Underground Streams, Panorama

The 1956 Institute that belongs to the organizational framework of National Széchényi Library has assigned four main areas of research for itself in 2011. One of its goals was to be the first workshop to add data from Hungary and its surroundings to international comparative research. “We were interested in what right wing and conservative meant in Eastern Central Europe before World War II, and what can be known of the representatives of these mindsets in the era of the Soviet-type regime and the various changes of politics ever since”. The research was extended to two countries closely related to the history of the Hungarian society (Slovakia, Romania), and two farther ones (Czech Republic and Estonia). „The title Panorama refers to this regional overview.”

The fourth research topic of the 1956 Institute is what has been one of the main identity-building strategies of the Hungarian conservative-right wing society during the most recent period from almost a quarter of century ago till today: to construct an image of Hungary in the 20^th century. Consequently, our book is not just a specially selected historiography of the epochs of Horthy, the Soviet-type regime and the transition of 1989, although it could be. The authors were more interested in how these historical eras have been represented in the context of public political speech, contemporary eyewitness narrative (of 1956 specifically), and documentary films of history (or history politics). As the discourse of the three topics (Trianon, Horthy, 1956) was presented mainly by the media that most influence communicative memory (film, television and popular press), the signs are more conspicuous and visible here for the overlooking sight than the hidden ciphers of the previous era.”

Unlike the previous ones, this volume of studies does not only include writings of the Institute staff, but also of guest authors, among them renowned academics and young researchers. „The three years grant of the Open Society Foundation for the Underground Streams project of the 1956 Institute Foundation founded in early 2011, made it possible for us to exceed the narrow personal limits, and seek our research goals in a dialogue between generations, points of view and topics.”

(The quotes are from the introductory greeting of editor János Rainer M.)