1. Cultural Forgetting
Magda Szabó: Mózes egy, huszonkettő [Moses, Book I:22], the ultimate Kádárist novel

2. Magda Szabó ( )

3. Snubbed and persecuted by the socialist regime or making her pact with it?
always claimed to have been discriminated by the communist regime
Stalinist period (Mátyás Rákosi)
sidelined: Baumgarten Prize revoked in the last minute
fired from her job at the Ministry of Culture
primary school teaching
did not face de-Stalinization with shame, embarrassment or a need to atone
preserved her name intact

4. 1984 interview
life in postwar Hungary: she understood to have been caught up in a storm which in the long run would secure great developments for the country.
Although the wind hit her and her husband against a rock at the moment, a doctrine (communism) that started pure and with pure intentions, would inevitably find its sobriety
 Reliable fellow-traveller

5. Freskó (Mural) 1958 George Gömöri: The Guardian’s obituary
the novel “appeared in a period after the suppression of the 1956 revolution when no Hungarian writer of any worth would give political support to the Soviet-sponsored government of János Kádár”

6. publication of the novel: double purpose:
post-1956 regime was trying to make amends and offer space to non-communist writers silenced during the Stalinist (Rákosi-) era
non-communist, previously snubbed writers who cannot be accused of any Stalinist sympathies are willing to publish in this regime, rather than join the writers’ boycott that followed the uprising

7. Zoltán Onagy: after the 1950s and 1956 Magda Szabó figured out reality and learnt her lesson, including that respecting the existing borders gave writers a level of freedom
After her early novels, those in power agreed that even though she was alien to the working class, she could and would usefully participate in the “changing of old traditions”
Moses: contribution to the politics of forgetting

8. János Kádár (1956-1988) and the regime based on forgetting

9. “who is not against us is with us”
“by the mid-1960s, as the Kadar regime attempted to stabilise and politically demobilise Hungarian society […] politicised versions of the past were increasingly replaced with historical taboos and public silences, particularly over the events of 1956”
Mark, James (2006), “Antifascism, the 1956 Revolution and the Politics of Communist Autobiographies in Hungary ”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 8 (Dec.), pp

10. 3 traumas in Hungarian history
1) Trianon
2) World War II
3) 1956

11. Trianon

12. World War II

13. 1956 “(fascist) counterrevolution” “Unfortunate events of October”
“Hungarian tragedy”

14. 1 May 1957

15. happiest barrack
Imre Bata: the people have drawn the conclusions of 1956
“they are working, saving, fucking, travelling, not thinking”
show their support for the regime which has covered 1956 with forgetting
voluntary silence/repression not amnesia

17. Families 3 generations: young, old, aged
Bartos: communist
Gál: bourgeois
Mother, father, grandfather
Gyuri, Márta
Huszár-family
Pál Huszár: executed in show trial
Mrs. Huszár widow
Miklós: son
Father: grand bourgeois, pharmacist
Mother, grandmother: petit-bourgeois
Ádám, Hugi (Gabriella)

18. Bartos is not reactionary, which is really amazing, because he should have become one out of pure opposition, but just like me he does not understand why he should, like the Christian believers in the old times, all day say grateful prayers for having what there is. It is here, good, he sees it and appreciates it, but why should he in every minute with each of his words, breaths and deeds prove that he is flabbergasted, why is he not allowed to live and enjoy the fruits of all those things his ancestors worked and suffered for so much [54]

19. Mrs. Huszár
And how many happy minutes the black dress meant to her, the narrowing of the eyes, the change of faces, the knowledge that people still get shaken by what happened to them, that she reminds the people who could forget so easily [86] – my italics.

20. Miklós
“I am myself. Not a ghost. Not a double. Don’t fool yourself, I’m not your husband. […] I cannot help that my father was killed or that you had the youth you did, that you were always fleeing and afraid and shot at and could hardly be together, and when everything could be all right, it didn’t last, then he was condemned innocent. I cannot give you what life owes you. […]

21. You keep watching me. When you came to my room at night and thought I was asleep, you leaned over me and touched my hair. When you finally let me alone I did not dare to fall asleep for awhile. I knew you were thinking of my father and that somewhere you did not understand him, maybe you never did, because if he was the way you told me, it would irritate him what you do with is memory. […] I was scared of you. Every time you came to my room my heart was in my throat.” ( 83-85, my italics)

22. There is no war, every citizen has shoes, the Danube can be crossed through a bridge, no need to swim across the water or jump from icefloe to icefloe, bread can be bought without rationing and if the bell rings at night, no need to get a fit, it is not the AVO [secret police in the 1950s], and everyone has or can have a job. This must be enough. [51]

23. Reconciliation
Bartos grandfather and Gál grandmother: originally they look at each other with great distrust, recognizing one another’s former social status
however they grow to see nothing else than old people who continuously work and thus they started helping each other and working and talking together
they also realized that their position in the family was not enviable and this similarity was much more important than any social differences in the previous regime

24.  Thus although the old woman knew that the old Bartos was a communist and could not really follow his thoughts, and the old man knew that the old Gál woman had very hazy ideas about the country and still thought the Germans were right in the war, it does not matter anymore, and their time together was laced with peace and quiet ( ).