Pigs, Party Secretaries, and Private Lives in Hungary Author(s): Martha Lampland Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 18, No. 3, Representations of Europe: Transforming State, Society, and Identity (Aug., 1991), pp. 459-479 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/645589 Accessed: 29-06-2019 20:32 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Anthropological Association, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Ethnologist This content downloaded from 137.110.34.112 on Sat, 29 Jun 2019 20:32:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms pigs, party secretaries, and private lives in Hungary MARTHA LAMPLAND-University of California, San Diego It did not take long to learn that in the village the Communist party secretary was universally disliked. Initially, only veiled comments were tendered in my presence; with time, however, more open criticisms were leveled, criticisms of his style, his demeanor, his history in office. But perhaps the most scathing criticism of all was that he was a do-nothing (dologtalan). When I first heard this criticism voiced, my friend impressed upon me that not only was the party secretary himself a do-nothing, but his entire family had always been so.