Artikel 1- The Funeral of Imre Nagy

The Funeral of Imre Nagy

Contested History and the Power ofMemory Culture*

KARL P. BENZIGER

On 16 June 1958 Imre Nagy, who had been the prime minister ofHungary during the ill-fated Revolution of 1956, was put to death bythe Soviet-backed regime of János Kádár and buried in an unmarkedgrave. Thirty-three years later, in a spectacular reversal of fortune, thecommunist regime was delegitimized by the funeral and reburial of ImreNagy. Well over 300,000 Hungarians attended the ceremony, a verysizable portion of the population for a country with less than ten millioncitizens. In a forceful assertion of the collective will, the Hungarianpeople demonstrated their power to resist the tyranny of foreignoccupation and made plain their desire for an autonomous state.

The funeral dramatically symbolized how Hungarian memoryculture reasserted its demand for sovereignty and was powerful enoughto sweep aside the thin veneer of legitimacy of the Soviet-backed regime.Embodied in the Hungarian people’s imagined past, always at work justbelow the surface of daily life, this memory culture must be understoodin the context of Hungary’s long history in Central Europe and beyond.Hungary had been a powerful medieval kingdom until its defeat at thehands of Suleiman the Magnificent, at the battle of Mohács on 29August 1526. From that time on, except for brief intervals, the Hungari-ans had been under occupation, or under the hegemony of another state,most notably the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Hapsburgs, Germanyand the Soviet Union.

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Occupation, warfare and migration changed the nature of theHungarian population over time. Instead of allowing this history todestroy their identity, however, the Hungarians managed to maintaintheir cohesion as a people and a nation by clinging to their language,culture and memories. The idea of Hungary was strong enough to createa national culture, which is today an ethnic religious composite ofMagyars, Jews, Germans, Serbs and Slavs.1 In spite of the diversetraditions embodied within each of these groups, enough elementsremain constant to create a sense of primordial loyalty to the idea ofbeing Hungarian. According to Clifford Geertz, primordial attachmentsare “those congruities of blood, speech, custom and so on that seem tohave an ineffable and at times overpowering coerciveness in and ofthemselves.”2

One of the most important rituals that embodies memory inHungarian society is the concept of kegyelet. Kegyelet is synonymous withEmile Durkheim’s concept of piacular rites and is defined as duty towardthe dead. Hungarians often use the analogy of Antigone’s obligation toher brother in describing how powerfully this value operates in Hungari-an society. Kegyeleti ritual reinforces that value in order to interpret thehistorical context of the present through the remembrance of the past.The hope of continuity is made manifest in the context of funereal rites.Memory culture in Hungary is powerfully reinforced through the variousrites of memorial that include not only the burial of the dead but alsothe remembrance of symbolic figures who help link Hungarian identityto the concept of community and nation.

A cultural performance such as a funeral or memorial rite providesa context in which the contemporary understanding of symbols can beexamined. The ritual process gives access to aspects of complex societiesthat modern life can occlude and political analysis cannot penetrate.3 Tosimply examine the political discussions surrounding the politicaltransition in Hungary in 1989 would not be enough to understand whythe transition occurred the way it did. A study of the funeral of ImreNagy thus links the essential institutions of social life with the memoryof Nagy’s role as a charismatic national symbol.

This article examines how people can dramatically incorporatememory culture into the political process of a complex society andprovide the impetus for change.

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KEGYELET: THE POWER OF MEMORIALIZATION IN HUNGARIAN SOCIETY

Symbolically, the funeral and graveside rituals reenact the death and therebirth of the deceased and, most importantly, reaffirm the strength andsolidarity of the community itself. The closing of the coffin serves toremind the family and friends of the reality of the separation between thedeceased and community. At a Roman Catholic funeral the priestsymbolically claims the body of the deceased by reading the story of howJoseph of Arimethea claimed Jesus’ body after the crucifixion so he couldbury him properly. The hope of spiritual resurrection is expressed by thepriest in the context of the great sacrifice of Jesus.4 That the memory ofthe deceased will live on in the context of the community is expressed inthe eulogy. Both memory and resurrection are intertwined at thegraveside where the grave mound is explicitly created in front of all theparticipants. The flowers and wreathes that are placed on the top of themound represent both memory and rebirth, and just as the communitywitnesses important rites of passage, such as marriage, so too does itpromise remembrance with the creation of the grave mound. Ribbonsaccompanying the flowers and wreathes not only establish relationship tofamily and friends but link the deceased to the community. The promiseof remembrance links the present to the past, and the decoration andcare of the mound is a constant reminder of the rebirth of this memory.In a Hungarian funeral the deceased return not only to their immediatefamily but also to the community of the Hungarian nation. As the “panicof sorrow” subsides, the strength of the community is reaffirmed by theensuing solidarity that collective mourning brings.5 Rites of mourningalso create something that survives the decomposed body: the idea of thesoul.6 The grave mound becomes a physical place of remembrance forthe “soul” of the deceased and in this sense becomes a constant reminderof the deceased’s solidarity with the community; even in death.

The “coerciveness” (to use Geertz’s term) of kegyeleti ritual can beobserved on the days and weeks surrounding All Souls’ Day in theRoman Catholic calendar, which corresponds to the Hungarian Day ofthe Dead. My observation of the Új Köztemeto (New Public Cemetery)in Budapest revealed a living city of the dead, in which thousands ofHungarians came to care for the grave mounds of their deceased. Theentrance way to the cemetery was filled with purveyors of flowers,

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wreathes and candles. To accommodate the large crowds the touristtrains, still with their beer advertisements from one of the public parks,took people to various points in the cemetery. The ritual performed atthe graveside was essentially the same. Prayers of the family and friendswere recited, candles lit and the grave mounds lovingly cared for. In spiteof the large numbers of people, the rituals within the cemetery at thegraveside remained somber.

