MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Social Studies
Department of Sociology
Mgr. Adam Gajdoš
BUILT ON BONES:
Ethnic Cleansing, Cultural Trauma and Solidaritybuilding
in a Central-European Town
Doctoral Thesis
Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Csaba Szalo, Ph.D.
Consultant: Mgr. Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků, Ph.D.
Brno 2017
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and
secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
Brno, November 21, 2017.
1
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Csaba Szaló for his ever-inspiring oversight, enthusiastic interpretive
engagement, empathetic flexibility and unfaltering optimism. I would also like to thank
Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků for her loyal criticism, friendly patience in times of crisis and
confusion, and imaginative companionship.
I am indebted to all of my interview partners for their time, openness and interest in my
project. Several of them gradually became "allies in the research field" and it was largely
thanks to their networking assistance, critical response to my work and well-tempered
encouragement that my research pushed forward. My gratitude for crucial practical, moral
and/or interpretive support extends to Juraj Gembický, Ladislav Rovinský, I Id i kó Palenčárová,
Tomáš László, Ernest Buday, Juliana Sokolová, Ondrej Ficeri and, most importantly, to Zuzana
Révészová.
I further wish to thank my colleagues Ivana Lukeš Rybanská, Zuzana Révészová, Petr
Mezi horák and Ivana Rapošová, for critically responding to various sections of this dissertation
at different stages of its completion.
Last but not least, I want to thank Gábor Oláh for his help in understanding Hungarian texts
and context, and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky for her meticulous proofreading of my final
draft.
In undertaking this research, I benefited from the moral and financial support of Collegium
Carolinum - Research Institute for the History of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and of the
Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. I am
most grateful to both institutions for their generosity and faith in my project.
This work would have never seen completion were it not for the support and perseverance of
my dear wife Jana and the loving patience of our daughters Zora and Agáta. It is to them that
I now dedicate it.
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE #1: AN ANECDOTE 6
PROLOGUE #2: A TIMELINE 7
PROLOGUE #3: AVISTA 8
INTRODUCTION 9
SETTING THE STAGE 9
A SHORT HISTORY OF THIS PROJECT: CONTOURS AND BIRTHMARKS 1 3
OUTLINE 1 7
CHAPTER 1. EXCURSUS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ETHNIC CLEANSING IN KOSICE 20
H O W TO CONCEIVE OF ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC CLEANSING 2 0
RETURN TO HUNGARY: CLEANSING STAGE 1 2 4
RETURN TO CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CLEANSING STAGE 2 2 8
ETHNIC CLEANSING IN KE: A SUMMARY OVERVIEW 3 2
CHAPTER 2. CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 38
COLLECTIVE MEMORY AS POLITICS AND DANCE 3 8
REMEMBERING EMPLACED: SEMIOTICS, CONTESTATIONS, PERFORMATIVITIES 4 2
CULTURAL TRAUMA, THE POLITICS OF REGRET AND THE RENEWAL OF SOLIDARITY 4 5
THE POLITICS OF M E M O R Y : A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE 4 9
Memory politics in regimes of justification: Testing, denouncing and compromising for justice?
49
On going public: Concern for the past and regimes of engagement with the future 53
Grammars of remembering: Multilevel meaning-making and the power of the common-place.58
THE FIRST-PERSON PLURAL OF CULTURAL TRAUMA: H O W TO MAKE SUFFERING A C O M M O N MATTER? 6 3
CHAPTER 3. "A EUROPEAN CITY HAS TO HAVE THIS!" MEMORIALS TO CULTURAL TRAUMA AND THE
THREE GRAMMARS OF COMMONALITY 66
MEMORIALS AS INTERMEDIARY OBJECTS 6 8
SYMBOLIC GARDENING: THE CHANGING LANDSCAPES OF MEMORIALS AND PLAQUES BETWEEN 1 9 1 8 AND 1 9 8 9 . . . 7 0
CITIZENS TO CITIZENS: RECLAIMING THE HOLOCAUST, JUSTIFYING REPAIR 7 4
Intro: On the Marginality of the Holocaust of the Hungarian Jews in Slovakia 7 4
"Kosice owes this to its citizens" 77
Some viable alternatives 85
3
Intro: Ousting Dinosaurs, Memorializing Anti-communism 93
"Thanks to November, we can build this" 94
Living culture - the sap of democracy 98
J AN OS ESTERHÁZY: A N ERSATZ MONUMENT TO HUNGARIAN SUFFERING 1 0 2
Intro: Returning Hungarian Exiles 102
Who is Jánoš Esterházy and what has he to do with Košice? 106
"Why wouldn't we build him a statue here, if there's such a campaign against it?" 108
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION: PARTICIPATING IN THE DIFFERENT " W E " OF CULTURAL TRAUMAS THROUGH
MEMORIALS 1 1 5
CHAPTER 4. "EVERYONE GOT SOMETHING, BUT NOT WITHIN THE CITY WALLS": MANAGING
PLURALISM IN POST-SOCIALIST TOPONYMIC RE-VISIONS 121
WHAT'S IN A NAME: AUTHORIZED INDICES AND PERFORMANCES OF JUSTICE 1 2 3
RE-WRITING OR UN-WRITING? A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PROGRESSIVE POLITICIZATION OF KOSICE'S TOPONYMY . 1 3 1
BREAKING WITH UNFAVORABLE PASTS: POST-SOCIALISTTOPONYMIC REVISION AND ITS DISCONTENTS 1 3 7
Sanitizing the medieval district (Phase One) 140
Negotiating the limits of de-communization (Phase Two) 143
Localizing identities: Nation, minorities and local heritage in street names after 1989 148
H O M E AGAIN: HUNGARIAN ICONS MOVING DOWNTOWN 1 5 1
Námestie Sándora Máraiho - Sándor Márai Square 152
Kalvínovo námestie - Kálvin tér - Calvin Square 158
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION: REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES AS AN UNFINISHED TASK? 1 6 6
CHAPTER 5. "WHY SHOULD WE BUILD ON DEAD BONES?" PLANTING INCLUSIVE MEMORY IN A
NEARLY VACANT SPACE 171
RUINS: A POINT OF DEPARTURE 1 7 5
OLD LUTHERAN CEMETERY AT ŽRIEDLOVÁ STREET: THE BIOGRAPHY OFASITE 1 7 8
BUILDING COMMONALITY ON BONES: FIVE PERSPECTIVES 1 8 0
Bones dead: Salvaging value for a more godly purpose (the Lutherans) 181
Bones absent: Developing a troubled area (the urbanists) 187
Bones unfamiliar: Deploying ancestors as a platform for social critique (the relatives) 192
Bones compelling: Creating heritage out of rubble (the activists) 195
Bones adopted: Identifying with a hero of the Slovak nation (the role-players) 200
ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERMEZZO: Two HUNDRED MISSING DEAD AND A DORMANT OPPORTUNITY AROUND THE CORNER
2 0 3
RUINS INTO A M E M O R Y PARK: REBUILDING A COMMUNITY ON BONES 2 0 5
4
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION: COMMON-PLACE LOST, COMMON-PLACE FOUND (THE DIALECTIC OF RUINS AND
BONES) 2 0 8
CONCLUDING REMARKS: ARTICULATING SOLIDARITIES IN RUINS 213
ANNOTATION 219
ANOTACIA 221
LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND IMAGES 223
LIST OF APPENDICES 226
APPENDIX 1. ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF KOSICE'S POPULATION 1 8 5 0 - 2 0 1 1 (IN % ; LISTED AS 7) 2 2 7
APPENDIX 2. M A P SHOWING THE PERIOD OF ORIGIN IN THE AREA ANALYZED IN CHAPTER 4 (FIGURE 6) 2 2 8
APPENDIX 3. M A P HIGHLIGHTING STREETS RENAMED AFTER 1 9 8 9 IN THE AREA ANALYZED IN CHAPTER 4 (FIGURE 7)
2 2 9
APPENDIX 4. A DIACHRONIC OVERVIEW OFTOPONYMIC CHANGES BETWEEN 1 8 7 0 AND 2 0 1 5 (TABLE 8 ) 2 3 0
REFERENCES 236
REFERENCED NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE, AND BLOG ARTICLES 250
LIST OF HISTORICAL MAPS CONSULTED (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER) 253
AUTHOR INDEX 254
5
Prologue #1: An anecdote
In a notorious interbellum local anecdote, one Košičan1
says to another:
"Listen, I had the most beautiful dream tonight:
All Hungarians left Košice...
And after them, all Slovaks as well...
and all othersOnly
us, Košičania, remained."
(Strauss 2012:52)
1
Košičan in Slovak, Kassai in Hungarian, Kaschauer in German - is a denomination of local identity, denoting
someone whose primary belonging is associated with the city of Košice. Natives often use it to signal their
knowledge of and loyalty to the city, and, on a deeper level, to signal a distance from, if not a complete disregard
for, state-national identities. Immigrant inhabitants negotiate the status of Košičan in relation to their feeling of
being at home in the city. In order to distinguish the latter from the former, life-long dwellers and descendants
of "old Košice families" sometimes add the adjective "starý" (old) Košičan.
6
Prologue #2: A timeline
In the decade of the Second World War, Kosice experienced what was likely the most dramatic drop in population
since the plague of 1709-1711. From about 80,000 in 1938, the number of inhabitants sank to under 52,000 in
1945. A majority of the tens of thousands missing in these statistics were lost in several consecutive episodes of
ethnic cleansing - including pre-emptive flight, as well as organized acts of genocide and retributive expulsion which
only came to a definitive halt after the Communist takeover in 1948.
A brief chronology of politics of displacement:2
In November 1938, approximately 12,000 Czechs and about the same number of Slovaks are evacuated from or
preemptively leave Kosice just before its reattachment to Hungary as Kassa.
In May and June 1944, more than 12,000 Kassa Jews are deported to extermination camps after German forces
occupy Hungary.
In November 1944, some 1,000 Kassa Roma are deported to concentration camps.
In December 1944, the remaining several hundred Germans are evacuated from Kassa as the frontline
approaches.
Between January 1945 and December 1948, at least 2,000 Hungarians flee or are expelled from the city beyond
the 1920 Hungarian border as Kosice once again joins Czechoslovakia. At least 10,000 more apply for a change of
ethnicity to regain civil rights and be allowed to stay.
250,000
1850 1857 1880 1890 1900* 1910 1919 1921 1930 1938 1941 1950 1961 1970** 1980 1991 2001 2011
• Slovaks "Czechoslovaks "Czechs •Hungarians "Germans "Jews •Roma "Other "Missing
2
For a more detailed account and references, see Chapter 1.
7
Prologue #3: A vista
Imagine standing at the edge of a land terrace overlooking a town. Cherishing the tranguil atmosphere and an
intimate overview of the city center with the setting sun at your back, you might not suspect that the murky,
unkept slope beneath conceals a burial ground. Less than a century ago, these spaces, inhabited by haphazard
growth and a handful of ambivalent ruins, contained the oldest intact graveyard in town, duly revered as one of
the local antiguities. Officially closed towards the end of the 19th century, the historical Lutheran cemetery
survived two world wars and half a dozen regime changes, even the creative destruction of 1960s socialist housing
policy. Then, suddenly, in early 1974, heavy machinery leveled its neglected premises to make room for a public
park. Never properlyfinished or used, the remnants of the park infrastructure now deteriorate alongside the single
chapel-like crypt that the bulldozer spared.
Providing that you did decode the hints in the crumbling wall and guessed the former function of this place - now
freshly ruptured again by a bulldozer passing to a neighboring construction site - you might wonder: whatever
happened to the bones? If all that remains from the lofty gravestones, crypts and tombs is one dilapidated chapel
and a few stretches of a ruined brick enclosure, what about the bones? Are they still there? Balancing your feet
on the uneven terrain, you might want know as I did, where it is you stand. And how to tread this ground.
Some say the bones were surely put away. Others insist they must still be in place. Records confirming either of
these convictions seem to be lacking. Until someone takes a spade and digs for evidence, we are confined to
speculation.
The physical presence of bones, however, may not be what counts in the end. A meaningful relationship of care
can be founded on a simple presupposition. Just how does such imagination of moral duty help transform a nonplace
into a meaningful place of meeting? Can past violence, destruction and neglect be translated into a common
language, so that ruins can help us move forward? How can anything be built on bones?
8
Introduction
Setting the stage
In the wake of the Second World War, societies of Central and Eastern European
experienced a series of events best described as ethnic cleansing. Between 1938 and 1948, the
politics of national and racial purity rolled over the traditionally ethnically multifarious and
mixed populations of this region with various degrees of violence to once and for all dominate
the long-contested territories. The area of the current Slovak South shares a multilayered
history of ethnic cleansing in this period. First, Slovaks and Czechs fled or were ousted from
the territories reattached to Hungary in 1938. Then, after the 1944 German occupation of
Hungary, Jews were sent to Auschwitz and Roma to concentration camps. With the
approaching Soviet army, Germans were evacuated westward at the end of 1944. Finally, after
Czechoslovakia's reestablishment in 1945, Hungarians were retributed collectively by either
forced relocation, deportation to Hungary or coerced into renouncing their ethnicity. During
the subsequent four decades, the socialist regime did not allow deviation from the official
mnemonic culture, structured along motifs of domestic national resistance and heroic
liberation by the Soviet army; it was only after communism's demise that heretofore silenced
narratives of victimhood could - theoretically - be brought to light. Not only did addressing old
wounds become finally possible; from a certain perspective addressing them could be viewed
as necessary. For how could a new, democratic social order be sustained without renewed
solidarity?
