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Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to analyse one particular, puzzling, humorous anecdote of a "rape", an intercourse between a Soviet soldier and a Hungarian woman as told by an old lady at a family gathering. I wish to contextualize this one story in the wider context of local narratives of war and sexual violence.

Paper long abstract:

The paper aims to present, contextualize and interpret a humorous rape story collected as part of an ethnographic research that was conducted in the Aranyosvidék region of Transylvania, Romania. I wish to present an understanding of this field experience and narrative event, when a similar story was told by a woman at a family gathering and provoked laughter. When one researches military stories they often encounter stories of sexual violence committed by the invading or liberating Soviet forces. These stories - mostly told by elderly women in private, after long conversations - echo biased, uneven gender relations and lack of agency: women are passive actors, hidden by men from the armed forces of the enemy just as the other valuables of the family. According to the narratives, most of the rapes occurred as consequence of women trying to act on their own accord. Yet, these stories are never linked to the storyteller or her family, only to other unnamed locals or neighbours. It seems, that actual events cannot be communicated, the traumatic experience is depersonalized and integrated as an element to the collective, victimized self-image of the local Hungarian minority. This is the general narrative, thematic context in which this shocking story was told. Through contrasting this one particular story with the block of mainstream narratives I argue that these two models of speech, the depersonalized, traumatic, dialogical and the personal, humorous, public ones echo the same sexual imaginary and gender relations narrated in relation to events of war.