Edit Andrs

VigorousFlagging in theHeart ofEurope: TheHungarianHomelandunder theRight-WingRegime

Nationalism is not just in Hungarys backyard, itis in every corner of the house from thebasement to the roof. It gets inside with the airand has completely soaked through the orificesof the building: the front door, the windows, thechimney, the front yard. For this reason, KrisztaNagy, a Hungarian painter who exhibited herwork last spring at Godot Gallery in Budapest,feels she has no other option than to paint theleader of Hungary on bedsheets and tablecloths.She explains the reason for her fifty-seven Popportraits of Viktor Orbn: The prime ministersleeps in our bed. He is on our tablecloth.1Nationhood is constantly and vigorouslyflagged: national symbols are everywhere. Evenprotesters and activists opposing the regimespolitics feel a pressing need to take back thenational symbols currently appropriated forofficial use because those not regarded asHungarian enough are excluded from the notionof the nation. Among other tools used forbuilding nationhood, the reproduction of thenations visual culture is constantly recruited.Hungarys authoritarian regime, with itscentralized, highly controlled system, isreplicated in the administration of the arts. It ishard to grasp this complex and overwhelmingphenomenon.

Flagging Nationhood in Everything Sacredand Profane

After reconfiguring electoral rules in favor ofreelection, and pursuing an aggressive, populistcampaign amidst apathy, the right-wing regimewon the Hungarian election on April 6, 2014.Now, it is finalizing what it began building in theprevious mandate. According to the partysprogram, this can be condensed to just a singlesentence: We continue. Concerning the arts,the goal is to achieve a traditional, conservative,Christian culture, conveying a historically rootedimage of a strong and proud Hungary. Fidesz, theruling party in Hungary, used this image on itsbillboards for the European Parliament elections.The message We are sending word to Brussels:Hungarians demand respect stood beside theportrait of the prime minister the same portraitthat is replicated fifty-seven times in KrisztaNagys paintings. Victor Orbn regards the EU asa colonizing power. Bravely talking back to thecolonizer is presented as the main task of thecharismatic leader of a nation that is the heart ofEurope. The idea is to project an image of atough, resistant nation-state within the EU,using EU money, with the attitude of the heroicoutlaw who robs from the rich and gives to thepoor. In reality, the meaning is slightly, butcrucially, altered from the fairytale version: Torob from the external rich and give to the internalrich.

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Kriszta Nagy, Viktor Orbn, 2014. Photo courtesy of Gbor Kozk.

Funded by European money, the newlyinaugurated football stadium and the PusksFerenc Football Academy are literally in thebackyard of the leaders residence in hishometown of Felcst.2 They are emblems of thecurrent cultural politics, which prioritizes sports,especially football, at the expense of the artsand education. Politicians can, when waving thenational flag, advocate sporting policies, so thatthe flag-waving of sport itself becomes anotherflag to be waved thus states Michael Billig,who coined the term banal nationalism toindicate that nationalism is not removed fromeveryday life, but is constantly flagged throughbanal habits.3 According to Billig, this is how thephenomenon is omnipresent in Western, affluentcountries. He points to sports and its relation tomasculinity as some of the habits that enablethe established nations of the West to bereproduced.Nationalism is flagged literally on publicbuildings as well. At the Hungarian parliament,the Szkely (Szekler) flag is now commonlyhoisted next to the Hungarian one, while the EUflag is missing, clearly demonstrating thatneonationalism has reached the mainstream.The message is that minority communities ofethnic Hungarians living abroad (for example, the

Szkelys in Transylvania, Romania, which oncebelonged to Hungary) are now being reclaimed bythe Hungarian government a quite disturbingand destabilizing message in the time of theUkrainian-Russian crisis.Another guiding principle of the currentadministration is Christianity. Football stadiumsare to be consecrated, as was the case with theFelcst soccer stadium last Easter. However, thisrevival of religious sentiment in a generallysecular postcommunist country inevitably comestogether with a variety of prospering newreligions, among them shamanism and the cultof pagan Hungarian mythology. All of thesereligions can now apparently coexist without anyconflict.The revival of the symbolic imagination ofHungary as Regnum Marianum has beencombined with the cult of the Turul, themythological bird of ancient Hungary (and laterthe symbol of Greater Hungary in the revisionistideology of the interwar period, following theTrianon Peace Treaty in 1921). Thus, the four-meter-high statue of the Virgin Mary, erected onthe Cortina Wall of the Buda castle, facing Peston the other side of the Danube, is also inpeaceful coexistence with the many Turulstatues around the capital and throughout the

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Policemen protect the monument of Nazi Occupation under construction in Freedom square, Budapest. Photo: Gabriella Csosz / FreeDoc.