In this dissertation, I explore public expressions of the cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing
as reflected in the urban public space of Košice, Slovakia, and analyze the different approaches
of local mnemonic agents to projecting renewed solidarities and effecting civil repair.
Dissecting the way the politics of ethnic persecution, mass expulsion and genocide, attempted
or performed by different states and regimes between 1938 and 1948, are commemorated in
Kosice's post-socialist mnemonic practices, I wish to tackle a more general theoretical question
regarding the possibilities and limits of enacting civil repair by revising old and devising new
ways of remembering a violent past. The central and overarching research question of my
research is:
9
How are the different meanings associated with the war-time and post-war politics of ethnic
cleansing remembered in Kosice public space after 1989 and how do the mnemonic practices
built around these meanings contribute to an inclusive, reparative civil discourse?
The city of Kosice represents both an opportune and an unlikely case to explore these
phenomena. Adding up all those expelled, temporarily exiled and deported to concentration
camps in subsequent ethnic persecution of Slovaks, Czechs, Jews, Roma, Germans and
Hungarians between 1938 and 1948, the number amounts to slightly over half of Kosice's prewar
population. Yet, the post-war expulsion of Germans and Hungarians only concerned a
relatively small number of Kosice inhabitants. With a majority of the 1938 Slovak and none of
the 1938 Czech evacuees having returned to the city after 1945, and close to no data on the
fates of Kosice Roma in 1944, Kosice seems a less than perfect case for a study of ethnic
cleansing. On the other hand, Kosice had taken on a series of symbolic roles in the national
narratives of different states: it was the center of the Ferenc Rakoczi II cult celebrating the
Hungarian anti-Habsburg rebellion, a symbol of Czechoslovakia's territorial loss and Hungary's
long hoped-for revision of borders in 1938 and an emblem of Czechoslovak post-war ethnic
reprisal announced in April 1945 in the so-called Kosice Government Program. Surely, postsocialist
Kosice has been anything but a mnemonic battlefield; Kosice streets have not seen
ethnic struggle since late 1940s (compare Brubaker et al. [2006]). Still, the public gloss of
tolerance and diversity, deployed under the Central-European trope of a multicultural past,
conceals an underlying tension that becomes palpable once the topic is touched upon in
personal interaction. This is what makes Kosice an especially interesting case for a study of
local politics of memory. The case is all the more intriguing considering the fact that, 70 years
after the events, my research stepped into the field as the proverbial "floating gap,"
relinquishing the communicative memory of authentic witnesses, was closing in. Given the
simultaneous lack of limping inter-ethnic strife and the continuous presence of latent friction
opens the question: could past ethnic violence be cast not as primarily polarizing but instead
as integrating the local polity?
Works about Kosice - at least those published in the past decade - are often framed by a
story or a quote by the world-famous writer Sandor Marai (Okroy 2005; Strauss 2012; Henschel
2013). A melancholic ornament provided by one of this Kosice-born, Hungarian-speaking
author's recollections or musings has become a generic gesture of tribute to a nostalgic
multicultural urban imaginary. Looking down from the front pages of brochures and books and
1 0
posters, dreamy sepia portraits of Marai captivate audiences by evoking the destructive impact
past totalitarian regimes had on the traditional virtues and joys of bourgeoise life. While there
is no doubt that Marai, an exiled artist and a promising symbol uniting locals across ethnic
boundaries, is a crucial element of local remembering, I have chosen to begin my account of
Kosice mnemonic landscape with a cemetery, whose absent presence in its own ruin offers
itself stubbornly as a metaphor for the more general tasks and labors of articulating cultural
trauma. On the surface: grass and scattered wild growth, a crumbling wall and a single
damaged crypt, a concrete pathway; below it: the intuition of forgotten bones. This ruined,
neglected, marginal cemetery, this non-place, whose unfortunate history and sorry present
state has made it difficult relate to, resembles the state of remembering ethnic cleansing in
the mnemonic landscape of Kosice.
I first stumbled across the controversy by chance: eating a Middle-Eastern lunch in my
favorite Kosice restaurant, I met a recently befriended employee of the Regional Authority for
Monument Preservation (henceforth referred to as the Monument Authority), who mentioned
that a group of other enthusiasts was trying to stop a land developer from building a twelvestory
apartment house on the remnants of the oldest Kosice cemetery. When I learned that,
several years before, the land had been sold by the local Lutheran Church, I was intrigued if
the congregation's disinterest in what arguably constituted a piece of its heritage was in any
way related to the forced migration of its Hungarian and German members after 1945. As I
plunged into an investigation of this case, I gradually discovered that the causal links between
the cemetery's destruction and post-war expulsion were actually quite thin; while the blame
was mostly with "the communists" who had the plot bulldozed in the 1970s, the old cemetery
had been unused and crumbling long before that. At the same time, surveying the Kosice
mnemonic landscape for traces of and references to ethnic cleansing, I pondered a deeper
theoretical resonance between the general absence of concern for the ancient Lutheran bones
(which, as some claimed, were no longer even there) and the ostensible absence of
commemoration of ethnic cleansing. If the remembrance of the Holocaust can serve as any
indicator of this, its structural marginalization in the "Slovak South" (i.e. the areas claimed in
1938 by Hungary) can still be observed despite a gradual decrease; otherwise, the different
instances of loss, injustice and suffering brought about by the politics of race purity, ethnic
domination and collective retribution find little public articulation. Indeed, a determined
observer will identify traces of past social bonds, past uses of spaces and institutions, past
imaginations. Yet, silenced by the bulldozers of "socialist memory-planning," the narratives of
11
tragic experiences and events lay largely "buried underground," in individual biographies, in
the togetherness of semi-public groupings, in boxes of archive material waiting for exploration.
Even if ruins betraying the presence of such "bones" can still be found here and there,
relationships of care - an engagement in the project of securing the bones' dignity and of
grasping their relevance for today's urban community - are largely non-obvious and contested.
Discussing the challenges entailed in constructing a commonality around a cultural trauma of
ethnic cleansing that has been overlaid by a cultural trauma of socialism, I evoke the old Kosice
Lutheran cemetery as a foil, a counter-image, a contrastive background for my analysis.
Unfolding it as a metaphor of destruction, ambivalence, but also of the promise of memory, I
wish to elicit a productive tension with my other findings and, thus, to facilitate a deeper
interpretive engagement with the landscapes of meaning (Reed 2011) I set out to paint.
Contrary to the customary segmentation of history - and remembering - into discrete
events defined by the boundaries of nation states or ethnic collectives, I conceptualize the
cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing in the singular, which requires two clarifications. While an
attempt to consider under one conceptual roof instances of suffering so different in scale and
kind might to some smack of moral relativism, my wish is neither to support comparative
victimhood, nor to suggest that the historical responsibility of states for violence committed
in their name be disregarded. In considering these violent events together, I wish to stress the
mutual conditioning of these processes and events and their common rootedness in the
broader tendencies of contemporary nationalist politics as it has been practiced across Central
and Eastern Europe (Snyder 2011). Furthermore, deploying the concept of cultural trauma
carries with it the implicit agenda of testing the reparative potential of remembering this
suffering. If, as argued by Jeffrey Alexander (Alexander et al. 2004; Alexander 2016a), cultural
traumas bear the promise of extending solidarities and helping to rebuild civility, a sectarian
vision of multiple traumatic narratives pitched against each other must be overcome - not just
in the civil discourse, but in the analytical one as well. Thus, while recognizing that articulations
of cultural trauma are multiple, my primary analytical and theoretical interest lies in the
process through which the suffering of "others" comes to have a bearing on the polity at large.
Taking such integral approach makes us better equipped to push the boundary of theorization
and address the crucial theoretical question: how can cultural trauma assist the repair of
universal solidarity?
In my strife to produce an enlightening image that would allow a rich understanding of the
forms and contours of solidarity in Kosice's mnemonic practices related to ethnic cleansing, I
1 2
find an engaging source of inspiration in the pragmatic sociology of critical capacity as
developed by Luc Boltanski and, especially, Laurent Thévenot. In order to reach a deeper
understanding of the dynamics of what I conceptualize as the local memory arena, and discuss
the contours of renewed solidarities that emerge from the different approaches to ethnic
cleansing as cultural trauma, I adapt Thévenoťs (2014) notion of multiple "grammars of
commonality" as the theoretical backbone of my inquiry. Departing from mnemonic objects
emplaced in Kosice's public space, I trace the roles public justifications, intentional projects
and intimate bonds of familiarity play in forging a memory to which others can relate. By
unpacking the nuances concealing fundamental differences in imaginations of solidarity based
on acknowledgement, regret and reconciliation, I wish to contribute to our common
understanding of the ways cultural trauma can lead to civil repair in post-conflict, postdisplacement,
post-authoritarian situations.
A short history of this project: Contours and birthmarks
This dissertation was launched in January 2013 as one of four case studies of a
transnational research project entitled "The transformation of the memory of forced migration
during World War II in local contexts: Places, themes and agents in socialist industrial cities
after 1989," funded by the German Government Commissioner for Media and Culture (BKM)
and administered by the Munich-based research institute Collegium Carolinum. In order to
map different developments of post-socialist remembering, the project funded four
independent urban case studies: Ústí nad Labem (Czech Republic), Hoyerswerda (Germany),
Košice (Slovakia) and todz (Poland). Approved in December 2012, my research in Košice began
in the haze of the fireworks opening the European Capital of Culture 2013.
The original ambitions of this project were threefold. First, prompted by the main
propositions of Collegium Carolinum's framing project, I set out to map the presumed postsocialist
shift in the local history of remembering (Erinnerungsgeschichte) at large. To chart the
discontinuity (or the lack thereof), I planned to investigate the discourses present in diverse
mnemonic media, including street names, memorials, local press, local historiography,
museum exhibitions, tourist guidebooks and performative activities (from commemorative
gatherings to city-walks), and combine these into a critical meta-historical narrative. Second,
keen at contrasting such public expressions of remembering with the meanings espoused by
individuals, I wanted to map the memory of "old Košice inhabitants" by collecting oralhistorical
accounts of ethnic coexistence. In a further step, I hoped to also confront these with
13
data gathered from my narrators' children and grandchildren - to map the extent of transgenerational
transmission and the process of sedimentation of communicative memory
(Assmann 2008) into cultural cognitive frames. Third, I intended to focus on the role of civil
associations, especially those explicitly or implicitly built on an ethnic principle, in keeping alive
the memories of their imagined ethnic communities, and in bringing them into the public. I
was interested in learning about the potential competition and cooperation in claims for
recognition between different groups, about their sources of inspiration and know-how, about
intertextual resonances between their narratives. Combining the analysis of these three levels
of local memory politics, I hoped to contribute to the bridging the long-standing divide
between collectivistic and individualistic research in collective memory (Olick 1999).
Furthermore, I also wished to overcome a deep-seated ethnic segmentation of scholarship,
which translated into a vision of symmetrical treatment of the six major ethnic categories of
Kosice citizens that suffered evictions, evacuations, deportations, forced labor placements or
acts of genocide based on ethnicity: the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Jews, the Roma, the Germans
and the Hungarians. Wary that this recapitulation will likely elicit amusement at my
megalomania, I find it instrumental - and fair - to reveal the perspectives that shaped my own
expectations and choices throughout my field work and, later, as I wrote this text.
Having virtually no prior knowledge or experience with the city, I started my research
endeavor by rolling the snowball to accumulate promising entry-ways into different segments
of local society. Within the first months, I found out that much of the knowledge I had expected
to find in historical literature and depart from was missing (for a more detailed account, see
the following Excursus). Another complication was the surprising - though in many ways
symptomatic - absence of some basic mnemonic functions and institutions in Kosice. First of
all, since 1945, Kosice has not had a municipal museum. The East Slovak Museum (ESM),
adapted from the original Museum of Upper Hungary founded in 1872, is a regional institution
with a broad agenda and numerous branches across East Slovakia. While there are, in fact,
three permanent ESM exhibitions related to the city itself - a presentation of a Renaissance
golden treasure found on Main Street, a thematic exposition of torture in the so-called Miklus's
prison and a replica of the house in which the anti-Habsburg rebel Ferenc Rakoczi II lived in his
Turkish exile - the musealization of Kosice history is confined to occasional temporary exhibits
in the largely regionally oriented institution. As both of the other major museum institutions the
East Slovak Gallery and the State Technical Museum - had also a regional focus, the
possibility of reconstructing the post-war musealization of Kosice based on museum archives
1 4
seemed like too much work with little promise. As I gradually learned, the absence of
institutionalized historical self-presentation runs deeper as there is, to date, no synthetic work
on Košice urban history. Although several respected partial analyses of medieval life exist, the
author of a very recent history of Košice historiography, Ondrej Ficeri, has claimed that Košice's
irrelevance for the Slovak national narrative, combined with the problematic ethnic makeup
of the city's population, has caused both a lack of professional interest in and of the political
will to engage in a likely conflictual negotiation of a coherent historical narrative (Ficeri 2016a).
