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Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, I will focus on how the Hungarian communist government adjusted the harvest festival to the new political reality and how it organized these festivals in Sztálinváros in the 1950s. This town was special because it was built as the communist dream town of Hungary.

Paper long abstract:

This study argues that the political system changed in Hungary after World War II and that when the new political government was established by the communists, there were also many changes in cultural life. The new communist party followed Soviet methods in establishing new institutions (for example the Folk Art Institute in 1951), periodicals, cinemas, theatres, literature, public holidays, folk customs, etc., all of which went under state control.

Firstly, in my presentation, I try to understand the relationship between culture and politics during the early period of socialism in Hungary, called the Rákosist era.

In the second part of my paper, I focus on the harvest festival organized in Sztálinváros (Fejér County, Hungary) in the 1950s. This town was special because it was built as the communist dream town (like Magnitogorsk in Russia) with an enormous number of workers from several parts of Hungary taking part in the construction. The harvest festival as an invented folk custom in the 19th century was celebrated throughout Hungary among peasants, mainly at the end of July or the beginning of August when the crops were harvested. In this paper, I will focus on how the Hungarian communist government adjusted the harvest festival to the new political reality and how it organized these festivals in Sztálinváros in the 1950s. I would like to reflect on how the communists used the harvest festival to stabilize their political power after the moral, existential, and economic uncertainties that followed the Second World War.