddenly dies into silence, and the resulting
silence is filled with the presentation of objects, photographs and paintings. As
once previously (‘our youth was that at eight o’clock in the evening the siren went off. Let
me bring in two paintings, which I’ll say a couple of words about.’), but as the narration
proceeds the objects become increasingly significant.
Linked to the mission to prevent the loss of reality is what for want of a better
word we can call withdrawal. As a life story event the withdrawal is located in
1982, in connection with the disability pension due to the sicknesses (‘in 82 it was
as if they’d cut it off ’). The factory director offers to keep him on as an advisor, but
Ernő declines this.
‘So I was discharged like that. But one thing I did decide. I’m a technical man, technical, that’s
my trade, and I like it very much. But I have to leave it. You shouldn’t continue doing it as an
advisor nor as anything, I have to do something completely new to keep my brain cells fresh, and
prevent my development halting. Because health is like that, every cell can be substituted, or
regenerates; brain cells die. End of story. So I have realized my childhood dreams, in other words
I’ve taken up a palette and brushes, and I’ve made some works, which you can see here, a lot. I
had an exhibition, and I’ve moved into painting, then I wrote these two books, but to tell you the
truth, there are two more begun inside me, one is this far, the other is that far.’
The protagonist of the narration digresses from the struggle for everyday
existence (cf. ‘I was discharged like that’; and earlier: ‘our youth was that at eight o’clock
in the evening the siren went off ’) and discontinues the attendant constant cunning. It
could be said that since over 42 years the production of material treasures has been
unsuccessful (‘So my life didn’t go as it should have done’) he compensates for the losses
by the production of cultural treasures. The loss in this narration is constructed
primarily not through forced migration, since the years in the Soviet work camp
seem to be placed at the peak of the narrative of poverty. The loss expresses the
absence of a narrative position in the liberated sphere of memory politics, one
from which it would be possible to give an authentic narration of the ‘Swabian
| 183
captivity’, more precisely the forced migration due to German origin, with both
its suffering and its joys.
The withdrawal means on the one hand that the protagonist of the narration
gives up the struggle with the everyday politics of the Kádár regime. It is worth
recalling the beginning of the interview, when he speaks of the cemetery of a
‘very pure Swabian village’, where the villagers restore the graves of German soldiers
dismantled by the dictatorship, and tend them to this day. On the other hand it
may be that the withdrawal refers to leaving post-1989 minority politics, and to
the return to the apolitical cultural mission begun with retirement. Put more
gently, this is a matter of rejecting participation.20 This supposition is supported
by the way speech about forced migration is constructed in the narration, as a
bidding of ever-greater injuries, contradicting reality. Due to the impossibility
of a realistic narration, the reality of the past becomes problematic, and doubt
is cast on it, so before presenting it, it must be created: a reference of reference
must be made. Thus the memory work is doubled: now it is a matter of testifying
on testimony, and taking pictures of pictures. The pictures, then, paintings and
memories, aim to fill the lack of reality.
The narration continues (we had interrupted it at the two books waiting to
be written):
‘One of them is going to say that from ladle to the bead mill, in other words I started in the
…. factory when they mixed by hand, and today what the, or what the most modern machine
was back then, when I retired. I want to write this down. But then I got taken by this… this
painting, now I’ll show you this because this this is part of the factory stream, and this my
childhood can be seen somewhere here. So we jumped from here, off this bridge into the water,
we made stone weirs here, we swelled the water so it’d be deep, there was a sandpit here, when
we were really cold we ran up here into the hot sand. Well, it doesn’t exist now, I’ve painted
it from memory. There’s a lot of us… who think very happily back to this. April fourth…
the third, 1944, was the first bombing of R, and this is the house, it’s the house opposite, here.
This house opposite. There was a grocer’s, and a bomb dropped in. It took out the ground
floor, it took out half the house. The house next… to it too, took out half of it. Somebody
died too, and this peasant cart with a white horse, he lived here next door. He lives here next
door, well I painted that afterwards. Now, I had to organize this whole picture such that my
house is not there. Because there is no such viewpoint. ‘Cause wherever I stand, I don’t see
this. Now I here… nothing simpler… like that, right, ‘cause this, this. Now this picture, I
sent a photo of it, because I’m not giving it to anyone, but they were sorry. Over there these
Styrians, because they remembered this house, these two horses, they remember they live here,
20
The narrator was contacted via the German minority self-government, as a former councillor.
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this was our playground, our free space. Then I painted one of the other building. I sent that
one, to the little girl next door. I wrote to her, “draw your hand along the …picture, you’ll
feel how hot the sand is, when we ran on it barefoot”. She too gave me a weepy telephone call.
Now this other, and here is the house I was talking about, this continues there, ‘cause its a
hornets’ nest this is the house the R factory … Well its of another street, because it’s about
this house, and this one, this house is still here, it’s been altered, but this little summer kitchen
is still there in almost the same form. My friend lived there, today he’s an architect. A bomb
fell in there too, and it was completely ruined here. Now they had a…another house, they
moved in, and this house was destroyed. I painted this from memory, because there nowhere,
there are no photographs anywhere, because this house too was taken out by a bomb. Here
was the factory tracks, which was there for a long time, and that’s how the street looked. This
house is still there, and this one on the corner. This one has gone, this that one’s been rebuilt
and this too rebuilt. And… the factory tracks aren’t there, here this is the street, because you,
you came in here, on this street.’
This long quotation well shows that the personal experience is constantly rewritten
as cultural treasure. The period which the next book presenting Swabian customs
deals with is delineated by life story events: from the ladle to the bead mill, i.e.
from starting work to retiring. Touching the picture enables not just the transfer
of a personal experience, but opens up a whole lost world. ‘Our free space’ – at
once the children’s playground and the free movement of ethnic belonging. At
the same time absence speaks in the excerpt above, this world, the reality is no
longer there. And since the place of the memories, the authentic position is absent,
it is not sufficient simply to rely on memory, so the testimony in the traditional
sense does not work.
The parental house occupies a special place in the life story narrative (after the
trip to Romania and the wife’s relatives in Germany, birth and the building of this
house feature together, just as the narrated self and the achievement of the building
are parallel). In this story the object and the result of the localization practices are
not the settlement, but the parental house and its micro-environment. The life
story thus begins with the birth of the house, and with this construction of home
it also ends. Meanwhile the storytelling becomes a presentation and interpretation
of pictures. The bombings (just like the extension of the parental house with a
lifetime’s work) acquire symbolic importance, and painting them is more than
recording them for posterity; much rather it is filling a gap. Verbal-discursive
localization is superseded by visual localization, in which the construction of
the home designates the absence (‘Now, I had to organize this whole picture such that my
house is not there. Because there is no such viewpoint.’). At the end of the interview
it is truly problematic to speak of the narrative construction of the self, since
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the detailed presentation of the plan for the eight-part autobiographical series
of paintings, from brushstrokes to colour use, cannot be considered a text in
the sense of literary theory, and is incomprehensible without the paintings. This
complex self-reference refers to the pictures as reality, in other words, to the
signifiers of absence. The basis of the work in this case is not the creativity of
soaring imagination. The visual localization of the home is, after all, primarily
memory work. In relation to his own activity the narrator states: ‘A restorer is not
a painter. He has to produce what was. He has to bring it back.’
Identity as Politics
As we have seen, nationality politics becomes an implicit issue in Ernő’s story. In
the next two narrations however the context of ethnic belonging and political
representation are integral parts of the emplotment.
The last interview differs from the others not only in the fact that someone else
conducted it, but also in that its subject did not migrate. It nevertheless features
in the analysis because the logic of collective guilt and justice in this case compels
the story-telling through the events experienced (the narrator experienced the
trauma of resettlement as the splitting up of the family); moreover it deals with
an extreme case of the post-1989 conflict between governmental and minority
memory politics, in which the former, since it asserts the territorialized national
homogeneity, excludes minority politics, and also the individual memory work
so closely linked to it.
Working for the Peace of the Village
Ágnes was born into a well-off family in 1937 in the village of S on Csepel Island.
Her maternal grandfather was a wine merchant, with a shop, and shipped wine to
Vienna. Her paternal grandfather was a ferryman, and ran a pub at the crossing.
Her mother was born in 1910 as the eleventh child, her father in 1908 as an only
child. Her paternal grandfather returned home sick from the world war, then
died after a few years: Ágnes’s family moved to the village, and opened a general
store. In 1923 her grandmother remarried, but her husband only brought her debts.
Ágnes’s sister was born in 1933. Their father was a firefighter and plays the trumpet.
The front arrived, and Ágnes soon made friends with the Russian soldiers. One
officer lodged with them, and they chatted to him in German. Her grandmother
dressed Ágnes’s mother as an old woman.
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Her father refused to Hungarianize and in January 1945 he was deported to
the Soviet Union.
In spring 1945 the village was evacuated. They took their packed belongings
on a sledge, and the unguarded house was plundered by villagers. By the time
they returned home the snow had melted. Back home they saw her father’s house
was on fire: her father’s German books had been set alight.
Her grandmother bartered wine for food, and they went to the market. Her
mother and the two children were put on the resettlement list. In May 1945 they set
out to occupied Germany, and arrive in E. One of the local families chooses them,
and gives them lodgings above the stable. Her mother started work, ironing in a
laundry. Initially her mother could still make potatoes with paprika, because they
had brought paprika, and Ágnes stole potatoes and onions. She went begging too.
In September 1945 they set out on foot to Hungary. At the border between
the American and Soviet zones, a man led them to the border stream in exchange
for their earrings. Her mother strapped all three of them together, and they cross
the water. One of Ágnes’s shoes was washed away by the current. On the other
side they knocked on a door which turned out to be the border guards, and then
they were given an armed escort from one commanding HQ to another. In one
village the Russian soldiers left them in the main square, and they got lodging
and work in a stable. A man from Hungary, looking for his own family, found
them. With him they go to the border where they are allowed across. In Sopron
they paid with an engagement ring for a train ticket for Budapest, but there was
not enough for Ágnes’s ticket. When the inspector came she hid in the toilets.
In November 1945 they got lodgings with her mother’s sister, near Budapest.
Her mother went back several times to S, but every time she experienced raids.
They lost their assets and over 20 acres of land.
In 1949 her paternal grandmother was evicted, and the room given to a
co-operative. Shortly afterwards the grandmother died. Around this time her
maternal grandmother died too, leaving the maternal grandfather alone, and the
family moved back to him in the village. Ágnes has lived in this house ever since.
After the 1950 decree granting equal rights her mother worked as a day-labourer.
The forced labourers came back from the Soviet Union, and it was then they
learned that her father had died.
From 1951 to 55 Ágnes trained as a kindergarten teacher, and graduated with
honours. She met her future husband, who was an electrician. They had two
children. Ágnes’s sister became a primary school teacher.
In the 1950s the village council chairman was Swabian. In 1955 the German
association formed, and Ágnes was chosen as a delegate. The director of the crèche
started to collect Swabian folk dances.
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She worked in a nearby village as a kindergarten teacher until 1963. She was
pregnant with her second child, and returned to S, from where she retired from
the kindergarten.
For 35 years she was a congress delegate, and took part in developing the
education programme, for instance in starting German tuition in school in the
village.
In 1971 she visited her sister-in-law in West Germany (her husband did not
get a visa).
In 1973 she started the German teaching in the kindergarten with ‘assistance
from the mother country’, and triggered hostile reactions in the village. She
was active on the kindergarten German education committee of the German
association, and conducted needs analysis, led a team, organized training days and
gave presentations. German-language teacher- and kindergarten teacher training
was launched. The villagers set about collecting material related to local history.
She taught German in a training course.
In 1980, after great pains taken on Ágnes’s part, her mother finally received
the benefits she is due. She died in the mid-90s, and two years later Ágnes lost
her husband too.
He daughter writes local history about the village; Ágnes is a member of a
church association where the masses is in German. They have not managed to
revive the tradition of accompanying the Holy Sacrament. In the village there
is a dance group, and a local German choir. Ágnes leads the senior citizens’ club,
which the minority self-government instigated. Her grandson plays the trumpet.
The life story starts with a list of the ‘ancestors’. The maternal line moved to
Hungary ‘ from the west’, then after a list of the parents and grandparents comes
the fact that the paternal line is German in origin (‘On father’s side we are of German
origin.’), and arrived on the island after the Turkish occupation. The interview
subject underpins all this with photographs, official registers and certificates and
photocopied documents.
‘I, of the two children of SG and LK, after my sister who’s four years older, [I] was born in
nineteen thirty-seven here, in S. I went to kindergarten here, to school, and as a kindergarten
teacher for thirty years I took care of that kindergarten generation. I’m very attached to the village,
I only feel at home here. --- I don’t know if you’re interested in how I experienced the Second
World War and the events following it. --- Unfortunately, you’re nodding… nodding, I’ll tell
you, unfortunately as an eight-year-old child I learned what it is to be an orphan, to be deported,
the terrible feeling of homelessness.’
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This story differs from previous ones, primarily from Mária’s, in that the
everyday autobiographical narrative is unbroken from the completion of school
to the practice of the vocation (which is also a generational continuity). The first
three sentences seem to encompass the entire life story, with the war and the ‘events
following it’ coming afterwards, offered like a novelty to the interviewer, who
expresses his interest in the events with a nod. The story of the war and forced
migration in this case is not a testimony, because the question is whether to tell of
the experiences, and the incipit answer also sums up childhood experiences. The
story continues with the family losses and suffering, rather concisely:
‘My father and my father’s mother died because of these events. My last memory of my father is of
him going with the others after the cart carrying the luggage, and he gave us a long look with his
red eyes. I know now, that was when he ingrained us into his heart. Because my thirty-sevenyear-old father was the first mortality of the ‘malenki robot’ folk. --- They said he died in awful
pain, of dysentery. --- During this time, here at home my thirty-five-year-old mother and her
two young children were put on the list for resettlement. (…) my [paternal] grandfather came
back from the First World War with tuberculosis. And he soon died. Look at this. With him we
lost a very… er a versatile painter.
The interview subject gestures around the room and tells who and what is shown
in the paintings hanging on the walls, her grandfather’s works, in which the
former everyday life (e.g. collecting wood) of the village is brought to life.
Ágnes continues (‘let me continue the resettlement’) saying that her grandmother’s
brief second marriage saved her from being resettled.
‘We, my mother and her two children, were sent to Germany, to E. --- Well, what can I tell you?
We really longed to come home. That was when I experienced the gutting feeling of homesickness.
My sister… actually got a fever from this feeling, and her condition only improved when our
mother started to sew rucksacks for the three of us. By the time we put the most important things
in, she was completely healthy. From the joy that we were going home.’
This is all the main narrative says about the time in E in Germany. The story
continues with coming home.
‘One September day our mother took us by the hand and set off with us home, to Hungary. We
had no money, we hitched our way with horse-driven carts, goods vehicles, and we got to the
border between the American and Russian zones mostly on foot. --- Well on the way I always
managed to beg for a bit of bread and milk. And ever since you know… it pains me, it always
pains me to see a child begging. I see myself in them.’
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The resettlement is in the same narrative unit as the everyday events. Of course this
does not mean that begging is everyday. Rather, that the two events, the historical
begging and later seeing a beggar, are linked by learning, by self-development:
the protagonist is enriched through the experiences of the resettlement. Similarly,
the story continues with the guide they paid with earrings, who hid the three
refugees in his barn: ‘That was where I learned not to be scared of mice’. This strategy
not simply distances the resettlement, but places it, with regard to later events,
in a relationship not necessarily defined as opposite, exclusive. In any case, this
is a matter of some kind of continuity (e.g. of the words for time relations ‘since’
and ‘always’ are extremely emphatic in the excerpt quoted). The longer and more
detailed story of the journey back follows without a break: at night, in the dark
following the guide they stumble along ‘a narrow path in a strange pine forest’ towards
the border between the Soviet and American zones, then left alone by morning
they reach the stream that divides the occupied areas. They cross the water, knock
at the wrong door, and are taken prisoner by Russian soldiers. The Russians
finally ‘get rid of them’ in an Austrian village, taking them to a group of mostly
men, from whom, in a manner familiar from Zoltán’s story, the locals choose
them for work.
‘Well there I experienced, what a slave market must have been like long ago. --- They came, I
saw that the local folk were coming, especially women, there were only one or two men, because
the women --- they carried on the farms ran by their husbands who’d died in the war, or hadn’t
come home. They needed labour. Well they looked among the men, chatted a bit, made a deal,
and too … the labour. --- And so slowly the market place got empty and we three were sitting
with our shrunken rucksacks. Imagine! A woman of barely forty kilos --- with two… children
asking for bread. Nobody needed them.’
Finally the woman who ‘came late’ ‘felt sorry’ for them, she gives them lodging
in return for which Ágnes’s mother has to milk the cows and clean out the stable
every day. The story continues with a visit by a Hungarian man who has escaped
from captivity, who was looking for his resettled wife and two children,… and
the villagers direct him to Ágnes. ‘We didn’t know him, but he wasn’t foreign, because
he spoke in Hungarian.’ In the end it is he who helps them to get to the Hungarian
border.
‘We took our leave of the woman who lodged us, and kept in contact with her for a long time.
--- And we set off. --- Well these days, from whatever direction I come home from abroad, at the
border I always think of this picture. A small girl runs to the red white and green barrier, embraces
it, and shouts: we’re home! we’re home! we’ve come home! The two soldiers who ran out of the
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guardhouse painted in national colours, hearing….our story, they didn’t have the heart to turn
us back. Even though those were the orders. --- They let us on our way.’
Sopron comes next, then the story about buying tickets with an engagement ring,
and how she always had to hide in the toilets when tickets were checked (‘ever since
I’ve had a horror of it, and if I can I avoid going to the toilet on the train… on large trains’).
They get off the train at Kelenföld (Budapest), and set off to Budafok, where her
mother’s sister lives. With this the story of the homecoming is complete, and the
narrator says:
‘I often say here in the village, that I think of myself as a great Hungarian. Because for my
homeland I came by foot, in one shoe and a bound up foot, and I always longed to be here. Here,
in Hungary. Well, we got to my auntie’s. --- And now, Máté, I’ll tell you what was in store for
us in Hungary, in Hungary. --- What was waiting for us?’
In a way similar to the beginning of the story of resettlement, there is continuity
with what comes next, such that the narrator, in place of the interviewer, poses
herself the question, then answers it: the narrative sinks to its nadir, with the
themes of hopelessness, dispossession and the splitting of the family. The aunt
breaks the news that they cannot go back to S.
‘Because those that steal back, they round them up. --- Because we are personae non gratae. We
don’t get ID papers, or anything. And without papers you’ll be interned. They hid my mother,
and my grandmother hid us. But they didn’t harm children. There was a series of raids. When
my mother… appeared in S. They did a raid immediately. --- So it was some of the locals who
signalled our arrival.’
Thus the actual homecoming cannot take place: the mother must stay in Budafok,
while the grandmother looks after the children in S. The mother tries to visit her
children in secret but in vain – she is always noticed. Back in the village she gets
into a confrontation with the locals.
‘Well… the year passed, the days, months. --- All of our possessions are… were confiscated.
We were left with nothing. --- (…) When my grandmother was evicted from the house too.
And they took my granmother’s land too. --- The ceaseless raids. And the fact that now she too
is completely penniless. The desperate future, and the fact she didn’t know anything, because we
didn’t then know about my father’s death, it sapped her strength, wore down her nerves, and that
year she died. --- That was when my [maternal] grandmother, living here where we’re sitting
now, died too… she and my grandfather were left in this house alone. --- And my siblings asked
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us to move into this house. And that’s how we came home, that’s how we came into this house,
and this became our home. --- Then the place relaxed… things relaxed here er… it calmed
down… around us… the atmosphere, if I can put it like that, and by the beginning of the fifties
I managed to get personal ID papers for my mother.
The consolidation, the ‘calming down’ starts in the 1950s, and the two most
important characteristics are that there is a home (which is in the village, and
is the legacy of the ancestors), where the family comes home, and that with the
decree instating of equal rights at last the ‘ones who stole back’ are recognized
as existing legally, and there is no obstacle to their taking work. The mother
starts to work legally, the children go to school, and the raids stop. Here there is
another thematic closure, which shows that with coming home in some sense a
new chapter begins in the life story:
‘My sister is a primary school teacher, and I became a kindergarten teacher. --- Well now I’ll
make a big jump in my life, okay? So --- when I finished training as a kindergarten teacher, at
that time the care work and the social work for the teacher it was all… er unavoidably for the
teacher it was all linked up together. --- I saw the conditions for the kulaks here. The fear of the
nationality in the minority. --- As for myself, what…I experienced as a small child matured
within me, and I saw that everyone, with all their might tries to meet the demands. To such
an extent that they were scared, they began to keep their Swabian origins a secret, and they
didn’t speak --- in their mother tongue. They didn’t practise their customs, but with a kind of
cramping fear --- lived their days. The collection – the …--- collection the… agitation to joint
the cooperative, it all, all happened in the village, it just didn’t involve us. I can’t tell you much
about that because we had nothing. And so they didn’t even try to get us in the cooperative, and
they couldn’t collect from us, because there was nothing to collect. --- This cramping fear here
in the village --- and it really began to relax when the… the… Sw… we got the first Swabian
chairman on the council. Then ca… came another and our mayor. Their good sense, and the calm
… their trying to be tolerant all brought the village, the inhabitants closer together. --- That was
when I made my move --- and I started to work with them --- to be active, not really working,
being active, in the interests of the German nationality living here.’
Firstly, let us clarify that the narrator uses the ethnic categories ‘Swabian’ and
‘German (nationality)’ as synonyms. We have seen that the meeting in Austria with
the man seeking his family was a meeting of Hungarians, and we remember the
scene of the entry into Hungary with the guardbox painted in national colours,
and the barrier. The narrator’s belonging to the Hungarian nation and the German
nationality are not exlusive, but mutually complementary.
The work done for German nationality is placed as part of the teacher’s
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vocation, and becomes a kind of therapeutic, healing activity, ‘being active’, which
aims to bring an end to the split between Swabian and non-Swabian, and thus has
as its subject the whole village (cf.: ‘cramping fear, here in the village’ – not amongst
those of German origin). This is necessary because a situation formed that the
Swabian inhabitants of the village were forced to keep their ethnicity a secret,
which meant they gave up their customs. The resting point of the life story
narrative is then not simply the consolidation of the family’s situation, because
the ‘calming down’ which ‘brought the village closer’ to itself, and the inhabitants to
each other, began with the activity carried out for the German nationality. It can
thus be seen that the ‘social work’ carried out for the sake of the German nationality
serves the good of the disunited village community as an organic whole. The
text continues:
‘And you know? To give a name to this work back then, it was very daring. It it was the Kádár
era, which was very very difficult er it was daring. But I had decided that I would spend my life
working for people to live in peace, peacefully side by side.
In spite of the ‘calming down’ placed temporally in the Kádár era, the activities
carried out in the interests of the German nationality group met with difficulties,
and daring was necessary to carry them out. A key concept in resolving the
‘difficulties’ arising from the local appearance and articulation of Swabian ethnic
belonging is the ‘tolerance’ mentioned earlier. The narrator says that she ‘stretched
out her hand to the past’, she didn’t seek out scapegoats, she tried to make it clear
to Hungarians and Slovaks ‘that if we pull together, and get to know each other’s customs,
culture, mother tongue, we will become richer and more closely bound.’ The ‘activity’
always gains meaning in the mission of compensating for, almost healing the
wounds caused by polarization, dispossession, and ethnic hostility (structurally
at the nadir of the life story narrative, after the return home). This is also the case
in the launching of German language tuition.
‘What… I was speaking about, that people were scared --- that meant that the generation of
the sixties no longer spoke the mother tongue brought from the home. They didn’t speak it at all.
They didn’t understand German, they didn’t speak German. --- Or there was hardly anyone,
who dared to teach their grandchildren… it was rather grandmothers teaching grandchildren.
--- And they had no mother-tongue, nationality knowledge in the mother tongue whatsoever.
So we saw that the job of filling in the gaps would be left to the school.’
This activity serving the whole community, whose purpose is ‘that we get to know
each other’s customs, culture and mother tongue’ runs into difficulties because in the
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1950s the ‘people’ (i.e. German-origin villagers) were scared to declare their origin
openly, so their knowledge was not passed on as tradition, meaning that the
‘generation of the sixties’ (the German-origin folk) did not speak the mother tongue
of their ancestors.
The unbroken narrative that starts with the beginning of her job brings into
the present, and the constant enrichment are designated by the role as congress
delegate, the launching of German tuition in the school and kindergarten,
organizing training for [German] nationality kindergarten teachers, and the
formation of German nationality collections, local history jobs and associations,
clubs, the choir, and other organizations. The aim of the activity is to ‘revive the
old customs among the inhabitants, to treasure them, and keep the traditions’, thus it is a
work of memory. The ‘activity’ considered part of the calling of the teacher aims
to heal the whole of the village, just as the dissension separates the villagers from
one another.
The story continues in this narrative, with elaborations of stories about the
church congregation (which ‘is closely linked to our nationality identity’, and the
daughter carries it out, and the church association and the work of the church
choir, in which the narrator takes part to this day.
‘And now not just us, of German origin, but because we are, we have been and we are, so open
--- they there are Hungarian speaking… er… members too, who were prepared to learn the texts
in German, and now they’ve made it their own. That’s how it was with us with the er… dance
er… group too. They welcomed all, they accepted Hungarian-speaking youngsters, and these
Hungarian-speaking youngsters … merged with the Swabian culture.’
Since the Hungarian and the German/Swabian origins complement one another,
language use becomes a distinguishing sign, one which, however, can be learned,
which is why the Hungarian-speaking youngsters can become one with the
Swabian culture. In all probability this is what being ‘open’ refers to.
The narrator proudly tells how she taught German to several villagers who
now working as German language teachers, then summarizes the achievements
of the ‘activity’: the village has a reputable nationality dance group, a ‘Germanspeaking’ village choir, and she herself leads the senior citizens’ club.
‘Because we are open, and this is now our… the senior citizens’ club, which formed at the request
of the local government. And now the reason this is great easier, since the local minority selfgovernment er… finances er every cultural er project, it helps, and the local village council [pre1989 term – transl.] er… sorry local not the council, the government too, so we are better able
to get things moving.’
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Then we hear that the senior citizens’ club is the civil organization with the
most members, and this concludes the inventory: ‘Well, I don’t know what else er to
say, what have I left out, I’ve left out lots’.
The main narrative ends with a message for the future:
‘I’d like to say just one thing to the future generation, that I’ve always collaborated with the local
government. I’ve always collaborated with the lo… with the people here. I knew that when, if
something didn’t work out right away, that it’s time hadn’t yet come. I knew the fruit would ripen,
but it wasn’t ready for picking. --- And I feel I have very few enemies in the village. And I --- I
can say to everyone that --- without rancour, without temper --- you get much further you go
much further, and we can attain our goals better. I wish tolerance to everyone in the future, and
so… the kind of activity, that brings peace and collaboration in our village. As it has been till now.’
The ‘activity’ as we have seen is the ethnographical retaining of traditions as
previously, the nurturing of cultural heritage, which links the familiar with the
ethnic, moreover through the construction of locality (it is supposed to heal the
village’s wounds). An example of this is the ‘flower-decoration culture’ or the
tradition relating to the fire brigade:
‘They said, and I have a photo of it too, where the fire brigade is on either side, and they accompany
the Holy Sacrament under the baldachin, the priest, who’s holding the Holy Sacrament. And
they say that my father in a white shirt played er… played the trumpet for the Our Father. My
granddaughter plays too, she plays the trumpet, and the boy… my grandson plays the trumpet too.’
In this life story, unlike the previous ones, we see the space of discourse made
possible by the nationality policies of the Kádár regime unproblematically and
successfully occupied. This ‘place’ is in the strict sens of the word delimited by
educational policy, and filled by the nurturing of cultural heritage. Especially
interesting is the fact that this identity strategy continues to work in the 1990s and
in the time the interview was conducted, the early 2000s. The construction of the
Kádár regime is apolitical, and the ‘daring’ and ‘difficulties’ related to the ‘activities’
refer to the everyday conflicts met with in the village, and politics of indignation.
Yet this recipe for resolving difficulties does not always work in the story,
moreover in cases of the ‘psychological damaged’, which the practising of this
vocation, the ‘activity’, is not able to heal. The ‘pyschological damage’ or ‘inner
maliciousness’ is nothing less than the narrator’s construction of the politics of
indignation, which affects the range of meanings of mental illness. In the later
part of the interview Ágnes recounts the dark side of the politics of indignation
through the example of her charges in the kindergarten:
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‘Or when the other one is nicely absorbed in their game, and he goes over, and from behind he
sort of… or runs so as to knock the other one over or something, so that’s what I’d call… and I
always put a stop to that. I put a very firm stop to it. And you know… I come across the same
thing with adults. That kind of person is psycologically damaged, and I always looked for the
reason in the children.’
It should also be said that just as a kindergarten teacher she taught the children
to play together, as someone who had been resettled she was not ‘vindictive’, and
doesn’t rake up her grievances.
‘Who just lived their life so things were good for themselves, er… and lives among us, they’re
happy now, that they’ll never be … by us… I never shouted in the window that this is the house
I was born in, what are you doing here, or anything, we didn’t do things like that.’
The ‘activity’ carried out in the village, the production of cultural heritage in the
local and nationality framework is decidedly not politics.
‘Those who saw politics in this thing see it differently. What I say is I see it from a child’s point
of view. Because I can’t [give] you much politics, so no…So those who… who looked at things
from a political viewpoint, as adults, they see this differently to me with my stories. ‘Cause these
are kind of … childhood stories mostly.’
A Museum in the Parental Home
Sándor was born into an established mining family in 1943 in the small village
of T in western Hungary. His maternal grandparents had nine children, and in
spring 1946 the whole family apart from his mother and elder sister were resettled.
At the time the grandmother was 64, and her eldest child 30. His father and
his brother, senior by four years, avoided resettlement because they are miners.
Several of the deported relatives commited suicide.
In 1956 several of his father’s relatives left Hungary. His father had two mining
accidents.
Sándor grew up in meagre circumstances: six of them lived in one room,
and they could only buy the apartment from the state in 1967. At the age of 17
he started to do regular sport, and ran competitively for the Vasas sports club
in the friends of nature section, was a guide at weekends, and went skiing. He
came first several times; once in the first half of the 1960s his team came top in
a national competition, and was mentioned in the national sports paper. He got
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married, and in 1965 his son was born, who later completed a German grammar
school in Budapest.
Sándor trained as a skilled worker, then later took a health and safety
examination. He worked in an iron foundry in a city, and retired from there on
a disability pension. From the mid-1960s he was a member of the committee of the
Democratic Association of Germans in Hungary, and twice (for four-year terms)
one of the leaders. Later he became a health and safety inspector on the Foundry
Trade Union Committee. He travelled to foundries all over the country: the
foundry company had 13 plants. For twenty years he was a member of the shop
floor committee. His plan to revive the once famous foundry national minority
wind band met with opposition. In the 1970s he was a trade union committee
member, and got into confl ict with the management in pay negotiations. He
comes up against the director too, after having a crane stopped for health and
safety reasons – and then the director takes him as a health and safety office on
his tours of the country.
