Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

“It Does Not Hurt to Apologise”
György Konrád visited Brussels in December 2008 for a conference
on populism and national minorities. We used that opportunity
to ask him about some of the topics that are discussed in this
book. György Konrád is a well known Hungarian novelist and essayist
who lived through turbulent times in his own country as a
dissident. By remaining true to his ideas and to himself, he was able
to survive a system in which he refused to participate. He was often
in trouble with the authorities and his books were banned. Nevertheless
he stayed in Hungary because “He did not want to say
thanks all the time while living abroad.” Konrád, now in his seventies,
was and is an independent intellectual who is not afraid of controversy.
He is a mild man and expresses his opinions without any
hint of revenge. Interviewing him is very entertaining but not an easy
task as he prefers to ask more questions than he answers. When
he does answer, he draws his responses from an enormous
repertoire of anecdotes.
To start the interview, we asked him about his opinion on the emerging
culture of guilt and apology: many new democracies in Central
and Eastern Europe point the finger at Russia demanding apologies
for the Soviet past.
“People did so many bad things to one another and they naïvely
believe that words will heal the wounds. Nevertheless, the demand
for apologies is not totally absurd and certainly not new. After the
Second World War, when Mongolia wanted to re-establish diplomatic
contacts with Hungary, a memorandum was sent to the Hungarian
government offering an apology for the Mongolian invasion
which took place in the 13 th century. I can give you another example.
When the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs was planning a
visit to Hungary, his ambassador in Budapest told me that he had
received a request from the leadership of the Hungarian Lutheran
church for a meeting. The ambassador did not understand why
they were so interested in meeting the minister and asked me for
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An interview with György Konrád