Hungarian countryside.4A statue of an eagle swooping down on theangel Gabriel personifications of Germany andHungary, respectively has now been erected inFreedom Square in Budapest. It sets the regimeshistorical genealogy and holds utmostimportance for its symbolic politics. The statue,which is supposed to commemorate the Nazioccupation of Hungary, stirred a heated debateabout monuments dedicated to historical events,which are usually erected based on wide socialconsensus. However, the opposite was true inthe case of this statue: in Hungary, the politics ofmemory is a muscle politic.5 Hence, the primeminister does not mind stating that the artworkis precise and immaculate from an ethical pointof view, and also from the point of view of itsform as [well as] the historical content itarticulates, in an open reply to an art historianwho wrote him a letter (the exact contents ofwhich is unknown), presumably emphasizing thehighly sensitive nature of the controversialmonument.According to thegovernments website, themonument pays tribute to all Hungarian victims,with the erection of the monumentcommemorating the tragic German occupationand the memorial year to mark the 70th

anniversary of the Holocaust. However, activistsas well as historians and social scientists in theHungarian Academy of Sciences regard it as afalsification of history, because the monumentdoes not differentiate between victims andperpetrators and does not acknowledge theHungary's responsibility for its participation inthe Holocaust. Near the place that had beendesignated for the monument, a counter-monument called Living Memorial was set upby a small group including members of thegrassroots organization Free Artists.6 People putpersonal objects and stones there and startedconversations about historical traumas. Sincetheir defeat in the latest election, leftist andliberal politicians have been criticizing themonument to their own advantage. Moderatepoliticians regarded the constant protests ashysterical and untimely, while the ruling partycompletely ignored the debate. In the middle ofthe night on July 20th, the monument waserected despite the ongoing protest. If anyoneamong the conservative supporters of thegovernment was to have any doubt or hesitationin supporting the monument's erection, anideological guideline is available in the form ofthe PMs private letter.7Furthermore, the rhetoric of the ruling party

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Living Memorial is a memorial project coordinated in part by Free Artists. Ongoing project since March 23, 2014. Photo:Gabriella Csosz / FreeDoc

is based on the idea that the socialist period wasillegitimate and that the previous government didnot accomplish the political transition thecountry needed. The current administrationpicks up the political thread from March 18,1944, the day before Hungary, as they claim, lostits independence with the Nazi occupation of thecountry. Given Orbns view that thisindependence was not regained until 1989, thesocialist period is thus erased from the countryshistory.

Museums as Fortresses of the NationThe new right-wing government realized thatmuseums, as privileged spaces of national self-representation, had to be more closelycontrolled, since they were perceived as toocosmopolitan and independent. Someinstitutions dared to argue against bureaucraticdecisions, as was the case with Imre Takcs.Takcs opposed the moving of the Esterhzycollection to the Esterhzy Palace in Fertd.After Takcss resignation, the Museum ofApplied Arts fell into a state of interregnum, notan unusual condition in the local art world. Oneof the Ministry of Cultures first measuresfollowing the spring 2014 election was todelegate the task of the professional,

organizational, and operational renewal of theMuseum of Applied Arts to Lszl Ban, directorof the Museum of Fine Arts. At the time, Banalready controlled the three major art museumsin Budapest. His promotion was quiteextraordinary, especially considering that he hasno training in art history. One by one, museumswere taken out of the hands of professionaldirectors and were placed under his authority.The Hungarian National Gallery, located inthe Buda Castle, was annexed on August 31, 2012by the Museum of Fine Arts, a storefrontmuseum that receives lavish financial support atthe expense of other museums struggling tosurvive. A smaller but highly important museumof strategic interest, the Ferenc Hopp Museum ofEast Asia Arts, also fell prey to Ban. After thereelection of the Fidesz Party, it became clearwhy this seemingly marginal museum wasincorporated. Ban, besides overseeing theambitious creation of a museum quarter inVrosliget Park in Budapest a plan called theLiget Budapest Project8 has also beenassigned to develop an Asian art center crucialfor opening diplomatic relations with the East.The Mcsarnok (Kunsthalle Budapest) hasoperated without a professional leader for quitea while after his previous director, Gbor Gulys

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The monument of Nazi Occupation, erected in the middle of the night on July 20 in Freedom square, Budapest. Photo: Gabriella Csosz / FreeDoc.

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Raining Money at Vigad, Budapest. Demonstration co-organized by Tranzit Action Group and Free Artists, March 14. 2014. Photo: Gabriella Csosz / FreeDoc

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Pter Donka, Untitled, 2013. This sketch, drawn from photojournaIist Istvn Husztis photo, depicts a brawl duringthe first meeting of Hungarian Art Academy with Free Artists, when one of their representatives, was attacked with afolder by a poet member of HAA, December, 2013. Courtesy: Csaba Nemes.

who had been appointed to that post withoutany competition from other candidates resigned (only to be promoted afterwards to ahigher position), under the umbrella of theHungarian Art Academy (HAA), a kind of shadowministry that grew out of a private organization.This ultraconservative institute is gaining fullpower over cultural issues, controlling thesubsidies given to the arts while it favorsnational culture within the culture of thenation. How this program will affect theMcsarnok, the most important venue forcontemporary art in Hungary, is still unclear.