In 1970 his grandmother, who was resettled, died, but Sándor (though he had
already tried many times) only got a visa in 1971, and could visit only her grave.
From the 1970s the resettled cousins came to visit the family regularly. In 1973 he
took part in a one-week trip to Austria with the friends of nature section (paid
for by the Austrian friends of nature association).
At the end of the 1970s a resolution was passed by the Hungarian Socialist
Workers’ Party Central Committee that settlements where 30 percent of the
inhabitants are a nationality minority had to have bilingual signs. Sándor was
responsible for implementation in the counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron, Vas and
Veszprém, where he discharged the task smoothly, but in the village where he
was born, T, he met with resistance. He turned to the county party secretary,
who called a meeting in Győr. The Győr radio was there, the editor-in-chief of a
German-language paper, the secretary-general of the German association and a
representative from the Sopron party committee. The signs were finally put up,
but in 1982 Sándor had a gastric haemorrhage. With great difficulty he managed
to prevent the cooperative from building on the site of the old cemetery in T
where his great-great-grandfather lies.
At the Budapest centre of the national associations he was told that if he wants
to achieve things, he would have to join the party – and he did. He became the
chairman of the Patriotic People’s Front, then the secretary. He got a gold medal
from the trade union council: a ‘health and safety’ and ‘for workers’ award, and
his cultural activity was recognized too.
His son worked in catering, and for three months was the personal waiter of
the defence minister, but when it transpired that he had relatives abroad he was
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moved to the catering staff of the ministry. After demobbing he opened a Greek
restaurant in Austria.
In 1987 Sándor another German and a Croatian, left the party. From the
beginning of the 1990s he was no longer a member of the Democratic Association
of Germans in Hungary. He was chairman of the local German self-government,
and at the time of the interview21 was the vice-chairman, and the chairman of
the choral society.
In 1993 his grandchild was born. In 1996 he finished his book about T. In the
house he was born in he runs a museum (an eight-room self-furnished peasant
house), and collects photographs and materials. In 2000 the local government
refused his request for a subsidy for the collection, because it is privately owned.
He received assistance from Austria. The local authority did not even allow him
to put up a sign for the peasant house museum in the village.
In December 2001 the government had a session in Sopron where they
decide to erect a monument to honour the 1921 referendum in the town and
surrounding villages, and there were funds for this. The German minority
self-government wanted to put the money into the school, because it opposed
the monument planned in T, saying that in 1921 in that village, predominantly
German in nationality, had voted for Austria. Because their opinion was not
sought about the erecting of a statue, they applied to the ombudsman, who inter
alia recommended making a proposal for the withdrawal of the resolution, and
drafting new regulations for the momument with the consent of the German
minority self-government of T. But the monument went ahead, and one year later
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave a solemn speech there, on the theme of loyalty.
In 2003 it transpired that the German minority self-government was not
registered. For three months they didn’t have a key to the office (inside the mayor’s
office was an office for the German self-government).
‘As a matter of fact, we have to start at the basics’ says Sándor to start his life story, then
quickly notes that he ‘dropped automatically into’ the Kádár regime. After explaining
his vocational qualifications he presents his self-awareness as a worker.
‘In an iron foundry, I’m speaking of the (…) Iron Foundry, naturally, but it was interesting in
that regime, because I grew up among workers, and I’m very proud of that, perhaps if I hadn’t
grown up like that in the working class, then I wouldn’t feel the weight, of work, the weight of
the working class. I grew up among people where of course not me, but since in a foundry you
have people doing very hard physical work, after 1969 this plant grew to nearly 1000 people,
21
The interview was conducted by Csilla Molnár.
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and of that one thousand nearly 800 folk were doing very hard physical work, because it was the
foundry, and casting isn’t every girl’s dream. So I grew up in these circumstances, in the plant I
took on a lot of social positions.’
We learn that the narrator grew up among workers, and that in the foundry where
he worked until retirement they did ‘very hard physical work’. The significance
of this beginning is very probably to provide legitimacy for the later political
activity, in which Sándor represented the workers. Further evidence for this is
that the years in the foundry are put in parallel with growing up.
After saying that he fulfilled several social positions in the foundry, he tells
of his sports career (competitive runner and tour guide). His social position and
his freetime activity are bound up together: ‘As a matter of fact we met not just in the
plant, but obviously at races too, and we could exchange ideas.’ Mentioning the races and
tours leads into the following assessment:
‘I say again, you remember really wonderful experiences, really nice experiences, so it’s natural,
obviously only the good stuff lasts, that back then people liked each other, you can’t say that today.
Because then some[how] person spoke to person, but well now folk have got a bit rigid… I’m not
going right off-topic, just a digression, today folk are very rigid, then somehow I feel that they were
closer together, they helped each other. I mean this primarily in the factory too. Everyone spoke
to the others, and almost everyone knew the others’ problems and sorrows, it was a big family,
this nearly a thousand people.’
A Golden Age is portrayed in the story, a ‘human-centred’ world: people care for
each other, young people look up to the ‘older generation’, who ‘inculcalted kindness
into us, and all our professional knowledge’. This fullness of the good old days gains
meaning through the shortcomings of the present: we perceive today’s world
in a negative light, though for the moment only compared to bygone days;
at the end of the life story narrative the ‘rigidity’ mentioned and the distance
between people is given a sense of its own. Thus in the next part of the text
(in a counterbalance similar to that above) the harmonious succession of former
generations is contrasted to ruthless capitalism, and people to machines.
‘Nowadays I hear, I tell you again, I hear from young people that they work in a factory where
a bad word now capitalism has got its foot in the door, where either I can or I can’t, so people’s
attitude is like a rigid machine, like a rigid machine part.’
The narration picks up again with details of the former wholeness (‘it’s natural,
we experienced it differently’): we learn of cultural groups in the factory, cultural
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events, sports events, and also of the success when Sándor’s team wins first place
in a cross-country race, and are featured in the paper. In line with the structure
so far the narrator again assess the beauty of the former era: ‘So that was a very fine
era, I say that because this was perhaps the alpha and the omega of my youth in the factory’.
The narration continues:
‘It’s natural, I recall those times when we went into T, television had just become fashionable, this
was to the end of the fifties, and in the foundry, it’s almost incredible, in the evening we walked
there and later we walked home, or perhaps then we got the train. It’s almost incredible today,
that folk did that two-, three-kilometre stretch because of a TV programme, and when you sat
down, but not alone, with lots of folk, mainly lots of German speakers and Croatians worked
in the factory right, and I have to say this because a good two-thirds of the skilled workers in the
foundry were German speakers.’
The community experience of watching television together is woven into the
story showing that of the foundry’s skilled workers ‘a good two-thirds of them were
German speakers’. With this delicate shift the narrator moves on to the topic of
coexistence (between the nationalities), ‘Zusammenleben’, literally cohabiting in
the brotherly, family sense. As we have seen, the factory was a ‘one-thousand
member family’, whose members cared for each other – unlike the mechanical
rigidity of today. As a positive aspect of coexistence the next thing in the story
is the foundry’s ‘vast culture hall’ and the Young Communist events in it, balls,
‘entertaining debate forums’, talent contests, literary events. The list relating to
the fullness of the old days is broken off (‘the essence is, there was some life here, which
perhaps, and here I’ll pause a bit.’), and then a comparative assessment follows.
‘It was 2003. Not in 2003, but here in T for nearly fifteen years there had been no cultural or any
such life that was linked to a church, an educational or cultural centre, whatever we want to call
it. There isn’t one. Why not? You could research it, I don’t need to research because I live in it, I
work in nationality politics, obviously whichever way it goes, so in every way I feel that we miss
it, which I said before that we lived together, we some[how] breathed together in that era, which
today, we say, really thank the Lord, it’s over. And yet you know people in spite of it, it must
be added, that the demand wasn’t that great. It wasn’t nearly as great, so the demand, people’s
demand back then was practically to live, actually, I’ll say that word again, to live together,
families weren’t so shut off from each other, so by that I mean family houses – I’m talking about
a village now. (…) We live in a different world, and somehow I feel that our human nature, our
human side has changed a bit.’
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There is no ‘house or home of culture’, where this coexistence of the family of
nationalities could take place – and the museum Sándor runs in his parent’s house
can be seen as an attempt to fill this gap. It is possible the mention of research is
addressed to the interviewer: why there is no longer full, rich cultural coexistence
like there once was needs to be examined – but this is not made clear (‘but I don’t
need to research because I live in it, I work in nationality politics’). In any case in the story
his own experiences justify this supposition.
His assessment of the Kádár era is contradictory: in spite of its being a full
and human world, today people consider they should be thankful it is over. The
concept of people’s demand is not quite clear: perhaps it refers to the prospects
for making a living, that in today’s world people are (perhaps materially) more
demanding.
In connection to the fullness of the ‘human nature’, through a reference to
‘tourism’ the 1973 trip to Austria comes into the story, which interestingly because
of its exceptionality is placed among the positive aspects of the old, humane world,
even though in the 1970s there were obstacles to travelling abroad to the West.
‘We were on the trip for a week, almost unbelievable. And practically, I went all round, I say,
then the West, it was really interesting to be abroad the first time even though, I would add, and
this is very important because of the documents, even though the real big family, so the maternal
line, sadly I can’t use the word Vertreibung, so they were driven out, this fine word, many do use
it, we’ve got used to it, they were resettled.’
Before we continue with ‘tourism’, let us pause a moment at the expression ‘the real
big family’. The adjective, it seems, distinguishes the family-brotherly coextistence
of nationalities, workers and people from the blood-related family. In the excerpt
above the value of the journey (and thus that of the then Golden Age) is swelled
by the fact that it took place even though part of the family was deported in
1946. This ‘retrospective logic’ of the story-telling is especially worthy of note.
The narrator places the trip to the West among the plusses of the Kádár era, even
though following this, from a briefer episode in family history dealing with
the resettlement, we learn that he had applied several times unsuccessfully for
a visa to visit his deported grandmother, and was granted it only in 1971 after
his grandmother’s death. This is the first time we hear of negative aspects of the
regime:
‘We’re barely six hundred kilometres apart, I’m speaking of my grandmother, I never knew her, I
couldn’t grow up with her, I couldn’t visit her, she died when I’m very introvert as long as I live,
when this topic comes up, my grandmother, I always think, why wasn’t I allowed to meet her?
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The answer to that is very simple: because I didn’t get a visa. Nor did the family, so it’s a very
sad affair. So my grandmother is actually a deletion, not her, but a deletion in the old regime.’
The reasons for the splitting up of the family are ‘simple’, purely administrative.
Yet with the absence expressed in this part of the text, the main narrative sinks
to its nadir: the grandmother is not herself, but a deletion in the (Kádár) regime.
The self-narration here breaks up:
‘It makes me very sad, when I got out in 71, sadly I could visit her grave, that’s all, so I couldn’t
meet her personally. To tell the truth these things are lasting, and they bore a big hole in your
heart, and that hole can’t be healed, and it doesn’t heal itself either, I’m telling [you] these things
because on the mother’s side we were a large family, and actually afterwards we weren’t. Because
the borders really laid things down. I don’t know, where do we carry on?’
The interview subject passes the thread of the story to the interviewer, then
after an unsuccessful question aimed at finding out about ‘the other relations’
fortunately he continues where after a pause for breath he had left off. In other
words, he answers his own question, which probably related to whether he should
continue the chronicle of the ‘regime’, or with the family story of resettlement. The
expression ‘deletion’ refers to the fact that in the life story the personal life story
narrative through the Kádár regime and the family story narrative of resettlement
are separated from one another. The construction of the self-narration may thus
follow two paths.
The story thus continues with an account of the resettlement, and the theme
remains the splitting up of the family (‘Yes. Actually seeing as I’ve chosen this topic,
my grandmother, and my mother’s brothers, I have to say that…’). The grandmother ‘at
the age of 64 was transplanted into another country, another territory’ and practically had
to start living her life anew. Through the correspondence between his mother
and grandmother the young Sándor is aware of his grandmother’s infi nite
homesickness and the ‘fantastic sadness’. The story of resettlement continues with
the grandmother’s children, and the pre-1946 unity is attached to T, besides the
fact that the family was together:
‘So all of those who were born here had a family already, there were even growing children of
12-14-16 years old, who grew up here, they were baptized here, confirmed here, because the T
Germa… this is an Evangelical area, most of it is Evangelical, and our family too.’
We can clearly see the narrative construction of the family history being given
an ethnic shade through the story of the village: the Evangelical religious
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persuasion of the family is the reason that T is a German and Evangelical area.
The demonstrative gesture ‘here’ creates and gives multiple reinforcement to the
belonging to T.
In the counterbalancing storytelling employed earlier, the story of the world
before and after the resettlement follows.
‘I have 32 cousins abroad, but in vain is it that number, it would be a fine big family, if we were
close to each other somewhere in one country, but sadly these 32 cousins are split apart. We didn’t
know each other right up to the seventies, then they came several times, but a real brotherly
relationship never formed. Actually it almost seems, very few people dare to say this, but I’ll say
it, they’re like strangers to one another.’
The ‘strangeness’ of the cousins is countered by the pulling together of the
grandmother’s nine children and as we have seen, this family interdependence and
the ‘not exactly brotherly relation’ put in contrast to it is parallel to the ‘humancentred’ story of the ‘regime’ versus the ‘cold mechanical’ world. The nine children
pulled together so much, we learn from an anecdote heard from the mother, that
if they went to hoe together, ‘a tractor couldn’t work as fast’. Resettlement put an end
to this unity, this brotherly pulling together.
‘Well now it broke off, from one day to the next. The relation between mother and child broke
off. We didn’t know what had become of them, or rather my mother’s family didn’t know what it
was like out there, I should say that they were in poverty, they were cold, wet through, hungry.
And because of that, not in the family but in the relations there were sadly suicides, several from T
did away with themselves, I’m speaking of the older generation, who jumped in the river (…), or
from a building, or threw themselves under the train. They didn’t want to live any more, because
they had been snatched away, because they’d been snatched away from T, from Hungary, from
their roots.’
The identity strategy which defines the narrator’s relationship to himself (his past)
according to the principle of cultural heritage is realized through the construction
of the home or the homeland in the narrow sense. In this construction geographical
locality (here, the village) is interrelated to the family history, and the community
of German nationality creates the link between the two. This construction
gives ethnographic research related to the locality an importance in the family
history; conversely, it also enables the family research to take on ethno-cultural
importance. In the sad excerpt above this construction is realized through the fact
that in the same narrative structure several subjects follow one another (‘we’ ‘my
mother’s family’, them ‘abroad’, and ‘several from T’), and thus become synonyms for
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one another. The splitting up of the family thus falls in the scope of meaning of
being plucked from the roots in T (and more broadly, in Hungary), and vice versa.
The distinction drawn between the ‘ family’ and the ‘relations’ is a similarly groupforming discursive practice to that above (‘real family’). Between the grandmother
and her nine children and the ‘folk from T’ living together as siblings forges
relations through meanings.
Then the interview continues with a rebounding between the topics already
discussed in the narrative structure: the unsuccessful visa application is followed
by the ‘building for the future’, the social positions held (‘I always lived for society’), the
career, the journeys in the country as a health and safety officer, and the changes
in ‘human-centredness’. This part of the text concludes with a list of awards, as a
sort of climax, then for an unknown reason the interview breaks off again (‘I don’t
really know, perhaps we’ll stop now.’). The ‘work-centredness’ of the foundry and party
bureaucracy follows, in parallel with the protagonist’s effective representation of
interests, with the fact that more than once he went against decisions of authorities
not taking people into consideration (for instance in the story of stopping the
crane). The basis for his actions, often ‘against the current’, is his knowledge of
the truth:
‘We saw Vienna, Vienna I, Vienna II. For me this was my language, this was my mother
language, I didn’t have to learn it. Now what did we see? The more developed West. What was
our topic [with the factory director] on the long journey when we went to Budapest or somewhere
else? From time to time, I don’t know, we talked about what it’s like in Austria, what it’s like
here, and there. I didn’t know I was doing wrong to say what it’s like over there. I said what
was the truth.’
The concept of knowledge of the truth is related in the text to the topic of the
family history and German origin: because of his mother tongue the main
character in the story is ‘naturally’ aware (i.e. without learning) of truth, and knows
the West – unlike party functionaries who were ‘the kind of people who only saw that
aspect’, not the truth. Thus the key concept in the family history, the ‘deletion’ takes
on a broader meaning, and is linked to the ‘truth’. The story continues with the
theme of truth, the achievement of speaking openly to the director, then comes
the role he played in the German Association: ‘I was an elected officer for the German
community in Hungary’. It is clear that political representation and the knowledge
of the truth are inextricably intertwined (‘true’ political representation is based
on knowledge of the truth).
Then current and former nationality politics is set in counterbalance in the
familiar way (‘people helped each other’, events done ‘on a shoestring’, as opposed to
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today’s money-centred grant application system), then comes the story of bilingual
place signs. T, where there is opposition to setting up the signs, is named as the
‘ancient homeland’ ‘my homeland’. The narrator recounts his shock, emphasizing his
disbelief in this regard, because of all people it is the party functionaries who fail
to implement a superior party resolution, or only after much wrangling. ‘Well
here unfortunately things were very tough, which I was a bit ashamed of, and I should also
say that in 82 I got a gastric haemorrhage because of this.’
In regard to party membership faithfulness to the truth takes on a new
meaning, in that information about the past should be given truthfully. In the
German Association the issue was the obstacles to representing the nationality,
and the fact that having joined the party the organizing was easier (‘Indeed, it
was true. My work was much simpler, there was no grill, no closed door barring my way’).
In relation to party membership the narrator balances between the mutually
exclusive opposites of ‘culprit’ and ‘victim’, when on the one hand he admits
without making excuses, that he joined the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party
voluntarily (in order to represent the German community), whereas he tries to
explain without heroics that he left it before the regime change:
‘what I feel now, because of my age, I didn’t have to wait until that party of a certain name ceased
to be, but somehow… I’m not saying I’m happy we left earlier, because that’s nonsense, you don’t
need to brag about that, but with the knowledge that we left the party, which I don’t say it wasn’t
fashionable, but it wasn’t very [fashionable]. Once you’d joined, you pulled your weight, got your
pay, you were paid automatically, very few people left, unless they changed their job, or whatever.’
‘Going back to these German nationality community things,’ Sándor explains that
he worked hard both then (before the regime change) as now in the German
minority self-government, it is a life measured in the number of events organized
for the community.
‘Just recently I counted up what I had organized on my own (…) from towards the end of the
sixties, nearly 1035 events, masses of work, masses of energy, even now there’s nothing else
actually. This is my life. You know, here we say that you do it for the minority, but it’s not true,
you don’t do it just for the minority, [you do it] for everyone. And even so I always said, because
some would say, because you, you’re like this or that. I said, yes that’s true, that’s true, that you
have to nurture culture, customs, that’s true. But what would we pass on to the next generation
if we weren’t here? If our ancestors hadn’t existed. What would we pass on.’
Since working for your community of nationality, in other words, preserving
traditions, means retaining the reality of the past, it becomes of benefit to the
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whole community, and the group of German origin is not separated out. From
what he says later it will transpire, with regard to the 1921 referendum, that the
issue at stake is that without preservation of German traditions there would be
nothing to pass on to future generations from the past, because the past of T is a
past of those of German origin. In line with this in the following assessment of
work for the German community no mention is made of the fact this is work for
a minority; ‘our ancestors’ refers both to the inhabitants of the village and ‘German
speakers’.
‘So I’m very pleased that I managed to dedicate the greater part of my youth, I say that now,
my life, that what we got from our ancestors, we were able to pass on, we could pass it on to the
next generation, by which I mean the kindergarten, school, even the present one. There can be
no greater reward in life, indeed there hasn’t been.’
The results are always presented with the difficulties in achieving them, yet
not as heroic deeds, but that the protagonist of the story simply did his job and
‘was human again’. The ‘difficulties’ always create the difference between those of
German origin and those not, as in the following case:
‘I’m speaking of T, once I went to choir practice, like there will be this evening too, that’s worth
noting, the commander of the guard and the chairman of the council came, there was a lot of water
in the village, because this was after the rain, the stream had swelled, I was among the first too,
where you could help, not just me, lots of folk, the important thing isn’t me, and then they come
over, and I’ll never forget this sentence, it’s another of those that you never forget as long as you
live, so, what could the Germans do to help here?’
In accordance with the ‘then-now’ opposition of the storytelling, we learn of
the current state of affairs, although in this case the past turns out to be similar
to the present:
‘even now it’s not straightforward being in the ‘nationality’ in T, it’s much worse than in the
fifties, sixties, seventies or eighties. I know this will surprise you, but it’s true. Unfortunately.
Sadly last year really turned people away, the people who were friends, brothers, everything,
just like politics, I tend to say, if politics gets its foot in the door, in that very moment there’s an
explosion, and that’s what happened in T in connection with the monument, you probably know
that story.’
This current ‘not straightforward relationship’, and within that the topic of
‘politics’ links the episode of the statue of loyalty into the story, an episode the
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narrator gives a detailed accounnt of, backed up with documents. He quotes
from letters and newpaper articles, and reads out the ombudsman’s report. With
this, the narrative of information faithful to the truth becomes emphatic, and
the role taken by the interview subject also alters: he becomes a witness, who, as
before, tells the truth out loud, and his life story becomes a testimony (and thus
the interview situation also undergoes a change, becoming a public forum).
This is another withdrawal, based on the counterposition of nationality
politics then and now. The tragedy of the story of the monument is that it stretches
to breaking point the narrative of family history and the personal narrative
(representation of nationality) told through ‘the regime’, which as we have seen
was in any case already subject to fatigue. Perhaps it could be said that in the new
system of memory politics of the 1990s another deletion has taken place, but one
which affects the entire (ethnic) family history.
‘I often say, why should I spit in the face of my grandfather’s kin in 2002 because they voted that
way, should I spit in their face after all these years, saying “you were idiots, and stuff ”? No. No,
in 1921 they voted the way they did.’
‘So here stood this statue, sadly, which I say again, which was absolutely, I put every last
newspaper here, (…) when they decorated the statue of loyalty on behalf of Orbán. What are
they thinking? Why change history? Why do we do that? Thinking people live here. Why treat
the other like a doormat?’
The opposition of state-governmental memory politics and that of the
nationality rises to breaking point, and the former liquidates the latter. After the
issue of the monument and as a sort of continuation of the ‘not straightforward
relationship’, current stories of the impossible obstacles to working for one’s
ethnic community come in succession, then after an account of tasks for the
future the story breaks off:
‘As I said, this is my life, and I’d like to leave my life so that it’s worth looking at, I don’t know
if you still have quarter of an hour, to look at our little museum, okay, okay. Well perhaps that’s
all for today, if that’s enough.’
Not knowing the exact circumstances of the interview it is not possible to state
with certainty, but probably this closure is the end of the main narrative broken
off earlier. This is indicated by the narrator inviting the interviewer to the
museum (with the first person plural ethnic ‘our’). We learn the following about
the museum from the interview:
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‘I come from a very poor family, because we didn’t have any assets, I lived in a little house, here,
where the museum currently stands, at the moment I run the peasant house all myself, with eight
rooms, I furnished it myself, and I was born there actually, well not in the eight rooms, but in one
of them, the others belonged to other inhabitants.’
The ‘museum of local history’ (Heimatmuseum) run in his parent’s house is not simply
a part of the now familiar identity strategy (supplementing the ‘deleted’ part of
the Kádár regime), but also a testimony. Here family self-documentation and
ethnographical research are linked together, the later gaining political significance
because in contrast to politics, which tries to ‘change history’ it preserves the
truth, the reality, including documents related to the existence of the family past,
the ethnic locality of T or the development on the old cemetery.
These collected objects and photographs embed the history of the Germaninhabited village, (interrupted by resettlement, the ‘deletion’ of the Kádár regime,
and the loyalty statue) and the similarly sketchy family history, into a unified
‘history’, and the integration of these two is made possible by the use of the ethnic
category. The narrator remarks that because his child has no financial problems
‘the money that actually I ought to always give to the kid, I put it into this hobby, as I said
before, for picture frames, loads of bits and bobs, so for keeping up the place’. At the same
time the picture archive gains significance due to the fact it is indelible:
‘So that’s how it was, and I say again returning to the photos, these are lasting things. And we
have several such photos, which from the past, well they don’t project the rosiest of things to the
youth of today, or people who don’t know these things. It’s natural that I collected this photos,
adn the interesting thing is that they’ve remained, and now we exhibited all of them, practically.’
At issue is not simply the construction of the self through cultural heritage, but
a personal version of cultural heritage–politics: a politics of identity, in which
preserving and documenting memory (especially that of resettlement and
the Kádár regime) occupies a special place. Here, at the end of the interview,
Sándor says he has, of his own free will, resigned as chairman of the German
self-government. The political activity with the withdrawal has been transferred
to the continuous and authentic articulation of identity, the self becoming a
monument. The interview ends:
‘What I can say is this, and I can’t emphasize it enough, if you have any questions, I think, last
time I gave you [some] from that letter, willingly, anytime, if there’s anything, I always try to
survive, absolutely I don’t know because if someone else said it, or someone else heard it, they’d
say, he’s lying. So I’ll say it again. For my part, I try and keep my feet firmly on the ground,
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and stay there close to reality. So the things that were, have happened, and in today’s situation to
approach this truth, and to approach it…’
Summary
The main characteristic of the stories analyzed is that they construct national and
ethnic belonging through forced migration. Because I sought out the interview
subjects as German origin people, and forced migration did not figure in the
designated topic, this characteristic well demonstrates that national utterance
takes place by taking on the identity category stigmatized by the nation-state
norm. This is so even in the stories whose strategy is to restrict the use of national
and ethnic categories to the forced migration, or to the war identified with it,
and distance them, thus creating a narratable ‘quotidian self’, which does not
necessarily identify with being German, Swabian or Hungarian.
Forced migration, since it means being stripped of belonging, is constructed
in the sense of loss and absence which has to be fi lled. The personal sense of
loss through material pillaging becomes tangible, and thus is reified, and the
value of lost goods, besides their importance to the family, is given not by their
market price but by the cultural significance they have as Swabian or German.
I have interpreted all this as an identity strategy which defines the individual’s
relationship to himself according to the principle of cultural heritage. Through the
localization practice known as self-musealization what previously functioned as
the reason for persecution can be made into a value: German origin. Heritagization
of the personal-family past through an ethnic category is nothing less than the
resignification of the stigmatized ethnic category: the past presented as ethnic
becomes part of (national) common good. As Hartog puts it, ‘the national history
memory’ is ‘rivalled and contested in the name of partial, sectarian or particular
memories (groups, associations, enterprises, communities, which all wish to be
recognised as legitimate, equally legitimate or even more legitimate).’22 Thus it
is possible to exit from the logic of collective guilt and justice. In relation to
all this the interview situation, together with the interviewer, became a part of
the identity strategy which presents personal experiences and the family past as
cultural heritage.
The identified localization procedure reconstructs not only belonging, which
was deleted through forced migration in the past and spoken of as loss, but also
occupies the place of the absent opportunity for an authentic report, for utterance
22
Francois Hartog, ‘Time and Heritage,’ Museum International 57/227 (2005): 15
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in the present. In other words, national-ethnic position made impossible by
the memory politics of the Hungarian state is spoken of as an absence, whose
formation as the replacement for this absence is enacted in self-musealization such
that the telling of the past becomes a testimony.
This localization strategy forms a home that is a ‘mini-heimat’ analogous in
every respect to the nation-state homeland: through heritagization the ethnicized
personal-family past is embodied in the locality (which may be a town/village, a
house or the immediate environment), and is invested with cultural value. This
procedure coincides with that of nation-state heritagization, the difference being
merely that in the latter the homeland is delimited by the borders of state. The
values of home derive from this absolute and exclusive geographical position of
this locality: if he had been born in another village the narrator could not be at
home in his current dwelling, since that would exclude the blood line of ancestors.
In other words, the ethnic homeland is his motherland. This construction at once
localizes as an organic, but distinguishable part of the Hungarian nation, and
separates from the ‘German’. The locality embodied in the ‘mini-heimat’ is part of
the Hungarian homeland, after all it is situated on the territory of the Hungarian
nation-state, from which it can, however, be distinguished through the personal–
family past presented as ethnic cultural heritage. Thus the idea of ‘homecoming’
is situated in a sphere in which the discursive contradictions inherent in the return
can be strategically managed. The stigmatized identity category of ‘German’
can be resignified, and the withheld one of ‘Hungarian’ taken on, and yet the
Hungarian (state), compromised in the deportation, can be distanced, and if
necessary the ethnic ‘us’ is able to appear distinct from it.
The localization accomplished by musealization can be interpreted as
resistance through the appropriation of a nation-state technology. This strategy,
through the individual use and appropriation of institutionalized localization
practices (museal representation of the past), resists to the territorial principle of
the nation-state as a discursive constraint without questioning it. Rather, it makes
use of it, and turns it against itself. The construction of ethnic belonging through
cultural heritage, after all, invalidates the culturally and ethnically homogenous
Hungarian territorial nation, but constructs an internally homogeneous
homeland which is in essence equivalent to it, to which people are linked by
natural belonging, regardless of human acts. In other words, the borders of the
ethnic homeland produced by self-musealization are qualitatively equivalent to
the borders of the homeland according to the territorial norm of the nationstate, but their strategic marking out of them invalidates the unquestionable
congruence of state and nation. What is at issue here is not the subversion of the
territorial norm of the nation-state: self-musealization produces territorialized
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belonging, in other words it localizes in the ‘national order of things’, even if
this is reorganized by it.
A special feature of the life story recollections performing German origin
is that the time boundary delineating the Kádár regime separates it from the
preceding Rákosi era, and not from the time after the 1989 regime change. The
beginnings of localization on the principle of cultural heritage can be found in
the Kádár era, but only insofar as it remained within the scope of education-andculture policy. The Kádár regime is part of the emplotment in those interviews in
which ethnic politics also plays a role. In other respects, the Kádár era, apart from
a smattering of references, seems to be absent from the stories. At the same time
even in the ‘apolitical interviews’ the articulation of ethnic belonging starts again
after 1989 in the area made possible by the single-party system. In parallel to this
however, one can say of the ‘political interviews’ that the ‘ethnic’ withdraws from
the sphere of memory politics liberated in the 1990s, more accurately it retreats
to the previously homely spheres of education and culture.
I have interpreted this as a discursive strategy, in which the resignification of
the ethnic category forced into the logic of collective guilt and justice is realized
through the cultural ethnic conception of the Kádár regime being linked to
the personal version of heritagization. The latter has been made possible by
both the liberated sphere of memory politics, and the concomitant spread and
accessibility of techniques and instruments for representing the past. It should
not be overlooked that the interview subjects are representatives of the ‘first
generation’. I think this explains the need to liberate the ethnic category through
the discursive constraint. The second and third generations would very probably
have the option of forgetting – and thus also the opportunity to rediscover
primordial ethnic belonging.
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6. Hungarian Homelands:
national belonging ‘beyond the border’
With the Trianon Peace Treaty three million three hundred thousand Hungarian
citizens found themselves outside of Hungary without having left their homes.
In this case the spatial displacement taken as our starting point, in whose context
national belonging can be made an issue, resulted from the implementation of the
spatial norm of the nation-state and without the movement of the population.
