This book offers a detailed analysis of the construction, reception and eventual decline of the cult of the Hungarian Communist Party Secretary, Mátyás Rákosi, one of the most striking examples of ...orchestrated adulation in the Soviet bloc. While his cult never approached the magnitude of that of Stalin, Rákosi’s ambition to outshine the other “best disciples" and become the best of the best was manifest in his diligence in promoting a Soviet-type following in Hungary. The main argument of Balázs Apor is that the cult of personality is not just a curious aspect of communist dictatorship, it is an essential element of it. The monograph is primarily concerned with techniques and methods of cult construction, as well as the role various institutions played in the creation of mythical representations of political figures. Separate chapters present visual and non-visual methods of cult construction. Apor uses the case of Rákosi to explore how personality cults are created, how such cults are perceived, and how they are eventually unmade. The book addresses the success --generally questionable-- of such projects, as well as their uncomfortable legacies.
By providing a survey of consumption and lifestyle in Hungary during the second half of the twentieth century, this book shows how common people lived during and after tumultuous regime changes. ...After an introduction covering the late 1930s, the study centers on the communist era, and goes on to describe changes in the post-communist period with its legacy of state socialism. Tibor Valuch poses a series of questions. Who could be called rich or poor and how did they live in the various periods? How did living, furnishings, clothing, income, and consumption mirror the structure of the society and its transformations? How could people accommodate their lifestyles to the political and social system? How specific to the regime was consumption after the communist takeover, and how did consumption habits change after the demise of state socialism? The answers, based on micro-histories, statistical data, population censuses and surveys help to understand the complexities of daily life, not only in Hungary, but also in other communist regimes in east-central Europe, with insights on their antecedents and afterlives.
A fascinating read on the power of youth protest, Children of Communism shows what life was like for the first generation to have been born under communism and how one evening spent grieving rock and ...roll under a tree forever changed lives.
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Until 1989 it was official Communist policy in eastern Europe to absorb Gypsies into the "ruling" working class. But many Gypsies fought to maintain their separate identity. This book is about ...the refusal of one group of Gypsies- the Rom-to abandon their way of life and accept assimilation into the majority population. It is a story about the sources of cultural diversity in modern industrial society and about the fear and hatred that such social and cultural difference may give rise to. The core of the book, based on eighteen months of observation of daily life in a Gypsy settlement, describes the cultivation, celebration, and reinvention of cultural difference and diversity by a people deemed by their social superiors to be too stupid and uncivilized to have a "culture" at all.
This book, first published in 2006, investigates one of the oldest paradoxes in political science: why do mass political loyalties persist even amid prolonged social upheaval and disruptive economic ...development. Drawing on extensive archival research and an original database of election results, this book explores the paradox of political persistence by examining Hungary's often tortuous path from pre- to post-communism. Wittenberg reframes the theoretical debate, and then demonstrates how despite the many depredations of communism, the Roman Catholic and Calvinist Churches transmitted loyalties to parties of the Right. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Church resistance occurred not from above, but from below. Hemmed in and harassed by communist party cadres, parish priests and pastors employed a variety of ingenious tactics to ensure the continued survival of local church institutions. These institutions insulated their adherents from pressures to assimilate into the surrounding socialist milieu. Ultimately this led to political continuity between pre- and post-communism.
How do transitional democracies deal with officials who have been tainted by complicity with prior governments? Should they be excluded or should they be incorporated into the new system? ...InLustration and Transitional Justice, Roman David examines major institutional innovations that developed in Central Europe following the collapse of communist regimes. While the Czech Republic approved a lustration (vetting) law based on the traditional method of dismissals, Hungary and Poland devised alternative models that granted their tainted officials a second chance in exchange for truth. David classifies personnel systems as exclusive, inclusive, and reconciliatory; they are based on dismissal, exposure, and confession, respectively, and they represent three major classes of transitional justice.
David argues that in addition to their immediate purposes, personnel systems carry symbolic meanings that help explain their origin and shape their effects. In their effort to purify public life, personnel systems send different ideological messages that affect trust in government and the social standing of former adversaries. Exclusive systems may establish trust at the expense of reconciliation, while inclusive and reconciliatory systems may promote both trust and reconciliation.
In spite of its importance, the topic of inherited personnel has received only limited attention in research on transitional justice and democratization.Lustration and Transitional Justiceis the first attempt to fill this gap. Combining insights from cultural sociology and political psychology with the analysis of original experiments, historical surveys, parliamentary debates, and interviews, the book shows how perceptions of tainted personnel affected the origin of lustration systems and how dismissal, exposure, and confession affected trust in government, reconciliation, and collective memory.
The monograph examines the development of interwar Hungarian cultural diplomacy in three areas: academia, the tourist industry, and motion picture and radio production. It is a story of how Hungarian ...elites perceived—and misperceived—themselves, their surroundings, and their own ability to affect the country’s fate amid high hopes and deepseated anxieties about the country’s place in a Europe newly reconstructed after World War I. Though the study is rooted in Hungary, it explores the dynamic and contingent relationship between identity construction and transnational cultural and political currents in small EastCentral European nations in the interwar period.
•Similar nodule characteristics appeared at different hydromorphic conditions.•No mineralogical differentiation could be observed within the nodules.•Stronger water oscillation resulted in more ...crystalline Fe-oxyhydroxides.•Barite may form within nodules in salt-affected soils.
The differentiation of Fe and Mn within the nodules and its relation to the fabric is a well-known phenomenon. However, the relationship of this differentiation to the nodules mineralogy was not studied yet. This study aimed to fill this gap through the micro-mineralogical and geochemical investigation of nodules from soils with different hydromorphic conditions by electron probe microanalysis and micro-X-Ray diffractometry.
Different conditions of hydromorphism resulted in the same nodule types and their similar vertical distribution in soils. In soils with shallow groundwater table, nodules exhibited more developed fabric, and crystalline hydrous Fe oxides (goethite) prevailed in them. Contrarily, nodules showed smaller size, lower Fe enrichment, and a higher frequency of non-crystalline hydrous Fe oxides in soils with regular flooding and stagnant surface water. The difference could be related to the lower intensity of water oscillation and the shorter redox periods in the latter soils. The formation of the nodules’ fabric may have been followed by the slow crystallization of Fe-oxyhydroxides when favorable redox oscillation conditions occur allowing subsequent recrystallization. The association of hydrous Fe oxides to clay minerals may have also affected the crystallization process within the nodules.
Although the observation of assumed differentiation of hydrous Fe oxides failed within the nodules, soils with different conditions of hydromorphism could be characterized by different Fe-oxyhydroxide mineralogy, at least in the progression of their crystallization process.
This Open Access book explains a new type of political order that emerged in Hungary in 2010: a form of authoritarian capitalism with an anti-liberal political and social agenda. Eva Fodor analyzes ...an important part of this agenda that directly targets gender relations through a set of policies, political practice and discourse—what she calls “carefare.” The book reveals how this is the anti-liberal response to the crisis-of-care problem and establishes how a state carefare regime disciplines women into doing an increasing amount of paid and unpaid work without fair remuneration. Fodor analyzes elements of this regime in depth and contrasts it to other social policy ideal-types, demonstrating how carefare is not only a set of policies targeting women, but an integral element of anti-liberal rule that can be seen emerging globally.
This volume presents the results of the largest ever language attitude/motivation study, involving over 13,000 teenage language learners in Hungary surveyed in 1993, 1999 and 2004. The results are ...not confined to the European context but have wider implications concerning attitude change, motivational dynamics and language globalisation.
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