On the last day of May, M. János Rainer, director of the 56-Institute, a historical research center focused on the 1956 Hungarian revolution, its antecedents and the Kádár regime that followed it, learned from the newspapers that his institute no longer exists. It will be incorporated into the Veritas Historical Research Institute, which was established five years ago to bring together researchers whose historical views coincide with those of the current political leadership. Viktor Orbán and his friends have been trying to destroy the institute for a long time, starting back in 1998 when they first acquired power, but it was only now that they dared to abolish it altogether.

A few words about the history of the Institute. In 1981 a group of historians and sociologists under semi-legal conditions began collecting oral histories from participants in the revolution. Four years later their efforts were supported financially by the Soros Foundation. The Institute was officially established on July 17, 1989, a day after the reburial of Imre Nagy and his fellow martyrs. It began as a private foundation, but in 1994 it became a government-supported public foundation on the suggestion of Iván Szabó, finance minister of the Antall government who was also an active participant in the revolution. Between 1989 and 1998 the Institute’s researchers published hundreds if not thousands of works, books as well as articles, and also organized conferences.

In the spring of 1998, the Fidesz-FKgP government won the election. Initially it looked as if the Institute would receive 73 million forints for the year 1999, a 13-million forint increase from the year before. But then suddenly everything changed. A new foundation was established under the stewardship of Mária Schmidt and the Institute budget was drastically slashed. Altogether 67 million forints were taken away from the amount originally promised, prompting an international outcry, which as usual did not move the Hungarian prime minister. The Institute had had a budget of 60 million forints, and from there on it was supposed to survive on 6 million. Clearly, Orbán hoped that the Institute would die.

The Institute survived the first Orbán years, but eight years later Viktor Orbán returned, and one of the items on his agenda was to continue his attacks on the Institute. In 2012 the Institute lost its independence and half of its staff when it was incorporated into Hungary’s national library. This was a strange solution, but perhaps so early in his second administration Orbán didn’t feel confident enough to close the Institute altogether. Although the remaining ten historians attached to the Institute were not happy about the situation, they were free to publish without any interference. To put the Institute under the Veritas Research Center, however, is something that M. János Reiner at least finds intolerable. He doesn’t yet know what the others will do, but he will not move over to Veritas.

Apparently the idea of attaching the Institute to Veritas was under consideration already in 2017. At that point the plan came to naught because apparently Sándor Szakály, the director of Veritas, was against it. Whether this time he was consulted about the move we don’t know.

In an interview Rainer was asked about Viktor Orbán’s intense hatred of the Institute. Rainer believes that Orbán “wants to crush everything that doesn’t belong under his retinue. He wants to end the circles of freedom that still exist.” In addition, Rainer believes that Mária Schmidt’s personal antipathy also has something to do with the difficulties the Institute had to endure in the past. I don’t doubt that Rainer is right about Orbán’s intentions to crush all sources of independent thought and I’m also sure that Mária Schmidt hates the members of the Institute, but I see several other most likely more important reasons for this antagonism.

When the young Orbán rose to deliver his speech at Imre Nagy’s funeral, which turned out to be a landmark in his career, he made it clear that there can be no reconciliation between the communists (or whomever he considered to be communists) and “the national side.” Imre Nagy was a communist, and anyone who considers him to be a hero is also a communist. Some of the people who were instrumental in the establishment of the Institute were disenchanted communists prior to 1956, and as far as Orbán was concerned that was reason enough to hate the Institute, regardless of the fact that its staff had absolutely nothing to do with communism. The oldest member of the group was only one year old at the time of the revolution and whose father languished in jail for years. Orbán considers all those who work in the Institute communist sympathizers, or perhaps liberals. Neither category is acceptable to him.

Second, before the sixtieth anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution Orbán tried to find a “proper” historical designation for the ideological context of the revolution. The goal was to deprive the so-called reform communists of their role before, during, and after those two weeks. That was a difficult undertaking since their role was so central and so obvious. But then came Mária Schmidt, who tried to convince Hungarians that the real heroes of the revolution were not the people who were executed or spent years in jail but those young teenagers who fought on the streets. Of course, drawing a moral distinction between the “good boys of Pest” and the bad communists who remain communists forever is utter nonsense.

In brief, Orbán and his coterie don’t like the historical interpretations of the members of the team at the 56-Institute. The Kulturkampf, which began in early 2018, first concentrated on literature and literary interpretation. It looks as if history will be the next victim. Naturally, the 56-Institute is the first to go, but I fear that the Academy’s historical institute will be the next to be forced under the Veritas Research Institute.

In preparation for writing this post, I paid a visit to the Institute’s website. It is an incredible treasure trove of free .pdf files of practically all the publications of the Institute, dating back to 1992. I don’t know what will happen to this site, but perhaps it might be good idea to download those items that are of special interest to you. Unfortunately, there is only one title in English (The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Soviet Bloc Countries: Reactions and Repercussions).

It is a sad day for those who believe that 1956 is an important date in Hungarian history which should not be the victim of the far-right ideologues of the Orbán regime.

June 2, 2019