“Once upon a Republic… or the Strange Case of Viktor Orbán's Hungary: Historical Memory and Educational Policy”

This paper studies the return of Christian National politics in Hungary through the ascendance of the FIDESZ (Young Democrats)/KDNP (Christian Democrat) coalition, symbolically anchored to the authoritarian interwar regime of Miklós Horthy. Setting Hungarian Christian national politics that include the illusion of territorial revision in opposition to liberal democratic practice of the European Union resonates with the electorate that provided the coalition with a parliamentary majority in 2010/2014. Hungary’s new constitution and policy regulating history education contradict the hopefulness of projects sponsored by the Council of Europe exemplified by the social studies curriculum “Shared Histories for a Europe Without Borders,” envisioned to be shared in schools across the EU. In spite of massive EU funding, Hungarians look eastward towards Putin’s Russia.  According to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Russia is successful because it is not modeled on the failed liberal democracies of the West. Centralizing public education is key to this process and like regimes of the past, both communist and authoritarian, historical memory is intimately linked to political legitimacy. While the Council of Europe’s recommendations for history curriculum argue against ideological manipulation of history, the new Hungarian history curriculum covers up troubling parts of its twentieth century past that includes genocide. History education is a critical component in the development of civil society. An examination of history education policy and curriculum set against the past practice of Hungary’s post World War I regimes helps us understand how the current regime walks a fine line between democratic and authoritarian practice.