At first, I was tempted to try to fill these voids and, besides analyzing practices of
commemoration, to contribute to the documentation of past injustice - on all sides; of course,
as I gradually realized, this was beyond my capacity. After a long phase of exploring "eyewitness
accounts" (and later even biographies) of elderly Košičania for a bottom-up
understanding of the everyday politics of remembering, I decided to focus on the zone of
contact between the public and non-public forms of remembering, for which the survey of
urban public space offered itself an effective heuristic strategy. A mapping of the post-socialist
mnemonic landscape of Košice turned out rather intriguing, especially for the abundance of
the Košice civil sphere in various forms of ethno- and mnemo-political association. In line with
the third original strand of my project, I contacted different groupings with the objective to
analyze the ways they had participated in the local politics of memory, and what motifs,
narratives and questions they viewed as neglected or suppressed. While the diversity in degree
and type of public engagement I found was rather fascinating, my ambition to analyze it in a
robust way had to be let go as I became increasingly focused on a selected number of their
memory projects. Though most of the several dozen interviews and many on-site observations
performed in these abandoned strands of my research are largely absent from this text, they
have provided me with rich insight into the different configurations of migration histories,
occupational trajectories and human temperaments as they related to the sense of being at
home in Košice.
The strand that crystallized as central in my research examines the meanings surrounding
post-socialist memory projects that strive to emplace cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing into
Košice's public space. The mapping of such emplacements unraveled in two strata defined by
two traditional forms of urban commemoration - memorials and memorial plaques on the one
hand, and commemorative street names on the other. I entered the latter area upon my very
first research visit, when, at the peak of the festivities opening the year of the European Capital
of Culture 2013 in Košice, a downtown square was named after Sándor Márai. As I gradually
1 5
reconstructed the early post-socialist toponymic changes (a task in which stumbling upon a
box of correspondence in one of the archives proved a crucial experience), I realized that at
least two recent toponymic initiatives are best understood as a critique of the early 1990s'
solutions to the task of representing national minorities, especially the Hungarians. The
preliminary stage of what later became Chapter 4 of this dissertation was published in a
collective volume edited by Erik Franzen (Gajdoš 2016).
In parallel with analyzing the street names, I surveyed the changes in official memorial sites
to trace those that related, in some way or another, to the rupture of the Second World War.
Here, the overview compiled by the local enthusiast Juraj Bauer served as excellent reference
material and spring-board (Bauer 2007). Gradually, three memorial initiatives emerged as
symptomatic for three distinct challenges of local memory - the Holocaust, the post-war
displacement of Hungarians and the post-socialist task of coming to terms with a violent past.
On further elaboration, the three selected cases proved not only to fruitfully open their own
semantic layer of Košice's mnemonic landscape, but also to exemplify a radically different
approach to solidarity building through cultural trauma. The analysis of these approaches is
presented in Chapter 3.
Finally, in late 2013,1 became captivated by the absurdity and the enthusiasm surrounding
the threat of construction on the historical Lutheran Cemetery in Košice. Though my
imaginative intuition that the forced migrations of Hungarians and Germans could play a major
role in the state and the fate of this potential piece of heritage was difficult to confirm, I
continued digging. In the end, the empirical excursus that for a long time seemed to be on the
margins of my project's concern grew to acquire a dual purpose: as a case study in producing
heritage in a nearly vacant space, and as a case that, by means of provocative tension, sheds
light on the dilemmas and problems of commemorating cultural trauma more generally.
In selecting the projects to analyze and understanding their meaning within the more
general development of Košice's mnemonic landscape, I relied on an eclectic corpus of data.
The material for analysis was gathered from historical literature, local press, historical maps,
discussions in online forums, somewhat episodic probes in local archives (namely in the State
Regional Archive, the Košice Municipal Archive and the archive of the Regional Authority for
Monument Preservation), on-site observations of public events or exhibitions, unstructured
interactions with locals, and, primarily, from numerous interviews with individuals involved in
the promotion, regulation or critique of the studied initiatives. Between January 2013 and June
2017, I made fourteen trips to Košice lasting between 2 and 8 days; in addition to this, my
1 6
family and I stayed in Kosice for a period of three-months in the spring of 2014. This stay made
me (temporarily) more flexible in responding to the typical last-minute invitations, dealing with
the different scheduling preferences of my interview partners and helped me to generally get
to know the city and its intrinsic logic (Low 2012) better. Last, but not least, it also equipped
me with the ability to deflate my outsider status by answering the ubiquitous question "Do
you come from Kosice?" with a foot-in-the-door response: "No, Bratislava, originally, but I did
live in Kosice for a while." All of these trips were made possible by the generous travel grant
included in the stipend I received from Collegium Carolinum.
The most significant challenge and limitation of my research in terms of methodology,
however, was not my distance from Kosice, but my lack of command of the Hungarian
language. As the post-war retribution against Hungarians affected a significant portion of
Kosice population and as the Hungarian minority is, despite its steady decline, the largest and
most organized in town, a study of ethnic cleansing would call for a symmetrical and critical
account of the local politics of memory. Reading and speaking Hungarian, thus, turned out to
be crucial for accessing important material and crucial research situations - from club
chronicles to local Hungarian press, from panel discussions and commemorative events, from
interviews with old burghers to war-time documents. Furthermore, as a Hungarian nonspeaker,
I repeatedly found myself struggling with being categorized as a "young Slovak
student" which, despite all my efforts to signalize openness and historical literacy, often led to
attempts at enlightening me about general "facts" rather than sharing more personal
understandings of history. Thanks to the friendly assistance of my colleague Gabor Olah, I was
able to include a limited, but well selected set of relevant contemporary Hungarian sources in
my analysis despite my linguistic disability. Had I been able to fully engage with Hungarian texts
and research situations in which Hungarian was a primary language, the development of my
project would likely have been different, leading me closer to the interactive, performative
level of remembering and more decidedly focused on the interaction of minority organizations
and the majority discourses.
Outline
In order to situate my inquiry into the public articulations of the cultural trauma of ethnic
cleansing in the relevant historical context, I open this dissertation with a cursory overview of
the impact of the different policies of displacement on Kosice's population. After this historical
excursus, I lay out the theoretical and conceptual framework of my inquiry in two sections. At
17
first, some general conceptual tools and assumptions present in my approach to the study of
collective remembering and the politics it produces are presented. Subsequently, I introduce
Laurent Thévenoťs pragmatic sociology and its potential for shedding light on the potential of
solidarity emerging from the remembering of painful pasts.
Focusing on explicit formulations of cultural trauma in the public space, the first analytical
chapter (Chapter 3) analyzes three grassroots memorial initiatives that have recently (2009-
2014) addressed the need to acknowledge past suffering of local victim groups. While each of
the three projects - the unfinished "civic memorial" to the Holocaust, the private memorial to
"Slovak exoduses" and the memorial of the Hungarian minority politician Jánoš Esterházy builds
on a different trauma narrative, the more intriguing level of variation lies in their
radically differing approach to how their agenda would enter the public sphere. Through
reading these memorial initiatives as complex local mnemonic practices through the lenses of
Laurent Thévenoťs "grammars of commonality," the chapter converges on the question
concerning the ways in which cultural trauma can be made a common matter so as to promote
extensions of civic solidarity.
Refocusing on the more implicit presence of cultural trauma in remembering, Chapter 4
focuses on the way marginalization of local and ethnic identities has been tackled in the
primarily celebratory medium of street names. Hearkening back to the early phase of the postsocialist
symbolic "clean-up," the fourth chapter analyzes the reparative gestures present in
the critical review of street and place names in Košice performed in 1990-1992. After a
reconstruction of the gradual politicization of toponymy, I describe and analyze the results of
a this toponymic "cleansing" ritual of decommunization. Building on this analysis, I present two
different instances of late post-socialist re-naming initiatives, proposing the commemoration
of the writer Sándor Márai and the Roman Catholic Church reformer Jean Calvin, and discuss
the tension these bids at increased plurality expose in what was meant as a final, balanced and
neutral toponymic landscape.
Finally, moving to an even further level of abstraction to the cultural trauma of ethnic
cleansing as a deeply underlying circumstance, Chapter 5 delves into the story of an old
Lutheran cemetery that was first ruined, then bulldozed, unsuccessfully adapted for a park,
sold for construction and then, in an unlikely manner, saved by local activists envisioning it as
a memorial park. After reviewing its history up to the moment of its first sale to a private owner
in 2007, I analyze the meanings associated with and projected into to this place by five
different kinds of agents - the church community, the authority regulating urban development,
1 8
the relatives of the buried dead, the preservation activists and active protest participants,
highlighting the silk thread linking its present status with the history of ethnic cleansing in
Kosice. Following a stepwise thick description of the cemetery's meaning as a piece of common
heritage, I conclude by re-reading this case as a sensitizing metaphor for theorizing the way
past violence can be made visible and relevant in an urban context.
1 9
Chapter 1. Excursus: A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing in Košice
How to conceive ofethnicity and ethnic cleansing
In the turbulent decade of the Second World War, Košice became a symbolic intersection
of two national traumatic narratives - the Hungarian and the Czechoslovak. The former was
built around the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which shattered Hungary's long-standing hopes for
an independent nation state by stripping it of two thirds of its territory and more than half of
its population (Kontler 2001:316; Michela & Kusá 2013).3
The latter hung suspended between
the 1938 Treaty of Munich and the subsequent First Vienna Award, which uncoupled from
Czechoslovakia of most of its German and Hungarian speaking border regions and, effectively,
contributed to the republic's disintegration in 1939 (Bystrický 2011). Positioned on an ethnolinguistic
borderline, Košice was thus a double token for reinvigorated nationalism. The 1938
"return of Košice" - a historical "capital" of Hungarian nobility's anti-Habsburg Kuruc rebellions
- became for Hungarian revisionism a symbol of restoration (however incomplete) of the
Hungarian Kingdom. The 1945 "liberation of Košice," a former civilizational outpost in the far
Czechoslovak East, came to symbolize for Czechoslovak and Slovak political cultures a
reaffirmation of the Czechoslovak nation-state project. Based on the mutual conditioning of
these complementary cultural traumas, Košice can be interpreted as a paradigmatic example
of Central-European ethno-political conflict.
Benedict Anderson conceptualizes the nation as an imagined political community, defining
it as limited (in number and territory), sovereign (as opposed to dominated by a God-given
ruler) and bound by a "deep, horizontal comradeship," despite the fact most members will
never know each other (Anderson 2006:7). On a similar note, Rogers Brubaker (Brubaker 2004)
rallies against the reification of ethnic groups with the assertion that the existence of
ethnicities as bounded and self-conscious collectives is always a result of systematic political
mobilization, whose success or failure should be explained rather taken for granted. Ethnicity,
in this constructivist understanding, is "not a thing in the world, but a perspective on the
world" (Brubaker et al. 2004:32; emphasis original); it is a "way of understanding, interpreting,
and framing experience" (ibid.:52). The "groupness" and boundedness of ethnicity should,
thus, not be taken for granted. Rather than taken for granted, they should be seen and
explained as "emergent properties of structural or conjunctural settings" (Brubaker 2004:51).
3
This figure includes, according to the not quite impartial 1910 census, 30 percent of ethnic Hungarians.
20
In many Central-European cities, cultural, linguistic and religious plurality made such
"settings" markedly convoluted. Identifications with abstract, super-regional ethnic collectives
typically only resulted from gradual and conflict-ridden negotiations of identities (King 2005).
While statistics of ethnicity, especially in the borderlands, became a matter of contention for
competing nationalisms, for the individuals counted in them, they often bore pragmatic
consequences, which is why data on ethnic composition in Košice must be read against the
background of the concurrent political situation. Depending on the legitimation needs of the
current ruling regimes, those who considered themselves Slovaks could namely be counted as
Hungarians, Hungarians could register as Czechoslovaks, Czechs would be counted together
with or separate from Slovaks and Jews would go from having to choose a "national" ethnicity
to becoming an independent ethnic category, only to return again - mostly out of caution - to
a preferred Hungarian self-identification. Besides the changing political incentives towards
falsification of results and their limited comparability owing to changes in the way ethnicity
was determined, another major factor obscuring ethnic demography in Košice in the first half
of the 20th century is the widespread flexibility in ethnic self-identification.4
Dramatic shifts in
ethnic composition between consecutive censuses were only partially a result of migration:
the ability and willingness to shift manifest ethnic identification according to current political
expediency was widespread in Košice, which points to a high degree of ethnic ambiguity in
segments of the local population.