Accompanying the ritual gatherings at the cemeteries of Hungaryduring the days surrounding the Day of the Dead are concert venues atthe various music halls, such as the National Opera in Budapest andSzeged, in which works of memorial such as the Brahms or VerdiRequiems are performed. At one such performance that I attended in1994, some members of the audience were openly weeping at the endof the performance.

The political connection between personal funeral ritual and thestate is made explicit in national public rituals that mimic the verypersonal remembrance that is the essence of kegyeleti ritual. Memorial-ization of national heroes, encompassing not only the great revolutionaryheroes of 1848 and now 1956 but also great teachers and artists, is partof the daily life of the Hungarian people. In the case of a hero a plaqueor a monument serves as the locus in place of an actual grave mound forthe performance of kegyelet. For example, on 6 October 1997 I observedschool children commemorating the Eternal Light Memorial of LajosBatthyány in order to honor him as a Hungarian hero on the day he wasexecuted by the Austrians in 1849. Batthyány had been the primeminister of Hungary during the 1848–1849 Hungarian Revolution.Hungarians use the term vértanu (blood witness) to describe martyrs ofthe nation. The children brought flowers to the base of the memorial,recited prayers and lit memorial candles under the supervision of theirteachers and parents who had accompanied them on this trip.7

Name days serve to reinforce this concept within the popularHungarian community. In Hungary, every “given” Hungarian name hasits own day and is the cause for celebration in both the home and theoffice. In the case of a name day for a particular notable, it is commonfor wreathes to be placed on hooks next to the commemorative plaque,or a jar of flowers and possibly a candle under or near the plaque.

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The Búcsú is the memorial day of a saint, which has its origins inmedieval times when priests would sell dispensations for the forgivenessof sins, as well as pray for the intercession of the saint in the affairs of thecommunity. It is a day of both memorial and celebration.8 On St.Steven’s Day, the twentieth of August, which is a national holiday inHungary, statues and plaques of Hungary’s first king are highlydecorated with tricolors, flowers and wreathes with ribbons (often fromHungary’s leading political parties). According to legend it was Stevenwho founded the Hungarian Kingdom in A.D. 996. The relic of St.Steven’s hand is presented to the people at an outdoor mass held in frontof St. Steven’s Basilica in Budapest and is followed by a processionthrough the streets. Steven’s relic is protected not only by an honorguard dressed in the clothing of the former royal bodyguard (completewith halberds), but it is also given an official military honor guard. At theservice in front of the basilica, Steven is invoked to intercede on behalfof the Hungarian nation for God’s protection and guidance. Throughoutthe country there are major celebrations; the day finishes in Budapestwith fireworks and the St. Steven’s Day fair which often runs for fivedays.

The importance of memorialization in the popular construction ofHungarian history can be evidenced by films such as The Conquest, whichwas produced by MTV 1 and first seen on the evening of St. Steven’sDay, 20 August 1997.9 The film chronicles the invasion and conquest ofthe Carpathian Basin by the seven Hungarian tribes through a drama-tized enactment of Hungary’s founding legends. The dress and accoutre-ments worn by the actors were based on archaeological finds that can beviewed at museums throughout Hungary, but most prominently at theNational Museum in Budapest. At the National Memory Park atÓpusztaszer these founding legends are further reinforced in the guiseof a nineteenth-century cyclorama by Feszty Árpád which depicts thecataclysmic battle between the seven Hungarian tribes and the Moraviansfor possession of the Carpathian plain.

As funerals and memorials are part of the bedrock of Hungarianidentity, political relationship to these hero figures is fundamental topolitical legitimacy in Hungary. Popular construction of the meaning ofnational symbols occurs throughout the calendar year at Búcsú celebra-tions such as St. Steven’s Day, the more somber piacular rites surround-

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ing the Day of the Dead and at places of memorial such as the BatthyányEternal Light Memorial. The construction of national history in thisguise is intimately interwoven with the symbols of national identity.Whether originating from Hungarian Roman Catholic ritual, the 1848Hungarian Revolution or points from Hungary’s distant past, what bindsthese diverse acts of memorial together are their focus on nationalsovereignty. The Hungarian historian István Rév claims that “the historyof Hungary is one of battles lost, the normal public rituals are thereforefunerals and burials rather than victory parades.”10 As such, the re-arrangement of these hero figures can create differing chains of historythat can suit the needs of various political factions at a given time. Thefuneral of Imre Nagy on 16 June 1989 provided just the sort of occasionthat encouraged a public reinterpretation of history.

THE FUNERAL OF IMRE NAGY

Imre Nagy was and remains a contested figure in Hungarian politics. Asa national Communist who felt that the way to a socialist utopia forHungary could only be found through the institutions authentic toHungarian society, he was anathema to those Communists who professedbelief in the “universal man” and the Soviet path to socialism. He wastwice expelled from the Hungarian Communist Party and was mostprobably compromised by the KGB to inform on fellow Hungariansliving in Moscow during his first banishment prior to World War II.11

The accession to power by the Soviet-backed Hungarian Commu-nist Party in 1948 was marked by a brutality that affected well over500,000 Hungarians who suffered arrest, interrogation, forced relocation,imprisonment or execution. Under the leadership of Mátyás Rákosi,Hungary embarked on a series of disastrous economic policies that, bythe time of Stalin’s death in 1953, had brought Hungary to the brink ofeconomic ruin. This was coupled by the imposition of Stalinist socialmodels in which Hungarian national symbols were subordinated to thoserelevant to the creation of the Soviet conception of the “universal man.”For example, St. Steven’s Day was celebrated as Constitution Day andlater as the Holiday of the New Bread. Hungarians were enraged by the

