The lecture would like to give a summary of the discourses relating to the Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919) in the Horthy Era, through combining traditional historical approach with latest methods of textual analysis of memoirs, novels, anniversary commemorations, parliamentary speeches and historical textbooks from the counter-revolutionary period of the Hungarian history (1919–1944). The Anti-Bolshevik Horthy Regime, with the leadership of Admiral Miklós Horthy, identified itself as the opposite of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The politicians and intellectuals of the Horthy Regime were interested in depicting the dictatorship of proletariat as the nadir of Hungarian history, speaking only about the negative aspects and dispositions, and showing the leftist elite of the commune as ‘sadist criminals’. That way, the problems of the Horthy Era could be glossed over by pointing backwards: the communists are responsible for everything evil and bad, God forbid they return! The research would highlight the devices that were utilized between 1919 and 1944 in order to distort the history of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Nevertheless, the lecture is going to present as well, how the counter-revolutionary remembrance has been galvanized in the illiberal Orbán regime since 2010 by the governmental memory policy.
Image: The cover of the Anti-Bolshevik pamphlet "The Bloody Job of the Lenin Boys" (1920)