Paper short abstract:

This paper asks why the authoritarian populist regime of Orbán’s Hungary institutionalize folk culture in the infrastructures of high culture. Besides stressing the long history of mis/using folk culture in state-building, I argue that folk art NGO’s deep social penetration is key to this shift.

Paper long abstract:

How do emerging authoritarian capitalist regimes reorder folk heritage in the peripheries of Europe? To answer this question, I mobilize my one-and-a-half-year-long ethnographic fieldwork at the Hungarian Academy of Arts (HAA) – the lavishly funded cultural flagship institution of Orbán’s Hungary. During my participant observation at the HAA I paid a special attention on the role of folk culture, and I attended several meetings of its folk artists. In the paper I argue that the HAA encapsulates a particular tendency in the Orbán-regimes’ mis/use of heritage: it elevates folk culture to the “level” of high culture.

Folk culture has been a cornerstone of East-Central European state and nation-building since the 19th century, and most regimes established segmented institutions of ‘authentic’ folk culture. The HAA’s case indicates a rupture in this model. Folk art has its dedicated section within the Academy next to the traditional high art disciplines. Dozens of folk artists have been elected to be members of the HAA, giving them unprecedented recognition.

Besides mobilizing the association between folk culture and national essence, the paper argues that the social penetration of folk-art NGOs is crucial to their "upward mobility." Folk culture is much more popular than other forms of high culture produced in the HAA's ivory tower, and it is not limited to the urban, upper-class communities. I argue that via the high number of folk-art NGOs, the HAA and the Orbán-regime can penetrate society – and stabilize its rule – at a deeper level than via high art.

Paper short abstract:

Turul bird is a mythical creature, a symbol of the Hungarian nation. It is acknowledged both by the state and radical right-wing groups. Critical political gestures often take the form of assault (symbolic or real) on Turul sites, protected as part of the cultural heritage.

Paper long abstract:

Turul is a mythical bird of prey depicted on archaeological objects associated with ancient Hungarians. It became an important national symbol in the first half of the 20th century. Turul Monuments were placed at important sites, often at the edges of Hungary, as spiritual guards of the nation’s borders. After the First World War and the Treaty of Trianon, many of these sculptures were standing on the territories separated from Hungary. These monuments became symbols of oppression for the citizens of non-Hungarian origin and the authorities of the newly created states. Thus, they were often destroyed. Those monuments that were left, although often neglected, through the fact of their survival became highly sensitive symbols of the lost lands, and of the damaged but indestructible spirit of the Hungarian Nation. In the 1990s Turul monuments were renovated under the supervision of the MDF conservative party. Turul bird appeared on the coat of arms of various state services, such as the Hungarian Defence Forces. This bird also attracted skinheads and other radical right-wing groups, that created songs and merchandise devoted to the Turul. When the war in Ukraine intensified in 2022, a Turul monument previously restored in Uzhhorod, a Ukrainian city near the border with Hungary, was vandalised. Turul is also being ridiculed by oppositional musicians and activists inside Hungary. Turul is often presented as part of cultural heritage, but it also plays an important role in delivering political messages. How is cultural heritage discourse being deployed by populist propaganda in Hungary?

Paper short abstract:

Monuments are places of historical tension where memory and power are negotiated. Observing Spanish nationalist rallies and anticolonial demonstrations at the Columbus monument (Barcelona, 2019-2023), my aim is to explore the different uses of these two groups of the same monument on the same day.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, antiracists and anticolonial movements have highlighted their pain and suffering caused by the existence of monuments and statues with imperial and slavery pasts and have called for their removal. Against these demands, far-right and nationalist groups have been defending these symbols as historical representations of their national heritage. Thus, attacks on these symbols of the national past have been framed by the far right as attacks on the nations of the present. This has served to activate nativist discourses and portray antiracists and anticolonial activists as violent illegal migrants. In Barcelona, the Christopher Columbus monument has been the epicenter of this historical and political tension.

Spain celebrates its national day on October 12 to commemorate the “arrival” of Christopher Columbus in America. In Barcelona, every October 12, far-right Vox activists and other Spanish ultranationalists gather in the morning at the Columbus monument to celebrate the imperial heritage of “Hispanidad”. In the afternoon, anticolonial groups walk through the streets of Barcelona and end their demonstration at the Columbus monument.

