In 1989, Hungarians expected a relatively quick and successful transition to capitalist democracy. Under Janos Kadar's “goulash socialism,” they had enjoyed relatively high living standards vis-à-vis other Eastern Bloc nations and a thriving second economy, both seemingly auspicious foundations for integration into western Europe. When their hopes were dashed, Hungarians did not point the finger at either the international community or the false premises of transition. Instead, their political leaders set out to find and remove the “remains” (maradvány) of socialism, which were blamed for the nation's unfulfilled dreams.
Based on twenty years of anthropological research, Nadkarni's beautifully written monograph offers a highly readable, thought-provoking critique of ostensible pathologies of the past. In the author's words, the study represents an “archaeology of postsocialism's future hopes and present frustrations” (5). In it, Nadkarni excavates communist statues, Kadar-era consumer kitsch, former state security police (AVO) headquarters, and lists of informers for the Kadar regime. Nadkarni examines how each became a center of controversy and how such controversies shaped post-socialist politics and cultural production. The result is an incisive overview of Hungarian politics, not just of memory politics, since 1989.
Nadkarni's study begins in the early 1990s. Because of the highly bureaucratic nature of Hungary's 1989 “revolution,” Hungary's post-socialist leadership—at the time, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF)—felt the need to manufacture a symbolic break with the past. So, despite (and also because of) the lack of widespread defacing of communist statuary, they created a park to which all such communist-era sculptures might be removed. Architect Ákos Eleöd designed the park as an anti-propaganda space without a singular interpretation, something that reflected the reality of diverse attitudes to both the socialist past and to such monuments, many of which had developed a meaning quite different from their official intent. Opened in 1993, but seldom visited, the statue park was recast in 2006 as a Memento Park, a site for selling socialist-era kitsch—the ability to consume and market such trinkets representing their harmlessness and irrelevance to post-socialist experience.
Two issues endangered this seeming victory over socialist remains: the expectations of transition were not met, and the population itself was ambivalent and divided with regard to the Kadar period, which was marked simultaneously by oppression and economic security. The shared trauma of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution did not provide a solution. As the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) discovered when it attempted to consolidate 1956 as a symbolic foundation for post-socialist Hungary, common experience did not automatically translate into a common understanding. When Victor Orban's Fidesz Party then advanced its Hungarian Dream, which framed Hungarian identity around Hungary's pre-socialist history, this likewise failed. Many Hungarians remained nostalgic for the socialist era as a time when aspirations to travel to and be part of Europe remained alive. To some, Hungary's socialist consumer culture—including the global success of Hungary's Rubik's Cube—affirmed that Hungary was already European.
Nadkarni discusses in particular depth two Fidesz innovations: the House of Terror and the release of informer names. Founded in 2002, the House of Terror structured its exhibits around the experience of victimhood. Pushing against the dominance of transnational Holocaust memory, it asserted greater parity between suffering under fascism and communism—this latter presented in dark terms that made no distinction between Kadar's soft repression and the terror of the late 1940s and early 1950s. This provided the framework for the release of informers’ names, an event that prompted new generational conflict over the past. Many youths wanted informers to apologize—not because they condemned them, but as a way to assert rupture with the past and achieve a new beginning. Once again, in their bid for a better future, Hungarians sought to uncover and remove “remains.”
Nadkarni's study is a critique of the tendency to pathologize east European memory, as if problems of the past define post-socialist countries as the unassimilable “Other.” Though her own research dwells on remains, she deploys close study to demonstrate that “pathologies” of socialism are a manufacture of present-day politics—not just of Hungary's own memory landscape, but of Europe's transnational mapping of space and time. The result is an insightful monograph well suited for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate seminars on post-socialism, the politics of transition, and historical memory. Non-experts in the field will also find this to be an accessible, engaging, and informative read.
