The arts community in Hungary is suffering under conditions reminiscent of the Soviet era, with the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA), a private institution that has since become the official state arts apparatus, taking almost entire control of the cultural sector.
Orban’s party, Fidesz, was triumphant in the 2010 elections and has since begun restructuring Hungarian society, and has implemented a new constitution.
The ultra-conservative MMA, headed by 80-year-old György Fekete, recently took over Budapest’s premier contemporary art venue Mucsarnok, which is also a public institution. Protesters outraged by the takeover were prompted to crash the MMA’s general assembly meeting in December. During the disturbance, a banner was unfurled that stated ‘The MMA is exclusive, art is free.’
Since the new Hungarian constitution, which is known as Fundamental Law, came into place on January 1 2012, the MMA has been tasked with selecting the directors of museums while also administering prizes in the arts industry. Aside from this official level of power, the organisation has also received the majority of the national cultural budget.
The banner used during last year’s demonstrations also appears on a press release from Free Artists, a group opposed to the MMA. The exclusivity to which the organisation refers denotes one of the main criticisms of the Academy heading up the Hungarian cultural sector.
According to the head of the MMA György Fekete, aside from artistic excellence, ‘unambiguous national sentiment’ is the foundation for membership in his organisation. Also stipulated by Fekete, to gain access to the organisation, artists must be ‘someone who feels at home and doesn’t travel abroad in order to revile Hungary from there’. Other points made include, ‘There must be no blasphemy in state-run institutions’, ‘This is about a Hungary built on Christian culture; there is no need for constant, perpetual provacation’ and most saliently, ‘I don’t give a damn for this modern democracy, because it’s not modern and it’s not a democracy’.
Artists that are not members of the MMA are unlikely to receive funding or official support in their endeavours.
Reacting to the actions of the MMA and government, the Board of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) Section Hungary stated:
‘‘Recent legislative steps in Hungary point towards the authoritarian transformation of the institutional structures and funding system of cultural life, by giving an ultra conservative artist group close to the right wing government, the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA), an unassailable position of power.
After outlining the powers bestowed upon the MMA and its appropriation of the Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle Budapest, the statement concludes:
‘It has become evident that the actual political executive power intends to control contemporary culture in a direct way with the help of legal regulations and put an end to its still existing plurality. As a result of these decisions, the government has endangered the long-term autonomy, professionalism and democratic procedures of Hungarian contemporary art.’
Poet and translator George Szirtes, who lives in the U.K., seems to agree, telling The New Yorker, ‘The government has been looking to impose itself and its view of what it considers to be ‘the nation’ on not only the political sphere but the cultural, too. In effect, it wants to return the country to the condition of the thirties… the atmosphere is full of hatred.’
The crackdown on any national or institutional criticism comes on the heels of the Cultural Committee of the government previously recommending the ‘removal of independent theatres and contemporary moving art companies from the roll of accredited artistic organisations’.
One of the first instances of government meddling in the arts came when Robert Alfodi, then artistic director of the National Theatre of Budapest, planned to host a concert organised by the Romanian Embassy. The concert was set to feature works by Romanian George Enescu and Hungarian Bela Bartok. Slated for November 30, with Hungary’s national holiday falling on December 1, the government deemed it inappropriate to allow a Romanian centre-stage on the eve of the most important day of the calendar. This decision inevitably adhered to the anti-nationalist guidelines of Hungarian arts in the new constitution. It is also believed that Alfodi was targeted for being openly homosexual.
Also in the theatre sector, director of the New Theatre, Istvan Marta was ousted after thirteen years by György Dörner an actor and member of the extreme-right Jobbik party, which is openly anti-Semetic, anti-gay and anti-Romanian. According to an article in The New Yorker, Dörner plans only to stage Hungarian play in an attempt to reverse the ‘degenerate, sick liberal hegemony’. The internationally celebrated artistic director of the Opera House of Budapest Balázs Kovalik was also dismissed.
Apart from demonstrations by Free Artists, a number of high-profile members of the MMA have turned in their membership with the international community also condemning the actions of the Orban administration.
Last year, Hungarian PEN instituted a fifty-thousand-euro government-funded literary prize, which it offered to American beat poet and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The counterculture icon refused the prize, starting that ‘the policies of this right-wing regime tend toward authoritarian rule and the consequent curtailing of freedom of expression and civil liberties… I hereby refuse the prize in all its forms.’
Legendary Hungarian-born pianist András Schiff has said, ‘I can’t take what’s happening there now. The right and the extreme right are so prominent and so strong. And there is so much racism, hatred, anti-Semitism and nationalism.’
An outspoken critic of the Orban administration, he has also gone as far as to state, ‘It would be suicide for me to go there. They would chop off my hands.’
At the beginning of March last year, the 79-year-old Hungarian-Jewish author Akos Kertesz also applied for asylum in Canada.
It’s not just artists and performers that are suffering under the current political climate. Journalists seen not to be towing the official party line have been dismissed from state-run media organisations while intellectuals have also been targeted, with 82-year-old philosopher Agnes Heller and associates accused of embezzling state research funds.
Budapest-based art critic Anna Balint summed up the situation for artists succinctly when she told Germany’s DW, ‘Many of my friends are leaving Hungary. I go to goodbye parties nearly every week. Some leave because they can no longer make a living; others just have a general sense of hopelessness. Those who are critical are quickly accused of betraying the father land, of embezzlement, or some other absurd crime.’
Links
Letter from the Hungarian Theatre Critics Association
Anti-semitism flourishes in Hungary
Hungary’s alarming climate of intolerance