Ambivalence and flexibility in ethno-national self-identification has a long tradition in
Košice; in fact, it even has a broadly recognized name in the town: the "Košice nationality." For
several of my interview partners of mixed origin, this pseudo-political expression of local
denomination (not to be confused by the looser and more geographic "Košičan") serves as an
emphatic gesture of distance from ethnic bigotry combined with the implication of some
degree of minority status. Such positioning, theorized by Tara Zahra as national indifference
(Zahra 2010), runs up against the prerogative of nation states to their citizen's loyalty based
on ethnic belonging. In a typically nationalist perspective, the prominent East Slovak historian,
life-long conceptual opponent of "Hungarianist" historiography, living witness of the decade
of ethnic cleansing and Košice native Ladislav Tajták interpreted the "Košice nationality" as "an
artificial, episodic phenomenon" rooted in the post-war ethno-political development and
opines that those, who chose this term to describe themselves were, in fact, "covering up their
4
There are now several studies problematizing the face value of population graphs and tables; see especially
(Kovacs 1995; Ficeri 2017).
21
Hungarian nationality" (Durisin 2010:193). The flexibility of state loyalties, is, however,
documented much earlier. Already in 1920, a situational report on the positions of Kosice
inhabitants towards the recently founded Czechoslovak Republic lamented the unreliability
and "self-interested" approach to national identification in the typical local tradesman: "If the
situation is favorable, he reports as a Slovak, if the wind blows the other way, he becomes a
Hungarian or a German, and de facto they are Jews." "(as cited in Ficeri 2016b:321) A pre-war
origin of the concept itself was confirmed by Stefan Sutaj, who claimed that "Kosice ethnicity"
first appeared in the interbellum press, as a means to escape from the conflicting claims of
states to ownership of persons (Sutaj 2013). An insistence on local belonging resurfaced as an
alternative collective identity throughout my contact with people involved in Kosice's cultural
milieus and while for some of its proponents, it seemed to serve as a rhetorical anti-thesis to
state centralism and Slovak nationalist provincialism rather than a critique of ethnic
categorization, the preference for the local as more authentic, more relevant, closer to the
heart and yet more open to the world, remained central to all of its articulations.
Before moving on, a brief clarification of the risks and promises associated with using the
term "ethnic cleansing" to bring all events of forced migration, mass ethnic persecution and
genocide into a single perspective is in order. Although, according to GregorThum, there is
general agreement among historians regarding the definition of ethnic cleansing as the
"systematic and violent removal of undesired ethnic groups from a given territory" (Thum
2010:75), separate handling of the different episodes, politics and processes delineated by
symbolic boundaries around the affected ethnic "groups" still prevail over integrated and
contextual takes on the subject. A summary view of these events, however, evokes
comparisons and elicits moral doubts. Dealing with the Shoah and the administrative change
of ethnicity (albeit enforced by suspension of civil rights), are we not running the risk of
blunting the critical blade of the concept? Are we not putting incommensurable experiences
on the same moral plane? Is such re-interpretation of the Holocaust within a broader
discursive frame of the large-scale violations of human rights not, as Natan Sznaiderand Daniel
Levy have pointed out, an invitation to competing discourses of victimhood and, effectively, to
the obscuration of these nations' states' historical responsibility for the Shoah? (Levy &
Sznaider2005)
There are two principal reasons for conceptualizing "ethnic cleansing" in a broad and
inclusive sense. First, the Holocaust has served, on a global level, as the epitome of sacred-evil
and a narrative template for the articulation of cultural trauma for some time now (Alexander
22
2002). While the singular features of the Shoah surely must be maintained, its relation in forms
as well as historical contexts to other instances of mass violence has been a matter of critical
and reflexive discussion (Snyder 2011). Secondly, if histories of ethnic conflicts are so deeply
entangled with the Shoah, their historical developments as well as the dynamics of their
remembering are best understood within a shared context. The defining moment for my
inquiry is thus not the extent of the violence, its ideological underpinnings or its historical
vindications, nor the criteria for defining the victims, but the intent to displace the ethnic
other. The comparative and interpretive purchase of an integrated approach, which sees these
events as mutually interrelated phenomena driven by a similar political rationale, has been
recently demonstrated by a collective volume edited by Barbara Tornquist-Plewa (TornquistPlewa
2016). In a rare synthetic gesture, the volume juxtaposes urban case studies from across
Central and Eastern Europe, analyzing the ways in which "vanished ethnic groups [are]
remembered, acknowledged or blamed" (Tornquist-Plewa 2016:5) in theirformer hometowns.
Despite differences in size, ethnic composition and developmental trajectories between the
studied cities, the common conceptual framing by ethnic cleansing and the war-related loss of
ethnic plurality subsequently allows for rich comparisons of the cities' different cultures of
remembering and provides important insights into the way cultural trauma can be exploited
or creatively handled to forge common futures. Whether the emigration of Slovaks who lost
their jobs in 1938, the plight of the Hungarians who avoided deportations at the cost of
renouncing their ethnicity or the deportation of Jews into death camps, a synoptical and
contextual handling of these events and their commemoration is a precondition for better
understanding how traumatic narratives pertaining to discreet ethnically defined victim groups
can - or cannot - become a common matter.
In the following section, I provide a general overview of the policies of ethnic cleansing
relevant to Kosice and compile the available data on the extent to which these events affected
the population of Kosice. This reconstruction is deliberately schematic and its primary aim is
to outline the contours of the historical processes that - like bones in an ancient burial ground
- might lie at the heart of a potential cultural trauma narrative. Although to assemble this
overview, I have consulted many different publications dealing with local history and
demography, it is likely incomplete. Nevertheless, combining some of the most recent
information on different ethnic histories, this summary presents a uniquely synoptic picture of
the different instances of ethnic cleansing that have shaped Kosice's post-war cultural
landscape.
23
Return to Hungary: Cleansing stage 1
The incorporation of Košice into the Czechoslovak Republic declared at the end of October
1918 was all but non-problematic. In order to secure control over the territory claimed by the
emergent Czechoslovak state from the historical Hungarian kingdom, it had to be occupied by
force (Deák 1991). When the Czechoslovak army took control of Košice on December 28,1918,
it brought to an end the short-lived Slovak Popular Republic, set up earlier that month in an
attempt to claim independence from Czechoslovakia for the putative Eastern "Slovjak" nation
and to thus preserve its close relations to Hungary. After five tense months of Czechoslovak
control, the revolutionary Hungarian Soviet Republic's invasion brought another temporary
change of borders and Košice became a part of the Slovak Soviet Republic declared in mid-June
in Prešov. Within a couple of weeks, however, Czechoslovakia reestablished control overall of
the contested territory. The factual separation of Košice and its immediate surroundings from
much of its former administrative region - the Abaúj-Torna County - and from Hungary at large
was confirmed by the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920.
After the consolidation of the new territorial regime, Košice enjoyed two decades of
peaceful development as the major administrative and economic outpost in the Czechoslovak
East. In order to stabilize state control over the ethno-politically hostile city and boost the
development of the underdeveloped East end of the republic, many Slovaks and up to 10,000
Czechs moved into Košice between 1919-1938 (Potemra 1985b).5
Despite this, Košice
remained largely bilingual in both informal and official communication. In the context of Miklós
Horthy's ascent to power in Hungary in 1920 and the subsequent development of a
conservative authoritarian regime, the Czechoslovak South in general and Košice in particular,
became a space of freedom for the Hungarian left. While on the one hand, a considerable
number of politically engaged locals left Košice after 1919 (Potemra 1985b), with eviction
based on the lack of the right to domicile remaining a constant thread to those deemed disloyal
to the new state, ethnic tension between the Hungarian and Czechoslovak populations only
began building up towards the end of 1930s.6
In the process of Czechoslovakia's disintegration, initiated by the Munich Treaty in late
September 1938 and continued over the following weeks in Komárno and Vienna, Košice was
5
Immigration increased also from the wider East-Slovak region due to stricter regulation of the heretofore
massive emigration overseas (Saposova & Reginacova 2014:83).
6
Personal communication with Jozef Kirst, November 27, 2014.
24
a city of prime interest of both Slovak and Hungarian representations for strategic as well as
ideological reasons (Deák 1998). With the repossessing of Košice, the Hungarian state would
not only welcome back the historical center of the 17th- and 18th-century anti-Habsburg
Hungarian rebellions, but also control some of the most important transport lines connecting
the surrounding Slovak territories (Bystrický 2011). Despite the fact that the census statistics
stated a Hungarian minority below 20 percent in 1930, the First Vienna Award of November 2
included the city in the territory that Czechoslovakia was to cede to Hungary. The city was
officially the last one for Hungary to take over on November 11 and the photographs of
Marshall Horthy atop a white horse as he enters the "returning city" from the South became
emblematic for the humiliation of the freshly acquired Slovak autonomy. Though the revision
was meant to "bring reconciliation and stability" (Ristveyová 2014:232), its violation of the very
principle it declared to honor - the principle of ethnic self-determination - prevented this from
happening. The mostly Slovak rural area around the city of Košice was among the most blatant
cases of this.
Slovak accounts of the consequences of the First Vienna Award for Košice usually cite an
estimated 30,000 refugees as a foreshadowing of the oppression Slovaks faced under the
renewed Hungarian rule (Potemra 1985a:41-2). Such a rounded number, based on the upper
limit of the estimated difference of 21,000 to 26,000 inhabitants missing in the December 1938
Hungarian survey, conflates two distinct categories - Slovaks (between 10,000 and 15,000 in
count) and Czechs (10,000 to 12,000 in total). Though most of the Czechs and many of the
Slovaks had moved into Košice after 1918,7
numerous Slovak Košice natives involved in the
interbellum cultural and political life of the city were among the evacuees (Potemra 1985b).
While the Slovaks often returned to their places of origin or sought refuge at homes of relatives
in the autonomous Slovakia,8
Czechs were not welcome on Slovak territory (Benda 2013).
Compared to the approximately 31,000 Košice Slovaks in the 1930 census,9
less than 10,000
declared Slovak nationality in the Hungarian census at the end of 1938; "[l]n Košice, there was
7
While many of the Slovaks were able to temporarily return to their places of origin or find refuge with relatives,
autonomous Slovakia (declared in October 1938) and later the Slovak state (founded in March 1939) were not
inclined to employ or settle Czechs on Slovak territory. While there is not scholarship or memoirs known to me
detailing the fate of these Czech individuals and families, most of them likely ended up returning to what was
then already the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
8
Slovak autonomy was declared on October 6, 1938, and the Slovak state independent of Czechoslovakia on
March 14,1939.
9
This is, again, an approximation based on subtracting the number of Czech- and Moravian-born Czechoslovaks
(11,023) from the total of 42,245.
25
almost no Slovak family," according to Potemra, "part of which would not have moved away
from Kosice" (1985b:43).
Despite the initial euphoria of many (if not all) remaining locals, the return of Kassa to
Hungary brought both economic and political hardship to the city. From a growing
administrative, economic and cultural center of an extensive region, Kosice became, as the
Slovak historian Potemra likes to stress with gusto, "a borderline town with the perspective of
dying away as a city of pensioners" (1985b:40). Within months of the border revision, the
supply of commodities faltered, salaries dropped and unemployment rose as the local
industries became stalled in the new political situation. Slovak cultural and political activity
came under strict limitation after the Hungarian takeover; Slovak schools were allowed but
gradually reduced. Slovak memoirs and historiography speak of police monitoring, bullying,
discrimination and "military terror" (Potemra 1985a:19; Böhm 1983; Harcar 2003). Those, who
had no problem identifying themselves as Hungarians were, in contrast, often confronted with
contempt of the "anyäs," the immigrants from the "mother country," of whom there were
some 12-20 thousand by the end of 1944 (Potemra 1985b:43). These often treated the locals
with unconcealed suspicion: coming into the interbellum safe haven of Hungarian intellectual
and political marginality, they expected to be dealing with "Felvideki komunistäk," or
"Highland communists." While up to 20,000 came in, nearly 8,000 locals migrated to lower
Hungary due to unemployment or political harassment (ibid.). All the while, Kosice (like other
cities across Hungary) became a different place of refuge - a hideout for numerous Slovak and
Polish Jews who fled deportations from their countries to hide out in a country, which, despite
well and long established anti-Semitic measures, resisted the mass deportation of Jews.1 0
With the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, following Horthy's unsuccessful
exit from the war, this situation changed dramatically. After the Kosice-born Ferenc Szäläsi and
his fascist Arrow Cross Party (Nyilaskeresztes Part) seized power, the "Final Solution" was
implemented with unprecedented efficiency and on a horrific scale. Within three months of
the regime change, more than 430,000 Jews were deported from the country under the
auspices of Adolf Eichmann, mostly to the Auschwitz death facility. An overwhelming majority
Among the "milder" anti-Semitic measures both Hungary and Slovakia undertook in preparation for the
rearrangement of the borders was the forced eviction of Jews and Roma without official domicile beyond the
newly established border (Nižňanský 2010). Though well researched in some other areas, no details about this
process for the Košice region are known.