Since I deal with the post-1989 period, the question arises as to how we can
continue to speak of spatial displacement generations after the historical event.
Aside from this, since I examine the individual’s national identity strategy in
the context of the normalizing process of the Hungarian nation-state, in what
follows I shall investigate what are known as Hungarian–Hungarian relations,
rather than the relation of persons considered as Hungarian living outside the
borders of Hungary with the state they live in or with the majority society.
The field of my examination is delimited by the conflict between Hungarians
living outside the borders and the political practices of the Hungarian state in
the discourse addressing them.
To define the context of this relationship I use, with slight modification, Rogers
Brubaker’s theoretical framework.1 Brubaker investigates the nationalisms of the
‘New Europe’ following the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc by taking into
account three factors: the external national homelands (or ‘mother countries’), the
‘nationalizing states’ and the national minorities. This ‘triple configuration’ is a
new phenomenon following 1989, though the national issue is far from being so.
Brubaker emphasizes that the fall of the Soviet Union and the eastern European
and Eurasian dictatorships under its influence brought not the awakening of
nations oppressed by ‘communism’, but the broad nationalizing of the political
life in the region, a reconfiguration characterized by a different operation and
1
Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
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implementation of the national idea. In this however a decisive role is played by
the interplay of the three mentioned factors.
Brubaker interprets the external national homeland, the national minorities
and the ‘nationalizing state’ as an ensemble of rival, interrelated political stances;
after Bourdieu as the fields of positions in which various organizations, parties,
movements and individuals act. Seen from this perspective, neither the nationstate nor a national minority exists a priori as a homogenous entity with permanent
borders, but they are a dynamic arena for a power struggle. Thus for instance
the national minority is a political field in which every actor tries to – in both
senses of the word – represent the minority to its members, to the state where
they live or to the country seen as the ethnoculturally related mother country
(and as is common in one field, every exponent tries to attain a monopoly on the
legitimate representation of the group). As a consequence of the interrelation
of the three fields, part of the battle for representation consists of the struggle
for perception and portrayal of the other two players. The national minority,
which is simultaneously constituted as the target of two nationalizing projects,
as seen by the external homeland may appear as a victim of the nationalism
of the state of residence, while from the latter’s perspective as a population of
disloyal citizens. The mother country may accuse the neighbouring country of
oppressing the national minority, while vice versa the charge of irredentism may
be levelled. It is worth adding that in the case of Hungary and the surrounding
region, as a consequence of the ‘competition for European integration’ this triple
configuration becomes one with four actors. This is most striking in the politics
of the mother country, in which not only do they take a stand in international
and European forums in defence of the national minorities, but as we shall see,
they also bank on the attempts of the ‘nationalizing’ neighbouring countries to
join the EU.
In this approach, every actor constructs the others through their practices:
the taking up of a position in the relational fields automatically creates, modifies
or maintains the distribution of the positions, i.e. it designates their alliances
and opposing stances. According to Brubaker, ‘External national homelands are
constructed through political action, not given by the facts of ethnic demography.
A state becomes an external national “homeland” for “its” ethnic diaspora when
political or cultural elites defi ne ethnonational kin living in other states as
members of one and the same nation, claim that they “belong,” in some sense,
to the state, and assert that their condition must be monitored and their interests
protected and promoted by the state; […]’.2 Furthermore, the state takes steps
2
Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 58.
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towards this end. Brubaker does not discuss what basis there may be for declaring
the ‘ethnonational kinship’; the principle of territoriality might be considered a
possible answer.
The advantage of this model, i.e. that it simultaneously takes into account
the actions and reactions of all actors, is also a disadvantage, in that it cannot
explain any phenomena of nationhood which ‘avoid’, as it were, one or other
of the three factors. This happens for instance in the case when, say, Hungarian
national projects in Romania do not define themselves as national minorities, or
consciously distance themselves from the mother-country politics of Hungary,
which is perhaps for them non-existent, or has no significance. All this can be
said of the analysis which follows: the discourse relating to the Hungarians living
outside the state borders organizes the inter-Hungarian relationships only in this
limited sense, or more precisely a peculiar, currently dominant (in the political
sense) version of these relations is created by this discourse. What follows, then, is
not a scholarly description of ‘Hungarians beyond the border’, but an analysis of
national belonging in a context in which spatial displacement takes place within a
nation considered as uniform, in the ‘relations between Hungarians’, and provokes
alternative national homes. The participants in this relationship are the Hungarian
state on the one hand, and the individuals living outside the borders of Hungary
on the other.
I have defined the context of the analysis by presenting the post-regime change
state practices of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse in a clearly visible sphere of
application: the official diaspora politics of Hungary between 1989 and 2010.3
Initially, then, I shall investigate which cultural form of national belonging
addressed to the Hungarians living outside the borders of the Hungarian state is
prescribed by the political practices of the official state-governmental actors; in
what way; and what space is organized thereby. An answer must be found to the
question of the extent to which practices of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse by
the state can be considered as politics of memory related to the Trianon decision,
which with the assertion of the territorial norm of the nation-state produces spatial
displacement without the movement of individuals. Subsequently, in the analysis
of the interviews I shall seek to answer the question of what identity strategies are
used by individuals in the context of national-spatial identity thus prescribed by
the state; of how they localize their national home in the self-narrations.
3
I shall not be dealing with the provisions of the government and parliament that came into office
in 2010.
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Hungary’s Diaspora Politics
The so-called responsibility clause of the Constitution in force between 1989
and 2011 states ‘The Republic of Hungary shall bear a sense of responsibility
for the fate of Hungarians living outside her borders and shall promote the
fostering of their links with Hungary.’ In addition it notes that the ‘reality’
of the European state borders formed by the peace treaties following the First
and Second World Wars cannot be called into doubt – notwithstanding, with
regard to the ‘Hungarians beyond the border’ the mother country aims to play
a significant role. With this, Hungary openly takes on the role of the mother
country at governmental level.
The uncertainty stemming from the geopolitical restructuring and the
attempt to manage it are both well demonstrated by the fact that in the region
the constitutions of Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland and Ukraine
all contain responsibility clauses. Like the other states, Hungary has sought its
place in the changing international arena, and as well known, the main channel of
this search was its European integration. Nevertheless, in the 1990s (and certainly
up until its NATO membership) Hungary had to struggle with many difficulties
which determined the policies targeting the Hungarians living in other countries.
The incumbent government, which is the exclusive actor in diaspora politics,4
tried to implement and streamline three priorities at the same time.
One priority was European integration. The Hungarian state had to meet the
expectations of the EU states, but also had to represent its own diaspora politics,
often at odds with these same expectations. This presented a problem not only
because it was far from equal in this relationship, but also because in the early
1990s to represent the Hungarians living outside the country borders qualified as
a destabilizing factor in international politics. As well as the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the war in the former Yugoslavia
seemed to many a plausible scenario for the whole eastern European region. And
it appeared that airing the issue of national minorities was a step in this direction.
4
In my description of Hungary’s diaspora policies I have drawn on the following summaries: Balázs
Ablonczy and Nándor Bárdi, “Határon túli Magyarok: mérleg, esély, jövő” in Határon túli Magyarság
a 21. században. Konferenciasorozat a Sándor-palitában 2006–2008. Tanulmány- kötet, (ed.) Bitskey Botond
(Budapest: KEH, 2010), 11–41; Nándor Bárdi, Tény és való. A budapesti kormányzatok és a határon túli
Magyarság kapcsolattörténete, (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2004), primarily the chapters entitled “Az 1989 utáni
budapesti kormányzatok magyarságpolitikája” (131–146) and “A státus/kedvezménytörvény: a vita
tanulságai és a párhuzamos programok” (147–208); Ferenc Mák, “Az új nemzeti politika és a Határon
Túli Magyarok Hivatala (1989–1999),” Magyar kisebbség 21 (2000/3): 237–293; Judit Tóth “Az elmúlt
évtized diaszpórapolitikája,” in Diskurzusok a vándorlásról (eds) Endre Sík and Judit Tóth (Budapest:
Nemzetközi Migrációs és Menekültügyi Kutatóközpont , 2000), 218–251.
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Another priority was the formation of balanced inter-state relations. As
a result of the above among other things, it was expected that the inter-state
relations between Hungary and the countries affected by its diaspora politics
be stable (in Hungarian policy jargon this is known as the principle of good
neighbourly relations). The common shortened name given to the state treaties,
the ‘basic treaty’, clearly shows the need to place regional relations on a new
footing. Hungary signed a basic treaty with Ukraine (1991), Croatia (1992),
Slovenia (1992), Slovakia (1995) and Romania too (1996).
Finally the mother country policy was a priority. It was Hungary’s decided
endeavour to institutionalize the relations between the government and the
Hungarian national minorities, to create a consultation, decision-making and
subsidy system which had previously not existed. The institutionalization
of ‘Hungarian–Hungarian dialogue’ was hampered not only by the lack of
clarification as to which organizations can legitimately represent the Hungarian
population considered and treated as a national minority, in other words, what
the principles of this legitimacy were to be, but also through these measures being
considered by the neighbouring countries to be unwarranted interference in their
domestic affairs. This then influenced the negotiations related to the inter-state
treaties, and may have been interpreted by the EU as a destabilizing development.
In the four-factor political arena outlined above a good example of the
difficulty in streamlining these priorities is the conflicting opinions about the
basic treaties. According to one opinion they are the last step in the process of
guaranteeing minority rights, in other words the treaty should be signed with
the given state after it has guaranteed minority rights in its own territory. But
another view is that the treaty opens the door to this process, furthermore that as
a step towards the stability of the region it is almost a prerequisite to Hungary’s
accession to the European Union (in the basic treaties the parties recognize one
another’s sovereignty and declare they do not seek to change the state borders).
In addition to taking all the priorities into account, a further difficulty was that
the international and European legal environment often did not allow for the
different states to align their conflicting interests. To stay with the example of
the basic treaties, in the absence of international legal provisions references could
be made only to recommendations,5 so the enforcement of the terms of the treaty
ran into problems.
5
Since the treaties made with Ukraine, Slovenia and Croatia were preceded in these countries by the
regulation in law of the national minorities, this problem arose most acutely in the case of Slovakia
and Romania. During negotiations the Hungarian government cited the so-called Recommendation
1201 adopted by the Council of Europe in 1993, which defines the concept of a national minority, and
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Despite all these uncertainties, Hungarian diaspora politics has been consistent
in several basic, general principles. These are as follows:
1. The incumbent Hungarian government respects the existing state borders,
which incidentally it is bound to do by the Constitution. The customary expression
is that it is not the place of the borders that should be changed, but their quality.
Two characteristic scenarios were drawn up for changing the borders without
moving them, in other words to facilitate border crossings, which I shall deal
with later.
2. Within diaspora politics a part must be guaranteed to the political and
lobbying organizations of the Hungarians beyond the border, and they must be
treated as equal partners.This has remained nothing more than a whim, and as
I shall argue, not merely because party politics have deeply influenced diaspora
politics, for instance with clientelism, but also due to the characteristics of the
discourse related to the Hungarians beyond the border, irrespective of political
party affiliations.
3. Another principle consistently applied is that the population of Hungary
should take its part in supporting the Hungarians living in neighbouring states:
part of the budget goes to subsidizing Hungarians beyond the border. However,
there is far from being consensus in regard to the size of the subsidy, and there
has been no substantial debate on the decision mechanisms for distributing the
funds, or the use of the current amount.6
4. On the basis of international legal norms, the representation in international
forums of the interests of Hungarians living outside the borders is the job of the
incumbent Hungarian government.
5. Hungarian governments have tried to resolve the basic conflicts of interest,
which were between Hungary and the EU member states and EU institutions on
the one hand, and Hungary and the residence countries on the other, primarily
by defining their diaspora politics as minority politics, and consquently the diaspora
as the ethnic Hungarian minority of the respective countries. Hungarian
government agencies and panels of experts attempted to form minority protection
policy on the basis of human rights norms. The goal was to form an institutional
model for (national) minorities which would be able to effectively influence even
the international legal norms, setting out from human rights and moving to
collective minority rights.
to the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the protection of national minorities, entered
into force in 1995.
6
For details on the system of subsidies, the mechanism by which funds are distributed see Bárdi, Tény
és való, 208–237.
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6. Related to this, the issue of Hungarian minorities rose in line with that
of the national minorities in Hungary. In the hope of this becoming a model
and therefore subject to accountability, the government passed the Minorities
Act which instead of ensuring linguistic and cultural rights for the individual
created a system of minority self-governance. The idea, insofar as this endeavour is
successful, is that the Hungarian government, based on the principle of reciprocity,
could have influenced the minority politics of the countries having Hungarian
minorities, and would have been able to take effective steps in the interests of
the self-determination of Hungarian national minorities, including the forming
of autonomous self-governments. In the same context and simultaneously the
Hungarian minority organizations drew up their concepts for autonomy intended
to be implemented in the host countries. This changed to the extent that in the
second half of the 1990s the idea of autonomy lost its central importance, and
following the basic treaties in the increasingly stiff ‘integration race’ the Hungarian
parties could, and did, take part in government in both Slovakia and Romania,
through which in these cases the nature of inter-state relations also changed. The
Hungarian minority politics model did not therefore come into being.
7. Finally, it is important that the diaspora politics, defined and practised as
minority politics, was complemented by a vigorous security policy argumentation.
In this argument, the Hungarian minorities are stabilizing factors, because the
national minority invested with the collective rights to self-determination does
not want to secede, and therefore does not represent a security policy threat.
Therefore, in the interest of the peace and security of the region, collective rights
must be guaranteed to the national minorities, which means various forms of selfgovernment and autonomy. It can clearly be seen that with this argumentation
the Hungarian mother country politics sidesteps the charge of nationalism, and
thus level it at the host countries, and can appear as the guardian of stability in
the region to international forums, primarily to the Council of Europe and the
OSCE. However, it should be noted that from the second half of the 1990s the
security policy argument lost something of its effectiveness and significance as the
countries of the region drew closer to accession to the European Union. Similarly,
a policy based on the demand for European minority norms in foreign states is
increasingly ineffective.
Nevertheless, the basic recipe, the ‘four-factor configuration’, together with
the fundamental principles of the diaspora politics of the Hungarian state,
has remained unchanged despite shifts of emphasis. The diaspora politics
represented by various Hungarian governments differed primarily in which of
the three priorities they lay emphasis on. Thus, schematically, the József Antall
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government (1990-1993) foregrounded ‘Hungarians-Hungarian dialogue’ and
the institutionalization thereof, while for Gyula Horn and his cabinet (19941998), since it viewed integration of the nation as implementable through a
hastening of EU accession, the primary priority was the settling of inter-state
relations. The Viktor Orbán government (1998-2002) tried to enshrine the moral
imperative of responsibility from the Constitution in legal statutes, and to extend
the cooperation between the Hungarian government and Hungarian minority
organizations. Each government’s politics was significantly influenced by the
process of European integration, thus for instance besides NATO membership
and the increasingly likely EU accession, the growing economy also added to
Hungary’s regional weight. At the beginning of the 2000s the diaspora politics
was defined by the status law, passed in 2001 and then due to international pressure
amended, as well as the debate on dual citizenship.
With Hungary’s accession to the EU, the foreign political arena defining
Hungary’s diaspora politics changed: Hungary now maintains inter-state relations
with certain countries in question as common member states of the integrated
space of Europe. A part of ‘Hungarian–Hungarian relations’ is settled by EU
citizenship (e.g. residence, taking on work, participating in training etc.). After
May 1, 2004 Hungary had the opportunity to represent Hungarian minorities in
European politics, and to shape European integration with regard to countries
signficant in the diaspora politics, primarily Romania until its accession in
2007.7At the same time a basic change is that the stipulation to protect minorities,
laid down as a condition of accession for future member states, can no longer be
referred to once they are members, because there is no uniform system of norms
at the level of EU law for the protection of minorities.8
The ‘Beyond the Border’ Discourse
The central characteristic of the diaspora politics of the Hungarian state is that
regarding the institutionalization, the legal structure and subsidizing policy, it
is limited to the Hungarians living in the Carpathian Basin. This is why the
expression ‘Hungarians beyond the border’ is misleading: it excludes a significant
part of the Hungarians living outside the borders. It would be more accurate to
speak of ‘Hungarians within the boundaries of the historic Hungary’, though
7
For details on this see Balázs Ablonczy and Nándor Bárdi, “Határon túli Magyarok.”
Mária M. Kovács, “A nemzeti kisebbségek védelmének eszközei az Európai Unióban a 2004-es bővítés
után,” in Nemzetfelfogások. Kisebbség – Többség, (eds) Pál Tamás, et al. (Budapest: Nicolaus Copernicus
University – Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology, 2005), 90–96.
8
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I shall pass over this, and rather ignore the quotation marks of the expression
customary in Hungarian public discourse and policymaking.
Limited to Hungarians beyond the border, the Hungarian diaspora politics
maintains only protocol relations with the Hungarians elsewhere, and enables
only politically insignificant dialogue.9 Aside from organized campaigns (such
as the subsidizing of an event or book), the only strategic element to support
communities of émigrés is the network of Hungarian institutes abroad.
The question arises as to why the Hungarians beyond the border are politically
‘more important’ than those living as émigrés. There is no explicit explanation
for this difference: it is not provided for in the Constitution, just as there is no
justification for the responsibility clause; neither has there been any public debate
on it. This order of importance has a ‘self-explanatory’ cultural significance,
defined by national territoriality, the dominant norm of the territorialized nation.
According to an argument sometimes heard the Hungarians beyond the border
came under the dominion of a foreign state not of their own accord, i.e. without
emigrating there. The diaspora politics in question then, which ascribes higher
value to Hungarians considered indigenous (the question of whether an émigré
Hungarian community may become native after several generations does not so
much arise; nor does the fact that the majority of émigrés happened to have fled
as refugees from Hungary) can be considered the legacy related to the Trianon
Peace Treaty. The idea of the unity of the nation, even in the sense of the oftenmentioned ‘cultural nation’ (i.e. non-revisionist as regards territory) arises only
and exclusively taking the historical Hungary as a basis. This is why it is also
expressed as reunification. As I have mentioned, two scenarios have been created
for the changing of the quality of the borders. Both can be considered as ideal
types, and have been deployed in political debates and policies regardless of party
allegiance, naturally with differences of emphasis.
The ‘European’ Programme for the Reunification of the Nation
One of these scenarios emphasizes European integration. According to this,
support should be given for Hungary and the neighbouring states to join the
European Union as soon as possible, because within the EU border crossing
poses fewer difficulties. This programme foregrounds inter-state relations to the
detriment of ‘Hungarian–Hungarian relations’. The permanent downside of this
reasoning is that the only states (apart from Austria) to become EU members at the
9
For details see Tóth, “Az elmúlt évtized diaszpórapolitikája.”
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same time as Hungary were Slovenia and Slovakia, then from 2007 Romania, and
since in tandem with the relaxing of the internal borders in the EU, the external
ones are subject to heightened control, so for the Hungarians living in Croatia,
Serbia and Ukraine it is more problematic than ever to travel to Hungary. Hence
– primarily for the post-2002 governments – a special priority has been some kind
of ‘compensation’ for the Hungarians living in neighbouring non-EU countries,
i.e. facilitating their travelling to Hungary.
According to this scenario, then, the renewed unity of the nation would arise
through Hungarians beyond the border being able to travel without restriction
to Hungary: without the state borders changing, and without the Hungarians
beyond the border leaving their birthplaces permanently. In this sense, supporting
the Hungarians beyond the border means primarily economic and social
modernization, the promotion of ‘making a living’ and ‘becoming middle class’.
Reunification of the Nation through the Institutionalization
of ‘Hungarian–Hungarian Relations’
The second scenario promotes an extension of the institutional relations between
Hungary and the lobbying and political organizations and individuals of the
Hungarians beyond the border. The Government Office for Hungarian Minorities
Abroad,10 which operated as a public administration body with nationwide
authority between 1992 and 2006, had as its main task the coordination of the
public administration work related to Hungarians in the neighbouring states and
the maintaining of ongoing contact with organizations of Hungarians beyond
the border. In addition to this, as a negotiating forum for Hungarian lobbying
organizations beyond the borders, the Hungarian–Hungarian Summit came into
being, then in 1999 the Hungarian Standing Conference (MÁÉRT).11As well as
these forums, mention must be made of what are defined in the basic treaties as
the joint committees,12 and the scholarly institutions that produce knowledge
related to Hungarians beyond the border.
Apart from these representative and consultative bodies the most important
element of the institutional form of ‘Hungarian–Hungarian relations’ is what is
10
For details see Mák “Az új nemzeti politika és a Határon Túli Magyarok Hivatala (1989–1999).”
Participants in the Hungarian Standing Conference (MÁÉRT) include Hungarian parties represented
in the Parliaments in Hungary and beyond the borders, and representatives of the government of
Hungary. It was not convened between 2004 and 2010.
12
For more on the joint committees see Mák, “Az új nemzeti politika és a Határon Túli Magyarok
Hivatala (1989–1999),” and Tóth, “Az elmúlt évtized diaszpórapolitikája.”
11
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known as the status law, whose purpose is to enshrine the responsibility clause in
legal statutes, thus creating a direct legal relationship between the two parties.
The ‘Act on Hungarians living in neighbouring countries’ passed in 2001 can
be viewed mainly as a ‘benefit law’, because it does not define the legal status in
Hungary of those falling under its scope; rather, its essence lies in the benefits
and subsidiaries provided in the spheres of education, scholarly and cultural life,
and short-term work.13 Its basis is the idea of national reunification; for instance,
in the Final Declaration of the second session of MÁÉRT, which expressed the
need for the act, it is stated that although the turbulent history of the twentieth
century divided the Hungarian nation into several parts, in the intellectual sphere
it has always remained united. Furthermore, its preamble mentions the aim of
providing to Hungarians beyond the border a belonging to the united Hungarian
nation, but it does not define what is to be understood by the united nation.
This act is a typical instance of the prevalent discourse on the Hungarians
beyond the border. It draws the boundary between the émigré Hungarians and
those considered indigenous, because its force extends only to Hungarians in
neighbouring countries with the exception of Austria. For them it provides
benefits on a personal basis, and subsidies that can in certain cases be drawn in
the host countries. Those people fall under the scope of the law who declare
themselves to be Hungarian, without Hungarian citizenship, with a place of
residence in the given country, who do not have a permanent residence permit
in Hungary, and who ‘lost their Hungarian citizenship for reasons other than
voluntary renunciation’. In this manner, legislators tried to circumscribe those
who had lost their citizenship through the Trianon Peace Treaty, though like
every ‘definition of Hungarians’ this too is imperfect.14 Because of the territorial
limitation the act cannot be applied to everyone who was deprived of their
Hungarian citizenship on the basis of the peace treaties, and does not extend to the
Hungarians in Austria, or the Csángó Hungarians in Moldva, who nevertheless are
considered by the discourse as indigenous, similarly to the Hungarians beyond the
border. Keeping in mind the unity of the family, however, benefits are provided
to the non-Hungarian spouse living in the same household, and to their common
underage children. The reference to the Trianon Peace Treaty relates to the former
13
For an international perspective on the status law see Iván Halász and Balázs Majtényi, “A magyar
státustörvény a kelet-közép-európai jogi szabályozás tükrében,” in Tér és Terep – Tanulmányok az etnicitás
és az identitás kérdésköréből (eds) Nóra Kovács and László Szarka, (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2002),
391–436. In what follows I shall draw on this study.
14
For instance, the fact that Hungarian law does not recognize the legal institution of surrendering, and
pursuant to the Trianon Peace Treaty the Hungarians who came under the jurisdiction of neighboring
states had an option for Hungarian citizenship, even though generally they did not claim it, fearing
reprisals. For details see Iván Halász and Balázs Majtényi, “A magyar státustörvény.”
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Hungarian citizenship; the status law contains no explicit criteria for assessing
Hungarian ethnicity, trusting the deliberation of the applicant’s Hungarianness
to the so-called recommending organizations, which are, according to the plan,
representative concerning the Hungarian minority of the given country. Finally,
since it aims to promote prosperity in the motherland, it does not encourage its
beneficiaries to reside long-term in Hungary.
This scenario aims to realize the reunification of the nation through the
institutionalization of the relations between Hungary and the Hungarians beyond
the border. It places the emphasis on direct ‘Hungarian–Hungarian relations’,
to the detriment of the ‘principle of good neighbourly relations’ – so ran its
implementation into problems in Slovakia and Romania. International opinion
was unprepared for this law, so a consultative body of the Council of Europe, the
Venice Commission,15 after conducted a survey of European legislation found,
among other things, that Hungary had not engaged in sufficient negotiations
with the neighbour states before the law was passed, so this should be carried out
post the fact, and agreement should be reached on the rules for implementation.
On this basis the Hungarian–Romanian Declaration of Agreement, known as the
Orbán–Nastase Pact, was created, which enabled the status law to be implemented
in Romania. The law was finally amended by the Medgyessy government, so that
for instance in the preamble the expression ‘belonging to the united Hungarian
nation’ was replaced by ‘attachment to the Hungarian cultural heritage’.
While the ‘European’ programme for unifying the nation can be accused of
abandoning the Hungarian minorities insofar as it ignores their representatives
in the drawing up of treaties affecting them, the status law, like mother country
politics in general, can be criticized on the basis of its interfering in the internal
affairs of foreign states without their consent. A consequence of this latter
criticism is that the amended text of the status law separates the benefits provided
in Hungary from the subsidies provided in neighbouring states, while making
all benefits available regardless of ethnicity. Another one is that the application
for the Hungarian identification card can be submitted not to the recommending
organizations, but to consulates and embassies.
Both programmes to consider as their starting point the territory of the historical
Hungary, and to attempt to achieve the reunification of the nation through the
development of Hungarian–Hungarian relations, realized as the relationship
between the mother country and the national minorities, primarily through
the facilitation of border crossings; the changing of the quality of the borders
15
Officially known as the European Commission for Democracy through Law.
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is immune from the charge of irredentism. Furthermore, without exception
the governments encourage Hungarians beyond the border to remain in their
motherland and to make a living there, albeit by different means. The customary
phraseology is that the goal is that the target population of the mother country’s
‘homeland policy’ be able to ‘preserve its national identity’, which in this case
means that as well as avoiding assimilation it should not permanently emigrate.
The easier border crossing and the benefits available in Hungary are provided to
Hungarians from beyond the borders in the hope that in time they will return
to the territory of the neighbouring state they came from. The migration of
members of the Hungarian minorities appears in the discourse as a demographic
problem (‘the Hungarian nation is dwindling’) simultaneously with assimilation.
Or alternatively, from the opposite perspective, as a problem in the context of
immigration.
It is no accident then that in the period analyzed none of the governments
has promoted either the automatic acceptance of Hungarians from beyond
the borders already in Hungary, or the granting of Hungarian citizenship on
beneficial grounds to those still beyond the borders. Dual citizenship has not
arisen at governmental level – or more precisely it is not at governmental level
that it has arisen. Although the range of benefits may be diverse (the 1993 act
on citizenship also expresses certain benefits regarding naturalization) as far as
Hungarians beyond the border are concerned the most striking facilitation would
have been, alongside the simplification of the procedure, the permanent residence
permit and naturalization without migration into Hungary. In the debates on the
referendum on dual citizenship in 2004 an important factor was whether dual
citizenship would have increased the numbers of people moving to Hungary, or
on the contrary, would have promoted prosperity in the homeland.
To sum up, the ‘beyond the border’ discourse defines the boundaries of the
Hungarian nation, considered as culturally homogenous entity, primarily on the
territorial principle rather than on cultural factors, which in this case (taking
the territory of the pre-Trianon Kingdom of Hungary as a basis) continually
and renewedly territorializes the nation in a geographical sense – and vice versa,
‘nationalizes’ the territory.
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Boundary-Drawing within the Nation
So far mention has been made of the drawing of boundaries which makes a
difference between the émigré Hungarian and the Hungarian beyond the border,
by restricting the concept of ‘beyond the border’ to historical Hungary and thus
creating the geographical location and remaining in one place as criteria of
Hungarianness. In what follows I shall focus on the boundary which separates
the parties in the ‘Hungarian–Hungarian relation’ in this narrow sense.
The practices of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, from financial subsidy
policies to legislation, always construct two sides, which depend unilaterally on
each other. Although the use of concepts is not actually uniform, this discourse
always creates two poles. One is the caring Hungary (‘mother country’,
‘protective power’, ‘incumbent government’, ‘Hungarian state’), that is, the
position of a power which feels and acknowledges responsibility, which protects
and aids – the position taken by the subject in diaspora politics. The other is
the Hungarians beyond the border (‘Hungarians beyond the border’, ‘parts of
the nation’, ‘minority living beyond the border’, ‘Hungarian minorities’, ‘ethnic
community’, ‘diaspora’, ‘those living scattered about’), which is the position of
the minority needing, expecting and worthy of solidarity and aid, and which is
taken by the object in diaspora politics.
The mother country as a guardian power16 extends a helping hand to the
needy weak minority. This fatherly relationship, which constitutes dependency,
is expressed not only through financial assistance. The Hungarian government
stakes a claim to represent the Hungarians beyond the border, furthermore the
easing of border crossing is one-way; this discourse calls on the Hungarians
beyond the border to national integration through closer contact – and at the
same time, it prescribes as a norm that they should remain in the motherland.17
Similarly, the nation-unification programmes, though in differing ways, force
the targeted population into an inferior position. It appears as a victim which is
16
To give one example, in Mai politikánk és a nemzetiségi kérdés, one of the first documents on policies
relating to Hungarians beyond the border, written in spring 1988, the authors Imre Szokai and Csaba
Tabajdi write: “It is especially important that the national minority not be overcome by dark feelings of
desertion, hopelessness, of a lack of a future, but feel the mother nation behind it constantly, feel its care
and provision, and know full well that democratic, humanist, internationalist world opinion attends to
it.” Quoted in Mák, “Az új nemzeti politika és a Határon Túli Magyarok Hivatala (1989–1999),” 240.
17
Bárdi also points out this contradiction: “Does the political elite in Hungary have the insight to think
through the draining effect of this cultural integration? The sham in which Hungary both integrates
the Hungarians beyond the border with convertible skills, and also destables the given structures, while
proclaiming ‘remaining in the motherland’ using precisely those means which reinforce dependence
on Budapest as opposed to the state-country (DUNA TV, media subsidies).” Bárdi, Tény és való, 164.
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backward and undeveloped, and thus in need of modernization, or as the prey of
nationalism, who has to be encouraged to nurture the state-defined Hungarian
cultural heritage. It seems that the Hungarians beyond the border are in need of
help, which only Hungary is able to give.
In the cultural sense this is a colonial discourse, which operates by preference
with the dichotomies of development-backwardness and modernismtraditionalism. A good example of the orientalist East–West division is the case
of Hungarians in Austria with the status law: because of the EU’s unfavourable
opinion they missed out on the subsidies, since it was said no differences can be
drawn between EU citizens on ethnic grounds.18 In relation to the Hungarian
minority in Austria within the historical borders, considered indigenous, the
question of whether they should be helped to preserve their national identity did
not arise. The explanation may be that general opinion classifies Hungarians in
Austria as ‘Hungarians in the West’, including the émigrés and therefore considers
them ‘rich’ and thus capable of self-determination.
