Remembering lives, changing regimes: An analysis of Hungarian obituaries (1961–2000)

Abstract

The article examines the obituaries appearing in the Hungarian daily Népszabadság during the second half of the twentieth century. Positing the obituaries as activities of social memory, the article has a dual focus. First, it looks at how the authoritarian Kádár-regime’s metaproject of creating the archetypical socialist identity is reflected in the obituaries. Second, it examines the frictions created by the state’s efforts in establishing taboos with regard to certain junctures in the country’s history, and how these principles interact with practices of communicative memory. The analysis is contextualized by examples of post-socialist memories after the regime change in the article.