The Politics of Hope and Disappointment: Ambivalence in the Post-1989 Homeland-Related Discourses among Hungarians in Australia

Abstract

In this article, I look at the ways in which the homeland-related discourses among Hungarians in Australia have shifted as a result of the political and social transformations in Hungary around and after 1989. In order to disentangle this question, I place a specific emphasis on the dynamics between identification, emotions and politics. I demonstrate that the aftermath of regime change produced a sense of ambivalence in discourses about Australian-Hungarians' relationship with the homeland. The desire for inclusion into the new democracy became dialogically intertwined with the simultaneous feelings of distrust and disappointment, producing what Bakhtin calls ‘double voiced’ homeland-related discourses. I examine how these contradictory emotions are evoked and expressed in the post-1989 Australian-Hungarian discourses. I argue that they became powerful moral forces which affect diaspora members' understanding of their selves and enable and constrain the diaspora's political actions towards the homeland.