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repeated affronts to their national identity, let alone the reign of terrorthat Rákosi had unleashed against his own people.12

It was Nagy’s interest in Hungarian agricultural reform andnationalism that endeared him to anti-Stalinist reformers within theHungarian Communist Party.13 Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953 andNikita Khrushchev’s rise to power strengthened the reformers’ handsand, with the approval of Moscow, Nagy became prime minister. Hisreforms during his first term (1953–1955), which included an endingof the terror that had been enacted by the Hungarian Stalinists, madehim the focus of the students’ demands prior to the 1956 Revolutionthat he be restored to the post of prime minister.14

Nagy was ousted from office following the resurgence of theStalinist faction in the Hungarian Communist Party in April 1955. Heremained a popular figure among the Hungarian people, and criticism ofMátyás Rákosi and the Stalinists continued unabated. In the days leadingup to the 1956 Revolution, Nagy was idealized by the students andtransformed into a revolutionary hero embodying the demands of libertyand sovereignty more akin to the revolutionaries of 1848 than to Nagyhimself, who was not particularly interested in liberal reform.15

In an attempt to quell the stormy protests of 23 October 1956, theHungarian Communist Party with the backing of the Soviets reinstatedNagy as prime minister on the following morning. Nagy demanded thatthe revolutionaries lay down their weapons. Nagy’s decision not torequest Soviet assistance or order the Hungarian security forces to putdown the Revolution were factors that allowed him to maintainlegitimacy with the Hungarian people in the streets. These eventuallywould be the same factors that would turn the Soviets and conservativemembers of the Hungarian Communist Party against him.16

It was only on 30 October that Nagy joined with the full demandsof the Revolution with his establishment of a coalition government andits ultimate decision to declare neutrality and demand the withdrawal ofall Soviet forces from Hungarian territory.17 This point was emphasizedforty years later by Ottó Sándorffy, a member of the Smallholder’s Party,during the debate on the Imre Nagy Memory Bill of 1996 in theHungarian Parliament: “Nagy probably knew his forthcoming destiny,as he knew that his Communist comrades would never forgive his desireto remain Hungarian.”18 Though Nagy was and remains a contested

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figure within the Hungarian political scene, his decision to maintainsolidarity with the Revolution through his refusal to resign as primeminister on 4 November 1956 assured his place among the Hungarianpeople as a national martyr.

The power of Imre Nagy was well recognized by the communistregime under János Kádár who came to power in Hungary with thebacking of the Soviet military on 4 November 1956. After a bloodycounterrevolution, Kádár enacted a reign of terror as part of hisdemobilization strategy in a bid to silence those in opposition to the newregime. This resulted in the incarceration of well over 22,000 people, theemigration of over 200,000 and the execution of approximately 450revolutionaries, including Nagy.19 Nagy and his compatriots were buriedin Plot 301 at the back of the Új Köztemeto in Budapest. This plot wasused by the state as a burying place for the revolutionaries executed atthe Gyüjtofogház Prison.

Statues to the new heroes of Kádár’s counterrevolutionwere erectedand a conscious attempt was made to rewrite history in which Nagy andthe revolutionaries were portrayed as traitors and an aberration ofHungarian history.20 Nagy and his compatriots had been buried inunmarked graves in an attempt to symbolically remove them from theHungarian community. Relatives were not allowed to visit the site toperform kegyelet and, worse still, the graves were desecrated. Relativeswho erected grave mounds in secret would return to find them plowedinto the ground and the guards posted by the regime frequently rodeover the graves with their horses.21

The reality of the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution and theSoviet occupation was somewhat ameliorated by Kádár’s modifiedsocialist economy. Small-scale capitalist operations were encouragedthough the state remained tied to the command economy of the Sovietbloc. Hungarians enjoyed a certain degree of independence in exchangefor silence on the issues of national sovereignty and, most especially, theRevolution and Nagy.22

Although Hungarians by and large accepted the political reality ofthe time, they never accepted the legitimacy of the Soviet occupation.23

Since Nagy had been prime minister during the Revolution, he becamethe principal symbol of both the Revolution and the idea of nationalsovereignty. The demand to perform kegyelet became intimately

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intertwined with resistance to the regime. The interpretation of nationalsymbols was split between the regime’s public interpretation and theprivate interpretation that was discussed among family and friends inintimate settings.24 The memory of the Revolution was kept alivethrough state celebrations of the counterrevolution and the officialposting of guards at places of memorial on anniversaries related to theRevolution or the idea of national sovereignty (such as the beginning ofthe 1848 Revolution celebrated every year on the fifteenth of March).25

Silence regarding the Revolution was ensured by the state secret policeand the ever-present reminder of Soviet occupation.

The end came quickly and unexpectedly for the communist regimewith a downturn in the economy in the early 1980s which caused a splitbetween conservatives and reformers within the Communist Party. Thereformers believed that only a reform of the economy coupled withdemocratic changes could save the economy. Soviet President MikhailGorbachev’s new policies of glasnost’ and perestroika further emboldenedboth reformers within the Communist Party and dissenters fromwithout,who now began to openly defy the regime.26 The end came in December1988 when Gorbachev proclaimed that each client state was free to findits own path to socialism. Although not immediately understood by thedissenters to mean that the Soviet Union would no longer back up theclient regimes with force, it provided the impetus for radical action.27

