HUNGARIAN STUDIES 16. No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [2002]

Pál Hatos: Kossuth and the Images of Hungarian National Identity after 1989

KOSSUTH AND THE IMAGES OF HUNGARIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY AFTER 1989 PÁL HATOS Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA The folkloristic image of Kossuth reveals to us the Kossuth of legend, the Kossuth of folktunes and popular anecdotes, while the other view has been shaped by the shifting political traditions and professional historiographie assessments. The chang­ing interpretations of Kossuth are a historical phenomenon of intellectual history and reflect the various political situations as well as the intellectual climate of the past 150 years of Hungarian history. Keywords: Historiography, folkloristic image, historical memory, Hungarian Revo­lution and War of Independence, intellectual history According to Gyula Szekfu, arguably the most influential twentieth-century Hungarian historian, Hungarian collective memory has two different images of Kossuth. The folkloristic image reveals to us the Kossuth of legend, the Kossuth of folktunes and popular anecdotes, while the other view has been shaped by the shifting political traditions and professional historiographie assessments.1 As far as the folkloristic image is concerned we can say that Kossuth and the fifteenth­century ruler Mathias Corvin are by far the most popular national heros with whom Hungarians have a special relationship of intimacy and familiarity.2 There is for instance much less folkloristic material about the other iconic figure of the Hun­garian Reform Era (1825-1848) István Széchenyi, but the scholarly literature on Széchenyi is far more extensive.3 How can we define the difference, if there is one, between the Kossuth folk­lore, the images of Kossuth produced and dissemminated in the political culture, and the views promoted by academic historians? Here there will be no opportu­nity to discuss the extensive literature of the Kossuth folklore, which still awaits its historian. On the other hand one fact appears clearly: the question is not to asses whether or not the folkloristic image despite its structural ahistoricity is more authentic than the politicised image preponderant in high culture but rather to explore the dichotomy of the folklore and the political traditions.4 Hungarian Studies 16/2 (2002) 0236-6568/2002/$5.00 © 2002 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

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