26
of these victims passed through the Košice train station. Some 12,000 Košice Jews,
comprising about one fifth of the town's population, along with another 3,000 from the
surrounding areas, were deported in four transports between May 16 and June 4, 1944.
Between 10,000 and 12,000 Košice Jews perished in Auschwitz and Buchenwald (Potemra
1994). After the Jews, the Roma were targeted in November 1944, when up to a thousand
(about half of the estimated Košice population of Roma) were transported via the Komárno
fortress prison to the Dachau extermination camp.1 2
Not much is known about the disappearance of the Košice German population. Although
the number of Germans steadily decreased due to gradual assimilation throughout the 19th
century, the 1920s had actually seen an increase in the German population, likely due to
migration from the nearby German enclaves.1 3
Between 1930 and December 1938, however,
the absolute number of Germans dropped by a third to 2,314 (ibid.) and, subsequently, to less
than 1,700 in 1941; Potemra attributes this rapid decrease in numbers after 1938 to migration.
Considering that, throughout the region, the retreating German army evacuated German
civilians in 1944, it is reasonable to assume that, with the approaching frontline, the remaining
Košice Germans were evacuated from Košice as well.1 4
By the end of December 1944, Košice has lost some 12,000 Czech and up to 15,000 Slovak
inhabitants, about 12,000 Jews, 1,000 Roma and approximately 2,000 Germans to flight,
preemptive evacuation, expulsion or genocide. In summary, less than half of pre-war Košice
inhabitants was left unaffected by politics of ethnic cleansing by the war's end. Estimates of
Jewish survivors oscillate around 500 (Singerová 2005), the extent to which Slovak evacuees
returned from exile or Roma internees from concentration camps after 1945 remains unknown
and any returns of individuals displaced in any of the remaining actions are undocumented.
Considering that some additional 8,000 locals became displaced as laborers in lower Hungary
(Potemra 1985b) and hundreds served in the Hungarian military, only some 30,000 out of the
estimated prewar population of 80,000 were still in Košice at the time of its liberation.
Estimates of the number of Kosice Jews deported in 1944 vary. While the most broadly accepted number is
12,000 (Potemra 1994:48) for Kosice proper and "more than 15,000" (Okroy 2005:76) including unspecified
Kosice surroundings, Singerova gives a more conservative estimate 10,079. (Singerova 2005)
1 2
About 2,000 Roma lived in Kosice before the war. Besides isolated mentions of witnesses (Hubschmannova
2014), no precise numbers or research is available up to this date on their persecution and porajmos - the "Roma
Holocaust" (Lazorisak 2014).
1 3
The closest German enclave is located just 25 kilometers west of Kosice in the Metzenseifen/Medzev area.
1 4
This deduction is corroborated by the anecdotal evidence found in the chronicles of the local Lutheran Church,
which mentions the loss of registries related to the evacuation of German members of the trilingual
congregation.
27
Return to Czechoslovakia: Cleansing stage 2
The terrible experiences that Czechs and Slovaks created with regard to the German
and Hungarian minorities, which to a large extent became willing instruments of
the politics of conquest against the Republic from the outside, and of which
especially Czechoslovak Germans lend themselves to a cleansing campaign against
the Czech and Slovak nation, oblige the renewed Czechoslovakia to a far-reaching
and permanent intervention.
(opening sentence of Article VIII of the Košice Government Program [Moderní
dějiny 2009])
After the memorable experiences of Munich and Vienna, in which minorities' separatism
backed by international arbitration led to the territorial disintegration of the Czechoslovak
state, the post-war Czechoslovak leadership sought to eliminate both Germans and Hungarians
from the landscape of the restored republic. After initial consideration of territorial cessions to
both Germany and Hungary, a more radical vision of the total deportation of both minorities
was adopted with the decisive turn in the war's development in late 1941 (Vadkerty & Szarka
2002:252). After the liberation by the Red army in January 1945, Košice became the first official
capital city of the reestablished Czechoslovakia - in post-war Czechoslovak history, the symbol
of defeat in 1938 was to become Munich's triumphant pendant. The Košice Government
Program (KGP), authorized on April 5, 1945 by the first post-war government session in the
historical headquarters of Abaúj-Torna County (a classical palace, later known as the House of
the Košice Government Program), defined the fundamental principles of reconstruction,
including adaptations to the political and economic systems. Two of its points had a profound
bearing on the nation-state concept. First, the renewed Czechoslovakia was to observe a more
balanced distribution of power and competence between the Czechs and Slovaks, whose
autonomist movement, fueled by grievances of the interbellum political regime, played a
decisive role in the common state's collapse of 1938. Second, a general presumption of guilt
for the state's breakdown was extended to all Germans and Hungarians, who could not prove
their loyalty to Czechoslovakia or involvement in anti-fascist resistance: no longer Czechoslovak
citizens, they were to be evicted from the state (Kaplan 1990). Košice, a beacon of liberation,
thus became a symbol of post-war ethnic retribution - of a Czechoslovak final solution to the
"minority question."
28
Since Kosice Germans had been completely evacuated before the advent of the front, statesanctioned
ethnic persecution primarily targeted local Hungarians. While the intent to
physically displace Hungarians from Czechoslovakia failed, the variety of forms, degrees and
extent of this persecution in this period left Hungarians with experiences of anxiety,
uncertainty and profound humiliation. In the following section, I will briefly review the
development of these policies and their impact on Kosice. As in the end only a relatively small
number was deported from Kosice to Hungary - an educated estimate by a renowned
researcher of this period, the Kosice-based historian Stefan Sutaj, is approximately 2,000 (Sutaj
2013) - symbolic displacement has expectably played a more central role in the local Hungarian
cultures of remembrance than physical relocation.
Despite the step-wise legislative anchoring of the retributive action against traitors and
collaborators (a category applied liberally that typically included Germans and Hungarians),
measures were underway much earlier. After Hungary pledged to accept all personnel
allocated to the former Czechoslovak territory after November 1938 in the Soviet-Hungarian
armistice treaty of January 20, 1945, Czechoslovak authorities (often under the auspices of
guerrilla fighters) composed lists of anyds and politically active Hungarians to be expelled from
the renewed state. Though officially sanctioned on May 5, 1945, deportations were taking
place much earlier. Designated for eviction were all anyds inhabitants, persons active in the
Hungarian National Party and members of the intelligentsia including, of course, their
immediate families (Vadkerty & Szarka 2002). By the end of June 1945,1,883 such persons had
been evicted from Kosice (Sutaj 2013). In the meantime, the paramilitary order enforcement
groups as well as "pseudo-revolutionary individuals and adventurers" took the liberty of
robbing and terrorizing Hungarian inhabitants, anyds and natives alike (Vadkerty & Szarka
2002) (to what extent this was the case in Kosice I have not ascertained). In an event specific
to the provisional capital, "dangerous and suspicious people of German and Hungarian
ethnicity" (Sutaj 2013), a quality ascribed based on past involvement with fascist organizations,
offenses against the Red Army or infringement of Czech and Slovak national interests, were
removed from Kosice in preparation for the arrival of the government and president Benes in
March 1945. After the KGP declaration, legal actions against persons charged as war criminals
were initiated across the country; convicted war criminals and their families were typically
deported. In retrospect, local approaches of prosecutors and judges show drastic differences while
only a small fraction of the over 2,000 charged in Kosice was punished by deportation
29
(ibid.), in some villages, the entire population was charged with collaboration, in what was a
clear attempt to facilitate its removal (Vadkerty & Szarka 2002).1 5
While the general international consensus on the mass resettlement of Germans from
Central and Eastern Europe worked in favor of such plan, a similar approach to the Hungarians
was not approved by the Potsdam Conference held in the summer of 1945 (ibid.). The
Czechoslovak government subsequently tried to maximize the number of Hungarians it could
deport to Hungary - and disperse those it could not deport. The main policy aimed at physical
displacement was an exchange of population, which assumed that Hungary would accept as
many Czechoslovak Hungarians forcibly deported from their places of origin as there would be
Hungarian Slovaks opting for voluntary resettlement from to Slovakia. Considering the almost
500,000 Slovaks estimated to live in Hungary at that time, the agreement signed on February
26, 1946 promised hope of deporting close to all Czechoslovak Hungarians (Popely 2009). As
Hungarian leadership protracted the treaty's implementation and the process stalled,
Czechoslovakia decided to blackmail Hungary through forced internal relocation of its
Hungarians to the Czech lands for "work placement" starting in November 1946. The
placements, originally meant to last one year, were routinely prolonged until May 1949; in the
meantime, the homesteads abandoned by these Hungarian families were typically allocated to
Slovaks from the North. Starting in the larger, more homogeneous areas with affluent rural
population in the Southwest, the labor deportations only affected Kosice city to a minor
degree; by the time the "wave" reached Eastern Slovakia, the action was discontinued as the
commencement of the population exchange was looming (Sutaj 2005:68-9).
Organized population exchange finally began in April 1947 and lasted until the end of 1948.
As in the case of internal relocation within the republic, the action proceeded sequentially from
the West eastwards and focused on landowners and the rural population - to satisfy the
expectations of the repatriating rural Slovaks. Only one transport, including 115 individuals
from families of merchants and craftsmen is documented in Kosice; the absence of further
data, according to Sutaj (2013), suggests that the action was not fully implemented there, not
least thanks to bribery, friendly interventions and the influence of organizations that
individuals mobilized to be taken off the exchange lists. In summary, over 89,000 Hungarians
Another notable mass phenomenon, which on the national scale targeted Hungarians and Germans more often
than Slovaks or Ruthenians, were the mass abductions of civilians by the Soviet secret police NKVD. Hungarians,
perceived as enemies by the Soviets, were arrested and sent to forced labor camps in the Soviet Union - an event
remembered in Hungarian mnemonic cultures as "Malenkij robot," but only marginally present in the Slovak
mnemonic canon.
30
had to leave Czechoslovakia over the course of the population exchange, 27,000 of which left
voluntarily before the treaty took effect, representing about 15 percent of the number of
Hungarians recorded in the 1930 Czechoslovak census. In exchange, over 73,000 Hungarian
Slovaks were resettled in Czechoslovakia (Vadkerty & Szarka 2002:363).1 6
In parallel with the population exchange, whose results were dissatisfactory to the
Czechoslovak leadership, the so-called Re-Slovakization was organized to manipulate
Hungarians into denouncing their nationality in exchange for reestablished citizenship. This
administrative measure, legislated in June 1946, was based on a theory elaborated already in
the interbellum period, according to which most Hungarians living on Czechoslovak territory
were in fact descendants of Slovaks "de-nationalized" by the forced Hungarianization of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries (Sutaj 1991). Re-Slovakization was thus conceived as a
shortcut to redressing the historical oppression of the Slovak nation one individual at a time
(ibid). In Kosice, 13,573 requests for Re-Slovakization were filed, including 90 percent of those
that declared themselves Hungarian in 1930 (Vadkerty & Szarka 2002:415; Sutaj 2013:481).
After the communist coup of 1948, the largely unsuccessful policy of forced relocation was
terminated: December 1948 marked both the last exchange transport and the decision to allow
"recruits" relocated to the Czech borderlands to return home. On November 1, 1948,
citizenship was restored to Hungarians, with the exception of individuals identified as
ideological enemies1 7
; for offenses against the Czechoslovak Republic, 58 Kosice families were
declined citizenship (Vadkerty & Szarka 2002:477). Within the following several years,
Hungarian schools reopened, Hungarian press was allowed and a centralized cultural
association CSEMADOK was established to cater to the minority's cultural needs (Sutaj 2004).
The administrative effect of Re-Slovakization proved to be temporary: in the 1951 census, most
of those willing to denounce their Hungarian origin in 1947 returned to it as soon as the
pressure was lifted.
While the counts were not exactly on par, a significant imbalance and cause for a sense of grievance consisted
in the economic losses to the leaving Hungarians: Slovak voluntary migrants only left behind about 36 percent of
the acreage previously owned by the deported Hungarians in Czechoslovakia (Vadkerty & Szarka 2002:365).
