Hungarian Illiberalism and the Cultivation of History

• In Event: Illiberalism, Secession and Post-Colonialism

Abstract

The paper offers an analysis of how contemporary anti-Western and anti-imperial/anti-colonial narratives, references to past experiences, and memories of national trauma (Edkins 2003; Bell 2006; Innes and Steele 2013) are mobilized by specific state and non-state actors to call upon Hungarians across borders as a specific transnational “affective community” (Hutchison 2016) held together by different and widely shared feelings of past injustice and disillusionment. The paper argues that utilizing these narratives, centering around collective feelings of past victimhood serves specific political purposes for the regime’s transnational political project and statecraft. I contend that these narratives of the past became central sites for the regime’s seeking of ontological security (Innes and Steele 2014; Resende and Budryte 2014; Mälksoo 2015, 2021; Malinova 2021) to claim and negotiate Hungary’s current role and desired prestige/social status in the international arena.

Author

• Orsolya Lehotai