Whose History? Remembrance, Politics, Documentary

Trianon, Don Bend, Holocaust, 1956 and the subsequent retaliation. These were the great traumas of 20th century Hungarian history. Events of the past the society has not yet been able to recover from; the lack of appropriate remembrance leaves its mark on our everyday lives, our unclear past stories are projected onto the present as a depressing shadow. There can be many ways to nurture collective memory, to process the past. The possibilities of evaluating and cultivating history have changed in recent decades. It is increasingly accepted that history can be interpreted as a social discourse, and not only within the narrow confines of scientific and academic research, but that historical narratives can be displayed and even created in other media, cultural spheres. A documentary is one possible tool for this: it can help to get rid of the oppressive burdens of the past. This book examines the role of Hungarian historical documentaries of the last thirty years in the formulation of Hungarian national memory narratives, in the creation of a community of collective memory, and in the processing of traumas.

Réka Sárközy graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the Eötvös Loránd University and the University of Theater and Film Arts. Since 1995 she has been a member of the 1956 Institute of the NSZL, her field of research is historical documentary film and historical photographs. As a producer, she participated in the production of 16 documentaries. She is one of the creators of the 1956 Institute’s contemporary photo database of more than 15,000 digital photographs. She received her PhD from the University of Theater and Film in 2011 and published a monograph on the history of Hungarian historical documentaries entitled Elbeszélt múltjaink (Our Narrated Pasts). Between 2011– 2014 she was granted the János Bolyai Research Fellow. She teaches as a lecturer at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University and at the University of Theater and Film Arts.