1 7
The last attempt at internal resettlement of select Hungarians, whom Hungary refused to accept, was carried
out in late 1949 under the headline "Action South." Included were not only war criminals to be convicted and
anyds, but also wealthy landowners and other offenders of national interests. Instead of blatant reference to
ethnicity, the primary framing, however, was that of class struggle; ideologically still problematic, the project
was abandoned almost as soon as it started. (Sutaj 1993)
31
150 000
Year 1850 1857 1869 1880 1890 1900 1910
Population 10,185 11,944 21,742 26,097 28,884 40,102 44,211
1919 1921 1930 1938 1938 1941 1945
46,826 52,898 70,117 80,000 58,090 66,981 51,689
1950 1961 1970 1970 1980 1991 2001 2011
62,465 79,400 129,743 149,555 202,368 235,160 236,093 240,433
Table 1. Number of inhabitants in Kosice between 1850 and 2011
Ethnic cleansing in Kosice: A summary overview
Let us summarize the impact of the discussed events visually and numerically.ln the second
half of the 19th century, and throughout the first third of the 20th century, Kosice experiences
more or less steady growth. After a short period of stagnation during the First World War,
growth intensifies as the newly Czechoslovak city enters a new phase of urban development
and attracts migrants from the broad East-Slovak and Ruthenian regions.1 9
The outbreak of the
Two notes to these numbers are in order:
* The data for 1900 and 1910 include a contingent of soldiers comprising 11 and 8.5 percent of the population
respectively (c.f. (Saposova & Reginacova 2014:78ff)).
** After nearly a decade of building and projecting mass housing on the margins of previous construction, several
surrounding villages gradually swallowed by the swelling city were merged with Kosice administratively in 1968.
Figures representing both the original and the newly created area of Greater Kosice are shown as an illustration
of the impact of this change.
1 9
One of the notable factors contributing to the uptake in regional immigration, according to Saposova, was the
more strict regulation of overseas emigration, which had been draining the population in the Eastern regions of
the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in the preceding decade. (Saposova & Gabzdilova 2004).
32
Second World War marks an abrupt interruption of the rising demographic trend. Compared
with the retrospective demographic projection of approximately 80,000 inhabitants, Kosice's
population decreased by more than 20,000 following its reattachment to Hungary. While the
1941 census registers the positive migration balance, the Czechoslovak survey of 1945 finds
barely 52,000 inhabitants after Jews and Roma were deported, Germans evacuated and several
thousand Hungarians fled, some of them back to Hungary, or were expelled. The steady postwar
growth is artificially boosted after 1960, when the construction of the East Slovak
Steelworks began. At the end of the decade, several surrounding villages, gradually swallowed
by the planned extensive housing construction, are administratively merged with the city. The
steep growth trend in both population and construction is only broken off after 1989 and is
replaced with a period of stagnation.
An overview of Kosice's ethnic composition brings evidence about the dynamics of ethnic
assimilation in various periods. Looking at the trends of the last four decades of the AustroHungarian
monarchy, we notice a steady relative diminishing of Slovak and German ethnic
groups (representing, in fact, absolute decrease in number). Besides assimilation (also evident
among Czechs after 1970 and Hungarians after 1991), the table illustrates the way and extent
to which ethno-national identification of inhabitants shifted with every regime change. In 1919,
after the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic, the relative number of Hungarians dropped
by half in comparison with 1910, and the number of Czechoslovaks (now counted together)
increased by roughly the same ratio. The impact of voluntary and forced migration on such a
sudden and substantial shift in 1919 is insignificant compared to the effect of local inhabitants'
flexibility in self-reported ethnic identification. A tendency to "go with the flow" (which Stefan
Sutaj pithily called the "principle of political and economic expediency"2 0
) will similarly affect
the later post-1938 and post-1945 censuses - though in both cases, forced migration becomes
a much more prominent factor. If we accept that the popular narrative of "Kosice nationality"
reflects a widespread national indifference (Zahra 2010) (grounded in ethnically mixed familial
backgrounds and carefully maintained tolerance), the negotiation of opportune selfidentifications
can be read as a pragmatic task instead of a symptom of inconsistency.2 1
However, Sutaj notes that the "Kosice ethnicity" had already been mentioned in the
2 0
Personal communication with Stefan Sutaj, January 28, 2014.
2 1
Though according to Zahra, post-war ethnic cleansing "was ultimately an effort to eradicate national
indifference as much as an attempt to eliminate national minorities" (Zahra 2010:118), it was likely just this low
salience of stable national self-identification that made a fair portion of Kosice inhabitants ready to demonstrate
loyalty to new regimes by claiming the favorable label.
33
interbellum local press as a "'solution' to [Kosice city's] unclear ethnic status" (2013:469). While
the applicability of the concept of national indifference warrants further consideration, the
recent analysis of Kosice voting patterns in the interbellum period suggests that the situational
character of ethnicity is reflected in historical data as well (Ficeri 2017).
The further relative decrease of the Hungarian share in the population of Kosice was
facilitated by the creation of a separate "Israeli" national category, since most Jews living in the
border regions were Hungarian speaking. At the same time, the decreasing share of Hungarians
should be taken with a fair dose of salt: as Eva Kovacs has demonstrated by an analysis of
election results from 1935, Hungarian parties earned roughly twice as many votes as there
were registered Hungarian voters (Jewish votes represented between one quarter and one
third of the difference). She concludes that "in the case of minorities [the census data] do not
reflect their national identity primarily, but the degree of their loyalty to or fear of the
Czechoslovak state" (Kovacs 1995:72).
Year 1850 1857 1880 1890 1900 1910 1919 1921 1930 1938 1941 1950
Slovaks 46.5 24.4 40.9 33.6 23.1 14.8 16.3 11.0 93.5
Czechoslovaks 48.8 60.8 62.5
Czechs 2.6
Hungarians 28.5 47.6 39.7 49.9 64.8 75.4 38.4 22.7 19.8 76.6 83.4 2.6
Germans 15.6 24.6 16.7 13.5 8.6 7.2 5.3 4.3 5.1 4 2.5 0.0
Jews 7.2 10.9 10.1 0.7 1.1
Roma
Other 2.2 3.6 2.7 3 3.5 2.6 7.5 1.6 2.5 2.4 1.6 1.1
Missing
Table 2. Ethnic composition of Kosice population between 1850 and 1950 (in %)'
Year 1900 1910 1919 1921 1930 1938 1941 1950
Slovaks 9,244 6,547 9,441 7,345 58,432
Czechoslovaks 22,858 31,572 43,772
Czechs 1,618
Hungarians 25,996 33,350 17,991 11,206 13,917 44,472 55,920 1,642
Germans 3,446 3,189 2,477 2,278 3,560 2,314 1,676 26
Jews 5,625 7,079 429 733
Roma
Other 1,416 1,125 3,600 830 1,789 1,434 1,307 710
Missing 37
Total 40,102 44,211 46,926 51,511 70,117 58,090 66,981 62,465
Table 3. Changes of ethno-national identification in relation to regime changes in the first half of the 20th century
Data in Table 2 and 3 are compiled by the author from (Potemra 1985b; "Statistická ročenka..." 1970; Sáposová
& Gabzdilová 2004). Empty cells indicate values missing in the consulted sources. Data for 1961 are based on
numbers for "Greater Košice" created in 1969 as cited ("Statistická ročenka..." 1970). A complete table stretching
from 1850 to the present can be found in Appendix 1.
34
— — — — 100%
90%
B 80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1850 1857 1880 1890 1900 1910 1919 1921 1930 1938 1941 1945 1950 1961 1970 1980 1991 2001 2011
• Slovaks • Czechoslovaks • Czechs •Hungarians "Germans "Jews • Roma "Other "Missing
Figure 2. Relative ethnic composition of Kosice inhabitants between 1850 and 2011 (graph)
250,000
1850 1857 1880 1890 1900* 1910 1919 1921 1930 1938 1941 1950 1961 1970** 1980 1991 2001 2011
• Slovaks • Czechoslovaks "Czechs "Hungarians "Germans "Jews "Roma "Other "Missing
Figure 3. Development of the number of inhabitants and of ethnic composition in Košice between 1850 and 2011
(graph)
The data for the Hungarian era 1938-1945 (shown in green by Figures 1 and 2)
demonstrates a considerable drop in number of inhabitants following the reattachment of
Košice to Hungary. With 70,000 inhabitants in 1930, Košice is estimated to have grown to
between 75,000 and 80,000 at the time of the first Vienna award. Potemra (1985b:41ff)
calculates that if 4,000 of the 58,000 inhabitants reported as of December 15, 1938 were
35
recently arrived Hungarian personnel, the number of those who evacuated from Košice in the
wake of the Hungarian occupation of the city between late October and December 1938 was
between 21,000 and 26,000. With an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 Czechs (there were just over
9,500 inhabitants born in Bohemia and Moravia in 1930), Potemra concludes that between
10,000 and 15,000 Slovaks fled Košice preemptively or in reaction to persecution and bullying
during the first weeks of Hungarian rule. The December 1938 Hungarian survey found 58,000
people in Košice, including about 4,000 recent immigrants from anyaországh - the Hungarian
"homeland" (ibid.).
Unlike in industrial cities that experienced heavy bombing from the air or others that
became strongholds fought for by opposing armies, civilian losses in Košice were marginal.
After the German army practically retreated from the battle of Dargov, a mountain pass some
thirty kilometers east of Košice, and later vacated Košice as well, the "liberation" of the city on
January 19, 1945 took place practically without a single shot. Bracketing away the military
casualties of soldiers drafted into the Hungarian army, the low point of 1945 primarily reflects
the 1944 deportation of Jews and Roma (amounting to approximately 12,000 and 1,000
respectively) and the post-war flight and expulsion of Hungarians - of the anyás, the post-1938
immigrants, as well as Košice natives deemed disloyal by the post-liberation administration.
The number of returned 1938 Slovak emigrants included in this number is difficult to estimate,
not least because the uncertain date of the survey.
The radical decline in the relative share of Hungarians between 1941 and 1950 represents
yet another iteration of adaptation of ethnic identity mirroring the expectations of the political
regime, but also expulsions of Hungarians and especially the Re-Slovakization.2 3
According to
an estimate by Štefan Šutaj, approximately 2,000 Hungarians were expelled or moved
independently to Hungary after 1945; precise numbers and a detailed scholarly account of the
events are, however, still not available. In 1947, the Košice Re-Slovakization Committee
estimated the number of Hungarians in the city at 3,000 (Šutaj 2013:471), amounting to about
5 percent of the population. While on the national scale, the effect of Re-Slovakization policies
on Hungarians in 1950, which rendered them invisible, was virtually reversed in the next census
of 1961 (2.6 versus 8.9 percent respectively when looking at the whole Slovak territory
(ibid.:470)), a similar bounce-back does not occur in Košice in 1961. Although considerable
2 3
A survey of ethnic composition did take place in Košice in 1945. Its results, however, were never published. A
young historian specializing in Košice demography, Marianna Bobková, expressed the opinion that publishing the
results would have upset the political establishment's concern for a "harmonic development of all nations and
nationalities" (personal communication, February 10, 2017).
36
immigration of Slovaks after 1945 certainly helped diminish Hungarians' relative share in Košice
statistics, the lack of "return" to Hungarian self-identification might have to do with greater
pressure towards assimilation, especially in a city traditionally viewed as "Hungarian."
In terms of demographic development, the Second World War represents a significant
rupture in Košice development - as is apparent from Figure 1 and Table 1. A city of 80,000 in
1938 was down to 52,000 in 1945 and only regained its pre-war population 15 years after the
war. The major cause for the rapid demographic growth starting in early 1960s consisted in the
large-scale industrialization of the city, especially to the building of East Slovakia Steelworks in
Šaca, southwest of the city. While the official census data state 79,352 permanent residents of
Košice proper in 1961, including the temporary residents and the surrounding villages, there
were 92,458 people in the metropolitan area in 1961 already (Štatistická ročenka... 1969:10).
Between 1961 and 1970, the greater metropolitan area grew by 56.2 percent; of the 55,065
new inhabitants, three out of four were immigrants (Statistická ročenka... 1970:13). In 1970,
Košice had more than 28 percent inhabitants below 15 years of age and was thus younger on
average than Bratislava, Brno, Pilsen or even Ostrava (ibid.:16).
The number of those attesting to Hungarian nationality rose after 1989, but has since been
steadily decreasing. The most recent census in 2011 brought a striking anomaly in the high
number of missing responses in ethnic self-ascription. In Košice in particular, this number rose
from 5,900 in 2001 to 46,000 ten years later. While in this census, missing values were generally
high across the different regions and a range of potentially sensitive categories (especially
those surveying mother tongue or religious affiliation), a two-digit percentage was very rare.
How many of the missing 19 percent in Košice could be said to represent those too cautious or
undetermined to classify themselves (an interpretation sported by several of my interview
partners) remains a matter of speculation.
37
Chapter 2. Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
Collective memory as politics and dance
The notion that human memory has a collective dimension was first elaborated by Maurice
Halbwachs as a corrective to psychological theories preoccupied with the individual mind.
According to his theorization, "No memory is possible outside frameworks used by people
living in society to determine and retrieve their recollections" (Halbwachs 1992:43). It is thanks
to socially constructed and collectively maintained interpretive frames - from language, to a
meaningful experience of place, to the social structure of family and other social institutions that
we can render past as meaningful and relate it to our present.