The Hungarian state had attempted to thwart efforts by theHungarian people both to perform kegyelet and memorialize the 1956Revolution. This, in turn, provided the opposition with a symbolic locusfor dissent. For example, Plot 301, where Nagy and his compatriots lay,served as the focal point for a poignant protest that took place on theanniversary of Nagy’s execution on 16 June 1988. The protest wasfilmed by Black Box, an underground film studio associated with theFree Democrats, at the time an illegal opposition group . The protestwas an acknowledgement of the graves and their contents. The graves,marked by depressions in the ground covered by weeds, were symbolical-ly marked with flowers. The names of the martyrs were read aloud,followed by prayers and the singing of the Hungarian national anthem.28

A kopjafa (grave post) had been created by the dissident artists group“Inconnu” to officially mark the plot and memorialize the martyrs. TheKopjafa, literally a standing post or lance, is associated with the Székely

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warriors of Transylvania who were entrusted with guarding the easternborders of the medieval Hungarian kingdom. The richly carved posts arethought to have originated with the lances that were used to mark awarrior’s grave.29 The kopjafa created for the protest was confiscated bythe police, but pictures of the post were brought to the protest anddistributed to the protestors during the ceremonies.30 Protests that tookplace later in the day at the Batthyány Eternal Light Memorial and theHungarian Television station centered on memorializing the martyrs byreading their names out loud and were forcibly broken up by the police.

As the political situation deteriorated for the conservative factionwithin the Hungarian communist regime, the demand for a properreburial of Nagy and his compatriots became a demand for a publicreburial. Recognizing the symbolic power of Nagy and the Revolution,the reform faction within the communist regime demanded an officialreevaluation of the period.

The public announcement in January of 1989 by Imre Pozsgay, aleading member of the reform faction within the Communist Party, thatthe Revolution had been a popular uprising revealed the public splitwithin the party.31 This announcement was pivotal in justifying theopposition’s demand for a public reburial of Nagy. If the Revolution hadbeen a popular uprising, why had Imre Nagy and over 450 revolutionar-ies been put to death?

In March 1989 the bodies of Imre Nagy and his colleagues wereexhumed from Plot 301 and prepared for burial. The Historical JusticeCommittee, comprising a coalition of opposition groups which, alongwith the families of the deceased, had advocated a public reburial ofNagy and the other martyrs, signed an agreement with the Hungariangovernment on 25 May 1989 for a public funeral to be held at theHeroes Square in Budapest.

The construction of the Heroes Square had been begun in honorof the celebration of the millennium of the Hungarian kingdom in1896.32 The center of this square is dominated by a statue depictingÁrpád and the other six leaders of the seven Hungarian tribes enteringthe Carpathian basin. A grave to the unknown soldier is placed in frontof the statue in the center of the square, and immediately behind it is asemicircular pavilion that displays the pantheon of Hungarian kings andheroes. Thus a national sacred space was created that was appropriate for

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important national rituals and, in particular, for the memorialization ofthe heroes of the 1956 Revolution on 16 June 1989.

Throughout that day Hungarians streamed to the ceremony. By theend of the funeral service there was a veritable mountain of flowers infront of the caskets. Nagy’s casket was decorated with the symbol of the1956 Revolution—a Hungarian flag with the emblem of the communistregime torn out of the center. The power of the opposition had beendemonstrated in its ability to have forced the regime to allow a publicfuneral for Imre Nagy. It was then up to the Hungarian people to decidewhether to legitimate the ceremony or not.

Hungarians filed past the coffins throughout that day, the flow ofmourners interrupted only by the official wreath-laying ceremonies at 11A.M. As can be seen from films recorded by Black Box and HungarianTelevision, individuals and families were provided with enough space asthey approached the caskets in order to pay their proper respects. Insome cases individuals were overcome with grief and had to be helpedaway by family members and friends. By the end of the ceremonies atHeroes Square the mound of flowers was as high as the platform onwhich the coffins and the speaker’s lectern were placed.33 Not all whoattended had a chance to file past the coffins, and as the hearses left withthe coffins for the burial ceremony flowers were strewn in the path of thevehicles.34

The speeches were dramatic in their explicit demands forHungariannational sovereignty and democratic rule. Imre Mécs, who had beencondemned to death during the terror for his role in the Revolution andwas now a leader of the Free Democrats, urged that those who had beenresponsible for the years of authoritarian rule should be brought toaccount. “How could you [Hungarians] live without freedom for thirty-three years?” he asked.35 When Mécs demanded that the crowd promiseto Imre Nagy that they would save the achievements of the Revolution,his audience responded—citing from the National Verse written by thefiery 1848 revolutionary Sándor Petofi—that “they would not be heldcaptives any more.”36

Sándor Rácz, Union Leader of the Budapest Workers Council whohad spent seven years in prison for his participation in the Revolution,attacked both the Hungarian communist regime and the Soviet Union.

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Pointing to the presence of Soviet troops as the main obstacle toHungarian sovereignty, he declared:

These coffins and our bitter lives are the result of Russian troops onour territory. Let us help the Soviet Union to withdraw its troopsfrom Hungary as soon as possible. The Communist Party is stillclinging fearfully to power. What it could not achieve in the pastforty-four years it cannot achieve now. They are responsible for thepast, they are responsible for the damaged lives of Hungarians.37

Rácz concluded his speech with a Roman Catholic hymn which calls onthe Virgin Mary to protect Hungary. The film made by Black Boxshowed Hungarians on the street singing the hymn as they listened toit over the radio.

