CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Riesz, Vera |
|---|---|
| Title | Staging Trauma: Remembering the Holocaust in Hungarian Theater |
| Summary | This thesis is centered around the question: how can we remember the Holocaust today? It explores the representations of the Holocaust staged by third and fourth-generation creators, whom I refer to as the generation of postmemory, drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s concept (2008). Focusing on contemporary Hungarian theater, this research examines two theater plays to illustrate how this new generation of theater-makers can revitalize Holocaust memory in public discourse and engage young audiences. I claim that 3rd- or 4th-generation theater creatives can revitalize the public discourse on Holocaust memory by bringing fresh, temporally distanced perspectives and possessing the tools to create a great treatment of the Shoah. To provide a comprehensive understanding of the context I present Hungary’s current political climate, characterized by the government’s illiberal stance, its cultural landscape, and its approach to Holocaust memory. The theoretical framework incorporates concepts such as collective memory, episodic and semantic memory (J. Assmann 1995; A. Assmann 2008), and postmemory (Hirsch 2008), offering a nuanced perspective on the nature of memory. By integrating these theoretical insights with an analysis of theater practices, this thesis demonstrates how theater can be an ideal space for remembering the Holocaust, for bridging past with present, as it fosters deep and empathetic understanding among today’s youth and the broader public. |
| Supervisor | Naumescu Vlad |
| Department | Undergraduate Studies BA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/riesz_vera.pdf |
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