The discourse in question creates the category of ‘the’ figure of Hungarian
beyond the border, and perhaps its most important characteristic is that it
signifies a culturally homogeneous population, uniform in every sense, indeed,
a community. The Hungarian in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) is ‘the same’ as the
one in Dunaszerdahely (Dunajská Streda), the villager as the city dweller, the
young as the old and so on. The discourse assignes the role of the ’other’ to
those belonging to the category and then distances them with the technique
of mirroring described by Edward Said: distancing constitutes backwardness
and origin/originality at the same time. The ‘other’ considered as traditional,
alongside the meaning of ‘poor’ can take on that of ‘ancient spring’. It could
even, with a play on words, be said that this latter ascription draws on several
sources. According to one explanation the persons in question have not left their
homeland, i.e. they have remained Hungarian, in spite of their situation as a
minority being an extra burden; as such to ‘preserve’ their Hungarianness is more
difficult than for Hungarians in Hungary, and this makes their Hungarianness
more valuable. The other explanation, which has a considerable tradition, is that
peasant culture, understood as ‘folk’ culture, is in its idealized and romantic form
the temporal and qualitative source of national identity: something from the
village is more valuable than something from the town; what remains in one
place is more valuable than what travels; country dialect is more valuable than
standard speech, and so on.19
18
For more on the use of the East–West divide see Attila Melegh, “Mozgó Kelet: Globális térképek és
a státustörvény,” Eszmélet 55 (2003): 33–62.
19
Tamás Hofer, “Paraszti hagyományokból nemzeti szimbólumok – Adalékok a magyar nemzeti
226 |
In consequence of all the above several ‘properties’ can be linked to the
category of ‘beyond the border’, which can be applied to everyone; in other
words, the discourse essentializes. In extreme cases ‘they’ can be the ‘poor
relatives’, the ‘real Hungarians’ and even ‘foreigners’. In any case, this Hungarycentric discourse always creates the category of Hungarians beyond the border
as being different.
This boundary drawing, or distancing even, is expressed in what is known as
the ‘homeland policy’, which as a key concept of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse
considers the settled, the close to nature, the immoving and the things from the
past primary national qualities (the subsidy policies of the period have accordingly
favoured the areas of education, culture and preserving of traditions). This is a dual
expectation, which prescribes Hungarian belonging and geographically defined
rootedness as a norm, since it derives the former from the latter. Remaining in
one place and remaining Hungarian become identified one with the other: one
has to stay Hungarian ‘there’. Paradoxically, this ‘homeland policy’ results in
the Hungarian person moving to Hungary appearing not as someone returning
home, but as a Hungarian who has left the homeland. From this point of view,
moving to Hungary, because of leaving the birthplace, means some level of
renunciation of national belonging.
The discourse of differentiating the Hungarians beyond the border within the
nation defined the status law too, which founds a separate legal category for its
beneficiaries. The rights enshrined in the Constitution are due either to citizens of
Hungary, or to ‘everyone’. The entitled persons of the status law do not become
citizens of Hungary, and yet they are entitled to special benefits beyond those
due to every person.20
To sum up, the ‘beyond the border’ discourse reinforces the territorial norm
of the nation-state: the leaders of the Hungarian state prescribe territorialized
national belonging such that it constitutes the relation between the individual and
the national community through the natural attachment to the territory within
műveltség történetéhez az utolsó száz évben,” Janus, VI.1 (1989): 59–74; Péter Niedermüller, “Paraszti
kultúra, városi kultúra, nemzeti kultúra: antropológiai megjegyzések,” Janus, VI.1 (1989): 75–86,
particularly 80 ff.
20
For more on this see János Kis, “Státustörvény. Magyarország válaszúton,” Beszélő 3 (2002): 42–56.
As its name shows, the initial aim of the status law was expressly to define the legal status in Hungary
of Hungarians from beyond the borders. At the second session of Hungarian Standing Conference,
the managing vice-president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) Csaba
Takács said: “In principle it has been accepted that Hungarians from beyond the borders form a special
legal category in Hungary, a legal category that distinguishes them from any other category of people
living in the world” (quoted in Mák, “Az új nemzeti politika és a Határon Túli Magyarok Hivatala
(1989–1999)”, 285).
| 227
the borders of historical Hungary. This discourse is both integrative, insofar
as it addresses people in the name of the pre-Trianon, national unit considered
culturally and ethnically homogeneous, albeit on the nation-state principle; but
also, by distancing the ‘Hungarian beyond the border’ and creating it as different,
constantly reproduces the trauma of the rupture. To put it in psychoanalytic
terms, this is an unconscious or repressed re-enactment of the trauma, which
maintains the former national unity at the price of constantly reproducing the
experience of the rupture. The trauma of the former nation’s tragedy, and the
remembering-reminding of it, can easily be fertile ground for feelings of national
belonging and pride.21 The ‘beyond the border’ discourse operates as extremely
effective capital in Hungarian politics, because it implicitly uses and prescribes
the definition of Hungarianness presented above, and in this sense it is not
interested in the ‘working through’ of the trauma.22 A generalizing and unifying
discourse which brings into play the criteria of Hungarian belonging, in which
the ‘great national question’ and the symbolic use of the past take priority over
pragmatic policy solutions affecting the present. Throughout the period analyzed,
Hungarian governments pursued a politics of considering the togetherness of
the various ‘parts of the nation’ as natural; public debates have overlooked the
extent to which the population in Hungary feels solidarity with the Hungarian
population of neighbouring countries, and another taboo topic is what division
of funds the former is prepared to make, and in what manner. All this contributes
to the category of beyond the border being able to operate as a kind of standard
of Hungarianness in domestic politics in Hungary. Party politics can, and does,
use it by representing the borders between various political forces as national
borders. All this results in a ‘nationalizing spiral’, which causes increasingly
strong mobilization and dillusionment in the field of domestic politics. A good
example of this is the referendum held on December 5, 2004 on dual citizenship,
the campaign for which strongly tended to suggest that those who vote ‘yes’ are
the true Hungarians, while those who supported the ‘no’ were anti-national,
because they did not support the idea of ‘the’ unity of the nation. And although
the referendum was unsuccessful (moreover relatively balanced), in spite of this it
21
Similar to fratricide. Anderson points out that the interpretation of the bloodletting of the past
(such as the Saint Bartholomew’s night massacre or the massacres in thirteenth-century Provence)
as fratricide emphasizes national unity, since it means the nation destroys itself. Benedict Anderson,
Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. (London–New York: Verso, 2006): 203
22
The psychoanalytical parallel is followed through in Paul Ricoeur, “Emlékezet – felejtés – történelem,”
in Narratívák 3. A kultúra narratívái, (ed.) Beáta Thomka, (Budapest: Kijárat, 1999), 51–69. Originally
this text was the keynote speech given by Ricoeur when the Historische Sinnbildung researchgroup
started its work at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University (ZiF). For Ricoeur’s
theory see: Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 2004).
228 |
was interpreted as a decision in party politics, made against the united Hungarian
nation. For the objects-targets of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, the only
losers of this ‘who is more Hungarian competition’, this decision was nothing
less than open denial, which however made it possible once more for them to
be represented in domestic politics as victims, and so on. The state practices of
the ‘beyond the border’ discourse form a part of the post-1989 Hungarian state
localization.
As a version of post-1989 Hungarian state politics of memory the ‘beyond
the border’ discourse localizes the Hungarian national home through practices
referring to the historic Hungary and re-enacting the trauma of Trianon. The
national borders drawn continuously by this discourse within the nation always
exclude in order to integrate. They can be interpreted as a spatial displacement
which cast doubt on national belonging, although they also enact precisely that
construction. The question arises as to whether this contradiction can be resolved,
and if so, how. What localization procedures compensate for this continuous
displacement?
Hungarian Homelands outside Hungary
The biographical interviews below have been selected from those I conducted in
February 2008 in Slovakia.23 I made contact with the interview subjects through
my own network of acquaintances and that of the research participants, and
during my journey from Pozsony (Bratislava) to Kisgéres (Malý Horeš), I took
care to collect for analysis interviews varied according to locality, sex and age. I
contacted the interview subjects saying that I was curious about their relationship
to Hungary and their experiences, thus attempting to give them space to make
their own interpretation of the relationship between Hungarians. These stories
distance the narrators from Hungarians in Hungary to varying degrees, yet all
of them can be interpreted as a particular reaction to the drawing of borders
presented above.
23
My thanks are due to the interviewees for participating in the research. I have made the texts anonymous,
and changed names of people. In cases where a place or town has a role in the construction of locality,
that is, it has to be designated in the analysis, rather than imaginary names I have substituted the letters
U, V, X, and Z. For purposes of clarity the analyses of the texts are preceded by a biographical summary.
| 229
Citizenship: None
Géza was born in 1922 in the town of U in Csallóköz (Žitný ostrov), into a poor
family of agricultural labourers. He grew up with five siblings. The grandfather
living with the family became sickly, and the cost of treatment led to an
accumulation of debt, and finally his father’s land of ten hectares was lost.
After completing eight classes in the local school Géza went out to work: he
worked in a sugar mill, served on a state farm, carrying out many different duties
(tractor driver, warehouseman etc.), and finally got a job at the railways.
In 1942 he was conscripted into the army, and mobilized in 1944. In a
deployment in Transylvania he was injured. With the reserve cadre he was
transferred to the American zone in Austria, and in 1945 the US Army handed
him over to the Soviet authorities. He was sent to one of the camps in Krasnodar,
from which he did not return home until autumn 1947; no earlier because the
authorities did not know what to make of having to send a Hungarian soldier
‘home’ to Czechoslovakia. Those who were on record as being Czechoslovak
could go home earlier – one of Géza’s elder brothers, for instance. His eldest
brother disappeared on the front in Carpathian Ruthenia.
On the way home at Máramarossziget (Sighetu Marmaţiei) the Transylvanians
were separated out, and taken by Romania. Géza and his companions were taken
to Debrecen, and the next stop was Budapest. At the embassy, they had to apply
for permission to cross the border.
Until the instatement of equal rights24 Géza’s status was ‘homeless’.
Subsequently, he was a citizen of Czechoslovakia.
In the meantime, although his parents were disinclined to ‘re-Slovakify’, that
is, to declare themselves to be „Hungarianized” Slovaks, the members of the
family who had remained at home had managed to avoid deportation, because
the writ to do forced labour was issued in Géza’s name, who was still a prisoner
of war. The family was, however, affected by confiscation of assets.
In 1950 Géza married. Shortly afterwards his family began to build on a
plot received from the state farm, and at the end of the 1960s they added to the
building.
In 1962–64 he went to evening classes to complete secondary school, and
passed his school leaving exam.
24
On April 13 1948 the government issued decree no. 76/1948 on the ‘restitution of Czechoslovakian
citizenship to persons of German and Hungarian nationality,’ which enabled Germans and Hungarians
with a permanent residence in the Republic of Czechoslovakia, who had not acquired another citizenship
and had not breached the ‘duties of Czechoslovakian citizens’ to regain Czechoslovakian citizenship, but
it tied the definitive award of citizenship to a trial period of 3–5 years. Source: http://www. foruminst.sk/.
230 |
In 1988 his wife died.
He has two sons, born in the mid-1950s. Both children have given him two
grandchildren each.
‘I was born here, in U, an old…old family of agricultural labourers, we were a large family, six…
there were six children, growing up, plus our old father. Sometimes mother had to lay the table
for nine people. Life wasn’t…wasn’t a bunch of roses, you know.’
The story begins with several declarations of belonging to U (and not Hungarian
belonging), and a ‘narrative of poverty’ begins, which continues throughout the
text. ‘Now, but what we did have,’ continues Géza as he tells of starting school (‘then
there were church schools, Catholic, Reformed’). In contrast to the ‘no bunch of roses’
the time at school is put in a positive light, and becomes an example of a Golden
Age that has since been lost.
‘For instance, the Masaryk democracy, no democracy even today does does any better than they
did under Masaryk. You can imagine, I sat in school (…) there were two Slovak lessons in the
lower class too, in the first two classes it wasn’t compulsory, there was no Slovak teaching, it
started in the third, but only two lessons a week. And we didn’t really learn Slovak, only just
enough to get by…’
The Golden Age is thus named as the ‘Masaryk democracy’ which not only permits
the use of the Hungarian language in school, but does not force the mastering
of Slovak. After school, Géza continues, after they had grown up, ‘everyone went
where they could’, he personally worked, taking on all kinds of jobs. Life took its
course, we might say, until:
‘Then came 38, the reannexation, didn’t it, that really changed … life for everyone here, it did.
There was already a communist party in U, a social democrat party, there were demonstrations,
then when the Hungarians came in, you could say, not really… Hungarians here… no more
demonstrations. Communism collapsed, that ceased. These [things] ceased after 38. The other
thing is that this… in U, I’m speaking mainly of U now, the real Hungarianness of U, its
Hungarian focus more or less ceased in 45. It was a Hungarian… there were villages round us
too. It was such a Hungarian territory, that in Hungary you would need to seek out such a pure
area as Csallóköz. Not to mention the villages next to us. Right? Already under the Hungarians
there began that that… unity in U… the block of national unity – even then, because folk had
become poor, folk had become rich – it broke up. From 45 then then came the Beneš decree, didn’t
it. What guilt, eh? The declaration of collective guilt, and they were still only smallholders,
farm labourers with three-and-a-half hectares, and complete confiscation of assets, there was
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the paper, I’m only sorry that when they were carried out it wasn’t kept, complete confiscation
of assets. Because in 38 we’d made a Hungarian flag, we’d flown a Hungarian flag, we carried
a Hungarian fla… that made you so guilty that that you committed a great crime if you dared to
show we were pleased we had been reannexed to Hungary.’
The ‘reannexation’ interrupts the former life story narrative organized around
growing up, school, going to work, and puts an end to the Golden Age in which
in addition to the former another important ingredient is that the operation of
the communist and social democrat parties was permitted, they could organize
demonstrations etc. This is perhaps important because, continuing the ‘narrative
of poverty’ these parties acted on behalf of the poor and destitute.
The reannexation also signifies the beginning of a new era lasting until 1945,
which changed the ‘life for everyone here’ – the narrator continues to avoid the
designation ‘Hungarian’ which he first uses for this period, the one after the
‘Masaryk democracy’. The ‘incoming of the Hungarians’ presumes a narrative
position which, as well as distancing the ‘Hungarians’ from the narrator’s ‘we’,
is similar to the conquered peoples. With this the values of the Golden Age
cease, in two respects. Firstly, the free operation of the labour parties is made
impossible, and secondly ‘the real Hungarianness of U, its Hungarian focus’, the ‘the
block of national unity’ ceased to be. This is possible if the unity mentioned includes
the fact that there is no sharp divide between the poor and the rich (presumably:
the nation cares for its members in need). It should be added that apart from this
position, another difference is drawn between the ‘incoming Hungarians’ and the
‘everyone here’, such that the latter, the Hungarian population of Csallóköz, is, so
to speak, more Hungarian than the former (‘It was such a Hungarian territory, that
in Hungary you would need to seek out such a pure area as Csallóköz.’) The Hungarian
belonging of ‘everyone here’ is interwoven into the story on the ‘incoming
Hungarians’, moreover, by means of the difference between them. The latter,
the ‘incoming Hungarians’ are the ones who divide the Hungarian national
unity, more precisely, the ‘real Hungarianness’, the ‘block of national unity’. Through
the ‘reannexation’ the territory becomes less Hungarian, and this national decline
reaches its nadir in 1945.
It continues however with the implementation of the principle of collective
guilt, which again penalizes only the poor, including the family of the narrator.
The unintelligibility of collective guilt is shown by the fact that somebody
became guilty because they dared to show they were pleased at the reannexation
– as Géza himself did. It is probable that this pleasure (which in itself is not wrong,
only showing it is) relates to the present tense of the narrated past, and only later
did it become clear that reannexation brings with it decline.
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The story continues with conscription, mobilization, action and injury, rather
concisely, like a list, and then with a mention of Russian captivity and (the time)
he returned home. ‘This… this is one of my, which which which has many experiences
I’m still full of them’, adds Géza, concluding his life story: ‘Now ask me a question!’
The story ends with his return from captivity. Wartime experiences are often
so marked in their importance in life histories that they overshadow everything
that happened later; after all, returning home meant surviving, which is more
important than anything.
It should be noted that the Masaryk Golden Age does not simply mean that
only a little Slovak had to be learnt in school. Following the questions Géza
explains that the school then was free in spirit, and high in quality (‘very high
quality schools were here in the Republic’), they taught the poem ‘Rise up, Hungarian’
[by Petőfi, this 1848 poem urges freedom from the Habsburg yoke – transl.], the
Hungarian national anthem, the poets Petőfi, Ady, and Attila József. During
the interview he recites excerpts from several poems he was taught at school as
a child. As well as language teaching in school language use is important: the
Slovak officials in U spoke Hungarian. ‘That was democracy: they spoke Hungarian’,
in other words, the Hungarians did not have to learn Slovak. In addition, as we
have seen, the Golden Age includes the free operation of the labour parties, and
the ‘real Hungarianness’, the ‘block of national unity’ in the Csallóköz area. In
the story, all these factors constitute democracy.
The period from 1938 to 1945 is constructed in sharp contrast to the period
branded by the name of Masaryk.
‘We welcomed, the Hungarians came, we came out to meet the army, they came in, we came and
there was the ceremonial speech, wasn’t there. Ah but then of course we soon found that there
were… the cock-feathers [gendarmes] came too, you know, not just the army, the cock-feathers,
the gendarmerie came too.’
‘The cock-feathers, the gendarmerie didn’t just bring safety, it brough fear too.’
The ‘incoming of the Hungarians’ is related to the entry of troops and to the
gendarmerie, i.e. the story in some way places the Hungarian identity categories
in a wartime context. Thus the calm of the Masaryk democracy is broken. Géza
presents the wartime logic through the story of Tibor Cseres’s novel Cold Days;
in this logic the cruelties of the Hungarians were later avenged by the Serbs.
The war is strikingly different from the peacetime everyday life, because ‘people
put aside their humanity’. The question arises as to what would have happened if
there had not been a war, what would have been the fate of ‘everyone here’ after
reannexation:
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‘What would have happened, if we’d become Hungarians, we were Hungarians, you can’t,
you can’t, you can’t. Wartime can’t be compared to peaceful relations. Because here everything
changed. When we had to join up.’
It can clearly be seen that ‘everyone here’ becomes Hungarian through the
Hungarian (army) entering. The story makes the ‘what if’ question irrelevant,
because only a short time passes between reannexation and the beginning of the
war: the meanings of the two events become intertwined.
‘Suddenly got poorer, everyone got poorer. Suddenly everyone got poorer. Wages got lower, they
paid less for everything, money was worth less than Slov… what was then still Czechoslovak.
This, how can I put it, this was a short time, ‘cause they only came in autumn 38, then in 39–40
then, then came the call-up, didn’t it. So that’s why I say, it’s difficult to believe, because really…
and many folk were disappointed.’
The disappointment consists in the fact that everyone got poorer, the Hungarians
‘didn’t bring freedom, instead they put a yoke on everyone’s neck. They put a yoke on
everyone’s neck.’ Apart from the war, the main characteristic of the period is thus
poverty. Géza recounts that at the beginning of the 1940s, when he worked on
the railways, one could only go to the cobblers with soling and heeling vouchers,
and the cobbler, because there was no material, made a heel from the leg of the
boot, which wore out much faster.
The narrative of decline organizing the disintegration of the Csallóköz
national unity, which starts with reannexation, includes the fact that in this period
the Hungarian party became an Arrow Cross party:
‘A lot of things upset it… (…) sadly there was a strong Arrow Cross party in U.’
Thus in the period beginning with reannexation, poverty, the disintegration of
Hungarian national unity and the war are combined – and all three factors are in
some way related to the ‘incoming Hungarians’. All this is in stark contrast to the
Golden Age hallmarked by the Masaryk democracy, in which the poor were cared
for (politically, with food subsidies), the Csallóköz community was unified and
there was peace. The following period is personified in the story by Edvard Beneš.
‘When when thirty… in thirty-six or whenever he died or thirty-seven old Masaryk died,
already… I was a young kid, and the old folk were saying, you were always nearby right, and
even then, oh no, it’s going to be Beneš, even then, if it’s Beneš, there’ll be big trouble. And in
the end it was Beneš.’
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The reason the period from the reannexation to 1945 is the nadir of the decline
might be because the person of Beneš links the post-war deportations and
population transfer to the ‘time after Masaryk’. Even then ‘it was Beneš’, but he
could not yet implement what he planned; the chance for this did not come until
after the war. Géza says that Beneš would have ended democracy (and within it
the Hungarians’ good fortune) even if there had been no war.
Thus in this life story narrative the population transfer after the war is
placed within the field of meaning of the period until 1945: the deportations and
resettlements heighten the disintegration of the national unity:
‘U, which is a fine name, its real Hungarianness ended in 45. Then it started to mix, and it has
been mixing to this day.’
This temporal link is also expressed by the fact that after the conclusion of
the main narrative (the return from wartime captivity), to my question as to
what happened next, Géza continues with the narrative of the decline of the
Hungarians going on to this day, with deportations and population transfer. The
wartime logic continues after 1945 in the story: ‘it was easy to trigger an avalanche
with the Beneš decrees’, but to stop it was all the more difficult, and the result was
the anti-Hungarian politics hallmarked by the name of Jan Slota. And also that
‘Trianon only applies to the Hungarians. Great Yugoslavia was also founded by Trianon,
and now where is it. Every border can change, but the Trianon relating to the Hungarians
can’t be ended.’
This still-continuing decline adds value to ‘the way the Hungarians here maintain
their Hungarianness’. The narration, as we have seen, localizes the homeland in
the narrow sense in U, and in the broader sense in Csallóköz. The tragedy of
the return from wartime captivity is that it is this homeland which is put into
question, and thus as a national home it ceases to be. For a long time Géza was
not able to return home because the authorities had him on record as a Hungarian
soldier, not a Czechoslovak one. The Czechoslovak soldiers, including Géza’s
brother, were allowed home earlier.
‘They didn’t understand, that actually, they didn’t understand what it was, they didn’t understand
that this area was Czechoslovakia, then we became Hungary, then Czechoslovakia again, we
belong here.’
The ‘beginning of beginnings’ is that he belongs to Czechoslovakia, not that
he belongs to Hungary. ‘We belong here’: the ‘here’ designates Czechoslovakia,
moreover in the sense that ‘our homeland is in Czechoslovakia’. The homeland
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is bordered in history by Czechoslovakia on the one hand, and by Hungary on
the other, however ‘this area’ which signifies ‘the Hungarians here’ is not identified
with either state.
This ‘here’, which is distanced from both countries, is turned upside-down:
the lack of a homeland designates a homeland in his ID papers:
‘I came back in 47, (…) I had this little sheet which they call, don’t they, an identity certificate,
don’t they, you needed a photograph, on mine they wrote bez domovec: no nationality. 48… in
48 they wrote in mine, issued by the police bez domovec: no nationality. That here the Hungarians
are have no homela… are homeless. This was the… this… this doesn’t often strike… people…
they don’t think it through… that more, talking to… not just, not just clever folk talking to other
clever folk… they should speak to simple people, they would be able to tell you what it means,
what it means, what it means to have an ID paper and on it is written bez domo… homeless.
Homele… like a country that’s homeless.’
This localization of the homeland is strangely similar to the practices of national
cartography, which present the Hungarian homeland as a ‘blank patch’ on the
map, and its absolute place is designated by the continuous drawing of borders
resulting from the turbulence of history. As such, Géza’s homeland becomes a
separate ‘country’ bordered by Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The expression
‘clever folk’ in the extract above refers to the politicians of Slovakia and Hungary,
that is in the story the lofty world of (minority) politics is separated from real
everyday life. The politicians representing the two countries do not know what
it means for ‘simple people’ in everyday life to live in this area (as a Hungarian). The
telling of Géza’s life story serves as a lesson for what having no homeland meant,
and what it means today to live in this homeland. Extremist Slovak politicians
are given hard time in his story, but the politics of Hungary also gets its share of
criticism:
‘Because of course it’s Upper Hungary and the mother country. This is difficult stuff. I say this,
if this, if Orbán’s lot know this … ‘cause I don’t… but I don’t like the way they operate. ‘Cause
they say “We Hungarians!”. Orbán: “We Hungarians!” that is, the great majority, who voted
for this government, aren’t they Hungarians? Or are the Hungarians only the ones who didn’t
vote for them? Oh, they don’t know… Oh, we’ll wait for another election, let’s calm down,
we’ll have our turn… But not this… this mudslinging, this abuse, ‘cause it’s… I often say that
it wasn’t worth staying Hungarian for ninety years for this. (…) I’m not saying Gyurcsány gets
it right. (…) It annoys me when [Viktor Orbán] says: “We, Hungarians”. The others, who
didn’t vote for him, are “not Hungarians”. What are they? Communists? All communists? There
were never that many communists!’
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This is difficult stuff: Géza uses the concepts of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse,
Upper Hungary and the mother country. The politicians are ignorant of (or
ignore) the experiences of those who are affected by (minority) politics, the clever
folk talk only to clever folk, and not to simple people, who would be able to
explain what it was like to be without nationality. If a politician knew this, he
wouldn’t exclude from the Hungarians those Hungarians who do not support his
party (which can also be seen as a kind of lack of homeland).
We have seen that Géza’s story does not use the key concepts of the ‘beyond
the border’ discourse; indeed through his construction of the politicians and
(minority) politics he distances himself from this way of speaking, together with
its positions of utterance and hierarchical relationships. The story localizes the
Hungarian homeland as separate from Czechoslovakia and Hungary; in the
narrated Golden Age it is homely in that it dispenses with ethnic oppositions,
and even national and ethnic categories, so even Hungarian self-identification is
unnecessary. In the story, the Hungarian identity category becomes prominent
through the war, including the Beneš decrees, and ‘remaining Hungarian’ takes
on a sense only in this context.
A basic contradiction becomes marked in this interview. The political rivalry
over the criteria for being Hungarian, the ‘mud-slinging’ and the ‘dirty abuse’,
regardless of party, the fact that having lost its absolute value being Hungarian
can depend on political allegiance, relativizes and indeed debases the ideal of
being Hungarian, the quality for which even until the age of ninety it is worth
going through the concomitant difficulties (remaining in spite of decline). It is
in this sense that Géza declares that ‘You can’t go along with this, you can’t accept this,
even simple people can’t.’ It is worth noting that in spite of being a ‘simple person’
Géza, perhaps due to the wisdom of his age, finds it easy to draw a distinction
between communism and party-state dictatorship – which the ‘clever folk’ are
inclined to forget.
This Homeland – That Homeland
István was born after the Second World War in V, a village near Rozsnyó
(Rožňava), as the youngest of three. He has an elder brother and sister. His father
was a miner, and during the war hid a Jewish man in the mine. His mother was
from the neighbouring village, and married István’s father when she was sixteen,
a good ten years younger than her husband. She worked as a maid-of-all-work,
served with families, she had no fixed post, she was a housekeeper, and dealt with
animals. She died at fifty-nine from an illness.
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After the war István’s parents declared themselves to be Hungarian; in spite
of threats they did not sign papers saying they were Slovak. They sent their son
to the Hungarian-language primary school in a tiny village in the region, then to
Rozsnyó. István trains as an engine fitter, and gets his journeyman’s certificate in
1964. His master wants to have him join the party, but he procrastinates things so
that he only gets as far as the candidature. He worked as a servant in the mines and
construction sites in the region. Later he takes on work in his trade, as a welder
and engine fitter.
He did military service in the Sudeta region. Even as a child he did a lot of
sport, playing in the Rozsnyó football team, running, and even returning from
military service with three cups.
After 1968 he and two friends decided they would travel abroad, to Italy.
Although they use Slovak to make the plans, they are caught on the train.
They spend three days in Csillag prison [in Szeged, south of Hungary – trans.].
Following this they are barred from entering Hungary for three years.
Apart from these years he has travelled much in the country: he has been on
trips with the Csemadok,25 to see Ferencváros (Budapest) football team play, to
the theatre and to outdoor swimming pools. Since his youth he has participated
in the work of the local Csemadok organization. They organize ceremonies for 15
March, 20 August and 6 October [commemorating the 1848 revolution against the
Habsburgs, the founding of the Christian Hungarian state by Saint Stephen, and
the execution of the martyrs of Arad in 1849 respectively – transl.], celebrating
various anniversaries. In addition they hold literary events, concerts, folksong
groups, and village fetes (batik fabric dyeing, folksongs, basket-weaving, pottery,
glasspainting). In the middle of the 90s they erected a Hungarian historical
monument in the village, which they guarded for six months due to the negative
reaction it caused.
His wife was born in the first half of the 1950s, and after finishing the Hungarian
grammar school in Rozsnyó studied law, then, because they got married and
started a family, never completed university. She worked in a library, took on
various jobs, and at the time of the interview was travelling to Austria where she
nurses old people. She also plays an important role in the local Csemadok.
István worked for one month as a tourist guide in the Andrássy Mausoleum.
In the [nearby] Krasznahorka Castle Museum, if there were lots of visitors, he was
sometimes asked to lead one or two groups of tourists, and his colourful way of
speaking made him very popular. In addition to the tourist material he decided
25
Csemadok, the Cultural Association of Hungarian Workers in Czechoslovakia, was formed in 1949.
Since then it has changed its name several times, but kept the acronym. Since 1993 it has been known
as the Hungarian Social and Educational Alliance in Slovakia – Csemadok.
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himself to look up the history of the castle and its region in his free time in the
Lőcse [Levoča] archives, and looked at history books.
He has two daughters, and three grandchildren.
István starts his life story with his birth in V, and his is proud that he was brought
into the world by the midwife in the village, while at that time others were born
in hospital in Rozsnyó. Then he tells of his siblings, emphasizing that they went
to Hungarian [language] schools, his brother too. As soon as they were able
his parents sent him there from a Slovak-language school in 1948. ‘There was no
Hungarian school in the whole of Northern Hunga… pardon, Slovakia, in Felvidék’ says
István, with this slip of the tongue giving a good example of that narrative position
he has chosen. After he explains that his parents held fast by their Hungarianness,
i.e. they did not ‘re-Slovakify’, and he himself started school, he adds that ‘V, as
a central village, they tried to Slovakify it’. Twelve families were made to settle in the
village. He recounts that houses were built for them and land was annexed to them
‘ from the estate of Andrássy’s brother-in-law’. Simultaneously with this we learn that
after class six the Hungarian children had to go to school in Rozsnyó, because
at the time for those classes that was the only place with teaching in Hungarian.
‘The Hungarians continued to go to Rozsnyó, or to… oh and there’s something else. The
Hungarian school, which Count Dénes Andrássy had built in 1898, the teacher’s flat… anyway,
well we went there some time after the war, I say and between the wars too, but then they made
it so that after the war Slovakian children go there too, nowadays only Roma children go to the
Hungarian school, see?’
The narrative of the Hungarians’ fate is broken off so István can explain that both
the school building and the plots assigned to the settlers are important figures
in Hungarian history, through the person of Count Andrássy. The identity
of the place, the school building creates continuity through its commissioner
with the aristocratic family, and through them with the Hungarian nation. This
weaving of history, which makes national historical-cultural memorials a part
of the personal life story narrative, is characteristic of the entire interview text.
