Imagine someone boasting in a company about how he and his brother would beat up other people when they were younger. When his brother says it’s not true, he jumps at his throat saying “You are betraying our family, how could you take away our glorious past?!” The brother could point out that the house they built together (with central heating!) would be a better basis for boasting, but just waves a hand hopelessly and leaves.
Similarly, there are people who think that historians who show the past as it was are harmful for the pride of a nation, doom their country to failure and devalue their own people in the eyes of other peoples. Really? Those are the ridiculous ones, who speak honestly about their past and not those who create an operetta-style fake history? Have we been faring really so poorly that we can only build our reputation and self-confidence on falsehoods?
Our Debunked column looks at the myths about Hungarian history one by one. We are not declaring The Truth about what happened, because there’s no such a thing, but we are debunking the historic fake facts created on an emotional basis.
This problem is not unique to Hungary. Each people is grappling with its own history. This is what we point out under the heading, ‘On the other side of the fence’.
Interestingly, while there are so many people taking pride in things that never actually happened, we rarely speak about our real achievements in terms of culture, acceptance, tolerance and constitutionality. This is what the column ‘Banging our chest’ is dedicated to. Real stories about the actual past are at least as interesting as the made-up ones. There are fewer glorious battles but more flesh-and-blood people, inventiveness and culture.
The website also runs debates and essays on questions of historiography, relevant news items, showcases topics that are relevant to upcoming dates and highlights films and publications linked to our topics. We collect and publish the thoughts and debates of great past and contemporary Hungarian thinkers. These can be found under the heading ‘What’s New’.
We hope the readers will find the website useful.
László Lőrinc February 2013
