CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Pal, Benedek Lajos |
|---|---|
| Title | Crisis and Reform: Critical Intellectual Discourses on the Future of Hungarian State Socialism 1980-1987 |
| Summary | This thesis contributes to the intellectual and conceptual history of the Hungarian state socialist regime. The author provides an account on what different intellectuals meant by the crisis of state socialism and how they imagined reforming Hungary’s political, economic and social affairs. The thesis focuses on the period between 1980 and 1987 and on three main critical intellectual groups, the democratic opposition, the nationalist-populist writers and reform economists. The author analyzes sources on debates taking place on the margins of the Hungarian state socialist public discourse, namely writings published in samizdat periodicals and tolerated social science reviews. Furthermore, the author anchors these different discourses to broader regional and global intellectual processes in order to point out different transfers and influences. The author concludes that at the beginning of the decade a common narrative emerged amongst intellectuals that Hungary’s long-term socio-economic development was in crisis caused by the political and social practices of the Kádárist regime. Nevertheless, the definitions of the crisis and reform differed distinctively according to the ideological background of the actors. Two differing narratives emerged until 1987, one definition phrased by the democratic opposition and the reform intellectuals perceived it as the crisis of Hungary’s inability to adapt to the global processes, the other voiced by the populist intellectuals saw it as the crisis and decline of the national spirit. These narratives were unable to start a dialogue in the aftermath, however their compromise-seeking views on reform could provide a common ground for strategic cooperation during the 1989 roundtable talks. |
| Supervisor | Trencsényi Balázs |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/pal_benedek.pdf |
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