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Dismantling Culture, Education, Science and the Media in Hungary 2010–2019

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Dismantling Culture, Education, Science and the Media in Hungary 2010–2019 HUNGARY TURNS ITS BACK ON EUROPE DISMANTLING CULTURE, EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND THE MEDIA IN HUNGARY 2010–2019 B U D A P E S T, 2020 The publicaon of this volume was supported by individuals Contributors: Iván Bajomi, András Bozóki, Judit Csáki, Zsolt Enyedi, István Fábián, György Gábor, Anna Gács, Péter Galicza, Gábor Gyáni, Andrea Haris, Mária Heller, Tamás Jászay, István Kenesei, Gábor Klaniczay, Dénes Krusovszky, Kata Kubínyi, Valéria Kulcsár, Pál Lővei, András Máté, József Mélyi, Gergely Nagy, Erzsébet Pásztor, Gábor Polyák, Péter Radó, Ágnes Rényi, András Rényi, Ildikó Sirató, Éva Tőkei, András Váradi, Mária Vásárhelyi Sleeve, cover design, technical eding: Klára Katona Cover photo: Béla Tarr: Sátántangó © Humán Plaorm © Contributors ISBN 978‐615‐00‐7373‐6 Editor: Humán Plaorm OKTATÓI HÁLÓZAT HUNGARIAN NETWORK OF ACADEMICS CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 INTRODUCTION 10 Hungary in the 20th Century 10 Characteriscs of the Orbán Regime 13 CULTURAL POLICY 16 SYMBOLIC POLITICS 20 Symbolic Polics and Propaganda 20 Public Space and Symbolic Polics 23 CULTURE AND THE HUNGARIAN CHURCHES 30 EDUCATION 32 Public Educaon 32 Higher Educaon 37 Central European University 43 RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS 45 The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) 45 Historiography and the Polics of Remembrance 50 ARTS 54 Hungarian Academy of Arts 54 Naonal Cultural Fund 55 Theatre 56 Music 60 Literature 62 Fine Arts 64 Film Art and Film Industry 66 CULTURAL HERITAGE 69 Museums and Public Collecons 69 Protecon of Historic Monuments 72 MEDIA POLICY 75 CONCLUSION 79 AFTERWORD 81 CONTRIBUTORS 83 GLOSSARY 84 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report has been prepared by independent Hungarian intellectuals who wish to inform the Hungarian and international public as well as European institutions about the severe harm that the Orbán regime governing Hungary since 2010 has caused in the fields of education, science, culture, and the media. The reason for preparing the present report is that the acts of the successive Orbán governments consistently run counter to and consciously violate the fundamental principles, values, and norms of the European Union, not only as regards the rule of law and political and social rights, but also in the case of the cultural areas discussed here. In Hungary, important European values are being jeopardised, including cultural diversity, scientific and artistic autonomy, the respect for human dignity, access to education and culture, conditions for social mobility, the integration of disadvantaged social groups, the protection of cultural heritage, and the right to balanced information, as well as democratic norms like ensuring social dialogue, transparency and subsidiarity. By presenting the activities of the Orbán regime in the fields of culture, education, research, and the media, we provide information about areas little known to the international public. With our report, we wish to draw attention to the fact that an autocratic system has been constructed and consolidated in Hungary with the money of EU taxpayers and with the financial and political support of EU institutions. This system creates a worrying democratic deficit and severe social problems, while it also causes irreparable harm in the fields of education, science, and culture. The authors of the report are leading researchers, lecturers, and acknowledged experts, including several academicians, professors, heads of departments, and a former Minister of Culture. The undertaking was initiated and coordinated by the Hungarian Network of Academics. C U L T U R A L P O L I C Y The report claims that the Orbán regime considers culture important only as a means that helps achieve its political goals. The government's approach to culture is well illustrated by the fact that education, research, the arts, cultural heritage as well as healthcare and social care all belong under the same ministry. The processes observed in different areas of culture (understood in a broad sense) show several similarities. Strong centralisation has taken place in every area over the past ten years, even if in slightly different ways. The central political will is ensured by a radical reorganisation of ownership: in certain cases the short‐term political goals of the government are best served by renationalisation (e.g., the nationalisation of schools previously run by local governments), in others, the government interferes with the private market through complex transactions conducted with the help of its oligarchs (e.g., buying up opposition media), or it may even privatise former state‐run institutions or manage them through foundations (e.g., in higher education). Another typical method besides nationalisation is outsourcing certain public cultural functions (e.g., established churches now play a key role in education). In addition to the transformation of ownership relations, the management of cultural areas is also characterised by extreme centralisation and manual control. Decision‐making, even in minor questions, has been pushed up to the higher levels of public administration, which has irrational consequences and often results in an inability to function properly. Extreme centralisation is accompanied by dilettantism, which leads to chaotic situations. The Orbán regime has no experts on cultural policy with a clear vision of the state's role in preserving and developing culture and of the significance and limits of this role, or who could understand the importance of maintaining the autonomies inherent in this sector. The Orbán regime politicises all aspects of culture, thus abolishing the autonomy achieved by certain cultural areas. The cultural policy of the Orbán regime does not rely on the specific characteristics and criteria of the various cultural fields, it only takes into consideration whether those engaged in cultural activities are loyal to the regime. As in all other areas, social and professional consultations have been eliminated from the decision‐making process regarding culture; and this has led to a series of ill‐considered decisions that only serve the interests of persons and groups close to the prime minister and lead to chaotic situations. 5 Instead of aiming to be conservative, preserving or conserving, the Orbán regime approaches culture with a transforming, re‐interpretative and radical attitude. The regime's voluntarism is evident from the fact that if it cannot achieve its goals through the already existing, embedded, and relatively autonomous institutions, then it establishes new parallel institutions with a reallocation of public resources to these. S Y M B O L I C P O L I T I C S Symbolic politics has a key role in sustaining the Orbán regime. Symbolic politics focuses on national cohesion, nation‐ building, the ethnically based unification of the nation across the borders, and the symbolic strengthening of the role of Hungary as a middle power in the Carpathian Basin. Official national policy considers Hungarians living outside the borders part of the “nation's body”, while the Hungarian citizenship given to these minorities and the significant support provided to their institutions by the Hungarian state serves the internal and external political goals of Fidesz. The regime is characterised by the unscrupulous appropriation of national symbols and the sacralisation of power. Government discourse defines national cohesion on the basis of race and ethnicity, built on the symbols of Hungarian prehistory and legends. In the meantime, the opposition is excluded from the nation and is portrayed as an enemy serving foreign interests. Government communication makes serious efforts to continually sustain the psychosis of fear and menace. Similarly to the practice of totalitarian dictatorships, simplified posters and fliers reiterating messages of a few words play an important part in the political communication of Fidesz. The propagandists of Fidesz use a wide range of means of linguistic occupation of the public sphere from coining new words through militarising public usage, to pathetic and kitschy metaphors, scapegoating, and the dehumanisation of their political opponents. These means were also put to use in the hate campaigns against the refugees, George Soros, and Brussels. Orbán's speeches and government communication repeatedly designate enemies and exaggerate the significance of their actions by accusing them of participating in a global conspiracy. The war on critical intellectuals is fought not only through voluntarist and administrative interventions into the field of culture, but also by means of symbolic politics and propaganda. Certain groups of intellectuals and independent civil organisations are regularly targeted by the media empire financed by the government. Symbolic politics and all‐pervasive propaganda are primarily meant to ensure the loyalty of groups at the lowest levels of social hierarchy, whereas in reality, social inequalities are becoming increasingly conspicuous, and the economic and social policies that focus on the interests of the national middle‐class, eliminate the elementary forms of solidarity from the system of public redistribution, neglect and even despise the poor and the disadvantaged. The Orbán government has involved the churches in its culture war, putting them into the service of ideological retraining. The regime exploits religious sentiment for its own legitimation, the sacralisation of power, and the justification of its timelessness and unquestionability. P U B L I C E D U C A T I O N The Orbán government's radically centralising,
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