Indeed, as we shall see, personal fate becomes a historical allegory. Also important
is that as the story progresses a decline unfolds, the gradual disappearance of
the Hungarians: fi rst Slovaks go to the ‘Hungarian school’, then ‘only’ the
Roma children. Responsible for this are ‘they’ who ‘made it so’ – the narrator is
presumably referring to the (Czecho)slovak authorities.
The story continues with the difficulties arising from the lack of teaching in
Hungarian, going back to where he left off with the ‘historical interpolation’
| 239
above. In spite of this, István emphasizes, eight or ten years ago something
happened, and a few Hungarian families realized that ‘being Hungarian is not the
least important thing’ and sent their children to ‘Hungarian schools’. He mentions
that he finished school, then continues:
‘Afterwards I went to an apprentice school as an engine fitter, here with us in Gömör 80% of people
have lived from iron ore mining for 4–500 years. Apart from iron ore they mine gold, silver and
copper. The Andrássy’s estate, the farm, the whole thing… it was needed strategically, for the war,
the cooper, gold and silver was needed for minting coins and casting cannons, but in the 60s and 70s
they closed it, and that’s how the country looks now, what’s rich… what made this a rich town for
500 years, a rich area, or zone, Szepes and Gömör, now it’s so poor. The mines were shut down.’
It can clearly be seen that this localization places personal experiences, and the
area of ‘here with us’ where the events happened, into a historical perspective via
the Andrássy family, and thus makes the experiences national. The relationship
between the apprenticeship years and the mining is merely implicit in this part of
the text; all that transpires is that the personal life story (going to work) is given
meaning as a continuation of centuries-old Hungarian history. Elsewhere István
tells of how as a trainee engine fitter ‘I went round all the mines in the area’. This ‘going
round’ represents a continuation of the Hungarian historical tradition, which
comes to an end when ‘they’ shut down the mines (whether this is historical,
economical necessity or the responsibility of the state of Czechoslovakia is not
made clear). The rich past is counterposed to the poor present, the area of ‘here
with us’ has gone into decline. The narrator names this area in several ways, as if
searching for the appropriate word (previously he corrected Northern Hungary
to Upper Hungary): country, town, area, zone. Finally he settles on the names
of the historical Hungarian counties (Szepes, Gömör).
István continues saying he was a trainee fitter, then moves on to his years of
military service. Like all the Hungarians, he was conscripted to the Sudeta region,
so that ‘if the Bundeswehr, the Germans, set off, then we’ll be there to hold them up’. His
father and brother served there too, and István himself met lots of Hungarians. As
an example of the ‘lie of socialism’, he tells that nobody told them that Germanspeaking people lived in this area – but when he went to church, they prayed in
German (‘They said there were hardly any Germans left here, but then you realize the whole
thing’s a lie’). He moved from military exercises to sport, and mentions that he
signed his military papers in Hungarian, ‘so that they’d know, so there’d be a souvenir,
if anything…’. As a kind of summary he states: ‘Well, we’ve remained Hungarian.’
Then he introduces his daughters and grandchildren, emphasizing that they go
to a school where instruction is in Hungarian:
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‘It’s not an issue. Well before they were born we knew they’d go to a Hungarian language school.
It’s not a big deal for us. I don’t know what things to talk about now.’
So closes the main narrative, whose organizing principle is that in spite of trying
circumstances (Slovakification, the dwindling number of Hungarians, the
closing of the mines, or later the forming of farming cooperatives) ‘we’ve remained
Hungarian’. School instruction in Hungarian is emphasized because that is the
guarantee for remaining Hungarian. I asked few questions during the interview:
István speaks very fluently, and when he reaches a minor pause in the story,
generally he makes some reference to this narrative, as if to himself: ‘we’re thin on
the ground in V, there are fewer and fewer of us’; ‘We’ve been through all the bad stuff, but we
survived.’ These two examples well demonstrate the close interrelationship – the
identity in fact – between remaining and surviving. To remain Hungarian is to
remain there, and vice versa.
The process of musealization which relates personal life story experiences
and the historical-cultural past within the national identity category is well
demonstrated by the story of István’s family name, which in spite of sounding
Slavic is a memento of his Hungarian belonging:
‘My Dad once said our ancestors were called Réti. Now that’s more Hungarian than our name
(…), but my dad said during the Rákóczi freedom fight one of our ancestors made some kind of
betrayal, which the family and relations couldn’t stomach, (…) they cut him off from the family
and relations, and took the name from an elderly (…) childless couple, the name (…) processed
by the notary, sounds more Slav.’
The ‘Slavic’ name is thus the legacy of a betrayal, through which the narrator’s
ancestors prevented the shame of betrayal being inherited in the family. Its
‘Slovakianness’ is actually an alias, which testifies to the speaker’s patriotism.
The personal-family and the historical-cultural, i.e. the life story and ‘History’
are most closely linked in the way they are embodied in space. We have seen that
István begins his story saying he is proud to have been born in V, and he calls the
Gömör-Szepes area: ‘here with us’.
‘It’s a part of history, just like every square foot of land here, you go straight on, you can’t forget or
deny it, look at that idiot who does, what kind of person is that. Not like socks or trousers where
fashion is striped or polka dots, one day it’s different, the next… Wherever we were born, we try
to die and to live that way. And to bring up children, the little ones too, they grow up, to talk of
the Turks, Rákóczi, and the War of Independence, and old Kossuth, of everything that we know.’
| 241
Every square foot of land tells of Hungarian history, and you only have to walk
straight across it to get it to speak. The telling of the life story recounts this history
to others. The remark ‘you can’t forget it or deny it’ refers to the fact that there are
people who forget, and people who want to deny it – to the fact that to tread on
this land is, together with the life story, a testimony. István speaks simultaneously
to those who do not remember, and to those who deny the reality of the past.
Another example:
‘They don’t put it in the Slovak text, they say the Rákóczi skirmish, the Rákóczi tract, that
he was here, when they prepared the national assembly in Rozsnyó. The [Diet of] Ónod. Or
they say: there was a minor hussar assembly in 1706– beginning of 1707, our mighty prince took
much counsel, held court, with his entourage, with foreign ambassadors, in Krasznahorka at the
residence of his favourite general. Of five Andrássy sons four served under Prince Rákóczi II…
that’s why we have the kuruc song, (…) “The proud castle of Krasznahorka”.’
Rozsnyó, Krasznahorka and the entire area thus gain historical significance, and
by virtue of the national heroes it becomes Hungarian. It is necessary to bear
witness to this because ‘they don’t put it in the Slovak text’, i.e. Slovak history does
not mention it, it ‘denies’ it.
Indeed, István takes up a narrative position that makes the ‘real’ historical
memorials speak to the ‘Slovaks’. In the interview for instance he refutes the
politician Jan Slota, notorious for his anti-Hungarian statements, and the version
of history put forward by ‘the authorities’.
‘This is that bland Slovak text we had not long ago, that the whole county is a Slovak national
memorial (…) the reality is actually that … a brigade of Slovak college students came in summer,
secondary school pupils, college students, future graduates. There’s a huge map, a copy, in the
Gothic palace, and there’s a fine legend in Slovak with the words: “Map of Hungary after
the battle of Mohács”. The part highlighted in yellow, which is the Turkish occupation, is the
Fülek sanjak [prefecture] see, which Bey Hassan of Szécsény occupied in 1554, he sacked the
mining towns all round, Dobsina, Krasznahorka, these parts here. It’s no good writing it in
their language, Slovak, that it’s a map of Slovakia, or er a map of Hungary, they read that it’s
a “Slovakian map”. I say it’s not a Slovakian map [i.e. of Slovakia – transl.], it’s a Hungarian
map [of Hungary – transl.], look at it – they say because see for the Slovaks and the Czechs it’s
Slovakia – I say there was no Slovakia in 1526!’
During the account the cultural-historical heritage becomes part of the personal
life story, and testifies to the fact that ‘the whole part of the castle is related to the
Hungarians’, or that the area has ‘no end of Hungarian-related places and stories’. This is
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where the figures of the Hungarian historical canon, who have ‘trodden this same
earth’ come to life. István pours forth no end of stories, and speaks of the national
heroes as of his own family: he tells of ‘old Kossuth’ or ‘great Prince Rákóczi’, and
when I ask again about his father being a miner, and he replies he surveyed the
mines, and that he was a bosom friend of Count István Széchenyi, and a founding
member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – it turns out he is thinking of
György Andrássy. He refers to the members of the Andrássy family by their
Christian names.
István tells interesting facts, gossip, instructive or interesting stories related to
this history of the noble family, made ‘national’. And although his story creates
a now bygone past, it relates primarily to the number of Hungarians. Through
localization Hungarianness, as a value and a quality, is embodied in the places.
The manner of István’s delivery of this personal-historical past revives the heroes,
indeed they could be said to be continually present. He does not mourn the past;
he brings it back to life. In this revitalised theatre of the past every object, person
and event or location is evidence of some ‘Hungarian link’. The narration makes
just such an allegory out of the personal life story, which is not linear, but much
rather a string of associated episodes.
The main motivation for this localization, the life story subsumed into
Hungarian history, and Hungarian history incorporated into the life story, is to
prove that: ‘We have something to be proud of ’, that being Hungarian is no cause for
shame here. In the cultural economy of nationalism, the Hungarian ’minority’,
in every sense of the word, takes on the meaning of ‘lower value’, just as the
expression ‘great nation’ refers not only to size. The portrayal of Hungarian as
an (absolute) value is supposed to compensate for this lower value, through the
heritagizing of the past.
However, the narrative position displayed by the slip of the tongue at the
beginning of the interview or more so by the remark that ‘in 39 we came back under
Saint Stephen’s cloak, until 45’ can only be sustained with some difficulty. In other
words, István speaks ‘to the Hungarians’, not just ‘to the Slovaks’. Perhaps it is
they who, though they do not deny the past, forget it.
‘I’ve said things to visitors from Hungary or Hungarian expats, when the co-workers said there
aren’t enough staff and would I help out with the Hungarian tours. I told them how it was with
the Rákóczi War of Independence, and about the old stuff. Miklós Toldi was the lord lieutenant
of the county of Gömör for a year, a yeoman of King Louis the Great, because they say, don’t
they, John the Valiant [a poem by Petőfi – transl.], and János Arany writes about Toldi, and they
say most of it is a legend, but in fact he was the lord lieutenant of the county of Gömör, so then
it might have happened even over there, it was back in the time of the Bebeks, in 1381, it’s more
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than likely that he passed through here too, you can look right through there it is … it moves you
to see who passed through, who trod this land, these rocks, some time several hundred years ago.’
In this case, apart from placing ‘this land’ from which he speaks on the historical
map of the Hungarian nation, he sets reality in opposition to legends, more
precisely in opposition to those who consider the past as a legend. The ‘over
there’ refers to the territory of Hungary, as opposed to the ‘here’. He draws this
border even when he recounts that on his trips to Hungary ‘everyone speaks like us,
well what a strange feeling that was for us in the 50s and 60s when we first went over there’.
The ‘here’ and the ‘with us’, created as Hungarian by the localization which
draws the personal into national historical heritage, relates to the territory
denominated by the former counties, which in the scope of the story border the
‘Slovaks’ on one hand, and Hungary on the other. Whether this latter also means
the Hungarian nation, is the question we should deal with in the following.
That the answer to this question is affermative is shown by the fact that the
referendum on dual citizenship is first mentioned in the story when István states
that he likes living in the village, he’s grown to love V. Then he continues:
‘Actually it was a bit upsetting, when they said over there [literally: ‘in that homeland’ – transl.],
here comes dual citizenship and everyone will go and live there. (…) If we go across to Hungary,
we have a laugh, leave our forints and our koruna there, in exchange for some Gypsy music,
Hungarian songs, but we come back, we don’t want anything there… How upsetting it was when
they said we aren’t due this and that. They go over to work too, well, work they do, they leave
their work there, then of course they get their wages. Well our ancestors are here in the cemetery,
we don’t want to go across to put someone else, a Hungarian, the Hungarians there out of a job,
that, well, it never entered our heads. We’re not starving here, we don’t have millions put away
but we’re not starving, we don’t look like something.’
The homeland taking shape through the nurturing of Hungarian historical
heritage is separate from Hungary, which is designated as ‘that homeland’, where
‘we don’t want to go across to put someone else, a Hungarian, the Hungarians there, out of
a job’. In this part of the text the difference made between ‘Hungarians here’ and
‘Hungarians there’ becomes explicit. From the same narrative position he declares
contrary to the forced identification of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse that the
former are not so poor and starving that they need other folk’s goods.
The excerpt below shows the kind of border drawn between Hungarians.
‘All [that was needed] was to be looked on really as a person over there, that we are one, a border
doesn’t separate a species. We are Palóc, we speak a little differently, not like the Miskolc or Pest
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folk, we don’t speak that way because we didn’t learn it that way from our parents, but inside we
too are Hungarians and all. Well we can’t be the same, that’s natural.’
István speaks in the name of ‘Hungarians here’: all they expected, he says, was to
be treated like people in Hungary, to show that it is not a state border that separates
the various members of the same nation, but the regional cultural differences.
Contrary to the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, which robs the participant of his
Hungarianness (‘we are one’), it has to be proved, or at least stated, that ‘inside we too
are Hungarians’, and not another species, who put Hungarians in Hungary out of
a job. While the first sentence of the excerpt above runs contrary to the facts, i.e.
the ‘border separates a species’, what follows give an account of true and natural
differences. But how does the narration organize the ‘Hungarian–Hungarian
relationship’?
‘It was upsetting of course that they denied us, as if God knows, we were the poor relation. But
now they come over here to us, you know how it is, they come here, and we serve them, everyone
should speak Hungarian. (…) They expect us to serve them, that everyone speak Hungarian,
everyone bow and scrape, and when we go there, then they take it as the poor Upper Hungary,
or God knows, “Czechsko” [Czechoslovakians]. That’s what they called us, Czechsko. I say,
neither the Czechs nor the Slovaks, I was born here, what can I do. If (…) I’d been born earlier,
I would have been born in Hungary. What can I do about that?’
István compares what happens when ‘we’ go ‘over there’ to what happens when
‘they’ come ‘over here’. In the latter case the expectation is that the ‘we’ occupies
the positions designated by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse. He repeatedly
refuses the normative identification concomitant with this (poor relation, poor
Upper Hungary, Hungarian servant, Czechsko).
It is worth comparing this with the military story, in which he speaks Czech,
and is asked ‘where are you from’. Because the answer that he is from Slovakia
triggers incredulity (‘Don’t tell me you’re Slovak!’) he has to explain in detail that
although he was born in Slovakia his mother tongue is Hungarian. This episode is
free of all antipathy; on the contrary, it continues with him saying that his Czech
fellow-soldiers invite him to Moravia, and culminates in the declaration ‘how
decent the Moravians were to the Hungarians’. This comparison is borne out well by
the story’s switch from this to the topic of the referendum. The story thus links
up two opposites (Hungarian–Czech/Moravian, and Hungarian–Hungarian),
although the opposition with Hungarians from Hungary remains implied.
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‘Well we expected something a bit different, at least that we’re one nation aren’t we, Mr. President
(sic!) József Antall said he was responsible for 15 million Hungarians.’ We didn’t expect them
to support us. And we got [money] for culture, I say we shared it out, it was good, ‘cause really,
books and all. Books of fairy tales for school, here there and everywhere, we bought Hungarian
books for libraries too.’
‘The Hungarian subsidies did a lot for us, because we couldn’t have done things out of our own
pocket, we didn’t have the funds for it. And now I see that actually they do lump us together, the
Hungarians from Vojvodina, from Transylvania and from Carpathian Ruthenia. We do right
one minute, then they don’t need us.’
Not only belonging to a nation ceases, but also recognition of the difference of
local or regional culture (‘we’re Palóc, we speak a little differently’), by ‘them’ lumping
‘us’ all together. According to the logic of the narration, the ‘Hungarians here’
should be separated from ‘the ones over there’ not by the state border, but by local
differences within the nation, but this interior border becomes in a certain sense
a national border (a ‘denial’), and also masks regional differences.
Contrary to Géza’s, this narration forms the narrative position designated
by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, which sees survival, staying Hungarian
and staying in the place as equivalent. From this position however the utterance
is doomed to failure, because the ‘unity of the nation’ cannot be achieved: the
distancing borders drawn by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse prevent this
(regional differences demarcate a national border, and the identification of the
‘poor relation’ taking the jobs of the Hungarians signifies ‘another species’).
Through the counter-distancing of the narration, a Hungarian homeland is
constructed (that of the ‘Hungarians here’) which places not only Slovakia and
Hungary outside, but also the Hungarian nation (‘the Hungarians there’). This
homeland, testifying to the significance of localization based on cultural heritage,
exists through the former royal counties. In addition the narration operates a
characteristic topography: areas and locations are designated by the proper
names of the former aristocratic owners, who were the ‘lords’ of the land. In
the narrative the history of the aristocratic family is merged with ‘the’ history
of the nation, thus the heirs of the owners, who tread the same ground, become
hereditary owners. Counter to this, there is a role for the Hungarian ‘lords’ from
‘over there’, who have to be served, while they attempt to keep the ‘poor relation’
at arm’s length from their homeland.
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‘Clipping the Edge of the Decaying Willow’
Kálmán was born in 1948 in a village in the district of Komárno, along the
Hungarian–Slovak border. His father was a peasant and farmed a few hectares.
His maternal grandfather was also a farmer, but died young from pneumonia,
so his mother was raised by his great-grandparents. During the war both parents
were conscripted, and both his father and mother gave themselves up to the
American army.
In 1946 his parents were deported into what is now the Czech Republic. His
father escaped and went home to find a stranger living in the family house, whom
he chased off. In 1948, when their rights were reinstated, the whole family was
able to return. Kálmán’s godfather and family were made to settle in Hungary
after the war, and they moved back in the 1970s.
The family land was lost when the farming cooperatives were formed, and
Kálmán’s father ploughed with his tractor in the collectivized farm. Later he
worked on construction sites or in forestry. He worked as a railway navvy in
what is now the Czech Republic but died in an accident. Kálmán’s mother ran
the household and brought up the three children.
Kálmán started primary school in 1954. Two years later he and his friends
found revolutionary pamphlets. They often went around in the fields, collecting
twigs and messing around.
In 1963 he started a secondary school not far from his home village. A Slovak
class was running simultaneously with a Hungarian class. The Russian teacher
did not speak Hungarian, and taught Russian through Slovak. He did his school
leaving examinations.
The family built a house. Kálmán didn’t study further but helped out, because
they were living from his father’s wages, and his siblings were still at school.
He started military service in 1968, and a year later he was present with some
of his fellow soldiers at the world cup qualifying match between Czechoslovakia
and Hungary.
In 1971 a Baptist friend invited him to a summer camp, where an Austrian
missionary was expounding the Bible.
In 1973 he passed an entrance examination to read Theology in Prague, and
became a minister in the Reformed Church. He regularly celebrated 15 March
[date of the 1848 Hungarian revolution – transl.] with eight or ten of his university
peers. Their year batch is legendary. In the youth group at the theology faculty
he meets his wife-to-be, who is two years below him.
His marriage takes him to the town in Csallóköz where he has lived since 1987.
In the 1980s he and his wife decided not to travel to Hungary.
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Before the referendum on dual citizenship the Reformed Church organized
exchange programs, and Kálmán too went to preach in Hungary.
He has five children.
‘I’ll start with my childhood. The village I was born is about fifty-…five kilometres from the
Danube as the crow flies, and when I was a child, when we went to the edge of the village, if we
looked south, we saw the hills, and they told us, that’s Hungary.’
Kálmán’s life story begins with the distant presence of Hungary: seen from his
home village five kilometres from the border Hungary is both present, and yet
not. It can be taken in at a glance, but represents a distance that cannot be bridged.
He continues: ‘In my childhood Hungary seemed very distant’, and adds that his family
told him much about Hungarian history: his grandfather, who twice took part in
a bayonet-raid, told him of his experiences in the First World War, and his father
of the freedom fight in 1848 and the reannexation to Hungary of the Felvidék
[‘Upper Hungary’]. All this served to reduce the distance somewhat, but it could
not close the gap:
‘Somehow in my childhood memories Hungary was like a a a dream, or a … an unattainable
yet existing reality.’
The next event in the narrative of the always indirect relation to a visible, and
through the stories, audible Hungary, is when the men listened to football matches
not at nextdoor but three doors down, where there was a radio. The Hungary
which came over the airwaves however was less determining for the children,
‘more so was the fact that we played soccer’. Still on the topic of football, he continues
by saying that because his father told him a lot about the 48-er soldiers, ‘the Honvéd
[abbreviation of the Hungarian Defense Force, both a military force between
1848–1948 and football team – transl.], the football team, by virtue of this emotional
link or relationship’ is to this day his favourite team. The indirect and yet in terms
of life story significant nature of the relationship to Hungary is expressed in this
choice. It links the indirectly sensed presence of the country together with the
story transmitted by parents and grandparents.
The next event in the narrative of the relationship with a ‘dreamily real’
Hungary is 1956:
‘Well we’d been through the countryside a lot, and suddenly the radio was on, and the old folk,
the older people were chatting more and more, what was going on in Hungary and as we went
by the border we found yellow papers, pamphlets as it turned out, which somehow the wind had
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blown over to us, and to this day I remember, a yellow, small, thing, must have been A5 size the
little pamphlet, it showed the statue of Stalin toppling over, it toppled over and under it Mátyás
Rákosi was running, fleeing, and the text underneath: “In vain do you flee, in vain do you run,
you cannot escape your fate, for it is our fate and destiny to suffer for one another.”I remembered
that when I was eight years old, because… because it was apposite, the way the statue toppled
down, Rákosi would run away so it didn’t fall on him. And much later when I heard on the radio
Katalin Karádi singing this hit, a hit of the time, then… it struck me that I had already hear..
or read this, I know this text, and then … the two connected up, ah so folk did have a sense of
humour, the old nation, that a hit… they used a hit song to say what connected the two politicians,
and how the two belonged together.’
In this excerpt it is easy to follow how the narration of his relationship to Hungary
is organized in parallel with his biographical growing up. The knowledge of
the narrated self is added to and amended through various intermediary steps.
Throughout, the presence of Hungary is indirect, but it remains determinant in
the story of the development of the self, in fact as the presence of the Hungarian
nation. At this point in the story Kálmán, as if to sum up, states that although
Hungary seemed distant, through the pamphlets, the news, his parents’ stories
(who ‘didn’t hide anything from me, I knew what Trianon meant’) this presence took
on an increasingly realistic image.
The same is expressed by the way he continues: as he wandered around with
his childhood friends they shared the war stories they had heard from their
fathers and grandfathers: ‘and we knew there was a… a story that… that could be
heard but which… which wasn’t… wasn’t repeatable in the fifties’. The narrative of his
relationship to Hungary and the story of his becoming an adult are inscribed
one into the other, and the relationship changes from being dreamlike to being
realistic. Secondary school receives a role appropriate to this in the story: ‘We
learned more and more, for real, on the basis of the learned things too.’ Then comes 1968:
‘at the time I was on actual military service, when the member states of the Warsaw Pact,
including Hungary, occupied Czechoslovakia, I was in the Czech Republic and well there…
it was really tough, we didn’t know… what would become of it, whether we’d face the Soviets
or not. Whether they would put a weapon in our hands, because the very next day we were
discharged, they took away the weapons, they took the bayonet too, everything.’
In the hitherto innocent relationship there now arises the possibility of armed
opposition (‘it was really tough’ presumably refers to the chance that, as a
Czechoslovak soldier, the protagonist of the story might have confronted the
Hungarian army), and the confl ict is further heightened by the fact that the
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bayonet, mentioned separately from the weapons, is easy to associate with his
grandfather’s experiences in the First World War.
In the military unit (the story continues) a Hungarian football team could have
been rounded up against a Czech one any time. He calls it an ‘interesting experience’
that one of their fellow soldiers, called Tichý (meaning quiet), was called Lajos
by a Slovak, after Lajos Tichy, a Hungarian member of the Honvéd. After this
strange episode demonstrating the recognition of Hungarianness, still on the
topic of football the story moves to the world cup qualifying match between
Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which Kálmán too was able to watch ‘with a busload
of soldiers’, who were let out of the barracks to go to the match. The story begins
when Hungary is leading by 3–1, and runs as follows.
When the Hungarian team scored the first goal, Kálmán jumped for joy, but
his Czech and Slovak fellow soldiers stayed seated. When he jumped up at the
second goal, a Czech man two rows lower said to him in Czech: ‘and you’re a
member of the Czechoslovakian army?’ Kálmán jumped at the third goal too. When
the Czechoslovakian team scored their second goal, he stayed seated, and around
him his fellow soldiers cheered. When they saw he wasn’t celebrating, they started
to hit him.
‘Then they started to hit my head [laughs]. And meanwhile they asked: “And now why don’t you
jump, now why don’t you jump?”And one of the lads had a terrible punch. (…) Then at the third
goal I stood up too, because I didn’t want them to kick my head in, because the crowd was wild.’
In a nutshell, almost in a folk-story structure, this story conveys the experience
of what difficulties supporting the Hungarian team, and thus declaring his
Hungarian belonging, causes in a minority situation, and what humiliations the
resulting helplessness can lead to. The story continues with a revenge, but for the
narrator, not for the Hungarian team (the final result of the Prague match was
3–3). Sill in 1969, the Czechslovakian team won 4–1 against Hungary in Marseille,
and to celebrate the soldiers traced out the result in huge numbers in the yard of
the barracks. But while on night duty Kálmán buries the numbers: ‘I spoilt their
pleasure’. This is actually the ending of the story of the Prague match. Its power
as an allegory is well shown by Kálmán’s summarizing closing sentence: ‘that’s
how we lived, or live, our Hungarianness’.
After a sweeping remark saying that then consolidation came, and he was able
to visit Hungary twice a year, we jump to the 1980s:
‘And then my wife and I decided we wouldn’t go not even once. If they’re going to restrict us.
Then things changed, but somehow we always felt, even today we feel, or we experience it – I
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experience it, I’m speaking on my own behalf – that although we have many dear acquaintances
in Hungary, friends, and brothers in spirit and in faith, there are people we get on with very well,
and yet somehow we are those who have found themselves beyond the border. We are separated
from Hungary by the country border, and from the Slovak popul… well the Slovak nation by the
language border. This is a minority [experience] lived at many levels. The fate of the minority.
And it’s often very very difficult to bring it home, that we are parts and members of the same
nation.
With this we arrive at the end of the narrative organizing the experiences related
to Hungary. Through the dreamily distant, yet real, yet always indirect presence
right until with the cessation of the restrictions on border crossing the emotional
border, that is actually experienced, remains. The ‘minority [experience] lived at
many levels’ distances him both from the Slovak nation and from Hungary, and
accordingly his self-signification is ‘those who have found themselves beyond the border’.
Because of this experienced border it is difficult to bring home that ‘we are parts
and members of the same nation’. In what follows the story develops the theme of ‘the
fate of the minority’, and touches on the forms of bringing home the fact of belonging
to the Hungarian nation.
While the statement that what one inherits as one’s mother language and
history is ‘an integral part [of one]’ demonstrates the naturelness of his Hungarian
belonging, the following life story episodes prove the value of Hungarian
belonging. When a fellow Czech student in the theology faculty tells him to read
The Little Prince in Czech ‘because it’s impossible the Hungarian conveys it as beautifully’.
In reply, during the interview Kálmán poses the rhetorical question whether it is
possible to convey, for instance, Petőfi’s thoughts about his mother, then he begins
to recite the poem. If one discovers these beauties, he adds, then one has no need
to ‘ feel or consider oneself of less value’. Then he concludes his life story.
‘So generally, that’s the long and the short of it, what comes immediately to mind, of what I could
talk about.’
The narrative formation of fate gives security,26 and birth as an event of fate,
through attachment to the earth, provides a place not only in the world, but
also among peoples. One receives Hungarianness; one does not attain it. But
this fatefulness makes Hungarianness a destiny coming from without, which is
continually maintained and reinforced by the dual distancing from the majority
26
On the life story significance of the idea of fate seeLászló Tengelyi, Élettörténet és sorsesemény. Filozófiai
tanulmányok, (Budapest: Atlantisz, 1998).
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society and from Hungary, and indirectly from the Hungarian nation. The
destiny ‘there’s no choice but to be Hungarian’ through the construction of the
minority existence turns into the imperative ‘to remain Hungarian’, while the
latter becomes the equivalent of survival. Through this discursive mechanism
Hungarianness takes on an absolute value, i.e. it is not made valuable by the
identity work invested in it – but this compensates a sense of lower value stemming
from existing in a minority. However, the main narrative closes with the idea that
it must be brought home that one is a member of the very same nation, which
points to the deficiencies, or at least shortcomings, of this mechanism.
After a brief pause the story continues with the ‘interesting patch’ when
Kálmán’s mother and father were also called up during the war, and he even has
photographs of the training. Then he continues:
‘Then came a new era, there was the European Union, elections, dual citizenship and all sorts.
