A szétesett emlékezet – két temető példája

Abstract

In my paper I have selected two cemeteries in order to show through their example how the total blunder of 20th century Hungarian politics of memory is represented, how the lack of any consensual narrative to stand for the minimum identity of a democratic polity becomes manifest. Apart from a few days (October 1956) and some distinguished months (the summer of 1989 and spring of 1990), any consensual first person plural, that is, all-inclusive, political community with respect to Hungarian history throughout the 20th century has been and is still unkown. There is no political doctrine available to create the appearance of consensus. This issue not only concerns cultural memory but also the institutions of democratic politics. The intricate relationships of the monuments and plots in these two cemeteries, located at a considerable distance from one another on the Pest side of the city, reveal what I call the collapse of minimum consensual memory, together with its implications.