Perhaps the most passionate speech of the day was given by ViktorOrbán, today prime minister of Hungary and at that time a representa-tive of the Young Democrats, a student opposition group. János M.Rainer, a Hungarian historian and dissident, claims that the crowd thatday consisted of a large number of young people. Orbán spoke thelanguage of the young people and connected to them in a way the olderspeakers could not.38 Orbán declared that the young people in the crowdhad come not only to honor Nagy but also to mourn for a future takenaway by the Hungarian Communist Party: “the bankrupt state that hasbeen placed upon our shoulders is a result of the suppression of ourrevolution....”39 He vehemently attacked the reform Communists,commenting ironically:

We cannot understand that those who were eager to slander therevolution and its prime minister have suddenly changed into greatsupporters of Imre Nagy. Nor can we understand that the partyleaders, who made us study from books that falsified the Revolu-tion, now rush to touch the coffins as if they were charms of goodluck.40

His emotional speech drew applause from the crowd seven times.Having long been denied the ability to publicly mourn for the

consequences of the Hungarian Revolution, which had resulted not only

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in the loss of life but also in the humiliating loss, once again, of nationalsovereignty, the Hungarian people attended the funeral en masse. Thepiacular rites, coupled with the solemn symbolism of Heroes Square,stimulated Hungarians’ collective memory. Nagy’s funeral is illustrativeof Durkheim’s discussion of the “effervescence” caused by collectivegrieving. Victor Turner extended Durkheim’s theory in his discussion ofstructure and “communitas” (antistructure). The piacular ritual and its“excited state” created a state of liminality for those participating in theritual. Turner argued that this liminal state can provide for the develop-ment of an antistructure or communitas in which hierarchy and everydaystructure are replaced by a communal “we” identity, allowing for someof the more important aspects of a society to be revealed.41 In the caseof Nagy’s funeral, it was the value of a sovereign national identity thatwas revealed through the communal performance of kegyeleti ritual.

Though reform Communists appeared at the funeral to performkegyelet, they had only recently attempted to repossess the symbol ofImre Nagy. As such, they were associated with the conservative membersof the Hungarian Communist Party as it existed then and, through them,with the Kádár regime and the Soviet Union. Thus, they were fatallylinked to the official structure that was outside of what constituted asovereign Hungarian state as defined by the funeral. Never able to shakeoff this image, the Communists were driven from power. Imre Mécs,commenting on the importance of the funeral, noted that the “meaningof the ceremony was driven home by the Hungarian people. In areferendum held in November 1989 the Hungarian people abolished themilitary arm of the Communist Party, closed their offices in theworkplace and voted to examine in detail the party’s financing.”42

The focus of the funeral was on the contents of the caskets assymbols of national sovereignty, not on the disparity of political viewsthat abounded within the opposition or, for that matter, amongHungarians themselves. A number of different political symbols weredisplayed at the funeral, including, for example, flags bearing the royaland Kossuth coats of arms (the latter, which had been used during the1848 Hungarian Revolution, lacked the crown of St. Steven thatappeared on the former).43 Although members of the various factionswithin the opposition were well aware of political differences, this was

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unimportant to the vast majority of Hungarians who attended thefuneral.44

The process of negotiation between the superpowers, the politicalélite and the various opposition groups has been well explored in theworks of Timothy Garton Ash and Rudolf L. Tokés.45 Though theseportrayals reveal the complexity of relationships and deals that markedthe transition, they fail to account for the popular interpretation of theseevents. One of the reasons why the Hungarian people did not need to“go to the barricades” is in part explained by the disparity of symbolicinterpretation between the people and state which was made manifest atthe funeral of Imre Nagy. By attending the funeral, Hungarianslegitimized the opposition factions and hastened the end of thecommunist regime. This was borne out not only in regard to theelectoral choices made by the Hungarian people, but by the collapse ofthe Hungarian Communist Party without the military backing of theSoviet Union.

Hungarian memory culture played an important role in the politicaltransition of 1989. Memory culture conditioned the process of politicalsocialization by delimiting the boundaries of Hungarian identity duringthis period. A strong collective consciousness has appeared twice inpost–World War II Hungary—during the 1956 Revolution and at thefuneral of Imre Nagy in 1989. When sovereignty was threatened thecollective consciousness presented a unified front, thus explicitlydelimiting what constituted the idea of Hungarian identity. Conversely,in times of peace, such as exists in the Republic of Hungary today,memory culture acts as a stabilizing factor so that contentious dialogueregarding the meaning of Hungarian identity can take place.

EPILOGUE

Almost as soon as the Republic of Hungary was declared on 23 October1989 a fierce dispute emerged among the various political factions inregard to Imre Nagy’s place among Hungarian heroes. The initialinterpretations of the political transition that had taken place in Hungaryand Central Europe were framed in terms that extolled the success ofWestern liberalism at the expense of both the Soviet socialist model and

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the socialist welfare model of Western Europe. In many ways theseinterpretations reflected the political ideology left over in the wake of theCold War. In this light communism, always anathema to the values ofeconomic progress propounded by liberal ideology, died a deservingdeath. Socialism was then transformed into the poor sister of the failedcommunist ideology and was thus discredited.

Imre Nagy as a national Communist was problematic to those whoespoused this ideology. On the one hand, as the prime minister ofHungary during the 1956 Revolution, Nagy had advocated a sovereignHungarian state, thus appearing to be an ideological ally of the West. Onthe other hand, he had advocated strong state intervention in regard toeconomic equity and social welfare. Moreover, as was mentioned earlier,Nagy had been associated with the Moscow faction that had come topower in 1948 and had been ultimately responsible for the creation ofan authoritarian state under the leadership of Mátyás Rákosi.

The strong right-wing factions within the coalition government ofthe Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) which had come to power inthe elections of 1990 made a concerted effort to remove Nagy’s namefrom the First Act of Parliament. The First Act declared that the 1956Hungarian Revolution had been a legitimate War of Independence andthat the revolutionaries who had fought in it were martyrs of the nation.The original bill had recognized Imre Nagy’s role as prime minister, butin a last-minute revision his name was removed.46 This infuriatedparliamentarians from the center and left wing of the MDF along withother factions including the Free Democrats and Socialists. This, in turn,ensured that the symbolic image of Nagy would be used as a pivot onwhich to base factional legitimacy and the various interpretations of whatthe nation-state should be.