To be honest, I never thought I would request Hungarian citizenship, but I pity the Hungarians,
that is, today’s Hungary, because I know this region, but when I heard that when they broadcast
the soap opera A Escrava Isaura, and somebody organized a collection to free Isaura, or for the
eye operation for girl in the green dress in that Mexican series… so somehow I feel, I think that
there is some essential difference in us, or between us. You wouldn’t be able to get people to do
that here… to collect for that kind of thing, or purpose. And as there was the referendum on dual
citizenship and they said that some old lady or someone had offered to collect for us, or to collect
funds for the Hungarians beyond the border…we don’t have problems making ends meet, getting
our everyday bread isn’t a question of life or death,but there is something which testifies to the
fact that the inhabitants of Hungary, the Hungarians don’t… aren’t aware of the situation of the
Hungarians beyond the border, a few years ago there was a chorus meet, there was a festival for
school choirs, they came from Hungary, and from Transylvania, from Romania. And the children
were put up with families and we hosted two Budapest girls, well we didn’t… we didn’t spy or
listen in, because the telephone is there in the hall, when the two girls came to ask if they could
phone home, and then we heard that well they have central heating, and a bathroom, and and so
we thought what can they be thinking, that you cross the border and step back into the Middle
Ages? And we also heard that the Budapest girls, this team, really taunted the Transylvanians:
daft peasants and… and they in their own way struck back… so that propaganda and stuff going
on in Hungary is not about us. It’s domestic politics. We don’t interfere in that, we just feel sorry
that often there’s a kind of…well we often chat actually about the situation in Hungary and…
if you like I’m up to date with the situation in Slovakia and Hungary, and once I had this idea,
a sort of picture, that it’s like a willow. The Hungarians. The centre is decaying somehow, it’s
been attacked by rot, disease, and at the edge of the willow there are still shoots, but they’re being
clipped. Well, somehow the frame of mind of the Hungarians is very sick, suicide, smoking,
self-destruction, the the immorality that that goes on it’s… Well sooner or later perhaps this
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world ruins everything. And the people on the edge, on the edges are being clipped. In Slovakia,
in Ukraine, Romania, Serbia too. In Austria [incomprehensible] very good, perhaps that’s
the problem there. So something, something could or should be done. Gáspár Károli, the bible
translator, wrote somewhere that the disease of the Hungarian people is not the Turks, the Tatars
or the Austrians, but the fact it has turned away from God. So we can bicker and argue, but if we
don’t respect the value system which is the values of life, then we don’t see each other as brothers,
but as enemies. And it really, really hurts, when I look at, for instance when I look at the exchange
rate. The forint–[Slovak] crown exchange rate. Shocking. That power in Hungary should be in
the hands of such unfit and unworthy folk. That the Hungarians beyond the border still keep the
fire burning. Because the things that go on there…’
The characteristic of the ‘new era’, as we have already seen, is that in an
administrative sense the significance of the borders lessens, yet the borders of
experience or quality remain. An example of this is the referendum on dual
citizenship, in regard to which the narrator pities ‘the Hungarians, that is, today’s
Hungary’ – ‘this region’, the ’here’ is localized in contrast to this latter. But more
is at stake, in that ‘inhabitants of Hungary, the Hungarians don’t… aren’t aware of the
situation of the Hungarians beyond the border’, after all ‘some essential difference’ separates
them from one another. This being different is illustrated by the money collected
to liberate Isaura, and this nonsense, helping the imaginary protagonist of a TV
series, is put in parallel with the idea that they are collecting money ‘ for us’ in
Hungary in connection with the referendum (the clarification that ‘or to collect funds
for the Hungarians beyond the border…’ means that as well as ‘us’ for the Hungarians
in Ukraine, Romania etc. It is clear what difficulties arise from the designation
‘Hungarians beyond the border’ and its narrative position: Kálmán too uses the
third person plural, in the previous self-designation ‘we are those who have found
themselves beyond the border’ there is no qualification). The collection is just as
well-founded as in Isaura’s case, because ‘getting our everyday bread isn’t a question of
life or death’. The disdainful gaze organized by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse,
which is exemplified by both the collection and the case of the Budapest girls,
and the domestic propaganda put about in Hungary, backfires: the narrator
pities the Hungarians, because they have come under the power of the ‘rot’, the
moral, economic and biological decay. It can clearly be seen how the narration
complements the imperative ‘to remain Hungarian’ with Christian ethics, which
in contrast to the decay (in Hungary) leading to death, is termed the ‘values of
life’ (here).
The image of the willow tree encapsulates the desirable yet impossible
belonging, and the unavoidable feeling of being separated. As a population, the
Hungarians are related to Hungary, but ‘here with us’ is defined as a quality. The
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distancing between the two is expressed partly in the statement that propoganda
is ‘not about us’, but is a domestic affair, and partly in the clipping of the edge of the
willow. Precisely that part which keeps the tree alive, and stops it from falling.
It is important, however, that the willow simile relates to the past (‘once I had this
idea, a sort of picture’), which makes it likely that decline, and with it the Hungarian
people/nation – ‘our’ separated state in the present is even more marked, and more
decisive. It is unclear whether the call ‘something should be done’ relates only to this
past time, or also to the present. What is certain is that although Hungarianness
as a quality represents an absolute value (Hungarianness is valuable because it is
Hungarian), through the closely related Christian scheme of values something can
be done to halt the decline (in Hungary). Thus it is possible to remain Hungarian
through practicising Christian ethics, with a life pleasing to God, or to serve God
is the service of the Hungarian people (in both senses).
The narration continues, and highlights the compensating role of
Hungarianness as a value. Kálmán recounts that he has always loved literature,
and the things he read as a child have stayed with him. One of them was Mór
Jókai’s novel Black Diamonds, particularly the dual between Iván Behrend and
Marquis Salista.27 Before the dual, recounts Kálmán, ‘the Austrian officer boasts how
many of the Wilhelm Hussars he has cut to pieces’. Iván wins the dual, which Salista
feels to be humiliating, saying he has been defeated by a civilian. To which Iván
replies ‘it shouldn’t upset him, because he was a soldier: a Wilhelm Hussar’.
‘These are minor circumstances that reinforce the feeling in you that you belong somewhere and…
and the past and history which you have inherited is nothing to be ashamed of. Now it’s rather
anxiety we feel, because of Hungary.’
This is a matter of a ‘historical getting even’, which is conveyed by literature, that
is to say, fiction, and which can be clung onto. Even though the dual between
Iván and Salista did not actually take place in the past, it is possible to be proud
of national literature, as we have seen in the case of the ‘untranslateable’ Petőfi
poem too (similarly, solace may be found in the perceived inherent value of any
27
Ivan asked the doctors if the wounds were dangerous, but Salista answered for them.
‘Soldier’s luck,’ he said. ‘I have given similar cuts a hundred times; now it is my turn, and I don’t
complain. Only one thing troubles me. Neither arnica nor ice-bandages can do me any good ; but you
who have caused this suffering can mitigate it. Confess, now, that you have been in the army.’
‘Without doubt,’ returned Ivan. ‘During the War of Freedom I was lieutenant of hussars.’
‘May the devil fetch you! Why didn’t you tell us before? In what regiment did you serve?’
‘In the Wilhelm Hussars. Therefore I am the sole survivor and witness of that memorable exploit of
yours, when you cut us to pieces.’ See for example: http://books.google.hu/books?id=lYvxZkFrJkYC
&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
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language). Thus in the past, valuable and therefore empowering because of its
Hungarianness, the values conveyed by history and by national literature blur
into one another. In the excerpt above the past is placed in opposition to the
Hungary of today, and once more the collective ‘us’ is contrasted with Hungary.
Hungary (and the decline within it) is the reason for, and not the object of the
anxiety (presumably we are anxious for ‘ourselves’).
After a long pause the story continues:
‘And my childhood, I forgot to say earlier, relating to the deportations. My godfather’s family was
deported to Hungary. And it was a little bit exotic, when they said they had come home from
Hungary. (…) they had come home from Hungary. And for a very long time Hungary was
represented by those hills on the far bank of the river. Then in the evening, when lights were on
there, then we saw that that’s Hungary, in the autumn, or summer, when the fields of cereals were
ripe, cereal, then there were those yellow fields. That too is Hungary. Well the world is different
now. --- What else can I say?’
The exotic features in the sense of the peculiar, or rather the special. In this
respect this episode resembles István’s soldier story, in which he answers the
question ‘who are you’ in the sense of ‘where I came from’. In the excerpt above
the homeland is explicitly distanced from Hungary (and this latter is implicitly
cast in the role of ‘abroad’). Kálmán puts his life story into a frame: he concludes
with the image of his childhood he started with, the difference being that the
presence of Hungary, like his childhood, is now a thing of the past. With this the
main narrative is concluded.
An explanation for the chasm between childhood and the present is given in
the answer to the next question, relating to the ‘new era’. According to this the
referendum on dual citizenship
‘ was a qualified negative event, a moment when when you experienced… there had never been
anything like it… a kind of good faith or… perhaps we were lying to ourselves, or deluding
ourselves that… of how important we are or really, when they speak in Hungary of Hungarians
beyond the border then… then they mean it seriously. And when… when this… in the end
then there was that campaign. When they frightened the voters in Hungary saying they would
lose their bread, health care, pensions and I don’t know what, then… then the way… we felt
it to be so humiliating all over again, so who’s got it, us? Do Hungarians in Slovakia need care
or bread or whatever in Hungary? When they frightened voters saying they would lose their
jobs and meanwhile though people from here went and they still go to Győr too and and…
to whats-it-called Suzuki, and to Komárom to Philips and I don’t know how many places,
because a worker in Hungary won’t do the job for the same price as one from Slovakia, because
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we have higher unemployment. And to say we would take everything and eat their bread. It’s
such nonsense that… to tell the truth, a political gang that… that tells such lies… they… for
me, they’re nothing.
But it is not only Hungary’s domestic politics and the lying gang of politicians
who are responsible for the ‘qualified negative event’, and thus the complete and
irrevocable loss of credibility of the discourse of ‘beyond the border’ (the first
person plural of the story, it is now clear, refers to Hungarians in Slovakia).
Kálmán tells that he too was on an exchange programme organized by the
Reformed Church, where they said the campaign mentioned above was ‘nonsense’.
‘And when the colleagues from Hungary say, I know, he says, that [of the] people who go from
here, who will vote no. So it was a special moment, when… when something which in good faith
we still thought, we hoped it… it became black and white.
The ‘immoral world’, the campaigns organized for the domestic political motives
before the referendum, or the contradiction that Hungary needs the Hungarian
labour force from beyond the borders, but frightens people that ‘they will eat the
bread’, as the picture becomes black and white, and with the impossibility of the
nation’s unity the narrator’s attitude becomes unequivocal: ‘This [the problems
in Hungary] will have to be solved by the Hungarian… Hungarian nation… by Hungary
for itself ’.
This ‘qualified negative event’ splits the life story into two periods, and thus
also the narrative of his relationship to Hungary (and thereby to the Hungarian
nation). The stories he heard as a child, that ‘I knew what Trianon meant’, are
grouped in the earlier period. ‘The truth is’ says Kálmán ‘that with us irredentism
belonged to the village population.’ He calls it a dual upbringing that ‘we knew what
our truth was, we knew that this was not the time to speak of this openly’. The ‘qualified
moment’ puts this into the past.
Before the relationship between ‘ faith’ and ‘Hungarianness’ it is worth looking
at how the story organizes the relationship between peoples. The relationship
between Hungarians and Slovaks is represented as problem-free, which is
commonly disturbed by ‘incitement from outside’. Each people has differing
characteristics due to natural and social environment, differences in climate,
or the place in which they live. Thus for example the post-war settlers were
‘psychologically damaged’ in what was for them an alien environment, and ‘they came
among a people of a different mentality’ ( for this reason some of them could not handle
wine and regularly got drunk, while the locals had no problems with drink.)
Another example is that in the Theology faculty the Czechs did not understand
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what the small company [of Hungarians] was doing on 15 March [the anniversary
of the 1848 revolution]. They were unable to grasp not simply why the date was a
holiday, but even ‘what kind of message can a date have, and that eight to ten people gather
in a foreign country and celebrate’.
‘There are things the surrounding peoples just cannot grasp. I think they don’t even understand
what’s happening in Hungary now, why this people clings, tries to cling to what is its thousandyear past. Why? --- What I say is, as long as it knows what it is clinging to, and the further it
puts down its roots, the more securely it stands and it mustn’t be cut off. Because if they cut it off,
then… then one-two out…’
In this episode in the life story we are in Prague, where in the Czech-Hungarian
context the adverse relationship between Hungarians fades (moral–immoral/liar,
survivor – dying, (healthy) – ill/‘sickly’). The principal of differences between
peoples, as we have seen, can organize the discrepancies between the ‘Hungarians
in Slovakia’ and Hungary. In such cases the ‘Hungarian nation’ in Hungary as a
place is put in opposition to the community of ‘us’ constructed by the story, and
thus the national home is constructed outside of Hungary. In other cases, in the
context of other peoples (we might say: in the ethnoscape) the narrator speaks
(may speak) in the name of the ‘Hungarian nation’.
Finally let us look at the context of ‘ faith’ and ‘Hungarianness’. Earlier it was
mentioned how a life pleasing to God can serve to maintain the Hungarians (in
terms of both quality and quantity). But how has this vocation developed? The
experience of faith at a summer camp, like every conversion story, rewrites the
life story:
‘And actually from then on everything had a different meaning. My past, my childhood memories,
well… somehow until then say the national awareness was instinctive, but from then on it began
to crystallize. So what the word faith means to me, what God, Jesus Christ mean to me, what
it means to me to be Hungarian, to be in the Reformed Church, so in essence things began to fit
into place, not instinctively, but consciously.’
Instinctive national awareness is replaced by conscious Hungarianness – earlier
it transpired that it is often difficult to be consciously aware of belonging to the
Hungarian nation (i.e. to the Hungarians in Hungary). To practice faith is also to
be conscious of one’s Hungarianness. Furthermore ‘history encountered through faith
is far richer’, which as previously, is a compensation for the inferiority concomitant
with the ‘ fate of the minority’.
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‘To see in history, that God dearly loves the Hungarian people, if it has lived here for 1000 years
among Slavs, Germans, Romanians, all sorts of nations.’
Contributing to this is also the richness of the Hungarian Reformed Church
tradition, from Bible translation to education to book printing – ‘and in addition to
this the fact that… a Hungarian person is not inferior to another, nor the Hungarian nation
to another nation.’
Similarly to previous ones, this narration organizes a space in which the
starting point is the united nation of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, however
the localization proves to be unsuccessful: the community constructed by the
narrative ‘we’ through Hungary as a place is forever distancing itself from the
Hungarian nation. In essence, Kálmán’s story tells of this failure. Localization
functioning on the principle of cultural heritage (here: through the values of
national literature and the beauty of the language) compensates for the lack of
value attendant on the ‘fate of the minority’, but the border separating ‘this
region’ and Hungary becomes increasingly unrelenting, even inimical as the life
story narrative proceeds: it changes from being a country border first to being
border actually experienced, then an ‘essential’ border, until in the relationship
between the two parties the latter ‘clips’ the population living on the edges. In this
way this minority is experienced on several levels, and in this way the feeling is
twice over of inferior value: compared to the Slovak nation, and to the disdainful
Hungarians from Hungary, i.e. to the ‘Hungarian nation’. Hungarians from
Hungary, who lower Hungarianness to the level of propaganda, are not ‘valuable’,
they are immoral, which relativizes the absolute values of Hungarianness as a
quality, and casts doubt on localization on the principle of cultural heritage. This
loss of value is doubly compensated for by Christian ethics: through a moral life
and the historical tradition of the Hungarian Reformed Church.
‘This is our Motherland, Slovakia’
At the time of the interview Andrea was studying psychology at university in a
city in Slovakia. She was born in the early 1980s in X, a town in county Gömör.
Her father is a head surgeon, and her mother a nurse. When she was a small
child she harassed her brother, two years younger, so her parents thought it’d be
better to send her to her paternal grandparents in a small town in south-eastern
Slovakia. Although her parents visit her regulalry, and she also spent much time
at their place, it is basically here that she spent her childhood, brought up by her
grandmother.
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Her paternal grandfather was unable to complete his university studies in
law, because he was not allowed into Hungary for the final semester. Instead
he was offered a teaching post and an apartment. As a teacher he was a public
figure; he had his students plant several trees in the town’s central park. Andrea
was still a small child when her grandfather died. The paternal grandmother, of
Slovak origin, came to the town through her marriage, and dedicated her entire
life to her four children, and never worked. She died in the early 2000s. There
is a Hungarian bookshop in the town. In addition Andrea spends a lot of time
in the nearby village, where the villa and garden from the great-grandparents
is located.
Her maternal grandparents live in a small village along the border. Her
grandfather was a soldier, then worked as a manual labourer and miner. When she
was small Andrea often visited them, going to the vineyard during the vintage,
and the family gathered together for the pig-killing.
She was enrolled only for the last year at kindergarten. There were both
Hungarian and Slovak children. Andrea got bored at the compulsory Slovak
lessons, because she already knew all the words they were learning. The elderly
couple next-door to their parents looked after them if she or her brother were sick,
and other children too. The man was Hungarian, the woman Slovak.
She completed primary school in Hungarian in her home town, where in
the first four years she spent all day at school. She competed in poetry recital
and literature contests. In the older classes one of the teachers organized a
literary theatre: Andrea was a member of the literary circle, and took part in the
performances.
When she was young she travelled to Hungary many times with her family,
then later too, mainly for national feast days thanks to various organizations. In
addition she often accompanied one of her uncles, who as a trader travelled to
Hungary on business.
She completed secondary school in X, in the Hungarian class – but they studied
natural sciences in Slovak, because for that there was no Hungarian teacher. She
took part in an exchange camp with the secondary school from a twin town
in Hungary. In class two she won the national round of the Ferenc Kazinczy
Fine Hungarian Speech Competition, and in the international round received
the Silver Ribbon. After the competition the class travelled to Hungary for the
1956 celebrations. In secondary school too Andrea was a member of the literary
theatre. She took part in the founding of a youth organization, and organized
events and camps.
After secondary school, under parental pressure she prepared to study law
at university, though at first she was not admitted. In Kassa (Košice) she went
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to preparatory classes to study for the entrance exam. The second time she was
admitted, but in the third year she quit law, moving in with her then partner
in Kassa, whom she helped with learning Hungarian (his mother was Slovak,
his father Hungarian). She worked, translating from English to Hungarian. She
became the chairman of a Hungarian youth organization. They organized regular
film screenings, concerts, lectures, literary soirées, and student camps.
She applied to study psychology, and was admitted. To begin with she lived
in a residence where she was in contact only with Slovaks. She met Hungarian
students by accident, when she moved to another residence.
She regularly goes to Prague. In summer 2005 and 2006 she worked there:
first as an operator at a telephone company, then at an insurance company. In
summer 2007 she waitressed for four months in the US. She travelled out there
with six young Slovaks.
Andrea starts the narration of her life history with the fact she was born in X.
Two years later her brother came into the world, whom, she says ‘I don’t know,
maybe I couldn’t stand him or I was jealous of him and I was always beating him. I tortured
him’. So her parents decided to send her to her grandmother’s. She goes on: ‘And
this is important because in the end… well until she died, it was her, she was my real mother.’
It transpires that this means she and her mother ‘tormented each other’ ‘really
she [the grandmother] understood me much better than my own mother’. This personal
narrative progresses linearly with various childhood experiences related to her
grandparents. After mentioning kindergarten she speaks of the elderly couple
who looked after her occasionally if her parents were busy. At times the series of
events comes to a halt so the narrator can evaluate the stories, or explain what
effect they had on her life. The narration continues with elementary school, and
Andrea mentions that she went to recital and literary contests ‘mainly in Hungarian’,
and it was then she grew to love English. Continuing this chronology, secondary
school follows, ‘we were a good class’, then her personal-family narrative, so far
unbroken, breaks off:
‘We have this contest called Fine Hungarian Speech. I’ll just explain quickly. There are three
parts, one pa… or have you heard of it? I don’t know. In one part you have to take a grammar
test, with various questions, and usually they give you a topic and you’re told in what form you
have to write a couple of lines on the topic, for example in journalistic style. In the second part
you have to read out a text, but that’s a slightly more complex text, there are loads of colons… so
you have to read the text and put meaning into it, and in the third part, you have to choose one
topic from five I think, and here you can’t read out loud, but kind of have to create a story on it
or something and then you say it. Well… Oh and the contest is for class three pupils, because
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that’s when we go through the syllabus and what it includes. But I entered in class two. So I
had to learn loads for it, but I really liked this contest, and I won the national round, I got the
Kazinczy prize here, and in the international round I got the Silver Ribbon. This was important,
because… not so I can boast, but it was important because my relationship to Hungary, for me
it started out very negatively. And that’s because when we travelled to Hungary when we were
small (…) to strands and beaches and stuff, then as kids we enjoyed the fact that everyone around
us spoke Hungarian, we understood everything. Anything we ask from anyone, they can react
etc. And… so after we’d been through the contest, and I’d won a prize too, off we went, if I
remember right to the 1956 celebrations in Hungary. At secondary school. And of course we young
girls knew that we would be put up in a university residence, etc., and so we were looking forward
to getting to know Hungarian boys, and I can’t remember what canteen we went to but we went,
and as we were there chatting, then the lads, the university students called us peasants in front
of everybody. And this was a very very negative experience, and so we asked why, what’s the
matter, so just because … so somebody spoke with an accent, or… so because of our pronunciation,
then didn’t know anything else about us, just straight away [said] we were peasants. And… the
other negative experience was that… it’s stopped now, I don’t get it now, but we weren’t in the
European Union, it was years ago, ten years back, but it regularly happened that we went across,
we spoke to young people in Hungary and about their second or third question was “And when
did you move across to Slovakia?”And they didn’t understand how it could be that my mother
tongue is Hungarian, I speak Hungarian, and I was born here. And… So they thought we had
moved here. I was amazed too, like “don’t you know history?”, that actually I came here as a
minority, I was born here. So these were two decisive negative experiences. Yes and I tend to…
then I did away with Hungary, I didn’t want to deal with it. We didn’t, I didn’t go across much.
When I did go… oh, no. So i didn’t have the feeling that at last here I am in Hungary, the mother
country, it was all the same to me. But then I had more and more friends from Hungary, and in
the end I realized that… there are good folk there too, and all, and… Then this attitude of mine
changed a bit. Well anyway now I’ve really gone into detail, we can come back to it… Then after
finishing secondary school,’
Apart from the highly telling fact that the winner of the Fine Hungarian Speech
Contest is humiliated in Hungary because of her accent, the quotation above also
shows that in the narration the personal-quotidian life story and the narrative of
the ‘relationship to Hungary’ are separated. The negative experiences are interposed
into an otherwise linearly woven story. The insertion begins at the sentence ‘I’ll
just explain quickly’ and ends at the statement ‘Well anyway I’ve really gone into detail,
we can come back to it’, then the earlier narrative picks up again. The narrator offers
to tell more about this later if there is time, which also points to the story of this
relationship being separate from the life story narrative in the strict sense. In
addition to this offer the detailed explanation of the contest shows the significance
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of the event in the life story, as does the emphasis placed on the fact that Andrea
was younger than the others, and she had to study in advance when she won the
prizes mentioned.
‘My relationship to Hungary, well for me it started very negatively’ – i.e. the relationship
starts with this experience, and accordingly the prior visits to Hungary are woven
into the narrative in retrospect, as a precedent to this event; although they cannot
be considered negative, neither are they qualified as positive. The explanation for
this may be that these prior experiences were ‘natural’, so they do not need to
be qualified, unlike the negative event. The story of ‘the relationship to Hungary’ is
then the story of negative experiences.
‘The other negative experience’ also takes place in Hungary, and ‘young people’ do
not understand how it is possible that somebody’s mother tongue is Hungarian
(i.e. they are Hungarian) and was born in Slovakia. In other words, the narrator
performs her belonging not simply as ‘Hungarian’; a part of it is that her
birthplace was not in Hungary, but in Slovakia. This lack of recognition, the
assumption she had moved, questions Hungarian belonging performed this way
in a similar manner to the qualification ‘foreigner’: the same exclusion works in
two directions. The reaction ‘I was amazed too, like “don’t you know history?”, that
actually I came here as a minority, I was born here’ shows not only that to be in the
(Hungarian) minority is fate, that is, it begins at birth, and unlike moving house
the active self can do nothing about it, but also that knowledge of history is a
prerequisite for knowledge and recognition of the person. It can clearly be seen
that although in this conflict the same identity construction operates as is defined
by the motherland and the mother tongue, the boundary of difference still lies
along the fact of ‘being Hungarian’, and one party’s belonging to the Hungarian
nation is questioned.
Finally, like previously, the reflexive narrator expounds the psychological
consequences of the experiences, thus this concise story of her relationship
to Hungary concludes with the fact that through her friends in Hungary her
negative attitude changed ‘a bit’. As the closing sentence shows, this is an open
conclusion, and the story has not yet ended.
Andrea continues by saying she wanted to study law but didn’t get in; she went
to Kassa, and studied for the next entrance exam.
‘Where once more the interesting thing was… they admit very very few Hungarian students to
study law. In the sense that you have to speak Slovak well enough, (…) and the requirements
for entrance are very high, and its simply exactly the kind of university where they don’t like
Hungarians and they let you know it. Now I was lucky enough, as we mentioned yesterday,
to speak Slovak, they didn’t notice… they noticed from my accent that something about me was
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different, but they thought I was Russian or something, that I have a Slavic background, they
didn’t know I was Hungarian. And… actually I can say that folk were good, the classmates
I met, but in the end I quit studying law because… I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do.’
‘Yesterday’s conversation’ revealed that the reason Andrea speaks Slovak is that
she was born in a place where Slovaks and Hungarians lived together, so unlike
those who grew up in Hungarian regions, she had a chance to learn Slovak outside
school, in ‘real life’. In this sense her knowledge of Slovak can be said to be luck.
In the excerpt above the accent that marks her out as different brings advantages
– what is more in an ‘anti-Hungarian’ context.
After the work in Kassa and her interest in psychology she proceeds to the
psychology entrance exam, and to the circumstance that in the first two years ‘I
was in a completely Slovak milieu here in (…), I didn’t keep in touch with Hungarians at
all, and I didn’t miss it.’ She says that she met Hungarian students by chance, and
that every two or three weeks she went to Prague, and ‘home’ too, to X. In this
relation once more the relationship to Hungary is woven into the narrative.
‘In these few years here at university in this sense Hungary has completely vanished from my life,
because I hardly go there, I can’t remember the last time I went. No idea. It must have been years
ago. And I’ve really grown to love the Czech Republic. And the Czech mentality. I get the feeling
the Czechs like the Hungarians somehow. More than Slovaks do, that’s for sure.’
The sentiment ‘And I’ve really grown to love the Czech Republic’ is expressed in
opposition to for Hungary. Then the narrative continues with the summer jobs
in Prague:
‘Then I worked there two summers, for four months, and it was a irony of fate that precisely for
Hungary… in the end… yes, there too I exploited the… incidentally it’s a huge advantage I think
for us, especially now we have the European Union and the borders have opened… so I speak
Hungarian, and Slovak too, and even Czech, I don’t know every word, but I understand 100%,
and I can speak it too. And… I say lots of folk have found work by building on precisely this, that
they speak Hungarian, and they were taken on because such a person was needed. Well in the
Czech Republic it’s more difficult to find someone, well in Slovakia there are more Hungarians
than in the Czech Republic. And… so I worked for the Hungarian market.’
As in the case of the law entrance exam, knowledge of Slovak and Czech is a
benefit or a ‘natural surplus’ which Hungarians in Hungary do not have – the
first person plural ‘we’ refers to Hungarians in Slovakia. In addition knowledge
of Hungarian brings advantages, and has a market value. Notably, in the Czech
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Republic the work carried out for the Hungarian market is thanks to a irony of
fate, not the choice of the narrated self. The irony of fate means that after the
protagonist of the life history chose the Czech Republic instead of Hungary, she
ended up working for the latter.
The job as a telephone operator in Prague fits into the series of (negative)
experiences related to Hungary: ‘well it was pretty awful, because I had to call people
and lie to them, really’. Andrea tells that during the job she spoke to several elderly
people in Hungary, whom she had to persuade to make a contract. They often
told her how low the pension was in Hungary, and how high contributions were.
‘So actually on this level I was in contact with the country’.
The narration continues with the next summer job also in Prague (‘that time
I had to lie in English’), followed by her work in America. She mentions that next
year she would like to go and work in the same place, then rounds off her life
story:
‘Well and now I am here. I’ve come to the end of my story. More or less.’
The ‘here’ refers to the university town where the interview was made, not simply
to the present tense. Typical of the entire narration is that places are important
stages in the chronological emplotment. Andrea laughs as she speaks of one of
the historical, touristic sights of her home town, and quotes Petőfi’s simile on
the town. The ironic use of by now familiar, cultural heritage-based localization
refers to the distance that separates her from the place, without it ceasing to be
her home. The town where she lives in a university residence is about half-way
between her home town and Prague: ‘It’s good for me here, but actually… I would like
to end up in Prague too’ (like several of her friends).
Budapest plays a counterbalancing role, and operates as a metonym for the
whole country:
‘I definitely do not like Budapest. I hate that city. Not just the city itself… well I don’t hate it,
that’s rather a strong word, but I don’t like it, I don’t like the people, I don’t like it when… at
least I feel the city is in a rush and there’s a pressure in it at least I think so, it’s almost impossible
to get around by car … what’s the word for bus? Tram…
– Public tran…
– Public transport! It’s always late, in my experience. I think people are rude, even aggressive
I’d say, um I only go by metro if I really have to, because it depresses me, the Budapest metro, and
the fact that everyone is in a rush and no one has time for anyone. And… The main reason I said
they were aggressive and rude is because if God forbid I accidentally step in front of somebody and
(incomprehensible) then they push you out of the way and grouch or something. And another odd
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thing is that, with us it doesn’t work like this, you go into a shop, and immediately… well there I
have time to choose, look over what’s on offer, but in Hungary it bothers me, but obviously because
I’m not used to it, they immediately come over all informal and breathing down your neck. (…)
and they want to force the goods on you.’
During the interview it transpires that Andrea travelled to Hungary in spite of
being called a peasant, mainly for national holidays, and the journey was always
organized and financed by some organization. On these trips the main thing
was the ‘party’; generally she and her friends did not take part in the official
celebrations: ‘I never went thinking wow how happy I am. I was happy to go somewhere
with my friends, but not because we were going to Hungary.’ In contrast to this the
celebrations in her home town have special importance:
‘And the strange thing is that if we didn’t go to Hungary, say for 15 March, then in X [the town]
I definitely went to the laying of the wreaths. There, it felt much better to lay the wreaths there
in X than in the mother country.’
In one family scene the possibility of moving to Hungary comes up. Andrea tells
that because hers is a ‘sport-centred family’, they often watch sport on TV. She notes
that ‘in spite of what I’ve said about Hungary so far’ if there is a Hungarian competitor,
they always support him/her ‘and I always cry when I hear the Hungarian national
anthem’. During just such a sports programme, they chatted about why they support
Hungary.
‘But this is our motherland, Slovakia. And that’s when she [the mother] said she would even
move back.’
‘It hurts mum somehow, that she has to live here in Slovakia. Not me. That’s how we’re different.’
This narration then localizes the national home not in the place of birth, the
(small) region, or ‘here’ in the current place of residence, but in Slovakia, which is
constructed in counterposition to Hungary, primarily through the towns (X and
Prague, as opposed to Budapest, representing Hungary). Yet this process dispenses
with the principle of national heritage, and when it does get a role this happens
ironically. Let us return to the topography of the narration.
The town where she spent her childhood at her paternal grandparents’
is constructed both as her home town and as ‘the Wild East’. The former is
exemplified by the ‘enormous park’ in the town bears the mark of her grandfather’s
hand, and the latter by the phrase ‘desolate area’ where ‘the pain of the world lies on
people’s faces’, who speak differently to ‘here’ (her current place of residence). In
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this sense the protagonist of the narrative does not fit into her environment: as a
child, in a south-eastern Slovakian town she was mistreated because of how she
spoke, and when she went home to X, she was reproached for putting on airs.
Speach plays an important role in the narration. We have seen that speaking
Slovak is a concomitant of the ‘Hungarian minority fate’, and what is more a
benefit – not the result of study, but bilingualism. The accent serves as a hideaway
in an anti-Hungarian situation. Hungarian has a market value, but only when
not in Hungary. Having been called a peasant because of linguistic usage rules
out the possibility of easily making a living in Hungary through knowledge of
Hungarian. Interestingly, this topic comes up in relation to the time spent in
America:
‘so they were guessing where I was from. Most often I was French, I don’t know why, then
Russian, Portuguese, whatever, but I was never Hungarian and I was never Slovak. And it was
interesting when they asked my nationality, and I said Hungarian automatically, and they knew
it, Hungary, but I said I’m not from Hungary, but from Slovakia. And that was a bit much for
them, not just because… usually they had no idea where Slovakia is on a map of Europe, but
because they didn’t understand why I say my nationality is Hungarian, when I’m from Slovakia.
