Emlékezetkonstrukciók Pipás Pista nemváltoztatásáról és gyilkosságairól
Constructions of remembrance of the gender transgression and murder cases of Pista Pipás

Summary/Abstract: By exploring the case of Pista Pipás, a female criminal who, after taking up a male identity, murdered a number of men by hanging them in the Hungarian countryside during the 1920s, this study examines the question whether there is a memory of crime, and if so how it could be accurately reconstructed. By analysing the social, cultural and criminological contexts of the case, this study argues that its uniqueness notwithstanding, the Pipás affair in many ways better epitomized the changes female criminality underwent in the wake of the war during which women not only learned to cope with the relative absence of men, but were also often compelled to take over roles that were previously considered to be exclusively masculine. This text seeks to reveal the different levels of the memory of crime on the basis of criminal records, and other accounts, including the interpretations of László Szabó, a former journalist and Judit Ember, a documentary film maker.

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