From Chastened to Unchastened Crowd in Hungary

Twenty fives years after insurgent revolutionary crowds swept though Central Europe, “The way you know it is a holiday is that the streets are completely empty.” It is potentially too dangerous, agreed news commentator András Bárdos and popular musician István Dés in 2009. Yet on January 2, 2012, the opposition amassed in striking numbers at the Opera House to protest the new “fundamental law.” Viktor Orbán countered with a massive pro-government “Peace March” on January 21, 2012. For March 15, the annual celebration of the liberal national revolution of 1848, opposition groups were squeezed into smaller venues. The symbolic space of Kossuth Square is again being redefined, tearing down and erecting new statues, even amidst an economic crisis.

Crowd politics has been an essential element of Hungarian nationalism since 1848. Political scientists have made a sharp division between crowd politics and festive gatherings, between grassroots activism and government orchestrated events. But Hungarian politics invariably interconnect the two. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán debuted at the mass demonstration in 1989. Since 1989 he has employed political demonstration theater. His political acumen has in part been his ability to use or orchestrate both festive gatherings and politically defiant crowds either for regime change or to increase his hold on power and parliamentary advantage; to attract international support or rally internally against foreign opinion.

This paper will consider the crowd politics of the Orban regime in the context of Hungary’s historical use and abuse of crowds in the making and breaking of democratic systems.