It was only in 1996, after the formation of a left-wing coalitiongovernment by the Socialist and Free Democrat Parties, that an officialbill making Imre Nagy a Martyr of the Nation came into being. Thebitter debate over the bill revealed not only the ideological differencesbetween the coalition partners but also the various factional interpreta-tions of Nagy and the 1956 Revolution. Among the left-wing andmoderate factions, debate centered on issues of collaboration with theStalinists and Kádár’s Soviet-backed counterrevolution.47 An article thatappeared prior to this debate by the Hungarian historian Mária Schmidt,

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currently the director of the Twentieth-Century Research Institute, helpsexplain how Nagy was perceived by the right wing in Hungary at thetime of the debates.

Schmidt argued that both the Socialists and the Free Democrats,who were then in power, were grateful to Imre Nagy for “saving the ideaof socialism by his martyrdom. The victorious soldiers of the failed ideaare still in power.” She concluded that in order for the liberal left to stayin power they needed Nagy, the martyred prime minister, for politicallegitimacy.48 However, according to the right wing in Hungarian politicscommunism was an aberration in Hungarian history. Therefore, thesymbol of Nagy is subdued in favor of other national figures that aremore in accord with the right-wing agenda. For example, during thetenure of József Antall, who was prime minister in 1990–1993, attemptswere made to memorialize the former Regent of Hungary, MiklósHorthy, 1920–1944. Despite his alliance with the fascist powers, he isperceived by some to have guided Hungary through the treacherouswaters of World War II until he was overthrown by the Arrow Crosscoup on 15 October 1944. His strong anti-bolshevism coupled with apolicy of territorial revision is used to excuse Horthy’s odious associationwith the Axis powers.

It is interesting to note that factions within the current conservativecoalition under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, who spoke so powerfullyat Nagy’s funeral, are once again attempting to revise Hungarian historyto bring it more into accord with the agenda of the earlier Antallgovernment.49 The transfer of the Crown of St. Steven from the NationalHistory Museum to the Parliament has reactivated the political symbol-ism of the crown and the memory of Miklós Horthy. The resurrectionof strong anticommunist symbolism is important for the currentgovernment in its attempt to associate the opposition with the failures ofHungary’s two communist regimes. How this particular strategy will turnout is uncertain, as the failure of the Hungarian Democratic Forum torecapture Parliament in 1994 can in large part be ascribed to the positivevalue the Hungarian people accorded their system of social welfare.50

This was a system associated with Imre Nagy, which had been expandedand largely implemented by the Kádár regime.

Factional politics had been subdued by the authoritarian politics ofHungary’s Cold War regimes. It was certainly not surprising then that

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factional politics would forcefully resurface with the establishment of theRepublic of Hungary. Discussion of Hungary’s past cannot take placewithout a discussion of Nagy and the 1956 Revolution. Whether seen asa positive or negative symbol, Nagy, his ideas and his ultimate sacrificehave come to embody the idea of a democratic Hungarian state.

The formation of what Turner called communitas among theHungarian people at the funeral and reburial of Imre Nagy came aboutfor several reasons. First, the Kádár and the subsequent reform commu-nist regime had broken a deep-set Hungarian taboo by denying thefamilies of the dead the opportunity to properly bury and remember theirdead (perform kegyelet). In addition, the deliberate desecration of thegraves had further enraged Hungarians and served to reinforce theformer regimes’ association with “the other” (that which is alien toauthentic Hungarian identity). Second, the deliberate manipulation ofnational symbols by the former regimes appealed to only a part of theHungarian population. For example, the attempt to transform St.Steven’s Day into Constitution Day (1948) or the Holiday of the NewBread under Kádár antagonized significant portions of the population.Similarly, the erection of monuments honoring the Workers’ Militia,which had been formed by Kádár to assist in the terror and generaldemobilization of the Revolution, catered to the interests of those whoserved Kádár’s Soviet-backed regime but openly insulted those who hadfought in the Revolution.

One of the deepest values that operates in Hungarian societythrough the various rites of memorial is the concept of nationalsovereignty. Although the 1956 Revolution was crushed, Hungarianidentity was not. Like Antigone, the Hungarian people are stronglyinfluenced by traditional obligations that take precedence over the secularcommands of those who hold the “reins of political power.” Thus,denying the Hungarian people the right to perform kegyelet at thevarious sites of the 1956 Revolution only heightened the emotionsassociated with those sites and assured that the Kádár regime would belinked to the crushing of the Revolution. Promises of material prosperityin exchange for deeply held cultural beliefs were destined to ultimatelyfail. Hungarian passivity during the Kádár regime can be much betterexplained by the brutality of state terror coupled with a system ofsurveillance that could wield the power of the state against those who

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refused to comply than by a “pact of forgetting.”51 The threat of beingexpelled from school or ousted from one’s job must have weighed veryheavily on those raising children, given their absolute dependence onstate social security.

Hungarians had been humiliated daily by the compromises thatallowed them to continue working at the universities or within govern-mental institutions. In order to effect agency and survive in an environ-ment openly hostile to those who had fought in the Revolution,Hungarians were forced to accept a revision of history that most foundunpalatable. Imre Nagy represented a Hungarian who would notcompromise with this revision and who thus, in Kierkegaardian terms,went beyond the bounds of everyday experience.52 In this sense, theperformance of kegyelet at Nagy’s funeral in 1989 allowed for anexpiation of the shame of compromise.

