On 20 February, a day after the German government coalition and the opposition parties had jointly nominated for the presidency Joachim Gauck – who had played a major role in making the former GDR’s state security documents public – the governing majority of the Hungarian Parliament with the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had rejected an important measure proposed by the opposition. If accepted, the bill would have facilitated public access to archives that contain relevant information regarding Communist Hungary’s state security past.
Following this, on 25 February Prime Minister Orbán appeared on Hungarian Television’s Saturday night news program where he saw no problem in expressing – on the occasion of the Memorial Day of the Victims of Communism – his fervent desire to make the memory of Communism’s victims an integral part of public discourse in Hungary.
The sad reality is that of all the post communist countries in the EU Hungary is the only one whose Parliament has proved unable so far to come up with a legislation that could put to rest perennial concerns about state security documents. Some of the papers missing from the archives have been stolen or destroyed, others have been withheld by the Secret Service. Seventy percent of the files that had survived the 1989/90 wave of document destruction is at present being handled, and allowed limited access, by the Historic Archives of the State Security Service, while the remaining thirty percent is still being handled by the archives of the present legal successor secret services. Neither the 1995 nor the 2007/8 document investigation committees had a chance to get any information about the number of prison network informers or about the files related to this matter.
In Hungary, the overwhelming majority of the former informers remain unidentified, even though the names of those who had cooperated with the state security services could be easily read off from surviving magnetic tapes.
In 2005, the official stance of Fidesz, a party engaged in strong anti-communist propaganda to this day, was no less than that “it is the moral duty of the governing parties, to reveal and unmask in its totality and in its details the former apparatus of oppression. If the coming generation will not learn the truth then public trust and a multi-party democracy will lack the ground necessary for building both of them”, and „without these Hungary cannot take its place honorably among the free nations of Europe”. Now, however, members of parliament from Fidesz and its coalition partner, the Christian Democratic People’s Party, cast 171 votes against the measure designed to make the state security documents public.
This makes it finally obvious in the eye of the Hungarian and also the European public that in Hungary Orbán Viktor and his government continue unabashedly the well-tried and well-worn tradition of Bolshevik style dictatorship. They insist on shielding relevant documents of the former party – state’s secret services because they had made a pact with various interest groups of these secret services, wishing to protect those of their supporters who, as former functionaries, had served the party-state.
101 Signatures:
Adamik Lajos translator
Andor Mihály sociologist
Aradi Bence lecturer
Bali János musician, lecturer
Balla Zsófia poet
Bán Zsófia writer
Báthori Csaba writer
Beke László art historian
Bitó László writer
Bojtár Endre art historian
Bozsik Péter writer, redactor
Csáki Judit reviewer, essayist
Cseres-Gergely Zsombor economist
Dalos György writer
Dérczy Péter essayist, literary historian
Eörsi László historian
Eörsi Mátyás jurist
Esterházy Péter writer
Fábri Péter writer
Faragó Ágnes typographer
Fodor Tamás stage manager, actor
Forgách András writer
Földényi F. László art philosoph
Gerlóczy Ferenc journalist
Géher István költő, literay historian
G. István László poet
Gervai András journalist
Gömöri György poet
Györe Balázs writer
György Péter aesthetician, professor
Gyukics Gábor poet, translator
Haraszti Miklós writer
Horváth Ágnes professor
Janesch Péter architect
Jeney Zoltán composer
K. Horváth Zsolt professor
Kabai Lóránt poet, redactor
Kádár Judit literary historian
Kálmán C. György literary historian
Kálmán László linguist
Karátson Endre professor emeritus
Karsai László historian
Kasza László journalist
Kemény György artist
Kenedi János reviewer, essayist
Klimó Károly painter
Komoróczy Géza professor emeritus
Kondor Ádám composer
Konrád György writer
Koppány Márton translator
Korányi Mátyás poet
Kornis Mihály writer
Kozma György cantor kántor, cartoonist
Körössi P. József writer, publisher
Kőszeg Ferenc
Kukorelly Endre poet
Lángh Júlia writer
Lázár Júlia teacher, poet, translator
Maurer Dóra artist
Mesterhazy Zsolt person of independent
Najmányi László observer
Németh Gábor writer
Orbán Júlia pensioner
Parti Nagy Lajos writer
Pataky Ernőné librarian
Pécsi Vera economic historian
Perecz László historian of philosophy, professor
Pétery Dóra organ-player
Rácz Judit translator
Radics Viktória literary man
Radnóti Sándor aesthetician, professor
Rajk Judit singer
Rajk László architect
Salamon János phlosopher
Sándor Iván writer
Schein Gábor writer
Sebes Katalin editor
Selyem Zsuzsa literary historian, writer
Solymosi Bálint writer
SI-LA-GI artist
Standeisky Éva historian
Sulyok Miklós cook of the opposition
Szendrői Balázs mathematician
George Szirtes poet, translator
Szokács Kinga teacher
Szőke Annamária art historian
Szüts Miklós painter
Tábor Ádám writer
Takács József art historian
Tamás Gáspár Miklós philosopher, assayist
Tatár György assistant professor
Ungváry Rudolf engineer
Vágvölgyi B. András writer, director
Váradi Zsófia artist
Varga László historian, archivist
Vető János artist
Vojnich Erzsébet painter
Vörös István történész
Wahorn András artist
Xantus János director, lecturer
Zelki János editor
Bereczk Miklós, Kolossy Adrienn, Varga Zoltán IT engineer
