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

the memory of the 670 local Jews killed. When the teacher made
her request to the mayor at a public meeting, a gentleman stood up
and said that she must have lost her mind while visiting Israel. Instead
of dealing with such an unimportant thing, she should be
dealing with Trianon. Later she was told that this man had been an
informer during the Communist period. This is a characteristic story
for the Trianon people.”
Even so, Konrád refuses to dismiss those who ask for respect for
ethnic Hungarians living abroad. “I do understand the concerns of
those who still talk about the consequences of that treaty. There
were all kinds of humiliations when you wanted to travel, or send
packages to your friends and family. People simply did not understand
why they suddenly had to speak Romanian and accept different
cultural values. One should not forget that many Hungarians
in these territories had to carry two burdens: not only did they live
under a communist dictatorship; they were also perceived as special,
suspicious citizens. Moreover, assimilation was very difficult to
achieve in the twentieth century. Successor states like Romania
were culturally less developed than Hungary. The situation improved
after the collapse of communism. One of the ways to deal
with this issue today is by ensuring that the Hungarian minorities
are represented in national governments.”
And he concludes on an optimistic note as regards the danger of
the present debate in his country. “The debate about Trianon could
become a crazy nightmare, an obsession, but not a danger to
democracy. The reason is that there are simply not enough followers.
The Hungarian Guard is marginal, with crazy people who like
to play military rituals.”
Apart from the story of Trianon, Hungarians are also disputing the
role of the Horthy regime that collaborated with the Nazis during the
Second World War. Many say that it was the worst episode in the
Hungarian history of the twentieth century, others counter that communism
was no better. Konrád has his own thoughts. “At the time
of József Antal, the first prime minister after the democratic transition,
there was a kind of right- wing censorship and 150 journalists
got fired – the best and most critical ones. We, who criticised
this in the western media, were accused of dirtying our own nest.
I was one of the initiators of the Democratic Charter in 1992/1993.
63 György Konrád