Abstract
As in most parts of Central and Eastern Europe, there is a tradition in Hungary of changing street names and memorials in the wake of major political transitions. This article focuses on the change of street names and memorials, i.e. the city-text, in Hungary’s political capital, Budapest, between 1985 and 2001. The city-text in Budapest became a locus of dispute between different political authorities, including the nation state, the metropolitan municipality, and the district, each bearing different political ideals during and after the fall of communism. Discursive changes in the post-communist city-text emerged expressing specific conceptions of national sovereignty, but the direction of the changes were debated. Different levels of administration in Budapest and Hungary had divergent visions of what the new discourse on national sovereignty should be. The changes, therefore, did not express a simple transition to an agreed-upon post-communist value system, but were the result of a symbolic struggle between different levels of administration over what should be commemorated in the city-text.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors and referees of this special issue and particularly Maoz Azaryahu for the comments on this paper and inspiration for my work. Also thanks to Árpád Welker and other colleagues for their comments. The research has been co-funded by the Academy of Finland project led by Heino Nyyssönen, Nations and their Others: Finns and Hungarians since 1900, at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, and at the Collegium Budapest, as well as the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Their support has been vital for conducting the study.
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Palonen, E. The city-text in post-communist Budapest: street names, memorials, and the politics of commemoration. GeoJournal 73, 219–230 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-008-9204-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-008-9204-2