BOOK REVIEW - SAILING THROUGH THE HIGH WATERS OF CURRENT PUBLIC DEBATES AND POLITICS OF MEMORY
BOOK REVIEW - SAILING THROUGH THE HIGH WATERS OF CURRENT PUBLIC DEBATES AND POLITICS OF MEMORY

Summary/Abstract: The “fall of the idols” of the Marxist-Leninist world view cleared the scene which had a referential role to public actors in a need for sources and means of symbolic legitimating. In the process of de-legitimating of the Communist system, an important role has been played by the hyphening of the scarcity of resources and the growing scale of poverty at the societal level, as the discourse on the eradication of poverty was of a referential value of the Communist political identity – of an ever-higher value for the János Kádár-led Hungarian regime. The issue of Hungarian minorities’ gradually worsening situation in the neighbouring states, as part of a generally growing referential value of the ethno-culturally defined national agenda, including national sovereignty and independence, in a state which remained attached to a Soviet Union oriented loyalty up to the late 1980’s, were part of a new, alternative set of referential values which played an important symbolic role also in legitimating regime change.

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