The official silence on Imre Nagy and the Revolution of 1956 onlytemporarily staved off the day when the Hungarian nation could againopenly acknowledge the legitimacy of both Nagy and the Revolution.This left the communist regime fatally associated with those events, inaddition to their association with a foreign power that had crushed whatwas considered by the majority of Hungarians to have been a legitimaterevolution. Political opposition to the regime would not have beenpossible without the support of the Hungarian people. The oppositionwas successful because it acted as the mouthpiece of the Hungarianpeople. Those who defied the regime such as Imre Mécs, Sándor Ráczand Viktor Orbán were carrying out the will of the Hungarian people bycontinuing to fight for the agenda of the 1956 Revolution in its manyinterpretations.

In the “state of emergency” following the Soviet occupation ofHungary, the common interpretation of the Revolution, its demand fornational sovereignty, unified the purpose of the opposition and was madeexplicit at the funeral of Imre Nagy. A weak economy and the SovietUnion’s unwillingness to prop up the Hungarian communist system withforce played into the hands of the Hungarian people and opposition. Themassive show of legitimacy that the Hungarian people demonstrated forthe concept of national sovereignty and goals of the opposition,including the dismantling of the communist regime, verified thisinterpretation.

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The most significant aspect of the funeral and reburial of Imre Nagywas the Hungarian people’s reassertion of the symbols that it regardedas authentic to the nation. In the case of both the Kádár and the reformcommunist regimes, the symbol system of the state, which rejected theconcept of national sovereignty as embodied by the 1956 Revolution,was too exclusive to be considered legitimate by the Hungarian people.Hungarians could not in any real sense accept as legitimate a governmentthat refused to recognize a national symbol such as Imre Nagy, who wasso intimately intertwined with Hungarian identity. It is memory culturethat aids each generation as it reinterprets the meaning of nationalsymbols. The events of 1989 reasserted the legitimacy that the Hungari-an people accorded the events of 1956 because they represented aconception of a Hungary free of foreign influence and free to choose itsown path. Sovereignty was the issue that all could agree on because itwould allow the Hungarian people to reimagine their identity in thecontext of what it meant to be Hungarian, rather than under thehegemony of a foreign power. In a sense this opened the door to a morefractious nation as each of the many political factions vying for politicalpower could now attempt to convince the Hungarian people of itsparticular vision of what the Hungarian state should be.

NOTES

* I am very grateful to my wife, Klara Benziger Gendur, for her assistance intranslating documents and arranging interviews for this study.

1. Péter Hanák, “A nemzeti identitás konstrukciója” (The structure of nationalidentity), Európai Szemle 3 (Oct 1997): 66–67.

2. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York,1973), 259.

3. Milton Singer, When A Great Tradition Modernizes: An AnthropologicalApproach to Indian Civilization (New York, 1972), 70–71.

4. Temetési Szertartáskönyv (Funeral liturgy of the Hungarian CatholicChurch) (Budapest, 1982), 5, 10–11.

5. Durkheim comments: “A common misfortune has the same effects as theapproach of a happy event, collective sentiments are renewed which then leadmen to seek one another and assemble together. We have seen this need forconcentration affirm itself with a particular energy: they embrace one another,

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put their arms around one another, and press as close as possible to oneanother.” Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans.Joseph Ward Swain (New York, 1965), 446.

6. Ibid., 448–49.7. On the same day that Batthyány was executed 13 Hungarian generals were

executed in the city of Arad (now in Romania). The generals are known as AradiVértanu. The importance of sites of memory relating to the 1848 HungarianRevolution and their interpretation in the twentieth century can also be foundin John Mason’s recent article, “Hungary’s Battle for Memory,” History Today50, no. 3 (Mar. 2000), 28–34.

8. A Magyar Nyelv Értelmezo Szótára (Etymological dictionary of theHungarian language), ed. Nyelvtudományi Intézet (Budapest, 1987), 1:724.

9. Honfoglalás (The conquest), MTV 1 (Budapest, 1997).10. István Rév, “Parallel Autopsies,” Representations, no. 49 (Winter 1995):

31.11. János M. Rainer, interview by author, 6 Apr. 1998.12. George Schöpflin, Politics in Eastern Europe (Oxford, 1993), 93, 101.13. For an excellent discussion of Nagy’s agricultural policies and political

philosophy, see János M. Rainer’s multivolume biography of Nagy, Nagy Imre:Politikai életrajz (Imre Nagy: A political biography), vol. 1 (Budapest, 1996).

14. See György Litván, The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (London, 1996),48; and Bill Lomax, Hungarian Worker Councils in 1956 (Highland Lakes, OH,1990), 5.

15. Nagy’s idealization by the University Student Organization, MEFESZ,founded at József Attila University in Szeged, Hungary, is discussed by CharlesGati, “From Liberation to Revolution, 1945–1956,” in Peter F. Sugar, PéterHanák and Tibor Frank, eds., A History of Hungary (Bloomington, 1994), 378,and in Litván’s, The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, 52–57. For a discussion ofstudent radicalism, see Seymour Martin Lipset, “The Possible Effects of StudentActivism on International Politics,” in Seymour Martin Lipset and Philip G.Altbach, eds. Students in Revolt (New York, 1969), 498.

16. Grzegorz Ekiert, The State against Society: Political Crises and TheirAftermath in East Central Europe (Princeton, 1996), 57.

17. Charles Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (Durham, NC, 1988), 153.18. Az Országgyülés: tavaszi ülésszakának 41. Ülésnapja 1996. Junius 3–an,

hétfön (Minutes of Parliament: 41st day of the spring session, Monday, 3 June1996), 21203.

19. János M. Rainer, “The Reprisals,” The New Hungarian Quarterly 127(Autumn 1992): 123. Rainer now believes that the number of revolutionaries

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executed was less than 450, but these figures remain a point of controversy inHungary today.

