The Politics of Contested Narratives by Ilse Josepha Lazaroms Emily R. Gioielli

Author:Ilse Josepha Lazaroms, Emily R. Gioielli [Ilse Josepha Lazaroms, Emily R. Gioielli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317615408
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Count Pál Teleki

Debates about Count Pál Teleki’s historical representation culminated in 2004, when the request to erect a statue in his memory in the castle district was suddenly attacked in an open letter in Magyar Hirlap on 2 February by concert pianist Ádám Fellegi. It was addressed to the Mayor of Budapest, Gábor Demszky. Fellegi claimed that given Teleki’s role in the formulation of anti-Jewish legislation during the inter-war period, he was not fit to be commemorated at such a central and symbolic location in the capital. Subsequently, historians, intellectuals and publicists debated Teleki’s stature, with those in favour of commemoration emphasising the former Prime Minister’s moral standing as a statesman, academic and teacher, while those against it depicting him as a failed politician and anti-Semite.

Yet the story of Teleki’s commemoration began much earlier than 2004. On 4 April 1991, the fiftieth anniversary of Teleki’s suicide, a conference was held in his honour, with Prime Minister József Antall opening the proceedings.33 A large volume of publications appeared in most of the major newspapers, detailing the events and achievements of his life and ending with his suicide, dubbed ‘martyrdom’ in all of the articles.34 Throughout the 1990s, Teleki was a figure that received attention from both the radical as well as the conservative Right. The far-Right pamphlet Hunnia Füzetek published a 12-part series of articles entitled the ‘The Thought of Count Pál Teleki’, with each issue concentrating on a different element of his worldview ranging from social geography and irredentist ideas to foreign policy. Each year around the anniversary of his death, a certain number of articles appeared about him. Thus, Teleki enjoyed a veritable cult status and there generally seemed to be societal consensus over his stature. Furthermore, the proposed statue was not the first commemoration of Teleki’s memory at the time the public debate erupted in 2004. Ten years earlier in 1994, Teleki received a commemorative plaque at the University of Economics, with only a single critical response published in Magyar Narancs. This single article was nowhere near the volume that appeared in 2004.35

The publications that dealt with Teleki’s life during the 1990s can be categorised into four themes. The first described his whole life cycle, the second focused on one element or area of his achievements, the third discussed him in relation to the broader historical context, and the last group speculated about his death. The most dominant of these themes was the last, as speculations as to whether Teleki’s death was in fact suicide or murder developed into a kind of historical mythologisation. Significantly, very little can be found regarding Teleki’s anti-Semitism, while his foreign-policy decisions, his role in the organisation and education of youth (as a university professor of geography and as a leader of the Scouts movement), his relationship with Count István Bethlen, and his territorial irredentism were widely discussed. The first articles to highlight the cleavage between the different interpretations of Teleki appeared in 2001.36

As is apparent from the discussion above, the question as

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