Circulation of Queer Ideas in State Socialist Hungarian People’s Republic

Abstract

Inspired by Agata Jakubowska’s Circulation of Feminist Ideas in Communist Poland (2008) in the paper, I undertake the case study of Russian-born Hungarian artist El Kazovszkij (1948–2008) to discuss the circulation of queer ideas in state socialist Hungarian People’s Republic. Cold War-era queer cultural production is primarily associated with the then-establishing cultural and political agency of sexual minorities in the West. Nonetheless, despite the hiatus of queer movements or public dialogue in state socialist Hungary, there were still plenty of related works produced and circulated in both alternative and official cultural scenes. However, the lack of knowledge about the socialist era queer lives led to a homogenous image of socialist states: the individuals in question are still seen as absent or viewed as mere victims of the system, who had also no access to knowledge on non-normative sexualities. Therefore, artistic production addressing queer themes is either overlooked or interpreted as manifestations of the artists’ personal struggle, which implies an essentialist understanding of queer art, excluding critical or political connotations of the works and oeuvres in question. My aim is not to prove that queer discourse was thriving in state socialist Hungary. Yet, I argue that queer ideas circulated in Europe between the East and West as well as among socialist countries, offering crucial reference points to artists. Through the case study on El Kazovszkij, it is possible to reconstruct a fraction of these examples from the field of literature, film, visual arts, music, etc., which could contribute to the theoretical and methodological approach to further investigate queer lives of socialist and post-socialist East Central Europe (ECE). Beyond the art historical perspectives, the outcome could become a further step in cultural decolonialism and Piotr Piotrowski’s horizontalism to defy the East-West dichotomy within the cultural history of non-normative sexualities.