Antifascism, the 1956 Revolution and the politics of communist autobiographies in Hungary 1944 – 2000

James Mark

Europe-Asia Studies, 2006, vol. 58, issue 8, 1209-1240

Abstract: Using oral history, this contribution explores the reshaping of individuals' public and private autobiographies in response to different political environments. In particular, it analyses the testimony of those who were communists in Hungary between 1945 and 1956, examining how their experiences of fascism, party membership, the 1956 Revolution and the collapse of communism led them in each case to refashion their life stories. Moreover, it considers how their biographies played varying functions at different points in their lives: to express identification with communism, to articulate resistance and to communicate ambition before 1956; to protect themselves from the state after 1956; and to rehabilitate themselves morally in a society which stigmatised them after 1989. I didn't use this word ‘liberation’ (felszabadulás), because in 1956 my life really changed. Everybody's lives went through a great change, but mine especially. … I wasn't disgusted with myself that I had called the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 a liberation, but [after 1956] I didn't use it anymore.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09668130600995764 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:58:y:2006:i:8:p:1209-1240

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ceas20

DOI: 10.1080/09668130600995764

Access Statistics for this article

Europe-Asia Studies is currently edited by Terry Cox

More articles in Europe-Asia Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().