The term collective memory has traditionally fallen prey to two kinds of misunderstanding,
a reifying vision on the one hand, and a split between its individual and cultural manifestation
on the other. Cultural and historical theories of collective memory, like those of Jan Assmann
(Assmann 2006; 2008), have popularized the image of collective memory as a storage medium
- an archive, a library, a computer hard disc - accumulating and representing the knowledge of
societies and nations. Such an objectifying and static vision of collective memory, often
evocative of a putative collective mind or of some sort of externalized treasury, such as a
museum collection, obscures its essentially dynamic, performative and emergent nature as
something that arises in a complex web of social processes and practices. Rather than simply
talk about collective memory, I find it more accurate and inspiring to speak, with Jeffery Olick,
of "mnemonic practices," or of the social process of remembering. Such a practice-oriented
definition "enables us to identify ways in which past and present are intertwined without
reifying a mystical group mind and without including absolutely everything in the enterprise"
(Olick & Robbins 1998:112).
The second chronic misunderstanding follows in part from the first and has to do with the
relationship between individual and shared manifestations of memory, whereby collective
memory studies has, according to a now classic article by Olick (Olick 1999), developed into
two parallel "cultures." Drawing on an individualistic epistemology, the first culture of memory
studies focuses on "collected memory" and treats the common in remembering as an
aggregate phenomenon composed of numerous individual cases. Foregrounding the social
aspects of memory, the other culture favors "collective memory" in that it treats symbols,
traditions, institutions or technologies as independent of individual users. Thus, while the
38
former precludes reification, most ideological biases and isolation of the social sciences from
the behavioral sciences by sacrificing the social context and making remembering effectively a
"dependent variable," the latter valorizes the fait social of memory at the cost of recognizing
individual agency and meaning-making. Olick's solution to this dissonance is their integration
in a pragmatic reframing of the research perspective: rather than a substantive notion,
collective memory is to be taken as a "sensitizing term for a wide variety of mnemonic
processes, practices, and outcomes, neurological, cognitive, personal, aggregated, and
collective" (Olick 1999:346).
In his later process-relational reformulation of the sociology of mnemonic practices, Olick
offers a summary of four common "pernicious postulates" that his theory seeks to overcome
(Olick 2013a:89ff). Converted into positive theses, these present collective memory as:
plural and fundamentally conflictual - never unitary or consensual.
always already mediated and shaped by processes of representation - never a mirror
reflecting an undistorted image of the past.
a process, an activity, a broad set of practices rather than a "thing," a static system of
forms and contents.
inseparable from other kinds and manifestations of culture - neither a "thing out there"
nor a clear-cut area of human cultural production.
Reflecting these points, social studies of remembering should, in Olick's view, strive to
understand "figurations of memory," defined as "developing relations between past and
present - where images, contexts, traditions and interests come together in fluid, though not
necessarily harmonious ways" (Olick 2013a:91). The explicit reference to Elias's social
figurations is instructive here: a figuration "is understood on a model of the dance, a work in
motion where the whole in time is reducible, neither to its parts (i.e., dancers) nor to the
moments that comprise it" (ibid.) To study mnemonic practices, therefore, means to pay
attention to the processes of coordination around both consensus and disagreement regarding
the social relevance of an imagined past for the present and the future.
The inherently contested nature of remembering, postulated in the first point above, has
been studied under the rubric of the "politics of memory." Studying the political dimension of
social memory, researchers have often focused on group interests, ideological agendas and
structural inequalities in access to resources. Such macro-level approaches tend to capture
memory politics as an essentially top-down process, in which authorized institutional agents
set agendas, define policies, shape discourses and allocate resources, installing thereby a
39
hegemonic regime of memory - all in the presumed context of a nation state (Mink &
Neumayer 2013; Olick 2013b). In more agent-centered conceptualizations, the politics of
memory denotes the contestations taking place among different agents with conflicting
interests or approaches to the relevance of the past for the present in an open public. In a fine
example of this approach, Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik (2014) have recently performed a
comparative qualitative analysis of post-socialist national mnemonic landscapes and proposed
an ideal typology of memory regimes defined by the presence of different kinds of mnemonic
agents: the warriors, the pluralists, the abnegators, and the prospectives. A rare example of an
explicit and systematic definition of the politics of memory is found in Ashplant et al., for whom
it denotes "contestation of meaning that occurs within and between [the] various forms and
practices [of remembering], and the (unequal) struggle to install particular memories at the
center of a cultural world, at the expense of others which are marginalized and forgotten"
(Ashplant et al. 2000:xi). In this dissertation, I conceptualize the local politics of memory as a
social space of struggle and coordination regarding the relevance and meaning of a shared past
as reflected in local mnemonic practices.
In order to analytically grasp these negotiations over meaning, I use a set of auxiliary terms
that require a brief definition. Speaking of mnemonic arenas, I mean the "socio-political spaces
within which social actors advance claims for the recognition of their specific (...) memories"
(ibid:17); these can have varying scale and, as a consequence, different social and political
significance. Situated halfway between a "network of families" on one end of the spectrum
and "transnational power blocs" (ibid.) on the other, the urban mnemonic arena relates to the
articulation of claims and contestations of meaning relevant to the urban polity and urban
public spaces. Memory projects are spatially and temporally bounded initiatives brought into
the mnemonic arena by one or several agents - they are the practical building blocks of memory
politics. Memory agents are individuals, institutions or civil groupings, who strive to exercise
influence over the way past is remembered (Tornquist-Plewa 2016:12). Memorial
entrepreneurs are a specific variety of memory agent, whose initiative and leadership in
memory politics is either voluntary or larger than their formal involvement in institutions (such
as employment) requires of them (Wagner-Pacifici & Schwartz 1991; Jordan 2006). Akin to
Howard Becker's moral entrepreneurs, whose defining characteristic is their personal
investment in defining social problems to tackle and (or) promoting a specific solution to them
(Becker 1963), memorial entrepreneurs identify a moral conflict at the heart of a collectivity's
culture of remembering and advocate its resolution. They become guardians of their own
40
(Jouhanneau 2013) or someone else's reputation (Fine 1996) and can play a crucial role in both
introducing a change in remembering or preventing it. A mnemonic community is at the same
time an imagined community (Anderson 2006), an interpretive community and a community
of discourse, which is sustained through the sharing of meanings and practices. Whereas
Halbwachs speaks of groups to explain the plurality of memory (Halbwachs 1992), I prefer to
evoke a non-reified notion of discursively constructed bodies with movable borders.
Communities of memory can overlap or be nested in one another and occasionally, even merge
into larger wholes - as in post-conflict projects of national reconciliation.
If the politics of memory is a concept priming us to account for conflict, the critical sociology
of Pierre Bourdieu comes to mind as a potentially fruitful source of concepts and assumptions
to depart from. However, inspirations by Bourdieu have been scarce in memory studies and
there is definitely no "critical sociology" of social memory to speak of. This is surprising since,
as Olick has noted, Bourdieu's concept of habitus represents "incorporated history" (Olick
2007:28), and could thus prove helpful in elucidating the relationships between cultural
processes of remembering and individual agency. The habitus, the simultaneously structured
and structuring structure (Bourdieu 1984:170ff) predicated on past experience acquired or
handed down by one's social milieus, has been used by Domonkos Sik to partly inform his
analysis of post-socialist political socialization in Hungary (Sik 2015) and, in a somewhat
hypostatized version, by Gad Yair in his work on the way the Israeli national project inscribes
itself into modes of perception through a "national habitus" (Yair 2015). Further critical
applications in memory studies seem to be, so far, missing. In a similarly rare application of the
theory of cultural capital, Sabine Marschall interprets Polish investments into the rehabilitation
of German heritage as an investment into cultural capital convertible into economic gain. In a
more theoretical impulse, Jeffrey Olick uses the notion of the social field to capture the
conflictual character of memory processes; as a field, social memory is defined by networks of
relationships between subjects occupying unstable positions, endowed with unequal resources
and power (Olick 2013a).
While these developments certainly deserve further elaboration, the critical sociological
approach to analysis and interpretation has several shortcomings. These primarily concern the
bias towards structural determinism and the related inherent hermeneutic of suspicion. In
viewing individual involvement in memory as, primarily, a function of macro-structural forces
as manifested in the habitus, individual agency and interactional meaning-making easily slip
under the analytical radar. Conceiving the dynamics of memory politics as the result of pre-
41
defined rules that apply to unequal positions held by different agents, geared towards revealing
structural imbalance of power, may obscure the critical capacities of individuals and fail to
account for unexpected developments. While opportune for identifying sources and
mechanisms of maintaining structural inequality and symbolic violence in practices of
remembering, Bourdieu's conceptual apparatus seems ill-suited to yield understanding of the
variation and improvisation steered by individuals. Neglectful, even dismissive, of agents'
assessments of their situation and possibilities, critical sociological pre-understanding traps
individuals in their given positions, rendering them predictable and representative of
something larger than themselves. In such a view, members of ethno-linguistic groups,
generations, social strata or occupational classes become carriers of capacities derived from
their typical denominations and the respective social positions. It is in search of a more
symmetrical, ethnographically sensitive and still critically potent interpretive approach that I,
in a short while, turn to the sociology of critical capacity as developed by Luc Boltanski and
Laurent Thevenot.
Remembering emplaced: Semiotics, contestations, performativities
An inhabited landscape, whether built or natural, is the environment in which human
memory takes shape. Already in Halbwachs' early theorization of collective remembering, the
physical environment is recognized as a crucial spatial framework for the emergence and
continuity of collective frames of memory (Halbwachs 1980). Cultural landscapes - populated
by meaningful objects like buildings and factories, memorials and names, but also by
immaterial elements like places of gathering and place-bound traditions of performance - have
an inherent mnemonic dimension. Cities find themselves situated on multiple scales of such
memoryscapes (Muzaini & Yeoh 2010): their local traditions intersect with regional and
national, and often, even broader trans-national or global perspectives.
In my research on the mnemonic practices of Kosice, I take a non-essentialist view of the
city as an object of inquiry. First of all, this means an awareness that while cities have definite
administrative borders, their functions and influence spill far beyond their formal limits. As
David Harvey has noted, a city has "no existence outside of the processes that produce, sustain,
enhance, undermine, diminish, reshape or destroy it" (Harvey 2003:33). Second, while I do
occasionally refer to "the city" as a legal entity, I avoid the personifying metaphoric language
(often found in lay, but also in historical or social scientific, commentaries) that treats cities as
unitary entities with conscience or will. Paraphrasing Kansteiner's (2002) criticism of vague
42
conceptualizations of collective memory, cities do not remember or forget, they do not
acknowledge past injustice and cannot be held accountable for it. Similarly, referring to the
diverse bodies and processes of city administration as if they were homogeneous agents
consistent in time creates the illusory image of an "official policy," which ought to be analyzed
and explained rather than taken for granted.
In order to capture the constructed, mediated and discursively negotiated nature of cities,
I find it useful to speak of urban imaginaries. Andreas Huyssen uses this term to speak of "the
way city dwellers imagine their own city as the place of everyday life, the site of inspiring
traditions and continuities as well as the scene of histories of destruction, crime, and conflicts
of all kinds" (Huyssen 2008:3). This is not to say that the city is an illusion with no referent in
or bearing on reality, but rather that it is the "cognitive and somatic image" (ibid.) of the city
that shapes human action in and towards the urban environment. A sense of local community,
an imagined community of dwellers as citizens, is an inherent part of such imaginary.
Furthermore, it is via such imagination that cities acquire symbolic meanings rooted in
narratives of the past and projected into the future. In some cases, as in cities that have been
sites of prolonged conflict, collective remembering can become a "constitutive component or
facet" (Bakshi 2014:189) of such urban imaginary.
Focusing on collective remembering as a fundamental element of urban imaginaries also
implies that extrapolations from an urban case study should be attempted with discretion.
While cities surely do reflect national or transnational trends, they are far from simple
condensations or microcosms of more general processes. Furthermore, Martina Low (2012)
has asserted that individual cities tend to develop their own intrinsic logics, dependent not
only on their unique relational positions within their natural, functional and symbolic contexts,
but also on their unique spatial configurations, demography or local histories. Conclusions as
to how a particular urban case speaks to others similar in size, geography or developmental
trajectory should therefore lean on a comparative perspective.
Social and cultural geographic studies of memorial landscapes have, according to Owen
Dwyer and Derek Aldermann, assumed three kinds of approaches. To capture the fundamental
differences in conceptualizing their object of study, they present a triad of priming metaphors:
"text," "arena" and "performance" (Dwyer & Alderman 2008). The perspective of the urban
landscape as a memorial text employs a synchronic "reading" of the meanings intentionally
inscribed or inadvertently left behind in the urban public space or in the shared mental
imagination of the city's geography at large. Reviewing the questions characteristic of this still
43
dominant semiotic approach, Dwyer and Alderman sketch its coordinates: What sort of story
does this memorial (or street name, iconic building, etc.) tell? What is its scale? Who is
dominant and who is marginal? How does its positioning within the neighborhood or city
layout shape its meaning? How does the spatial layout work and what messages does it send?
