On Victims, Heroes, and Gulag-gupvi Survivors

Abstract

Abstract Employing a biographical, oral history approach, this article documents the life story of a war veteran and gupvi survivor in Hungary to illustrate the multiple synchronic as well as diachronic cleavages that exist between the official, societal, and collective memory regimes in postcommunist Eastern Europe. István Bicskei’s life story highlights, in a tangible way, the fact that the socially constructed notions of victimhood and heroism vary as a complex outcome of the interaction of multiple forms of human, institutional, and political agencies in an ever-changing historical context and in multi-layered cultural milieux. The article argues that these key cultural notions are closely tied to individual understandings of personhood, to national and collective identities, but also to ruling ideologies and political regimes. The article also highlights the glaring gap between official, scholarly, and local narratives about the past that exists in marginalized rural communities and points to the conspicuous lack of cultural “mediators” or “intermediators” between these distinct political, media, and social spheres, and between official and grassroots memory narratives.