A divided nation? Production and reproduction of national di/visions in Hungarian diaspora politics (2010–2019)
Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Since the democratic transition in the early nineties, successive Hungarian governments have
sought to engage and support the Hungarian diaspora outside the borders of the state. This
commitment to creating a diaspora community tied to an imagined motherland can be
conceptualised as diaspora politics. Whilst diaspora politics should be differentiated from what
is often referred to as nationalist politics, they are always concerned with the place of the
diaspora in relation to the nation. In that regard, it can be said that diaspora politics – and the
actors taking part in them – play a role in processes of nation-production, insofar as they
contribute to the conservation or modifications of the principles of visions and divisions of the
national world.
Although diaspora politics have been an important feature of Hungarian politics for
almost thirty years, the establishment of a Fidesz-KDNP government in 2010 constitutes a key
moment in the development of Hungarian diaspora politics. The new government seized the
pre-existing diaspora political institutions and developed a wide range of new laws,
programmes, and institutions representing the Hungarian diaspora as embedded into the wider
Hungarian nation.
Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s key political concepts, this thesis inquires how
Hungarian diaspora politics between 2010 and 2019 have contributed to the production and
reproduction of Hungarian national di/visions. Through an analysis of major laws, documents,
institutions, programmes, and publications related to Hungarian diaspora politics between 2010
and 2019, it is argued that the development of a new legal and institutional framework for
Hungarian diaspora politics since 2010 has provided the means to produce, reproduce, and
legitimate the integration and dissolution of the diaspora in a redefined Hungarian nation.
Furthermore, taking as a case study the journal Minority Studies edited by the Research Institute
for Hungarian Communities Abroad (NPKI) between 2013 and 2016, this thesis contends that
this diaspora integration has taken place through the redefinition of the boundaries of the
national world. Specifically, the production of a renewed Hungarian nation has been permitted
by the representations of historical, cultural, and political principles of national di/visions.