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Memory politics and European integration on the Hungarian Right: a comparative analysis of the rhetoric Viktor Orbán and Gábor Vona
Holányi, Ákos ; Weiss, Tomáš (advisor) ; Asavei, Maria Alina (referee)
In recent years, the use of collective memory has been on the rise across Europe. Primarily used by right-wing parties, conflictual readings of collective memory have been used to capitalise on social resentment and push for nationalist and/or radical policies. As our current understanding of the use of collective memory for political purposes focuses mostly on domestic party competition, this paper analyses how collective memory is mobilised to make sense of the European Union. Using commemorative speeches of Hungarian right-wing party leaders, Viktor Orbán of Fidesz and Gábor Vona of Jobbik, this research makes the claim that collective memory is only employed with regards to European integration when there is conflict between EU policies and the preferences of the speaker. When there is no major conflict of interest, references to Europe disappear and the interpretation of history becomes less focused on combat and threats to the nation. Keywords: collective memory, memory politics, right-wing politics, European Union, Hungary
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The Serbian Orthodox Church's Engagement in Memory Politics of Post-2000 Serbia: Memory of Suffering and Resistance
Hofmeisterová, Karin ; Králová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Aleksov, Bojan (referee) ; Pavlaković, Vjeran (referee)
For late-modern societies, amnesic and fragmented in their character, a compact presence of the past in the present is of crucial importance. The search for collective memory as a precondition of collective belonging is especially urgent in the light of societal insecurity, which deconstructs the firm systems of significations. Churches, governed by the imperative of continuity constitute the reservoir of memory and provide a very effective response to such an insecurity. Religious institutions, therefore, often employ their mnemonic potential to constantly reaffirm their public relevance in the realities of late modernity. In my dissertation, I explore the motivations, forms, strategies, and outcomes of the mnemonic engagement of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) in post-2000 Serbia. Analyzing primary sources collected by using methods of multi-sited ethnography, I illuminate the SPC's mnemonic activities related to the memory of Serbian heroic victimhood in World War II, and I embed them in a wider picture of memory-making, framed by the socially memorable and configured by specific features of mnemonic interaction. As a historical disjuncture, World War II has been an object of multidimensional mnemonic interplay, involving diverse mnemonic actors from local to transnational and from vernacular...
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Holocaust in Political Discourse of Post-Communist Countries: Speeches of the Presidents of the Czech Republic and Poland
Ďurková, Michaela ; Emler, David (advisor) ; Chrobaczyński, Jacek (referee)
This thesis deals with the issue of memory and remembering in the post-communist area. In particular, it examines the form, extent and success of the Holocaust reflection and coping with the past on the example of the speeches of Czech and Polish presidents from 1993 (Václav Havel), or 1995 (Aleksander Kwaśniewski) until the access to the European Union in 2004. Author of the thesis assumes that the fall of Communism and the restoration of the democratic establishment represented a significant impetus for the countries in question to deal with their past. At the same time, they try to prove that the Holocaust memory politics of key political representatives of the Czech Republic and Poland has been one of the important factors in the creation of their post-communist democratic identity - and not only with respect to an unofficial demand of the unifying Europe to cope with the heritage of the past. Through the analysis of selected presidential speeches, the thesis identifies and evaluates the image of Holocaust created by the Czech and Polish presidents on the one hand and the weaknesses in the Holocaust memory politics of both actors on the other. After theoretical and conceptual introduction (chapter one), the experience with the Holocaust in Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and...
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Budapest versus Brussels: Viktor Orbán's Politics of Memory against the European Union.
Marcks, Jakob Matthias ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Cibulková, Petra (referee)
Jakob Marcks Master's Thesis Budapest versus Brussels: Viktor Orbán's Politics of Memory Against the European Union Abstract Since Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, disputes between Hungary and the European Union have increased. Among the contested issues are legislative changes, Hungary's new constitution as well as the so-called refugee crisis. While the European Commission criticizes violations of EU law and EU principles, Orbán accuses "Brussels" of illegitimate interferences with domestic affairs. In this context Orbán frequently uses historicizing arguments, which means that he invokes Hungarian history in order to explain present-day politics. Orbán paints a picture of brave Hungarians who repeatedly fought for freedom in the past, and who repeatedly became the victims of foreign Empires. Today, he claims, Hungarians are in a similar situation again, yet this time they have to defend their freedom against the European Union. While doing so, Orbán often blurs the line between past and present and creates a strict antagonism of "us against them". Historically, "us against them" refers to freedom fighters against communists. Today, "us" refers to a Christian Hungary that values work, family and national sovereignty, and "them" refers to a global liberal elite, represented by the European Union and...
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