Bitter-Sweet Reminiscences of János Kádár’s “Soft Dictatorship” in the Hungarian Cinema

The article is an attempt of a synthetic view upon the Hungarian cinema concerning the question of the communist past of the country ruled by János Kádár. The author discusses distinctive concepts of “writing” history of the “soft dictatorship” by Hungarian filmmakers. She examines about 15 titles, produced from 1980s until now and draws attention to the coexistence of two tendencies – a nostalgic one, widespread since the fall of the socialist system to the beginnings of the third millennium, as well as an antinostalgic one, settling accounts with the past. The first efforts of disillusion and overcoming the common way of thinking about the “Goulash Communism” in the national cinema have only been brought by the recent years.

Article Title	Type	Size
Muga	[pdf]	[559 KB]