Protest Movements Against the VehementFlagging

Some cultural activists and other protesters,however, have been disrupting the image ofHungary as a clean garden, proper house byboycotting self-congratulation occasionsorganized by the new official culture. Theinternationally known philosopher Gspr M.Tams accurately stated that contemporaryHungarian culture is not against the ideology ofthe recent administration, but rather against itsacts. Although some artists have merelyreflected on the nationalist ideology, the cult ofthe leader, and the falsification of history, other

artists have produced collaborative, critical, andsocially engaged work a kind of activism.9The artists Szabolcs KissPl and CsabaNemes, among others, initiated Free Artists inopposition to the empowerment of the HAA.Their first action was an interruption of HAAmeetings to demand that art remain autonomousfrom party politics. When the Mcsarnok wastaken over by the HAA, young curators, as well asthe respected art critic Jzsef Mlyi, initiatedregular actions and events outside the museum.These events were entitled Outer Space andprotested the right-wing invasion of anindependent art institution.10In response to the nontransparent processbehind the appointment of a new director at theLudwig Museum, a few dozen artists and artprofessionals established the group United forContemporary Art. In May 2013, the groupoccupied the Ludwig Museum. The occupiers artists, art historians, curators, and students demanded complete transparency in theselection process, autonomy from political powerfor cultural institutions, as well as a dialoguebetween museum professionals and ministryofficials. Many of the occupiers including manymembers of the Free Artist group slept and ateon the stairs in the museum, besides organizing

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Obituary Mcsarnok protest at Kunsthalle, Budapest. Oct. 8. 2013. Photo: Gabriella Csosz / FreeDoc

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forums and events there. When director GborGulys resigned and the HAA took over theMcsarnok, contemporary arts fortress inHungary, Free Artists responded by organizing akind of group performance: a burial ceremony forthe flagship institution.At the time of the occupation, the new right-wing museum officials held an event at theVigad Concert hall on the banks of the Danube,one of the most beautiful art nouveau buildingsin Budapest. Artists disrupted the celebration toraise awareness of the financial imbalances inthe art scene and the absolute power of theultraconservative museum regime. This protestwas similar to the one that took place at NewYorks Guggenheim Museum, where activistssprinkled fake money and leaflets on museumvisitors to protest against the inhuman laborconditions at the construction site of the newGuggenheim museum in Abu Dhabi. Although theBudapest protest was called Raining Money,the key element here was not money, but ratherthe defenseless bodies of the protesters lying onthe stairs and floor of the buildings entrance.11All had their mouths stuffed with money, inaccordance with the visual and verbal violencethat is one of the side effects of the vigorouslyflagged nationalism that fills everyday life in theheart of Europe.

Edit Andrs is a Hungarian art historian and art critic.She has been affiliated with the Institute of ArtHistory, Research Centre for the Humanities,Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest) as asenior research fellow. She holds a PhD in art historyfrom Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest. Her maininterests concern Eastern and Central European art,gender issues, socially engaged art, public art as wellas the post-socialist condition and nationalism in theregion. She lives in Budapest and in Long Island, NY.Her latest book is Cultural Crossdressing: Art on theRuins of Socialism (Budapest: Argumentum, 2009) [inHungarian]. She is the editor of the anthologyTransitland. Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe1989-2009 (Budapest: Ludwig Museum ofContemporary Art, 2009). She has published numerousessays in collected volumes and catalogues. Website:http://editandras.arthistorian.hu.

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1Kriszta Nagy, I Take on PaintingPortraits, exhibition at GodotGallery, Budapest, May 15June14, 2014.

2See http://444.hu/assets/felcsut-01.jpg

3Michael Billig, BanalNationalism (London: SagePublications, 1995), 123.

4See http://mariaszobor.hu/index.html. For an analysis of thehistory and recent revival of theTurul symbol in Hungary, seeSzabolcs KissPls essay TheRise of the Fallen Feather: TheSymbolism of the Turul Bird inContemporary Hungary in theJune 2014 issue of e-fluxjournal http://www.e-flux.com/journa l/the-rise-of-a-fallen-feath er-the-symbolism-of-the-turu l-bird-in-contemporary-hunga ry/

5See Cara Eckholm, HungarysIdentity Crisis Fought inConcrete and Bronze,FailedArchitecture.com, May 14,2014 http://failedarchitecture.com/budapest-freedom-square/

6For the groups blog no MMA!,which provides news coverageand commentary about themonument controversy inmultiple languages, seehttp://nemma.noblogs.org/category/english/

7See (in Hungarian)http://www.168ora.hu/itthon/renyi-andras-muveszettortenesz-szabadsag-ter-emlekmu-tortenelemhamisitas-126426.html

8Seehttp://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/museumpark_news

9See Maja and Reuben Fowkes,Hungarian Art in the Eye of theStorm, no MMA!, July 23, 2013http://nemma.noblogs.org/2013/07/23/hungarian-art-in-the -eye-of-the-storm-3/

10For the website of Outer Space,see http://www.kivultagas.hu/

11For coverage of the action, seethe no MMA! blog http://e-flux.com/journal

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