Resistance, Rebellion and Revolution in Hungary and Central Europe: Commemorating 1956

Abstract

The fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 produced a multitude of conferences both in Hungary and elsewhere, and the volume currently under review is the product of one of them, held in September 2006 at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Many of these conferences and the publications that surrounded the anniversary generated more heat than light, for they suggested limited innovation in thinking about the Revolution since it had previously been the subject of major commemoration on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary in 1996. Like the anniversary in general, this volume is a missed opportunity to ask new and important questions about the Revolution. It, and the conference on which it is based, promised a new approach to the Revolution, by situating it in a broad context—both spatially and temporally. On the one hand, it sought to examine 1956 in the light of a long history of popular protest in Hungary, which has had a decisive impact on the country's political culture. On the other hand, its intention was to examine Hungarian popular protest in a broader European context, thus potentially rescuing this history from relative obscurity, and demonstrating what the study of Hungary can reveal about broader European trends. The editors are to be congratulated for their vision in attempting this enterprise even if they have not succeeded; as co-editor, Martyn Rady acknowledges in his concluding essay: ‘It nevertheless became clear that contexts, parallels and common-denominators were more elusive than the organizers had hitherto imagined’ (p. 349). Consequently, the volume is an uneven collection of revised conference papers, and personal recollections of the Revolution, which hang uneasily together. Some— such as the pieces by the historian, former conservative politician, Foreign Minister, and Hungarian Ambassador to Washington, Géza Jeszensky, and by political scientist turned centre-right Hungarian member of the European Parliament, György Schöpflin—combine normative political judgement with analysis. The piece by Krisztián Ungváry on the actions of the internal security services in Hungarian universities and research institutes under Kádár, given its focus on naming prominent intellectuals who collaborated, rather than a critical analysis of how the authorities actually operated, seems to be a quasi-academic complement to the interest of Hungary's tabloid press in personalities from the realms of sport and entertainment who spied on others for the state. Because of the lack of an overarching conception for the volume, the pieces that deal with protest in Hungary prior to the advent of state socialism, or with revolution in other contexts, sit uneasily within the volume.