Heritage Making in Former Socialist Towns in Hungary

Bibliographic Data

ID3633047
AuthorsÁgota Lídia Ispán (0000-0003-0920-8767, Institute of Ethnology, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungary, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume68
Issue2
Pages355-394
Publication date2024-12-17
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueActa Ethnographica Hungarica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1216-9803 • E-ISSN: 1588-2586
PublisherAkademiai Kiado Zrt (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1556/022.2024.00009
OpenAlexW4403480315
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited12

Central and Eastern European countries generally view their socialist heritage as an unwanted, unpleasant burden. The new identity-building processes after the regime change were initially dominated by efforts to rewrite, suppress, or erase the socialist past, while for Western tourists the consumption of key attractions and sites of the built heritage represents a particular form of heritage tourism through which they can experience a slice of an "exotic" past beyond the Iron Curtain. At the national and local levels, there is a vast dissonance between the material heritage of socialism and the identity and aspirations of post-socialist communities, which is even more evident in the case of newly-built, former socialist towns. Through the example of Tiszaújváros and Dunaújváros, my study primarily examines the institutional strategies chosen by these towns to address their socialist heritage. What principles prevailed in the compilation of the local collection of values? What kind of representation of the past do local museums offer, what role does the ethnographic heritage of the annexed villages play in museum presentation and collection, and how are local/regional traditions integrated into the town's image? Finally, through a specific community of memory, a Facebook page, I examine how the recent past appears in individual and collective - often nostalgic - memory, what values the community associates with the town, and how all these relate to the heritagization practices of the local elite

Ancient history · Archaeology · Cultural heritage · Ethnology · Political science · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Urbanization and City Planning

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