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Tamásné Bartók – Péter István Pap
What's on a ‘Card 6’?
A guide to the nyitottaktak.hu website
Following the political changes in April 2026 and the social pressure surrounding them, the Government of Hungary initiated a process referred to in Hungarian public discourse as “file disclosure” or “disclosure of agent files,”. This concerns the release to the public of secret service files (more precisely: the names of collaborators recruited by the secret service) from the period between 1945 and 1990, held by the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security. As a first step, this autumn the Archives will publish online approximately 25,000 so-called ‘Card 6’ documents in its collection. These two-page data sheets were issued by the secret service for each collaborator at the time of their recruitment. This source publication aims to facilitate the interpretation of the cards – for researchers, journalists, and interested members of the public as well – by presenting a sample ‘Card 6’, highlighting selected lines and markings by arrows and explanations and providing a brief historical and procedural context.
Melinda Kassai
On the “Dialogue” group in nine movements
Retrospective essay
This essay discusses some domestic and international aspects connected to the Dialogue group, the Hungarian peace movement, which operated in the first part of the 1980s. It reflects shortly on the era of the Dialogue group and uses original writings produced by its members. These clearly demonstrate that the Dialogue was not only concerned with the issue of peace, but advocated direct democracy, as these two objectives were closely connected. The essay investigates the questions how independent the Dialogue was, what kind of social movement is a peace movement at all, what connections it had with European peace groups, and why this was so important. The article also considers how the members of the Dialogue dealt with the activities of the state informers around them. Finally, the essay argues that, as a result of the “Zeitgeist”, the idea of enduring peace appeared in mainstream politics as well for a short time, but it has disappeared completely by now.
Milán Pap
By the word of peace
The language of the socialist peace movement in early 1950s Hungary
The Cold War-era socialist peace movement was a Soviet-organized and Soviet-directed political project that nevertheless proclaimed its own independence and a sincere longing for peace. In Hungary, it operated within an institutional framework built under the leadership of the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP), sustaining a continuous series of campaigns that mobilized millions of people. The movement had its own distinctive language, shaped, on the one hand, by the need to project an image of independence and genuine commitment to peace, and, on the other hand, by the rhetorical situations characteristic of ideological discourse, the primary function of which is to serve political action rather than describe reality. Drawing on Michael Freeden’s conceptual history and Quentin Skinner’s rhetorical-contextualist approach, the study examines the characteristic strategies of decontestation and paradiastole, through which the key terms of the peace movement acquired a meaning that was stable and flexible across different audiences. The analysis operates on three levels – international discourse, the Hungarian national propaganda apparatus, and local reception in Komárom County – focusing on the years from 1949 to 1956, from the movement’s institutional consolidation to its eventual collapse during the 1956 revolution.
Gabriella Unger
Enduring peace/fight
Excerptions from Hungarian peace propaganda of the 1940-50s
“Will there be a war in the near future?” – asked a joke from the Rákosi era. “There won't be a war, but there will be such a fierce struggle for peace that not a single stone will be left standing." This conversation simultaneously exposes the contradictions of the peace propaganda and the healthy defence mechanisms of the society. This study examines the political uses of the concept of peace, especially the term „struggle for peace”. Its approach is has primarily linguistic: it examines how the propaganda operated at the lexical and syntactic level in its “Newspeak”.
Péter Sándor Sulák
Preaching and agitation
The linguistic strategies of the peace diaconate in Szolnok County and the promotion of collectivization, 1949–1956
This study examines the church-historical aspects of forced collectivization in Szolnok County, a region in the Great Plain that was regarded as a model area by the party-state dictatorship even during the first wave of collectivization. The peasantry and agricultural society constituted the material and social base of the local parishes. The research draws on reports produced by the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the ruling party on the activities of the Clerical Peace Committees, reports by Secretary of Church Affairs of the County Council, and records of deanery district meetings and church visitation reports from church archives. The aim of the study is to present the denomination-specific narratives characteristic of the theological paraphrases – couched in evangelical language – of the Roman Catholic Clerical Priest Movement and the cooperating Reformed pastors that promoted the (forced) collectivization of agriculture. It examines how the Clerical Priest Council of the county disseminated the cause of collectivisation within the parishes; in what pseudo-evangelical appearances was the propaganda message of collectivization packaged; what were their main arguments in favour of joining; how they attempted to appease the sometimes rejective reactions of the congregations, and how they reflected on the political changes of the 1950s. The study aims to capture the ecclesiastical socio-historical aspects of the rationalization of subjugation, or indeed of feigned cooperation.