This topic is very distant for them. Then I explained to them why. It wasn’t like the time I had
to explain to the Hungarians in Hungary.’
This (positive) experience is positioned as the counterpoint to being called a
peasant in Hungary, or a similar insult at an exchange camp in Hungary because
of Slovak words used, and the belonging under construction in the narration
becomes exotic, special, something you can be proud of (cf. István’s soldier story
in today’s Czech Republic, or the return home of Kálmán’s relatives). In the
narration, identification by language use always represents a negative value, and
making a living through languages, when the self seems to take refuge behind
identification, always a positive one.
Finally: the category ‘Slovak’, insofar as it is not equivalent to the Slovak
language. In this narration, unlike those by István or Kálmán, this designation
does not unequivocally refer to the ‘other’. Only during the questions does it
transpire, in relation to the ethnic composition of her childhood town, that her
paternal grandmother, who in the narrative is cast in the mother role, was Slovak,
and ‘spoke Hungarian at native speaker level’. With this the opposition between mother
and grandmother is sharpened further: while living in Slovakia is a problem for
the former, it is not for the latter, not even in a town with a Hungarian majority.
The life story has many decisive Slovak characters besides her: the group at
university, or the one with whom she travelled to the US as the only Hungarian,
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and even ‘in X I have quite a bunch of Slovaks’. The Slovak relations repeatedly
serve the purpose of dispelling the widespread notions circulating about Slovak–
Hungarian tensions. Such was the case of the law lecturer famous for hating
Hungarians: at the examination however ‘there was no problem’. Andrea says
that often the problem is that Hungarians provoke the Slovaks, for instance
by speaking Hungarian together in a company where Slovaks too are present.
A similarly revealing story is that at the law faculty they were expected to know
the names of Hungarian historical figures in Slovak, but (she adds) she could
explain to and discuss with her Slovak peers the ‘distortions’.
‘I really haven’t had any bad experiences. I was much more affected by what I told you about
Hungary, and the people there… their attitude to me, like… well here at home I don’t have bad
experiences in this respect and I say I’ve never had problems with Slovaks, they’ve never even
said as much as, well, “stupid Hungarian”, of course they said it to others, but somehow I didn’t
experience this. So I don’t know, perhaps deep down, well, I think I don’t want to leave here, I
like it, I’m glad I was born here and I see it as, well that I’ve spoken those two languages ever since
my childhood, I definitely class it as an advantage. And actually I study the culture of two nations,
I know the literature of two nations. Not to mention the fact that with Hungarians in the other
countries, I think I make myself understood better with them, than… now why did I say that?’
In the above excerpt through the experiences Slovakia becomes a positive opposite
to Hungary, and the contrast is decidedly personal (note that others were certainly
called ‘stupid Hungarians’). In contrast to the negative experiences in Hungary,
she puts being bilingual and the advantages of dual belonging. The distancing from
Hungary is reinforced by the statement that she makes herself better understood
with ‘Hungarians from the other countries’ (the sentence would probably have ended
‘than with Hungarians from Hungary’). The ‘other countries’ presumably refers
to the states impinged by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse.
The personal note remains even when she gives an explanation of the alleged
tensions between Slovaks and Hungarians. In this sense ‘it has been transformed into
a political issue, and they can really use it to agitate, with the minorities beyond the borders’.
One consequence of this is that for some time she has not been asked in Hungary
when she learned Hungarian. At the same time, this is the end of the story of
her relationship to Hungary, which, with the agitation mentioned above and
the referendum on dual citizenship (still formed around negative experiences),
reaches the present:
‘Now I feel this whole thing to be so laboured by Hungary, that it overcomplicates the whole
situation too. So I think they’ve made it such a political question, that needlessly… it flames
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needless hostility between the two countries. And…and it leads to things like Slota goes to Budapest
with tanks and stuff, and I don’t know, well, I don’t know the other side, how Hungarians in
Hungary see this, or how they see us here, whether they’re sorry for us or… I don’t know but…
after a statement like that how they react or what ideas they have about the situation here, but I
really think that in everyday life on the street that’s not what you get. I think compared to that
we live far more peacefully and all. There are much greater hostilities at higher levels. And that
way a lot of stuff gets amplified, I think. I don’t feel we are oppressed here. Of course there could
be greater subsidies for culture and all, but… well I don’t know, I think Hungary shouldn’t push
this minority issue so much. And the Hungarians beyond the border. And this dual citizenship,
I dunno I think these are needless things,… I don’t think its so important that they really had to
hold a referendum on it… let’s not even talk about the results, doesn’t matter, but… so what?
That too…that too was a big disappointment for me.’
The ‘upper’ world of politics is contrasted with the ‘lower’ everyday world, and
the life story narration serves to testify to the ‘real’ situation. The reason for the
needless political variance between the two countries is that Hungary ‘pushes’ the
‘minority issue’ and the ‘Hungarians beyond the border’ so much, that is, it turns
them into politics. The contrast between the ‘beyond the border’ discourse and
the personal life story is especially sharp: in the latter a role is played by quotidian
positive aspects of the minority situation, and when, as in the previous excerpt,
the narrator attempts to adopt the position prescribed by the former, she fails,
and no experiences are coming up.
We have seen that the narrative of the relationship to Hungary is set apart. The
story of this relationship is a string of negative experiences, and goes from the
directness of being personally affected (being called a ‘peasant’, ‘moving house’)
to the indirect, or rather relayed, presence of Hungary (telephone marketing,
where she had to lie), to the intrusion into peaceful everyday life (Hungary stirs
up hostility with its laboured ‘beyond the borders’ politics). Andrea’s narration
rejects the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, and reverses the scheme of values
constructed by it. The ‘minority fate’ provides advantages, while Hungary
takes on an increasingly negative value. In parallel to this the narration identifies
the motherland as Slovakia: in this case this is the country designated by the
Hungarian national home, and the localities significant in the life story represent
stages of self-development.
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Re-drawing Forgotten Maps
Imre was born in 1970 in a village in Csallóköz (Žitný ostrov). When he was two
the family moved to the nearby town of Z. Here he grew up, often spending
weekends in the village where he was born.
His father was from a well-to-do peasant family, and worked as a building
foreman. Family legend has it that one of his mother’s ancestors lost the family
mansion at cards, so his grandfather earned a living as a smith, supporting six
children. Imre’s mother worked as an office employee.
After primary school he went to grammar school, and did a lot of sport:
swimming, basketball, and running. He is interested in history. At the schoolleaving examination he had to answer a question on the Second World War,
and was commended for his answer. He intended to go to university to study
to be a Hungarian and History teacher, but was not admitted. At the entrance
examination he had to recount the Slovak national uprising, and he does not speak
perfect Slovak. The teacher repeatedly stalled his answer and posed questions such
as ‘Name six Slovak partisans with a bourgeois mentality.’ He walked out of the
entrance examination.
In 1988 he started work at the Slovakian river regulation company, as a
boatman. A year later he was called up for military service. After demobbing he
went back to work on the boat.
In 1991 he took part in the demonstrations against the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros
hydroelectric power station, spending several months on the dam. He left the
river regulation company.
After the protests he did various jobs for about two years. He was a decorator
in Vienna, studied massage in Brno, worked on the Bratislava market with
Vietnamese, worked as a masseur, and later in a ceramics worship, in a games
warehouse, and a foodstuffs warehouse. Through an advertisement he found
work as a translator at a Hungarian-language paper in Bratislava, and later became
an editor. Then he worked for a youth magazine for one year.
In 1994 the magazine commissioned him to go to the Diáksziget music festival
[in Budapest] where he met his wife-to-be.
In 1995 he moved in with his wife’s family in the Rozsnyó area. He worked
for Csemadok, an activity his fiancée’s parents also took part in, and she organized
youth and education camps with her younger sister.
He got married in 1996 then worked for a year in Z to earn the money for his
own apartment. He worked as a machinist and at construction sites.
When he got back he and his wife bought a flat. He did various jobs: working
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in a warehouse, insulating gas pipes. Later he was the regional correspondent for
a Hungarian paper.
At the end of the 1990s he and his wife set up a youth organization, and they
organize events, camps, and various cultural events.
In 2002 he gave up journalism. The organization started its first large Tourism
development project.
In about 2004 they were given a building by the local government, where the
youth organization still operated at the time of the interview. They renovated
it and created a community centre. Through the youth organization they take
part in the organization of the regional Gömör-Tornai Festival and the ‘Andrássy
Days’ in Rozsnyó.
Imre and his wife completed the course held by the Forum Information Centre,
then assisted in operating the South Slovakia Information Network: they give
consultation sessions on teaching, organizational development, and fundraising,
as part of a training package designed to raise the efficiency of civil organizations.
They plan a similar training course for civil organizations in Hungary.
Imre and his wife have decided to adopt a child.
Imre’s life story starts with his being born in 1970 in Csallóköz, and growing
up in Z. With this begins a traditional autobiographical narrative, which takes
the not over-personal data, which are probably considered of general interest, in
chronological order. Information is given in line with the order customary in an
official autobiographical résumé: parent’s occupations, primary and secondary
school, failed university entrance exam.
‘I didn’t mope around, I went to work at the Slovakia river regulation company. I went in as a
boatman, and worked on the Danube for two-and-a-half, three years.’
After a succinct remark about this job (they reinforced the banks to prevent
water erosion), next in the narration is military service – still with the sense of
information delivered, and not as a personal account. The protagonist of the
narration faces a choice when the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros protests ‘break out’, and
he ‘ joins the party’: he had to decide whether to participate in the construction of
the power station by the river regulation company, or to demonstrate against it.
He mentions he spent two or three months on the dam in the protest, and that he
left his job. Related to this is the first experience in the narration: Imre tells that
he ‘took a punch’ in his village. He was alleged to have left the river regulation
company shortly before becoming captain because the Austrian environmentalists
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gave him 300 shillings a day for to protest. He comments: ‘I wasn’t so attached to
those people any more’.
Then come various jobs, done in Vienna, Brno, Bratislava, again reeled off
like a list, as if trying to find his way, until he concludes and to designate a new
period in the life story the narrator states: ‘I ended up in journalism’. Consistent
with the autobiographical narrative thus far, he lists the places he has worked as
a journalist, concisely, giving the year. In this series is interposed his meeting his
wife, and from there he goes on to say that he moved to live with her family: ‘I
hung around here a while’, he goes on, ‘I was working in Csemadok’. He also explains
what this is: ‘a kind of megalomaniac cultural organization inherited from socialism’. Imre’s
opinion of the Csemadok is expressed in this ironic statement about his own
work: ‘I don’t even know what I was, a pen-pushing filing worker for the common good’.
The biographical data continue, with the now customary minimal comments:
marriage, jobs in Z, buying an apartment. ‘I came home, idled about’, he says, clearly
indicating the searching nature of this time of his life. His work as a correspondent
for a journal follows, and during this he says ‘I got to know the region and people here
pretty well’. Here a new narrative begins, whose primary topic is that of the civil
organization(s):
‘Meanwhile my wife made quite a… and her relatives, quite a mark on my life. They were
always on the move.’
The phrase ‘on the move’ refers to the fact that his wife’s whole family are
involved in civil activism: her parents are involved in the work of Csemadok,
and his younger sister organizes camps. From here on the ‘civil narrative’ receives
greater emphasis: he founds the youth organization with his wife. Imre says of
the beginnings that the college and university ‘students nagged’ them to help them
get information and apply for scholarships. The information piled up, and once
they had a database ‘we had to carry on, so it wouldn’t peter out completely’. The essence
of the community centre is that ‘when the young people come home there should be a
place where they can hang out’. And that of the work of the organization: ‘And if they
decide that after school they’ve had enough and they want to come back, then to help them
somehow, provide some kind of background.’
But the real change comes in 2002.
‘More or less my life story is all about [our organization] now, ever since 2002’.
The protagonist of the narration faced another choice, and decided to leave
journalism and dedicate all his time to the civil organization. The two narratives,
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hitherto termed autobiographical and civil, are structurally woven together in
the narration: the various projects now follow one another in the life story as did
previously the biographical data; the development of the organization expresses
the development of the narrated self, and vice versa.
Accordingly, there follows a brief presentation of the tourism development
project, in which they trained tourist guides and organized paying tours, and
which ‘are beginning to be more or less what makes our organization go’. He makes the
illuminating remark that they fell into the trap of training secondary school
pupils, many of whom went on to further studies and worked elsewhere (twelve
completed the course, and four stayed in the area).
After that was a project for an international tender, which was to start soon,
in which they developed study materials with staff from the Aggtelek and Slovak
Karst National Park. Imre explains that part of the Gömör–Torna karst is called the
Slovak Karst, and the other part, lying in Hungary, is called the Aggtelek Karst.
The narration continues with the future:
‘After that we took on another course, where actually we won’t train tour guides, but rather, I’d
say, tourist service providers. Who learn… perhaps they’ll master it, how to lead a tour, and
also everything we do, they’ll learn that. They’ll learn to gather information, to build databases,
to mould and develop tourist products from them, then selling, they should have a smattering of
knowledge of customer services. So we’d like to give them all-round, practical knowledge. There
are tour guide courses and tourist guide courses, but the certificate you get is in vain, I’ve chatted
to a lot of them who are unemployed. (…) we try to do this whole thing a bit differently.’
The biographical-civil narrative ends in the future with the information that he
and his wife plan to adopt a child. This brings the life story in the strict sense to
a close, though the narration continues.
‘I like it here in this area, they’re friendly… not that they’re more friendly, I’d say that compared
to the mentality of people in Csallóköz people here are more open to making sacrifices, that’s my
impression. My impression of people back home is sort of that dollars are scrolling before their eyes,
like in the cartoons. (…) of course every area has its characters.’
This is actually an explanation of what the narrator is searching for ‘here’, if home
is Csallóköz. Imre travelled the area as a journalist, and as he said: ‘I got to know the
region and people here pretty well’. All this serves as a basis for the comparison. Every
area has its characters, that is, each area has a people with a characteristic mentality.
This is the sense in which the folk from Csallóköz and Gömör can be compared –
the former are less willing to make sacrifices and more money-grabbing.
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The narration continues with a comment on his relationship with the local
government, and again the civil organization and the individual merge together:
a good relationship is important for the organization, but the basis for it is that
Imre, the formerly critical journalist, ‘made peace’ with the mayor.
This is followed by a presentation of the community centre, which the local
minority self-government has entrusted to the organization, then Imre explains
that he and his wife have completed the Forum Information Centre course. After
speaking about the South Slovakia Information Service he says: ‘we too [the civil
organization] are building a small network in the region, and it’s slowly starting to spread
to Hungary too.’
The fi rst example of networking is a several-year joint project with a
partner institution in Miskolc, in which they carry out the coordination of
activities in Slovakia. The second is that he is in contact with the directors of
Aggtelek National Park, who have asked them to cooperate in the Slovakiaside organization of the custom–celebrating days, held in Hungary: this is the
Gömör–Tornai Festival.
The Gömör–Tornai Karst doesn’t appear on a map. But in reality, in people’s hearts…it’s always
there. It’s the two karsts together, the Slovak karst and the Aggtelek karst. And then they said
they’d like this festival to start to throb and live throughout the whole karst.’
The mission of the festival does not stop at entertainment. On one hand it
represents a practice of memory, since it aims to restore a bygone unity which
currently lives only in people’s hearts. On the other hand, at stake is the location
of the Gömör–Tornai Karst on the map, the spatial unit separated by the current
state border, and its unification; though it lives on in people’s hearts, they do not
remember it. In other words they don’t live with it, they do not practise it. The
festival then can be seen as a practice of localization, whose aim is to restore this
bygone unity (‘the whole karst’), in both its senses.
Then Imre gives his opinion on the work of the Aggtelek National Park,
which he feels does too much to prop up the local governments taking part:
‘it holds their hands so much it’s almost unhealthy, that they can’t become independent. But on
our side, and they can see this now, with us the civil organizations, whom actually we too helped
them to get ship-shape, it’s run only by civil organizations, and there’s no latching onto someone
and sucking them dry, asking for money for this and that.’
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The spatial point of reference is the unified karst (‘on our side’); ‘with us’ most likely
refers to Slovakia, and the blood sucking civil society to Hungary. The discursive
group-forming ‘us’ is set in opposition to Hungary.
Imre brings up as the third example of the network-building that extends to
Hungary that a regional development institute in northern Hungary subsidizes
his youth organization to set up a training course in Hungary similar to the one he
runs in Slovakia for civil organizations. Accompanying this are comments similar
to the above, explaining it is difficult to find participants on the Hungarian side.
We see that Hungary comes up in relation to network building, and through
the operation and subsidizing of civil organizations is related to Slovakia.
However, this is important only in relation to the youth organization; the
spatiality organized by the narration, as we have seen, avoids countries (and
borders), and sets out from the former unity of the Gömör–Torna Karst. This
spatiality, it would seem, dispenses with national-ethnic categories: the long
bygone exists ‘in people’s hearts’. Following this, Hungary takes on other meanings.
‘What else can I say about Hungary? Well it saddens me. Many folk say, oh, this and that,
mother country and all, well I call them the nannied country, the folk from Hungary. Or left-over
land. That started when there was the referendum. Left-over land. Well generally I look very
critically at the dogfights in Hungary, the fact that society is so polarized, it’s sick what goes on.
(…) I wouldn’t like to live in Hungary at all. I don’t envy folk in Hungary.’
Following on from his previous comments, the pun ‘mother country nannied
country’ relates to the protectionist politics and system of subsidies that places
civil initiatives in a dependent position, although it seems here to include everyone
in Hungary (as indicated in the second part of the excerpt above, through the
referendum, he is now speaking of ‘society’). The ‘left-over land’ and ‘dogfights’
are distancing procedures familiar from other interviews. In this narration they
are enriched with a new nuance; polarized public life is characterized as sick. The
narrative position is located outside Hungary, and the relation to it is pity and regret
– the disdainful gaze of the ‘beyond the border’ discourse is reversed.
Similarly to the previous narrations, here too the world of politics and
everyday relationships are separate. Imre continues with his experiences with
the partners he works with in Hungary, saying ‘if we’re not talking politics, but work,
then we understand one another very well. They respect us and we respect them too, we have
a lot to thank them for.’
Following this Imre expresses the principle that everybody should be given
the opportunity for education and training, regardless of nationality: ‘it’s not
sufficient to train say five Hungarian young mayors, if we don’t train another five Slovak ones
274 |
too’, because they won’t be able to get very far with each other. Related to this, as
an opposite, is the system of subsidies coming from Hungary:
‘with this they’ve utterly ruined Hungarian public life in Slovakia. They’ve pumped money and
subsidies into countless Hungarian civil organizations in Slovakia, mainly civil organizations
inherited from socialism, and I’m amazed the current government does the same thing. (…)
Hungary has made things too easy for civil organizations in Slovakia, they haven’t got used to the
idea they should apply for money, put in serious applications, and when these small organizations
were hanging onto the nipples of the mother country, then they lagged behind compared to the
other civil organizations in Slovakia.’
Imre is criticizing the ‘beyond the border’ discourse and the system of subsidies
defined by it, which continues to be expressed as counterposed to the system in
Slovakia.
Imre goes on to say that chances in the competition between civil organizations
are further ruined by the fact that most Hungarian civil organizations in Slovakia
have as their main activity the preservation of traditions – but ‘with the 22%
unemployment in this district a young person isn’t going to nurture culture; they go abroad,
where they can make a living’. Once more in counterposition to the subsidy policy
in Hungary he continues:
‘what we do in fact, is we try to [change] in people’s heads this… partly this feebleness, that now
they just point our dreamy gaze in the direction of Hungary, like when will they give us some
more… well we said we try to give practical knowledge to people.’
In Imre’s narration the relationship to Hungary is organized as the subsidy
policy targeting Hungarian organizations in Slovakia, with a marked distancing
and as a negative counterpoint, through which he is able to voice his own civil
convictions. Before closing the narration of his life story, as a sort of proof of his
own civil organization being different, he adds that they have not had much in
subsidies from Hungary (‘they haven’t spoilt us, which is lucky for us’). Then he asks:
‘You want to know something else? Now that I’ve reeled off a monologue to you.
– Well, if there’s something you’d like to say, I’d like to know. --- But if you’ve finished, then
I have some questions.’
With this the main narrative ends. Owing to the structural characteristics
mentioned earlier, that is the formal traits of a traditional, ‘official’ résumé, only
during the questions does he express explicitly that apart from the beginning of
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his work in civil organizations (the end of the 1990s, but actually 2002) there were
two other turning-points in his life story. It should be added that both lay the
ground for his move into the civil sphere. The first was being a boatman.
‘They’re the freest people in the world, especially on a freighter, where you don’t have to serve
passengers. (…) I loved it, so as a matter of fact it was there that my nationalism wore off. Until
then, in Z, at school, secondary school [I was given – transl.] harsh right-wing grounding.
Perhaps not in school, but… the whole community was that way, the Hungarians. We lived in
two separate worlds. The vagrant Slovaks, who were brought to Z not by train, but by stork,
that’s how we put it, there were separate parallel lives, absolutely no communication took place
between the two communities.’
Highly telling is the fact that the protagonist of the narration loses his ‘nationalism’
on the water. The remark about ‘vagrant Slovaks’ very likely means the opposite,
and this ‘mistake’ in phrasing well demonstrates the current insignificance of this
conviction (according to which the birthplace is of greater value than the place
of settling).
Let us see how life on the boat is portrayed. Imre says that his colleagues were
of all manner of origins, many had multiple attachments, and the ‘goading’ of one
another based on nationality had limitations.
‘On the boat you could go up to a point. Not because we would have beaten each other up, but
because, because I always realized that if I say “bloody Slovaks” about somebody one evening
over a drink, next day I fall in the water, it’s not that he won’t pull me out – I wouldn’t have the
cheek to stretch out my hand and say “Pull me out!”.’
This learning process is followed by an example. While doing military service
Imre stood up for a new recruit who was being ‘goaded’ by some of his peers, and
then ‘I was given a good beating more or less on the grounds of nationality. (…) That’s where
I got my reward for the hateful stuff I said before the boat’.
The other life story turning point was the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros protests,
during which Imre ‘dipped his toes in politics’ and where he first felt ‘the essence of
civil courage’.
‘Partly it was a lark, but again for me… just like the boat, this too was a pack of experiences,
which certainly contributed to the way I live now, and what I do now.’
Earlier we saw that after the conclusion of the life story in the strict sense,
designated by the future course in tourist services and having a child, there
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followed a summarizing evaluation (‘I like it here in this area’), then a commentary
on every area having its own typical mentality. By way of answer to a question
on the different nature of the Csallóköz folk, Imre says:
‘Well partly this region, in effect the area of Gömör, Gömör-Kishont, was a kind of intellectual
cradle… not for… I won’t say for Upper Hungary, but for historical Hungary a kind of area that
sent more cultivated people into the world, there were lots of minor nobles here, in a village, if you
go into a village of a few hundred, perhaps you’ll find five, six, seven, ten manors, mansions etc.,
so lots of minor nobles lived in these localities, as opposed to Csallóköz, where there were more
barefoot peasants, they made up most of the localities. So these were thinking, reading people and
they tried their hand at all sorts, politics, charity work, science, all sorts. And this shows on what
has remained. Well, now this area has declined in that respect. (…) András Császár, I don’t
know if you’ve heard of him, … he was the painter in a small village, well he… he founded the
first institute for the deaf and dumb in historical Hungary. And almost every village has its own
little folk, who did something grand, which is unusual for … me, for an adult from Csallóköz.
(…) Wherever you go you come across memories of people.’
It transpires then that the mentalities linked to various regions are the consequence
of differing historical pasts. The characteristic of ‘the area of Gömör, Gömör-Kishont’
is apparently that almost every locality can be proud of the fact that in its past
there was somebody ‘who did something grand’. However this is all in the past (‘now
this area has declined in this respect’), and currently only the memories bear witness to
this. This is the context for the localization which the protagonist of the narration
carries out as an individual, and as the leader of a civil organization. First, as we
saw earlier, was his work as a journalist, during which ‘I got to know the region and
people here pretty well’.
‘I had to travel through the villages, if some story came up, I had to sniff out the stories, and I then
I did the rounds of a good deal of places. I have friends who let’s say have been to fewer villages
here in the area.’
Through this travelling around ‘this area’ becomes home, as the narrator
(elsewhere) states: ‘if we had the Danube here, I’d have all I want’. The continuation
of the excerpt above shows how the individual’s localization is linked to the
localization carried out through the civil organization.
‘--- What’s interesting about this area say is that… the reason we do the festival actually, is
that people… people have forgotten a part of the past. So we have this border here, let’s say on
one side of the border a kilometre from the border is a village, whose space for life is a truncated
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sector of a circle, a circle with half or one-third cut away. So up to the border, to the border they
know everything, and a kilometre away on the other side of the border is a village where their
grandfathers and great-grandfathers went to the town hall to win favour, and to the market, and
smashed each others’ heads in with the lads from the other three villages, and now they know
absolutely nothing… (…) The aim of the festival is actually to… To get to know each other
again. So one is to stimulate tourism, to make an attraction for tourists, but more important for
us is to… to experience the whole thing again. So, to get to know again what was already inside
people’s heads.’
Thus, through organizing and developing tourism, the activities of making a
living and home-producing localization are linked together, though this is
emphatically not the ‘reunification of the nation’ in the context of the ‘Hungarian–
Hungarian relations’. This is a spatial practice of memory during which the rich
past can be made to live again, and the territory can be re-appropriated – and all
this through work done ‘in people’s souls’. The aim of the festival is not just to
enable a presentation of the past, but also that residents of the area should move
around regardless of the state border, and learn to use once more the entity in
question. This memory work is not heritagization:it is neither musealization (i.e.
the exhibiting of the past), nor a fostering of traditions (i.e. the conserving of
former procedures which have lost their functional value). Much rather it is the
cultural and economic exploitation of past knowledge, through which the cultural
heritage can be put to use, and also the past can be relived. In connection with the
tours is voiced the basic principle that culture should not be nurtured, but made
into a tool:
‘We try to make this into a tool that provides people with a living. Even if… Even if a young
person dances – I don’t know – a jumping dance or a stick dance, he’s still not going to have two
pennies to rub together. Or he’ll go off somewhere else.’
Let us look at a concrete example: a tourism development project during which
the civil organization trained tour guides. This is the enterprise which is ‘beginning
to be more or less what makes our organization go’.
‘We mapped out a small area of the karst, the Slovak karst, which had parts that were more
frequently visited, and others less so.’
What does the mapping out of the small area, with eight villages, consist of?
In accordance with the above, it is the drawing of the map existing in people’s
heads, but now forgotten. It included going round the small area, administratively
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divided into two districts, but ‘we said we wouldn’t leave it divided in two like that, but
we’d mould it into a unified whole according to our own idea and use, and we did’. As part
of the re-appropriation of the small area they gathered together cultural assets of
the rich past, which are testified to only by a few memories. This was carried out
by drawing up a questionnaire which was administered in every settlement in
question: what happenings and traditional events are there relating to the village’s
history, the population etc. (‘We found out everything about the eight villages’). Just as
important in this work was to go round the area in person, and to form the tour
trails, along which, taking part in the related events and talks, anyone can relive
the past and make use of the place (namely the small area as a unit).
During the mapping out they gained practical knowledge about the area
which they can exploit in organizing tourism (e.g. the accommodation capacity
in each settlement). Thus each organized tour provides far more than admiration
of the ‘natural treasures’ or of the cultural heritage. The plans are to complement
the tour guide course necessary to organize these secular pilgrimages with the
transfer of abilities necessary for tourism development in the broad sense. It is
clear from this that the narrator and the civil organization he runs are carrying out
the development and transfer of localization procedures which are based not on
making natural the national home, and avoid the ‘unified nation’ of the ‘beyond
the border’ discourse (they name and target people and locals, who incidentally
could be either Hungarians or Slovaks).
As can be seen, this narration delimits from Hungary, via the operation of the
civil sphere and the systems of state subsidy; the descriptions of the running of the
civil organization and its basic principles are always structured in counterposition
to the practice in Hungary: independent, civil/local, professional, versus ‘nanny’,
state, dilettante. This distancing, however, is almost independent of the spatiality
organized by the localization practices described above, and takes place as
if disassociated from them, though the heritage of the (national) past as ‘raw
material’ has an important role in the spatial practices. The home constructed by
the narration takes no account of the borders of the nation-state; more precisely
it supercedes them with the drawing of the ‘map living in people’s heads’. The
object of the memory work is the human soul (‘healing’), and its aim is to exploit
the past knowledge through the living and making use of the space. At the same
time, due to the close interplay between the autobiographical and civil narratives,
the far from emphasized relationship between Hungary and ‘this area’ is given a
personal touch. For example, in the remark that ‘the idea that the Hungarians from
beyond the borders would storm Hungary and eat everyone’s bread was demolished’. And in
the distancing phrase: ‘the bickering in Hungary’. The narrator states that he does
not wish to live in Hungary, and if he sits down to chat with ‘one from Hungary’,
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he always has to watch ‘that the conversation doesn’t stray somewhere (i.e. following
party politics) because that will get him going’. The ‘ones from Hungary’, he says, are like
little kids, who are always reminded of the same thing no matter what they see.
Then in line with the familiar procedure he adds from the ‘civil side’: he would
not agree to be the leader of a civil organization in Hungary. Thus the relationship
to Hungary on the one hand gains life story significance as the reversal of the
disdainful gaze organized by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, and on the other
as a harmful effect, insofar as it maintains, as the ‘nanny’ and propping-up power,
Hungarian civil organizations, and in a broader sense people, in Slovakia in the
position of dependent small children.
Summary
The self-narrations above react to the drawing of boundaries continuously carried
out by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse with a re-drawing of boundaries, in
which they create a Hungarian belonging which through its spatiality is separated
from the united Hungarian nation prescribed as a norm. The applied localization
techniques (the narrations and the narrated memory routes) construct Hungarian
homelands, to which it is possible to belong without their being part of the state
of Hungary or of the Hungarian nation defined by its territory. Thus it becomes
possible to inhabit Hungarian national homes which exclude the ‘reunified nation’
prescribed by the Hungarian state as a norm, and delineated by the territory of
historical Hungary.
Partly, the Hungarian homelands outside the Hungarian state run along the
borders of various states: not only Hungary, but surrounding countries too, and
in the historical past Czechoslovakia. Though at times a solidarity felt with the
Hungarian minorities living in other countries is apparent, the homeland does
not extend to all of the territories inhabited by Hungarians beyond the border.
In this case the narrative also reacts to the discourse of ‘beyond the border’,
which regardless of the neighboring countries forms an identical relation to each
addressee: the source of solidarity is the sameness of the compulsions – and yet
it rejects the compulsion of generalization, the idea that the ‘beyond the border’
position is the same everywhere.
On the other hand it is not only along state borders that these Hungarian
homelands are constructed. As spaces of national belonging they may extend to
settlements, small regions (historical) counties or even the whole of Slovakia –
but not ‘Upper Hungary’. This latter is without doubt split up by the plurality
of the motherlands. Just as for those living in Hungary the national space within
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the state borders is not homogenous, though it is prescribed as being so, neither
is it for those in other states. Thus, the homelands created may be divided from
one another by boundaries within the state borders. Depending on the various
politics of difference, these may be language boundaries, regional boundaries,
boundaries of administration or mentality, etc. All this goes to show that
individual localization strategies do not create the homeland, its boundaries
cannot be drawn just anywhere; rather, in the historicity of the discourse they
repeat and modify earlier boundaries. The construction of the homeland is not
to invent, to create something from nothing, but through confrontation with the
compulsions of the discourse, to struggle with the former given ‘constructions’,
to create homeliness through making use of them.
