1956 was the victory of republicanism over tyranny, but also the mortal defeat of democracy, the memory of which has been repressed as much in Hungary as anywhere else. Now the tradition of revolution is dead, writes Péter Nádas, only conformity and opportunism are left: the leading role belongs to opportunists and the court poets of conformism.
Péter Nádas
born 1942, is a Hungarian writer, playwright and essayist. He is a major central European literary figure and made his international breakthrough with the monumental novel A Book of Memories (1986). His latest novel, the three-volume Parallel Stories (I: The Mute Realm, II: In the Depths of Night, III: A Breath of Freedom) was published in Hungarian in 2005. It took 18 years to write.