Economy, Politics and Ritual in Contemporary Hungary

Based on long-term fieldwork in the village of Tazlar since the 1970s, the lecture will begin with an outline of changes in the political economy of Hungary. The success story of “goulash socialism” has become a “basket case” of the EU.
(If, like Greece and Spain, Hungary had joined the Eurozone, this would be more widely known to the world.) The main focus of the lecture will be on how the present government deals with this crisis of political economy by manipulating the politics of history, in a country which remains intensely proud of its imperial as well as its national traditions. I shall illustrate at two levels (with slides). First, at the national level I shall show how religion is nowadays integrated into the celebrations of King Stephen on the important national holiday of 20th August. Second, I shall report from a recent visit to Tazlar. While not much has changed in recent decades in the organization of the patronal feast by the Roman Catholic parish, rituals of the village primary school have undergone considerable reinvention as a result of the school’s being transferred in 2012 from secular to religious management. This transfer is emblematic of the current politics of time in Hungary, diametrically opposed to the time orientation of the socialist era.

Cycle: The State of the world - IV Central Europe and its transitions

Organized by: Residence for Researchers