This confrontation means that to reject the state ‘beyond the border’
identification one must accept the identity categories prescribed by the
discursive compulsion, thus it is possible to redesignate them in such a way that
the belonging remains national. In the present case the interpellation ‘you are
different Hungarians’ has to be accepted, and the displacement carried out by the
‘beyond the border’ discourse has to be reacted to. Through individual national
localization the ‘different’ becomes ‘better’, the hierarchy of disdain is reversed,
and its object becomes the Hungarian state and the nation bound within its
borders. I have named this discursive procedure distancing, the basis of which is
the position that becomes possible by virtue of Hungarian belonging outside the
state borders. We have seen that this action may follow several strategies according
to the life story specifics of the narrations: it may be a reversal of the rich-poor,
master-servant, supporter-supported, mother-child relationship, or perhaps the
formation of a relationship not designated by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse. In
this case the switch in the power relationship takes place through its taking on new
meanings. In the case of the localization practices analyzed an example of this is
the designation of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ relationship as healthy-sick, moral-immoral,
professional-dilettant, special (exotic)-ordinary, or multilingual-monolingual.
In the practice of localization this distancing is inseparable from the
construction of Hungarian belonging, which compared to this discursive
movement is self-explanatory and immobile. A good example of the mutually
assuming parallelism of distancing and the construction of the homeland is
that if the increase in value of ‘here’ is implemented according to the norm of
‘valuable because of being Hungarian’, then the difference in belonging can only
be safeguarded if the ‘there’ created by counter-distancing is identified as a lesser
value or other Hungarian. In this Hungarian-Hungarian counter-distancing, the
majority of past narrations carry out the localization supported and prescribed
by the ‘beyond the border’ discourse, which localization is defined primarily
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by the fateful givens of birth, mother tongue and national history understood
as the reality of the past, and by ‘being rooted’ in the soil as manifested in the
geographical landscape, which forms a territorialized and natural national home.
The relation between individual and space comes about as a convergence of nation
and territory, which accords with the relationship prescribed by the Hungarian
state, and in the same way is demarcated by the territory of historical Hungary.
In quality the borders of the Hungarian homelands outside the state borders
correspond to the borders prescribed by the nation-state territorial norm, but
their strategic drawing invalidates the unquestionable and normative unity of
state and nation.
The localization which carries out the distancing of the Hungarian ‘statenation’ and also constructs natural homelands outside the border resignifies the
devalued identity category (‘another kind of Hungarian, needing support’, ‘poor
relation’ etc.) as an asset. The main procedure for this in the narrations analyzed
is that the narration creates and presents the personal-family past as the national
cultural heritage, as the values of national history, national literature, or the
mother tongue. The here-and-now of the narration, its historical locations, the
literary quotations, or the cultural sights describe a Hungarian national space,
which enables self-presentation and utterance as Hungarian. In addition, the
interviews also provide evidence of localization practices the individual carries
out outside the interview, in everyday life, such as the tour guide, the nurturing
of the historical memory of the Hungarian Reformed Church, or the various
civil initiatives preserving customs and traditions.
However, in the interviews analyzed localization on the principle of national
cultural heritage is not exclusive: in Andrea’s narration it acquires an ironic tone,
and in Imre’s it plays no role at all, since his narration does the work of using
and exploiting the past rather than heritagizing it. This can also be said for the
localization practices learned of from Imre’s narration: the mapping, the route,
the tour, the touristic event, all reviving the past. In this case the exploitation of
the ‘riches of the past’ is not confined to conservation. Moreover, these practices
ignore state borders, and indeed dispense with national categories, for the
knowledge gained from the past is valuable not simply because it is Hungarian
or Slovak. This type of localization rejects the territorial norm of the nation-state
by not applying it, and constructs a homeland and a belonging that is neither
territorial, nor natural nor helpless.
The localization strategies identified are not the personal inventions of the
interviewees, but rather form part of a broader discursive repertoire. Their use in
the space of governmentality can be interpreted as a strategy, a resistance, to the
normative identification prescribed by the state through the ‘beyond the border’
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discourse. This is the individual use of the tools and techniques of the national
representation of the past institutionalized by the state, during which they are
also modified, and thus become personal. The common factor between them is
that they create difference based on spatial location and produce value.
Paradoxically, the ‘beyond the border’ discourse is responsible for the
devaluation of the Hungarian nation (in Hungary). It implements a cultural logic
which on the one hand forbids migration from the motherland, since by this means
it identifies individual and territory as Hungarian; on the other hand it makes
the addressee unquestionably Hungarian by placing him outside the state border,
and thus withdrawing his Hungarianness. This also happens when the category
of the ‘Hungarian beyond the border’ becomes the guage of Hungarianness in
conflicts in domestic politics, since self-identification as Hungarian brings with
it the depriving the political adversary of his Hungarianness. Through this the
discourse eliminates the very normative ideal of Hungarianness it prescribes.
After all, if it can be withdrawn, or if it is an issue of party preference, the absolute
value of Hungarianness as a quality is called into question: it becomes a choice
rather than a destiny. The mother country is thus a ‘bad mother’ who in gathering
her children to herself intimates that they come from other parents.
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7. State-free Nationalism,
Natural National Resistance
National belonging arises as a spatial problem such that we take into account
the spatial dynamic inseparable from the cultural logic of nationalism, to which
as a reaction the national idea offers a solution. This dynamic arises partly from
the spatial movement, or arrangement of space, which is customarily known as
deterritorialization, i.e. operations differing from nation-state territoriality; and
partly from the series of spatial displacements induced by the consistent application
of the territorial norm of the nation-state – in spite of the fact that the national
representation of space is static and ahistorical. The ‘national order of things’, the
cultural representation of the world according to the nation-state norm, in which
every nation and every individual, belonging to a single nation, has their place,
and the system of these places provides the opportunity for peaceful coexistence
in the ‘family of nations’, is an ideal which cannot be flawlessly realized. The role
of the ‘flaws’, the areas qualified as abnormal, is precisely for the prescribed norm
to appear as correct and ideal. The spatial dynamic of nationalism seen purely
from the point of view of this ideal is not visible, nor does it seem abnormal.
I have investigated national belonging in the context of the spatial dynamic
of nationalism in order to study how the nation-state (or other actors) reacts to
spatial displacements which cast doubt on national belonging. I have posed the
question in connection to Hungarian belonging, and have attempted to answer
it through research on memory. I have examined localization practices through
which the reaction to spatial displacements is realized. Localization is a spatial
practice which enacts the relationship between individual and space through the
management of the past, in short it is a spatial practice of remembrance. I have
limited the examination of localization practices to narrations of the past.
With regard to Hungarian national belonging, one of the most significant
deterritorializing events of the recent past was the collapse of the bipolar world
order, the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc. Following this, the official Hungarian
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nation-state representation repositioned the Hungarian nation in space, and did
so through localization practices which I have termed national cartography, and
identified by analyzing state commemorative addresses. Practices of national
cartography impose the territorial norm of the nation-state, i.e. they territorialize,
moreover they do so by rooting national belonging into the territory through
the self-explanatory meanings of geographical location; thus making it a part
of nature, on which human acts have no effect, only the ‘national fate’, which
however comes about precisely due to the location of the nation. State, nation and
territory are inscribed into one single entity. Through the self-evident positioning
of the homeland the national home made natural is exclusive in nature, since it
allows only the positions of the compatriot and the ‘other’. In this construction
there is realized a natural attachment to the helpless homeland, which promises to
provide ontological security to the members of the nation by the homeland always
‘being there’ whatever may happen in the course of history; it does not require
human care and nurture, formation or alteration. The homeland is portrayed as
permanent, a natural entity, which instead of requiring alteration in the changing
world, is to be protected from change. Change, in this representation, which can
only ‘attack’ from outside, means decline – decline compared to a past which is
re-formed by the needs of the present.
The ‘national body’ materializing in this discourse is apparently not a political
quality, but a natural one. As a consequence of this, the nation ejects from itself
those whom it creates as ‘other’, and in opposition to whom it defines itself as
‘pure Hungarian’ (this continuous drawing of the border in the construction of
the subject is perhaps most clearly encapsulated by the concept of abjection1 from
psychoanalysis) – which also entails spatial displacement.
This examination of the operation of state localization is complemented by the
perspective from wich arises the question of the reconstruction of belonging as a
response to the uprooting resulting from the imposition of the territorial norm of
the nation-state. How is the expelled able to make an utterance in this operation
of the national discourse? The comparison of the state practices of national
cartography and individual identity strategies was made possible by the concept
of governmentality. Governmentality is the political space, formed by power
relations, in which struggles between normative identification by the state and
self-identification of the individuals take place, in which the discursive practices
of localization can be interpreted as techniques of the self, i.e. as practices which,
enacted on oneself, turn the individual into a subject. The struggles of identity
take place in the imaginative laboratory of national discourse, in which the subject
1
See Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l’horreur. Essai sur l’abjection, (Paris: Seuil, 1980).
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experiments on himself, and shapes himself. The means of self-articulation, in this
case the practices of localization form part of the cultural repertoire with whose
help and through which the individual has access to himself.
In the examination of the internal dynamic of national discourse I have
tried to clarify how the practices of normative identification (exclusion) operate
in the construction of individual belonging. This means that I have raised the
issue of resistance within the given operation of the national discourse; in other
words, I have been less curious about the extent to which the construction of
cultural belonging avoids or invalidates this operation. Instead, the question
was how individuals make use of the localization practices prescribed by the
Hungarian nation-state, and how they use strategies of resistance. The individual
is compelled to face being outcast from the national body, with the cultural and
spatial consequences thereof; and he is able to engage in a struggle against this
constraint only after he has been named in the national discourse, i.e. he has
become a capable subject during (exclusive) interpellation (‘You’re different, you
belong elsewhere!’).
I have examined two cases from this perspective, on the basis of whether the
spatial displacement triggered by the territorial norm of the nation-state was
realized with or without the movement of individuals. The self-narrations of
those of German origin expelled from their homeland by reason of ‘not belonging
here’ can be seen as an identity strategy which constructs the relationship of
the individual to the self through the principle of cultural heritage. Thus the
personal and family history presented as an ethnic past and embodied in the
locality (here, the village/town) becomes valuable, and the subject is liberated of
the stigma of the identity category of ‘German’ (‘German’ = guilty), by its being
objectified and redefined through musealization. At the same time the individual
can present their Hungarian belonging, since the locality is situated in Hungarian
national territory. Re-localization by the principle of cultural heritage, the reformation of ethnic belonging through the spatialization of difference constructs
homelands that are clearly different from either the ‘German’ or the ‘Hungarian’
(states). Ethnic homelands are constructed, qualitatively equal to the nation-state
homeland, defined by the destiny of birth, and originating in territorialized and
exclusive geographical situation, to which people are naturally bound in the same
way as the territorial principle of the nation-state. This identity strategy reverses
the power relationship (understood in the sphere of governmentality) between
individual and state, such that it makes use of localization practices, the means and
instruments of national representation of the past, and with them forms ethnic
homelands analogous to the nation-state homeland but sharply distinct from it.
This is a resistance that subverts territorial principle of the the nation-state, which
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weighs on the individual as a discursive constraint, without questioning it in
regard to the relation between individual and place. The borders of the homeland
constructed by self-musealization are qualitatively equivalent to the borders of the
homeland according to the territorial norm of the nation-state, but the strategic
marking out of them invalidates the unquestionable unity of state and nation.
A similar process is at work in the self-narrations which revolve around the
reaction to spatial displacement without the movement of individuals, which
makes a difference between Hungarian and Hungarian, and was drawn by
the ‘beyond the borders’ discourse. In this case the construction of Hungarian
belonging must be carried out in such a way that at the same time the exclusive
and disdainly identification prescribed by the ‘beyond the borders’ discourse can
be rejected. As a result of the use by individuals of the means and instruments of
national representation of the past institutionalized by the state such homelands
situated outside of Hungary are created, which are qualitatively equivalent
to the Hungarian nation-state homeland, but are sharply distinct from it; the
Hungarian belonging embodied in them is therefore distinguishable from the
‘reunified Hungarian nation’ prescribed as a norm. However, the relationship
to these national homes too is natural, and is defined by the destined givenness
of birth, the national landscape, and the absolute value of Hungarianness. The
application of localization procedures of the territorial norm of the nation-state
creates difference based on and derived from spatial position, and produces value.
In this strategy of resistance, the disdainful and protective relationship formed
in the discourse originating in Hungary is reversed, and compared to the relocalized homeland the Hungarian state and nation is put outside the border and
devalued. This resistance is one which does not question the relationship between
man and soil prescribed by the territorial norm of the nation-state, yet because
the borders of the national home are not the state borders, it rejects the norm.
This spatial dynamic makes possible the constant construction of national
belonging. However the construction of non-nation-state homelands means a
cultural form of the national relationship of individual and places that rejects
the territorial ideal prescribed as a norm of nationalism, according to which the
borders of nation and state must be congruent.
Alternative National Homes
Two important lessons follow on from all this. In the construction of identity
the drawing of national borders can differ from or even ignore state borders.
The various localization procedures create ‘alternative national homes’ which
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whether they are embodied within or without the territory of the nation-state,
are neither linked to a state organization, nor require one. Doubt is thus cast on
the nation-state doctrine of nationalism, since the construction of alternative
national homes creates national belonging without striving for statehood, thus
rejecting the norm of ‘one state, one culture/nation’. In this sense, this operation
of the national discourse ‘finds an answer’ to the challenges of the time. And
yet, the other lesson to be learned is that in this dialectic of normative national
identification and resistance, the constructed ‘alternative’ state-free national
belongings are characterized by a relationship between people and places which
is identical to nation-state territorialization. The examined territorializing
localization practices repeat the territorial norm of the nation-state by eroding
the cultural and national homogeneity prescribed by it. After all, these practices
construct ethnic homelands within the nation-state territory and national
homelands outside the nation-state, which however, in a manner equivalent to
the nation-state ideal, are externally delimited in space, homogenized internally,
and rooted in the soil.
In relation to the discourse of nationalism many apparently unusual questions
arise, to which an approach to the construction of national identity which focuses
on the drawing of borders may find an answer: where and how can a ‘valid’
national home take shape, what makes a ‘national home’ valid, what makes a
home national and what makes something ‘national’ homely? The answer to
the questions of ‘where’ and how may be that in the construction of alternative
national homes the repetition of the nation-state territorial norm is enacted
through the application of state localization practices, at least as regards the
spatialization and territorialization of the politics of national-ethnic difference.
In this way in all three cases of construction of the homeland examined by me,
the criteria for national belonging are ‘indigenousness’, fateful birth, geographical
positioning, the national landscape, and the notion of the mother tongue. The
‘validity’ of alternative national homes also follows from this, just as the answer to
the question of the nationhood of the home must be sought here (these questions
arise in a different manner in other, transnational or even non-national contexts).
The reason nationhood is so ‘seductive’ in the rivalry of cultural belongings
is because it is able to appear as given and constant, as a natural and unchanging
entity, which arouses a sense of security by ensuring an unquestionable place in a
changing world. And yet the price of this (beyond the constant references to the
naturalness of national belonging) is that the national home becomes restrictive,
and at times even exclusive. The cultural significance of the permanent and
unchanging homeland (or as I have named it earlier, the helpless homeland) can be
understood in the context of the changing, uncertain, (at least apparently) risk-filled
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world. The question of course is not what the world in which the nation appears
as a final shelter is actually like, but much rather how national representation
portrays it, and by what means. This representation is always spatial insofar as
it draws the border between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’, and is territorializing insofar
as it inscribes this border into the soil, geographically materializing the national
home. The construction of identity always takes place through the ‘outsider’,
the one who does not belong, with self-identification through the differentness
of the ‘other’ as ‘something else’. The discursive operations of exclusion localize
by the fact that the operations questioning a given construction of place and
belonging, or relativizing it (other attachments are also possible), are represented
as a threat. This happens in the case of national cartography, where the global
spatial rearrangement is designated as ‘no-man’s land’ and thus as ‘belonging to
nowhere’; in the case of homelands within Hungary, where the actions in the
liberated arena of memory politics are interpreted as losses of reality; and in the
case of homelands outside the country, where the ‘Hungarianness’ as a standard,
made part of domestic political intrigues, casts doubt on the absolute values of the
Hungarianness of the alternative national home. It is a matter of the discursive
production of homeliness both naming and reproducing the (external) threats
and risks to the national home in order that it constantly find a solution for them.
The solution however is no more than a promise, since the withdrawal of national
belonging, i.e. the fact it can be withdrawn incessantly discredits its naturalness.
As to the question of how national belonging can operate as natural in spite
of the ferociously intensive scholarly (and normative) criticism of recent decades,
one of the answers might be that without altering its cultural operation it is able
to duck under, resist even, the identification defined by state institutions. In other
words, detached from the state, the nation – without becoming transnational – is
able in practice to provide the promise which scholarly analyses have repeatedly
cast doubt on. At the same time a price must be paid for this promise. Intervention
according to the territorial norm of the nation-state can, using Ulrich Beck’s
words, be considered a strategy of counter-modernization, and can be understood
as the discursive process of making national belonging natural. In each of the
three cases analyzed it can clearly be seen that national belonging becomes natural
through the spatial-material identification of past and present. Regarding the
internal dynamics of nationalism, considering the cases in their mutual context,
it is also clear how this national discourse ceaselessly questions natural belonging,
which, since it can be and is withdrawn, must and can be represented as natural
with a continuous, never-ending construction of memory. This strategy, national
closure, is doomed to failure, since on the one hand it is unable to maintain the
homeland intact and unaltered by the ‘outside world’, and on the other it is based
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on mutual exclusion, and finally inhibits the continuous adaptation vital to a
changing context – by thwarting the politics of belonging.
Respect for Nature
The naturalness of national homes and belonging means that in human
communities, the relationship of the members to each other, is placed in the
realm of Nature, through the territory and landscape, or more precisely through
the congruence created with them. Relationships between people thus appear
given and unchanging, normal, from which if any divergence appears, it qualifies
as deviance. The localization practices identified earlier can be interpreted as
the processes of making belonging natural. This discursive operation however
remains unanswered in its entirety until we investigate the notion of Nature.
That is, until we approach the question of how the practical application of the
national category refers to Nature, of what it means to say that geographical
position or the landscape is natural. This reference repeats the separation between
nature and society, that is, it draws a border between non-humans and humans,2
depicting the world of nations as part of the order of Nature. And of course what
is natural, is also good, and to be recommended. Whether Nature is given the
role of harmony, of an example to be followed, or of an avenging power, the
quotidian quasi-religious, certainly mystical practices of respecting it refer to a
harmonious order in which every thing has its appointed place, which must not
be disturbed, because the consequences will be grave (Nature will punish).3 Yet
the delineation of the border between nature and society is always uncertain; for
instance, nobody wishes to live utterly consistently according to Nature, yet it is
difficult to relinquish the idea that Nature provides some kind of model for the
human race which must be followed. Those who do not follow it may even be
labelled as unnatural. The natural-unnatural qualifications are used in the same
way as the normative distinctions between good and bad, normal and abnormal,
healthy and sick, which by-passes reflection on the correct and incorrect deeds: the
idea of nature ‘pollutes’ moral and political debate. The ‘respect’ for the ‘natural
order’ or obedience to the ‘laws of nature’ can be a basis for ethics, at the price
of confusing two quite different meanings of the concept of law (as a regularity,
2
On this see Bruno Latour, We have never been modern, (trans.) Catherine Porter, (Harvard University
Press, 1993).
3
Yves Bonnardel, “En finir avec l’idée de nature, renouer avec l’éthique et la politique,” Les temps
modernes, 630–631, (March–June 2005): 107–121.
290 |
and as a command).4 The deceitful ethics of nature effects an illegitimate jump
between ‘is’ and ‘should be’, in other words, it is nothing more than a reference
to ‘the way things are’ which rules out the posing of any critical questions. The
reason this is problematic, dangerous even, is that it offers an ‘illusory guiding
principle’ in relation to highly topical problems.5 This guiding principle, the
model of the ‘national order of things’ can be followed; however the problems,
conflicts and doubts it is supposed to solve, prevent or resolve are regenerated.
To make national belonging natural is to reproduce in human terms the
boundary between the human and the non-human. This has two consequences.
One is that the way of living defined by national belonging, life conduct in the
Foucauldian sense, is based on the deceitful ethics of nature. Ultimately, the
territorial norm of the nation-state prescribes that ‘every person has a place
where their place is’: in their own nation, on their own nation’s own territory,
in their own homeland. The other consequence is that it is this operation that
thwarts the politics of cultural belonging, not in the sense of the public space
defined by the institutional system of the nation state, but in that of the space of
governmentality, in which the concept of politics relates both to the governmental
practices institutionalized by the state and to the techniques of the self in the
personal construction of identity. National community’s and geographical
territory’s natural belonging together, although it operates power relations,
withdraws belonging from the scope of judgement and politics, depicting it as a
‘final answer’ which must however be continually given.
A further consequence of national belonging according to the ‘respect for
nature’ is that the home-production, materiality and naturalness (in the lower-case
meaning of the word) of localization practices are not represented; since Nature
does not need to be worked, or shaped, and to strive for a natural home is simply
to want unchangingness and to preserve the appearance thereof. On the basis of
the territorial norm of the nation-state in spatial representation ‘homelessness’ can
only cease if the individual returns to ‘the’ home, and takes the place ordained for
him in the world (in this case the practices of naturalization of the nation-state
serve not the production of a home, but assimilation).
4
5
Yves Bonnardel, “En finir avec l’idée de nature.”
Yves Bonnardel, “En finir avec l’idée de nature.”
| 291
+ 1 n in the equation
If realized through making [belonging] natural, the ability of the spatial practices
of remembrance, which produce locality, is not visible, not recognized, and is
therefore restricted, a consequence of which is the helpless homeland, which
does not require care. The materiality of the helpless homeland proclaims eternal
unchangingness. Earlier, that discursive production of homeliness not based on
the concept of nature I called the opportunity inherent in the notion of homeland.
This question can be expressed as ‘+ 1 n in the equation’: ethnic = ethical. An
ethnic life conduct does not make possible an ethical way of living, precisely
because through making it natural it removes national belonging from the range
of deeds that can be judged. To resolve the equation it is not sufficient merely
to recognize the ‘societal aspect’ of practices of localization; their corporealmaterial nature must also be taken into account. The naturalness (with a small
n) of localization practices means that although they are societal, they are part
of the objective-material world, and shape it. Almost without exception the
practices analyzed were defined by the respect for Nature – rare exceptions were
the ‘relative localization’ of the state commemorative address in 2005, and the last
life story analyzed, which consciously drew on the materiality of localization in
the construction of the homeland.
| 293
Acknowledgements
This volume is based on the doctoral dissertation National Belonging as a Spatial
Problem: memory politics in Hungary post-1989 defended as part of the Doctoral School
of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Eötvös Loránd University. The institution
granted me a scholarship from 2003 to 2006. My thanks go to Dénes Némedi, who
as my consultant and previously as the tutor for my thesis was of great assistance
in my work. I am similarly grateful to Péter Niedermüller, who regularly gave
constructive criticism on each chapter and useful advice regarding the writing of
the dissertation. Gábor Gyáni, Attila Melegh and Júlia Vajda, on the examination
committee, expressed their valuable opinion on my research. I am grateful for
Éva Kovács’s help, as a part of whose research the first version of chapter five was
written.
Between 2006 and 2008 I received a grant from the Centre français de
recherche en sciences socials (CEFRES) in Prague, and had the opportunity to
continue and present my research in an inspiring international environment. I
am extremely grateful to Marie-Claude Maurel, then director, who aided my
work with opportunities for publication and conferences, and to all the staff and
PhD candidates of the institute for their valuable criticisms, debate, opinions,
suggestions, language corrections, organizational assistance, particularly to
Eloise Adde, Paul Bauer, Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux, Christian Jacques, Christian
Lequesne, Claire Madl, Pascal Marty, Hana Netukova, Mathieu Plésiat, Igor
Tchoukarine and Anne-Claire Veluire.
During the research and in writing the book János Deme, Ágnes Gagyi,
Melinda Kovai, Hannes Lachmann, Fruzsina Lengyel, Dániel Pásztor and Nóra
Rosta provided assistance in the form of conversation and reading the material.
I am grateful to those who took part in the research, who shared their life
stories and experiences with me, and to Tímea Banykó, Attila Bial and Kriszta
Sz. Simon, with whose help I was able to find interviewees in Slovakia.
Appendix
| 297
Commemorative addresses of the presidents of the republic of Hungary
and prime ministers on August 20 between 1990 and 2005, with sources
GÁ1990a: Speech given by President of the Republic Árpád Göncz on August 19, 1990 at the
statue of Saint Stephen in Székesfehérvár. In Árpád Göncz, Sodrásban: Válogatott beszédek,
selected and compiled by Mária Makai Tóth, (ed.) Judit Márvány (Budapest: Európa,
1998), 84–87.
GÁ1990b: Speech given by President of the Republic Árpád Göncz on August 20, 1990 in
Ópusztaszer. In Göncz, Sodrásban, 87–91.
GÁ1992: President of the Republic Árpád Göncz’s ‘unspoken speech’ (published in the
newspaper Magyar Nemzet). In Göncz, Sodrásban, 107–111. (On October 23, 1992 catcalling
prevented Árpád Göncz from giving a speech in Kossuth Square, Budapest.)
GÁ1993: President of the Republic Árpád Göncz’s speech given on August 20, 1993 in
Pécsvárad. In Göncz, Sodrásban, 120–129.
GÁ1995: President of the Republic Árpád Göncz’s speech given on August 20, 1995 in the
Buda Castle district. In Göncz, Sodrásban, 141–147.
GÁ1997: President of the Republic Árpád Göncz’s speech given on August 20, 1997 in the
Buda Castle district. In Göncz, Sodrásban, 161–167.
MF2001: President of the Republic Ferenc Mádl’s speech given on August 15, 2001 in
Esztergom at the unveiling of the statue of Saint Stephen. In A Köztársasági Elnöki Hivatal
évkönyve 2000/2001, 203–205. Available online: http://www.uio.no/english/research/
interfaculty-research-areas/culcom/news/2005/anderson.html. Accessed July 2, 2009.
MF2002: President of the Republic Ferenc Mádl’s speech given on August 19, 2002 in Tura.
In A Köztársasági Elnöki Hivatal évkönyve 2002, 208–209. Available online: http://www.keh.
hu/ elodokmadl_ferencbeszedek20020819tura.html. Accessed July 2, 2009.
MF2004: President of the Republic Ferenc Mádl’s speech given on August 16, 2002 in Tallinn
at the Fourth World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples. Available online: http://www.
keh.hu/ elodokmadl_ferencbeszedek20040816tallin_finnugor_vilagkongresszus.html.
Accessed July 2, 2009.
298 |
SL2005: President of the Republic László Sólyom’s speech given on 20 August 2005 in Kossuth
Square, Budapest. Available online: http://www.keh.hu/20050820solyom_laszlo_
koztarsasagi_elnok_unnepi.html. Accessed July 2, 2009.
AJ1992: Prime Minister József Antall’s speech given on August 20, 1992, at the statue of
Saint Stephen in the Buda Castle district. In József Antall Modell és valóság, (Budapest:
Athenaeum, 1994), 268–274.
AJ1993: Prime Minister József Antall’s speech given on August 20, 1993, at the statue of
Saint Stephen in the Buda Castle district. In József Antall Modell és valóság, (Budapest:
Athenaeum, 1994), 292–299.
HGY1996a: Prime Minister Gyula Horn’s speech given on August 18, 1996 (the text of Gyula
Horn’s speech was made available to me by the Hungarian Socialist Party, to whom my
thanks are due – M. Z.).
HGY1996b: Prime Minister Gyula Horn’s speech of August 19, 1996. HGY1997: Prime
Minister Gyula Horn’s speech of August 20, 1997.
OV1999: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech given on August 19, 1999 at the inauguration
of the building of the Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad. Available
online: http://2001-2006.orbanviktor.hu/ Accessed July 2, 2009.
OV2000: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech given on August 20, 2000 in Kossuth Square,
Budapest. Available online: http://2001-2006.orbanviktor.hu/. Accessed July 2, 2009.
OV2001: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech given on August 20, 2001 in Kossuth Square,
Budapest. Available online: http://2001-2006.orbanviktor.hu/. Accessed July 2, 2009.
MP2002: Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy’s speech given on August 20, 2002, in Hero Square,
Budapest. Available online: http://medgyessy.hu/archivum/archivum9631. html?hir=658.
Accessed July 2, 2009.
MP2003: Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy’s address given on August 20, 2003, broadcast by
Hungarian Television. Available online: http://medgyessy.hu/archivum/archivumdde1.
html?hir=159. Accessed July 2, 2009.
Symbols used in the interview transcriptions
An interruption in the interview narration is marked by three periods, and a pause by three
hyphens. Text in bold means that the interviewee pronounces the words much louder and
more emphatically than the previous ones. Comments on metacommunication are placed in
simple parentheses in Roman type. The sign (…) refers to an excerpt which has deliberately
been cut from the transcription.
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Máté Zombor y
Máté Zombor y
This book shows that the world of nations is characterized by
a certain spatial dynamic which participates in the production and
maintenance of national belonging, as opposed to the static and
ahistorical spatial representation currently prevalent in eastern
Europe. The immobility and stability of the world of nations is
interpreted from the perspective of these spatial movements
of deterritorialization and ‘uprooting’, and thus there arise the
two different problems of the homeland and of ‘being at home’.
Among the spatial practices through which the individual and the
community inhabit space as national home, social remembering is
of crucial importance. The author elaborates on the spatial-corporeal dimension of memory practices by applying the concept
of localization and analysing the strategies of various individual and
governmental actors in drawing social-geographical space. This
theoretical framework enables to study the construction of cultural belonging as a reaction to the spatial dynamic of nationalism.
Maps of Remembrance
Space, belonging and politics of
memory in eastern Europe
Maps of Remembrance
The spatial problem of national belonging is investigated through
the struggles of post-1989 memory politics in Hungary. The
maps of remembrance of national identification are drawn
both by the state and by individuals whose Hungarian belonging,
at some point in the twentieth century, was questioned by force.
The Trianon Peace Treaty, the expulsion of those of German
origin after the Second World War, and the collapse of the bipolar world order are socio-historical events the memory of which
forces those affected to reconstruct their Hungarian belonging.
Whether dealing with state commemorations or individual life
stories, the author seeks the answer to the question of how
national belonging becomes natural in cases where the homeland
becomes doubtful. How is it possible to be at home after having
been expelled?
To the reader interested in sociological and cultural issues, this
volume presents the findings of a research which takes an original look at the relationships between nationalism and space,
between memory and spatial practices, and between the state
and the individual.
€ 12
I S B N 978 -963 -236 - 5 4 6 - 6
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