Monuments are places of historical tension where memory and power are negotiated. Through participant observation from 2019 to 2023 at Spanish nationalist rallies and anticolonial demonstrations at the Columbus monument (Barcelona), my aim is to explore the different uses that these two antagonistic political groups make of the same monument on the same day. The past and the present intertwine within the same object/monument to become a field of political struggle.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will present the method of ‘dialogic remembering’: a novel approach to remembering conflicting pasts that allows one to relate to others’ and to one's own memories despite differences in experience and through reflection on one's own habitual recourse to prevalent mnemonic narratives.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork at museums in Germany and Poland, this paper will propose a novel approach to interrelating conflicting memories of postsocialist ‘transitions.’ Often remembered in strongly divergent or even antagonistic ways, the period of the 1980s–1990s remains a contentious topic in Central and Eastern Europe, providing a fruitful ground for its instrumentalization by populist actors. Drawing on findings of the project ‘Reconstituting Publics through Remembering Transitions: Facilitating Critical Engagement with the 1980–90s on Local and Transnational Scales’ (carried out by the presenter together with Ksenia Robbe, Agnieszka Mrozik, and the ‘Transition Dialogue’ network), the paper will present the concept and method of ‘dialogic remembering’ developed by the project’s participants. Central to dialogic remembering are possibilities of interrelating different mediated and vernacular memories (representing perspectives and experiences of various professions, generations, genders, and so on) of the same events – without collapsing them into each other or drawing them apart. This theoretical and methodological approach to group remembrance grew out of the experimental workshops – conducted as part of the above-mentioned project – with citizens of Berlin, Eisenhüttenstadt, Gdańsk, and Łódź, during which postsocialist transformations were recollected in small groups in ways that allowed participants to relate to others’ and to their own memories despite differences in experience or even disagreements and through reflection on their own habitual recourse to prevalent mnemonic narratives.

Paper short abstract:

This paper outlines the repertoire of populist practices aimed at Polish historical museums. It presents the research results from the study of museum professionals’ strategies for dealing with the populist turn in the Polish cultural sector with a special focus on historical museums.

Paper long abstract:

This paper outlines the research results from the study of museum professionals’ strategies for dealing with the populist turn in the Polish cultural sector with a special focus on historical museums. The populist turn that is reflected in Polish cultural institutions (Kurz 2019), including museums, is undoubtedly an important phenomenon of contemporary culture. It is both due to the growing popularity of museums and the evolution of the “Polish museum boom” (Kobielska 2019), and their prominent role in the process of shaping knowledge (Hooper-Greenhill 2007). However, the impact of populism on museums is still underresearched and there is no literature indicating strategies for dealing with populism in the Polish museum world. Populist practices in the cultural sector usually evade analysis by political science, but they have a strong influence on how museums function, and how they directly or indirectly affect museum employees. Populist practices are not only conducted or used by politicians. Populism permeates socio-cultural life in various ways; thus, the study of populism extends beyond the framework of political studies. In this paper, I present the results of a cultural anthropology and museum ethnography study conducted in the years 2020-2023 in Polish museums. Initiating the discussion on the functionality of counterstrategies for populism will not only fill the gap but also have an impact on further development in the field of critical museology and studies on heritage/memory cultures.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon research on populism in the Polish city of Gdańsk, the paper discusses the significance of walking tours as practices of populist heritage-making, especially the ways they set out to present historical accounts from the perspective of the 'common people'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines walking tours as practices of populist heritage-making in contemporary Poland, especially the ways they function as sources of 'alternative' histories that seek to challenge the legitimacy of dominant historical narratives. What unites many scholarly works on these practices is a focus on their institutional dimension, namely, on the attempts of right-wing governments or municipal councils to impose their own vision of history on sites of cultural heritage. Yet little is known about grassroots practices of populist heritage-making that set out to present accounts of historical events from the perspective of the 'common people'. Drawing upon research conducted in the Polish city of Gdańsk, the paper discusses the significance, in populist heritage-making, of walking tours through the grounds of the shipyard that had been the cradle of Solidarity, the social movement that contributed to the downfall of the Socialist state. It shows that even though the tours organizers actively support the right-wing populist party that was in office until recently, they refrain from propagating nationalist narratives, and seek instead to promote a vision of Polish history as something 'made' by the 'common people', which is meant to question the putative 'elitist' versions of local history upheld by the pro-EU municipal council. The paper pursues the argument that anthropologists can play a significant role in challenging populist heritage-making practices by taking as a point of departure the concepts that are at the core of these practices, of which that of the 'common people' is one of the most powerful.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on German monuments and memorials, this research delves into the far-right influence on public remembrance, exploring how they manipulate historical events for their narratives alongside hegemonic actors.

Paper long abstract:

In the context of heritage studies, much has been said about combats over memory by civil initiatives and the tensions within heritage regimes, f.e., in the context of de-colonial activism. Yet, fewer studies include the doings of the far-right and right-wing populists in public remembrance. Those supporters of ideologies of inequality and exclusion often challenge pluralist memory politics by idealizing specific parts of history and decontextualizing fragments of the past as a legitimation for their beliefs (Valencia-García 2020). This paper looks at the memory practices of different revisionist actors in Germany in the context of the co-memorations at national monuments and memorial sites of dark heritage. For example, the memory of fallen soldiers in WWI and WWII is frequently hijacked by far-right groups to strengthen narratives of the ‘glorious’ nation. But also hegemonial actors use such events for their purposes. In my contribution, I want to look at the relation of both hegemonial and far-right memory practices. How do they inform each other? What does this tell about coming to terms with the past in contemporary politics in Germany?