Claim:
The so-called “democratic opposition” was indifferent to ’the great questions of the nation’
Rebuttal:
The democratic opposition dealt extensively with such issues in its publications and events, but from a different perspective and with different emphases than the “völkisch” opposition.
In detail:
The view that the group known as ’the democratic opposition’ did not deal with issues of ’national importance’ stems from the fact that in the 1980s, there were two rival intellectual groups in Hungary, which brought the völkisch-urban debates of previous decades back to the surface. Many people associate the representation of national issues with the other group, the circle of völkisch writers, who also saw themselves primarily as the shapers of national destiny and the representatives of the nation’s conscience in opposition to the Kádár regime. The völkisch writers—in their own words—thought in terms of “the people, the nation,” and raised concerns about the decline in population (the population of Hungary began to decline in 1981) and the worrying situation of ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries. They expressed their views and concerns in their works and articles, and as “distinguished intellectuals” they also engaged in dialogue with the representatives of the regime. Although they were in contact with members of the democratic opposition, which later formed the core of the Alliance of Free Democrats party (SZDSZ), the fundamental differences in their views were obvious, so they did not act as joint challengers to the state socialist party (MSZMP). This “urban” group did not participate in the 1987 meeting in Lakitelek, where the conservative-völkisch Forum of Hungarian Democrats(MDF) was formed.
Another reason why the democratic opposition is not generally considered to be the representative of “national” politics is that, from the late 1970s onwards, this movement focused more on human rights, criticism of the communist system, and then the adoption of Western European political institutions and economic crisis management. While the popular wing of the MDF envisioned a so-called ’third road’, neither communist nor capitalist, but a uniquely Hungarian solution, the SZDSZ believed in the ideals of freedom of Western bourgeois liberalism and the economic efficiency of Western capitalism. In contrast, István Csurka and his supporters saw capitalism itself as a source of danger, which would turn Hungarians into a “nation of waiters”—mere servants of foreign capital and thus foreign interests—in their own country.
The democratic opposition’s approach was therefore based on the individual on the one hand, and on the other hand, it extended beyond national boundaries: they thought in terms of the region, international political processes, and universal values. Their programmatic writings also focused primarily on economic, legal, and political tasks. At the same time, the first two issues of their samizdat publication included a summary of the history of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia after 1945, and two representatives of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia, Miklós Duray and historian Kálmán Janics, repeatedly expressed their views in Beszélő, while György Nagy published an analysis, supported by statistical data, on the disadvantaged situation of Hungarians in Romania. They spoke out against the curtailment of the rights of Hungarians living in minority communities, analyzed how Ceaușescu’s dictatorship drew legitimacy from the promotion of Romanian nationalism and the oppression of minorities living there, including the largest minority, the Hungarians, and criticized the Kádár regime’s conflict-avoiding behavior. The democratic opposition maintained good personal relations with those Hungarians in Transylvania who published the samizdat publication Ellenpontok (Counterpoints), which discussed the situation of Hungarians in Romania, with their technical assistance. The most important founder was Attila Ara-Kovács, one of the authors of the samizdat Beszélő and a friend of its editors, and there was overlap between the two groups of authors. At the end of the 1980s, Hungarians who had fled Romania were taken in by the Menedék Bizottság (Refuge Committee) and the Szegényeket Támogató Alap (Fund for the Support of the Poor), both of which were linked to the democratic opposition. The members of the group participated in organizing the large Transylvania-themed demonstration in June 1988 and in helping the Hungarian and Romanian residents there during the Romanian revolution.
Nevertheless, although the democratic opposition frequently addressed the situation of ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries, the main focus was on other issues, and the deprivation of minority rights was interpreted primarily as a violation of human rights in general. The ’national’ question thus became a fundamental political dividing line between the parties involved in the transition to democracy.
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