20. For example, Sándor Balogh, et al., A magyar népi demokrácia története,1944–1962 (The history of the Hungarian People’s Democracy) (Budapest,1978).

21. Béla Kövér, “301-es parcella Köztemeto,” (The Public Cemetery’s Plot301) Magyar Nemzet, 3 May 1989, 21.

22. Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc, 161.23. George Schöpflin asserts that Hungarians accepted the inevitability of

Soviet dominance (Politics in Eastern Europe, 103).24. This point was mentioned in many conversations that I had with

Hungarians and reemphasized in interviews that I conducted with the historiansPéter Zoltán, 11 July 1996, and Gábor Gyapay, 5 Aug. 1996.

25. Imre Mécs recognized the importance of Plot 301 and the performanceof kegyelet as a form of protest early on. In regard to visiting Plot 301 onnational holidays and the Day of the Dead he noted that “the guards wouldn’tlet you anywhere near the plot.” Imre Mécs, interview by author, 7 Nov. 1997.The same was true for other memorial sites associated with the 1848 and 1956Revolutions. Ágoston Gendur, interview by author, 15 June 1996.

26. Schöpflin, Politics in Eastern Europe, 211.27. S. Agocs, “The Collapse of Communist Ideology in Hungary,” East

European Quarterly 27 (1992): 190.28. Június 16, 1988 (16 June 1988) (Budapest: Black Box, 1988), video-

cassette.29. A Magyar Nyelv Történeti Etimólogiai Szótára (The etymology of the

Hungarian language), vol. 1 (Budapest, 1967), 1071. For a more in-depthdiscussion of the political usage of kopjafa, see Nóra Kovács, “Kopja Fa: TheAnthropological Deconstruction of Hungarian Grave Posts as NationalMonuments” (MA thesis, Central European University, 1997).

30. Virág Kedvelo (Flower Lover), “A Nap Története” (The story of the day),Demokrata (1988).

31. Joshua FoaDienstag, “The Pozsgay Affair:Historical Memory and PoliticalLegitimacy,” History & Memory 8, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1996): 76.

32. András Gerö, Modern Hungarian Society in the Making: The UnfinishedExperience (Budapest, 1995), 203.

33. June 16th, 1989, produced by Dér-Pesty (Budapest: Black Box, 1989),videocassette; Nagy Imre Élete és halhatatlansága (Imre Nagy’s life andimmortality), produced by Róbert Bokor (Budapest: Hungarian Television,1996), videocassette.

34. June 16th, 1989.

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35. Magyar Nemzet, 17 June 1989, 2.36. June 16th, 1989.37. Népszabadság, 17 June 1989, 3.38. János M. Rainer, interview by author, 6 Apr. 1998.39. Magyar Nemzet, 17 June 1989, 3.40. Henry Kamm, “The Funeral of Imre Nagy,” New York Times, 17 June

1989, 6.41. Victor Witter Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure

(New York, 1969), 96.42. Imre Mécs, interview by author, 7 Nov. 1997.43. Lajos Kossuth was one of Hungary’s great revolutionary figures who served

as the leader of the Hungarian Diet during the 1848 Revolution.44. The opposition to the communist regime then in power was a coalition of

forces that embraced the Free Democrats, the Hungarian Democratic Forum,Christian Democrats and Young Democrats, among others. Each faction had avery different idea of what a sovereign Hungary should be like—for example, asocial democracy as advocated by the Free Democrats or a more conservativelaissez-faire capitalist state as advocated by the conservative faction of theHungarian Democratic Forum.

45. Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name (New York, 1994); Rudolf L.Tokés, Hungary’s Negotiated Revolution: Economic Reform, Social Change, andPolitical Succession, 1957–1990 (Cambridge, 1996).

46. Gábor Murányi, “Második helybenfutás/Törvények Nagy Imréröl”(Running in place for a second time/The Imre Nagy bills), Heti Világgazdaság,no. 12, 24 Mar. 1996, 94.

47. Karl P. Benziger, “Imre Nagy Martyr of the Nation,” East EuropeanQuarterly 35, no. 4 (forthcoming, Jan. 2001).

48. Mária Schmidt, “Miért Kell a kormánypártoknak Nagy Imre?/ Miért nemtámogatják a szabaddemokraták az MSZP indítványát?” (Why do the governingparties need Imre Nagy?/ Why don’t the Free Democrats support the MSZPproposal?) Népszabadság, 9 July 1996, 5.

49. Endre Babus, commenting on Orbán’s political shift, claimed that in 1992Orbán had stated that “the MDF represents an old world that will never returnto Hungary,” but that he now seemed to have identified himself with an MDFinterpretation of history. Endre Babus, “A Szent Korona rehabilitálása?” (Therehabilitation of the Holy Crown?), Heti Világgazdaság, no. 37, 18 Sept. 1999,107–8.

50. Hungarians were extremely frightened that their social security system andthe standard of living they had enjoyed in the 1980s was slowly being eroded asa result of policies implemented by the MDF. See László Szamuely, “The Costs

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of Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe,” The Hungarian Quarterly 37(Winter 1996): 67.

51. This tradeoff known as the “pact of forgetting” is discussed in János Kis,Politics en Hungary: For a Democratic Alternative (Highland Lakes, OH, 1989),75. Éva Rostáné Földényi and Józsefné Kelemen, both gimnázium teachers inKiskunfélegyháza, approximately 170 kilometers fromBudapest, reported that thethreat of dismissal always hung over the head of anyone who was suspected ofbreaking the official silence (interview by author, 28 Jan. 1998).

52. See Kierkegaard’s reflection on Abraham’s faith that went beyond theordinary experience of man. Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Princeton,1983), 35–38.

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Documents

Artikel 1- The Funeral of Imre Nagy