Tamás Csapody
The path to disarmament
Conscientious objection to military service and the enforcement of freedom of conscience from late socialism to the present
This study examines the history of conscientious objection to military service in Hungary, focusing on the political, social, and legal frameworks surrounding this issue from the late socialist period, beginning in the 1970s,to the present day. It describes the state and church reprisals directed against those who refused military service. This group included members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Nazarenes, the Reformed Adventist Church, and the Roman Catholic Bokor Community founded by György Bulányi. Secret negotiations between state authorities and representatives of the Nazarenes began in 1969 in an attempt to resolve the situation. These negotiations led to the legalization of unarmed military service in 1977. However, the change applied only to Nazarene believers and was subject to contradictions. The political transition of 1989 in Hungary brought about real change. The new legislation, albeit slowly, increasingly converged with progressive regulations in Western Europe. As a result, a form of unarmed, civilian alternative service was established that was compatible with international human rights standards. The study also examines the activities of civil rights movements after the political transition, including the pacifist civil society organization known as Alba Kör. Finally, the study addresses a significant legal gap that exists currently. In 2011, The government led by Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Alliance abolished the possibility of civilian alternative service in 2011. Today, the current Hungarian legal system completely lacks the option of civilian alternative service on grounds of conscientious or religious objection.
Eszter Tóth
Just a little painting
Peace slogans on the pavement: documents from a graffiti case
Drawing on a selection of documents related to the Dialogue Peace Group, this source publication examines the attitude of the Hungarian state security services in the 1980s towards initiatives independent of the official peace policy and towards the expression of political views in public spaces. The article focuses on the 1984 case of Péter F. and Tamás M., who painted peace-related slogans onto the asphalt in a public space in Budapest. At first glance, this act of sidewalk graffiti appears to be a trivial, everyday occurrence. Yet, this is precisely what makes it interesting: how does a slogan created with a few brushstrokes turn into a matter of state security? Here, urban space, the everyday lives of young people, informal political communication, and state security are brought together, illustrating where the boundary between politics and everyday life lay in the late socialist period in Hungary. A bus stop, a badge, an excursion, a peace camp, or a sentence painted on the asphalt could very quickly acquire political significance. The case demonstrates that official reaction was determined not merely by the specific content of the slogans but also by the perpetrators' status, their suspected political connections, and the prevailing political climate; thus, in the late Kádár era, even the concept of "peace" could acquire a meaning critical of the regime when expressed outside the political and institutional frameworks controlled by the party-state.
Zoltán Viszket
“They ceased to be outsiders…”
Sources on a “Dialogue” performance
This study examines the sources and history of “The Burial of the Known Soldier,” an action organized in Budapest on 29 October 1983 by the independent peace group Dialogue. The demonstration was directly connected to a peace protest held in The Hague. The study reconstructs the principal events drawing on documents held by the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security, a participant’s account published in the Dialogue’s samizdat periodical MиРeace, contemporary international peace movement press, and photographs documenting the action. The comparison of these different types of sources makes it possible to examine the event from both the participants’ and the authorities’ perspectives, highlighting the differences in their accounts and emphases as well. Particular attention is paid to how the funeral procession and its associated inscriptions made the issues of war and armament more immediate and personal for people encountering the action in the streets. The study argues that the action’s significance lay not only in its explicit message but also in the temporary situation it created: by attracting the attention of passers-by and involving them in a shared event, it could briefly transform observers into participants and make the question of peace a more personally meaningful experience.
János Miklós Kollár
Consolidation and ’inception’ in the cinema
A book review on Patrik Mravik: Elbeszélt kádárizmusok.
Filmkultúra és ideológia viszonya a korai Kádár-korszakban.
[Narrated Kádárism. The relationship between cinema culture and ideology in the early Kádár- Era.]
Korall – HUN-REN BTK Történettudományi Intézet, Budapest, 2024. p. 269.
Patrik Mravik focuses on a relatively neglected period in film history: the early Kádár era. In this study, the author provides an insight into the entire production process of the films under examination, from writing the screenplay and filming to the moment when the first frames appear on the screens of the most popular cinemas in Budapest or the smallest village cinemas. This approach is particularly intriguing because, in contrast with conventional film historical methodologies, the author does not perceive films as historical sources. and does not analyse them as works of art associated with various artistic movements, genres, or individual artists. Instead, he seeks to place them back within their original social contexts.
Ferenc Semsei
Movement legacy, political breakthrough
A book review on Árpád Szécsi: Rendszerváltó mozgalom. A Magyar Demokrata Fórum előzményei és korai története (1979–1990).
[Movement of the Transition. The Origins and Early History of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (1979–1990).]
Rendszerváltás Történetét Kutató Intézet és Levéltár, Budapest, 2023, p. 486
This review examines Árpád Szécsi’s monograph on the origins and early history of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) between 1979 and 1990. It highlights the book’s central contribution: interpreting the MDF’s rapid political rise and electoral success through its long movement-based antecedents, informal networks, local organizational structures, and inherited forms of political practice. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of “legal opposition,” the tensions between movement and party organization, and the role of movement-based resources in the MDF’s electoral victory in 1990. The review also discusses the limitations of this movement-centred perspective and situates Szécsi’s interpretation within broader debates on the political and social dimensions of Hungary’s democratic transition.