How is this place advertised and what sorts of non-memorial activities does it interact with?
Does it welcome its visitors and invite participation? What are its relationships with other
places and memorial devices across the city? (Dwyer & Alderman 2008:170-1)
Since the 1990s, the critical turn in theories of space has led scholars to shift their attention
to issues of justice and the right to representation, to inequality of access and the underlying
structures of power (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010). It is in this context that the second metaphor
- of memorial landscape as an arena - has gained relevance, highlighting its dynamic and
conflictual character. This approach focuses on the discursive strategies used, resources
necessary, stakeholders present and alliances mobilized in negotiating a position in the field of
contestation. Assuming that citizenship implies the right to visibility, this strand of research
might inquire into how advocates of hitherto marginalized histories and traumatic narratives
struggle to emplace these on the city map and thus ground their claims to recognition within
the local historical canon (Alderman 2002). Seeing the memorial landscape as an arena
prompts questions such as: Whose version of history is represented? What does this practice
say about current power relations and how does it address the question of justice? Is the
underlying genre of remembering one of triumph or regret? Is this a product of civil or
institutional initiative? Is its language accessible and democratic? Does it aim to define answers
or rather open questions? (Dwyer & Alderman 2008:173)
Finally, still relatively under-utilized, according to Dwyer and Alderman, is the performative
perspective, which studies the emergence of meaningful space in ritual activity - both the
exceptional and the mundane. On an interactional level, this perspective is interested in the
reception of emplaced memorial elements by the casual passer-by, the longtime inhabitant,
the tourist, which are all, of course, categories splitting further into different sub-groups based
on age, class, ethnic background, biographic experience, etc. At the level of political ritual, this
perspective studies unveilings, demolitions, anniversary celebrations or protest happenings as
dramaturgical events, whose eventfulness reveals and creates the meanings invested in them.
Some of the typical analytical questions in this vein of inquiry would be: What is the expected
behavior in this place or situation? Who are the audiences and how do they interact with they
find here - and with one another? How is this place treated, used or abused? Is the site
4 4
protected and maintained or neglected? How does this work as a public space - how do its
frequenters perform it? Are there rituals, protests or parallel projects related to this place? In
what relation does it stand to with other significant memorial objects and places of interest
close-by? How does do performative uses of this place change over time? (ibid.174-5)
While developed as distinct traditions, the three approaches to the interpretation of
cultural landscapes - characterized, in turn, by the metaphors of text, arena and performance
- are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As suggested by Reuben Rose-Redwood, Maoz
Azaryahu and Derek Alderman in an article applying Dwyer's and Alderman's triad to studies
of street names, "The aim of such a theoretical reframing of toponymic analysis is not to
replace the textual metaphor with the notion of performance, but rather to examine the
performativity of the landscape-as-text as well as the textuality of toponymic performance"
(Rose-Redwood et al. 2010:467); a similar practical fusion is, in my view, imaginable with the
critical perspective. In my own analysis of Kosice's urban memorial landscapes, I find inspiration
in all of these three perspectives and focus not on the formal coherence of theory or method,
but on the inner coherence of my case so as to provide a maximal interpretation (Reed 2011).
Cultural trauma, the politics ofregret and the renewal ofsolidarity
Cultural trauma results from a social process in which members of an imagined community
come to believe that their collective self-understanding has been fundamentally and
permanently altered by a shared experience of a "horrendous event" (Alexander et al. 2004:1).
It is a "discursive response to a tear in the social fabric" (Eyerman 2011:455), an awareness of
historical event that "cannot easily be integrated into coherent and constructive (narrative)"
(Olick 1999:344). Whether occurring decades after or simultaneously with the disruptive
incident, cultural trauma embodies the structural need to make sense of a damaging
experience and rebuild a sense of stability and wholeness (Eyerman 2001). Despite the fact
that the individual cost and pain brought about by the historical "core" of cultural trauma are
typically borne by a delimited victim group, the moral relevance and emotional impact of
cultural trauma extends to all members of a collectivity.
From the perspective of the cultural trauma theory, events are not traumatic by
themselves; their traumatic character is "socially mediated attribution" (Alexander 2003:91).
This core premise stands in contrast with both lay concepts of trauma (as the spontaneous
reaction of a collective organism to an injury), as well as with critical extrapolations of
psychological trauma models to the ills of particular societies (which presume that suppression
45
of an unfavorable past into a collective unconscious results in a kind of collective neurosis and
an inevitable return of the repressed). While psychological suffering and suppression may well
be taking place at the aggregate level of what Olick has called "collected memory" (Olick 1999),
cultural trauma is collectively negotiated as a condition of an imagined "us." Revolutions, civil
wars, acts of ethnic cleansing, terrorist attacks, lost wars or economic crises are, indeed, often
deeply damaging to the social fabric and even traumatizing to individuals on a collective scale.
In order to become a moral basis for the renewal of solidarity, the event must be transformed
through a process of cultural signification.
Theorizing the main elements and processes of the trauma process, Alexander departs
from the definition of a speech act, which presumes a configuration including a speaker (a
carrier group), an audience (the public) and a situation (the context of "historical, cultural and
institutional context") (Alexander 2003:94). In order for cultural trauma to take shape, the roles
of victims, perpetrators and other agents must be defined, responsibility for suffering
attributed and implications for different institutional arenas - including the worlds of
aesthetics, theology, law, or mass media - negotiated. After the new master narrative has
unwound in a "spiral of cultural signification," a period of routinization typically follows, in
which meaning and affect often become detached. This detachment does not diminish their
social significance, but, on the contrary, transforms them into an integral part of the normative
moral order a society lives by. "By allowing members of wider publics to participate in the pain
of others," Alexander asserts, "cultural traumas broaden the realm of social understanding and
sympathy, and they provide powerful avenues for new forms of social incorporation"
(Alexander 2003:104). In other words, whenever profound damage has occurred to a society's
sense of solidarity, cultural trauma has the capacity to facilitate its repair.
Social and cultural adaptations of the concept of trauma have been broadly criticized and
Wulf Kansteiner has been one of its most vigorous and sophisticated opponents. The bulk of
Kansteiner's critique aims at works employing a simplistic analogy between individual and
collective processes, in which images from psychotherapeutic practice serve as a platform for
cultural criticism. Kansteiner asserts that the use of "abstract metaphoric language"
(Kansteiner 2004:215) by some of the leading popularizers of the collective trauma concept
leads to blurring of moral distinctions between victims and perpetrators, between physical or
mental injuries and the shock induced by its media representations, between embodied
suffering and the allegedly omnipresent traumatic elements of modernity at large. Not only do
such abuses blunt the concept as a diagnostic tool, they ultimately present "unintended
46
gestures of disrespect towards today's victims of extreme violence" (ibid.:213) and render
trauma a "moral untruth" (ibid.:214). While Kansteiner's objections betray his preference for
an individualistic vision (for instance his view that "successful collective memories" can, by
definition, no longer be traumatizing [Kansteiner 2002:187]), his objections can still serve as
signpost of some important slippery patches along the way towards a deep, sociological
explanation of the social relevance of the past. Rather than in individual trauma, which may or
may not trouble the lives of individuals smitten by violent events, our interest lies in the public
articulation of shared suffering that comes to have a bearing on the polity and its civil self-
understanding.
Recognition of and "coming to terms" with past violence and injustice has been considered
fundamental for democratic transitions by both social theorists (Langenohl 2008; Kattago
2009) and international agents such as the European Union and the United Nations (TornquistPlewa
2016:217). The politics of regret (Olick 2013b; Schwartz & Heinrich 2004) has now
become a moral standard in international relations and internal maintenance of political
cultures alike. The preoccupation of states with the past and especially with that which is
painful in it, has, however, earned some well-founded criticism. Barbara Misztal relates the
upsurge in cultural trauma discourses to the increasing destabilization of collective identities
and the rise of new spiritualities. Warning against a "sacralization of memory," Misztal has
claimed that a preoccupation with the past could "undermine our concern with the public
good," displacing it with private concerns or group interests (Misztal 2004:81). In a similar vein,
Charles Maier has asserted that "the surfeit of memory is a sign not of historical confidence
but of a retreat from transformative politics," whose goals - "civic enfranchisement and growing
equality" - were thereby endangered (Maier 1993:150). Georges Mink and Laure Neumayer, in
turn, have highlighted the danger of revived conflict. In their view, "[Everything seems to have
been arranged to make it possible to get out of conflict impasses and construct democracy, but
nothing has been put in place to prevent or soothe later competitive struggles" (Mink &
Neumayer 2013:259) Furthermore, even if penitential gestures have a bridging potential, they
do not always have this effect. As Michael Cunningham observed, saying sorry can mean
different things and regret is not necessarily related to admitting guilt, let alone to accepting
responsibility for reparation (Cunningham 1999). Half-hearted performances and superficial
apologies that conform to formal expectations but make no attempt at making amends are
more likely to divide than to reconcile. It is thus crucial how cultural trauma is spelled out; while
47
there is potential for civil repair, this only comes about if cultural trauma manages to bridge
existing cultural boundaries instead of reinforcing them.
The collapse of communism and of its ideological regimentation of memory politics has
created a situation in which earlier experiences of ethnicized violence could finally be narrated
in terms of cultural trauma. For the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, post-socialist
democratization has entailed the expectation of "catching-up" with the West and its mnemonic
discourses wound around the Holocaust as the central moral universal (Alexander 2002) and
the rising salience of regret as a gesture of normality. Yet, in many of these countries, resurgent
nationalisms and burgeoning multicultural imaginations have captured the stage, often
consigning the memory of plurality lost to mass violence or forced assimilation to the collective
sub-conscious. While socialism itself emerged as a collective traumatic experience of a whole
generation (Marada 2007), and while in several countries, memories of victimhood in Stalinist
atrocities managed to grow into a narrative challenging the paradigmatic centrality of the
Holocaust for the Western project of a unified European memory (Kattago 2009), acts
incorporating the suffering of ethnic minorities into the broader discourse of "national
memory" have been scarce. In such a situation, ethnic subcultures have tended to cultivate
particularist trauma narratives, whose resonance and relevance is largely limited to their
respective victim groups.
To "expand the circle of the 'we'" (Alexander 2016a) and strengthen the civil sphere by
repairing solidarities, the cultural trauma must extend to the whole polity: an inclusive cultural
trauma is a cultural trauma in the singular. How can such a reparative narrative, facilitating
identification across boundaries, and the sharing of others' suffering, arise? What are the ways
in which solidarities can be reimagined and rebuilt despite past enmity? To address these
questions, I turn to the pragmatic sociology of Laurent Thevenot and its notion of commonality
in the plural.
4 8
The Politics of Memory: A Pragmatic Perspective
Once Bourdieu's close collaborators, Boltanski and Thevenot broke with the tradition of
critical sociology after their research on categorizations revealed the extent to which
individuals engage critically in assessment and negotiation of their common understanding of
reality. Having lost faith in the Bourdieusian presuppositions of the structural determination of
social action, as well as the belief in the epistemological superiority of the researcher over the
subject of his study, Boltanski and Thevenot unraveled their own theoretical program under
the heading "sociology of critical capacity." Refraining from a hermeneutics of suspicion,
primed to uncover hidden agendas and link social positions to sub-conscious processes,
Boltanski and Thevenot's pragmatic2 4
approach assumes that agents actively and creatively
partake in reality in ways that they find meaningful. Rather than reserving critical commentary
for analysts, pragmatic sociology bids us to investigate how the agents themselves locate and
make sense of tensions, incongruences and conflicts. In contrast to critical sociology's
preoccupation with installing justice by unmasking hierarchical structures of power, the
pragmatic sociology of critique objectifies the act of passing judgement itself and studies the
way power works to coordinate agents among each other and with themselves.
At a time of radicalizing "discrepancy of scales" and proliferation of diverse partisan politics
and movements, Thevenot identifies "a need to grasp both a wide diversity of political
constructions used to make issues common, in practice, and a variety of levels in the ways
people are engaged when expressing their concerns, from close familiar attachments to milieu
to highly generalized and abstracted causes" (Thevenot 2014:7). Seeking to interpret the
different ways in which the cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing is brought into the public eye
for acknowledgement and commemoration, I now unfold Thevenot's approach and
instruments that will help unpack the complexity.
Memory politics in regimes of justification: Testing, denouncing and
compromising for justice?
In the seminal work of their sociology of critical capacity, On Justification, Boltanski and
Thevenot (Boltanski & Thevenot 1999; Boltanski & Thevenot 2006) elaborate an analytical
Though at its outset, the French pragmatic sociology drew no direct inspiration from the American pragmatic
tradition, Thevenot (and apparently others) later explored the convergences of pragmatic sociology with John
Dewey's political philosophy (Thevenot 2008) and the pragmatic legacy in symbolic interactionism or
ethnomethodology (see (Silber 2016)).
49
model of multiple orders of worth. Forgoing authoritative critical judgement of their own, they
propose a model of plural registers of evaluation aims at a better understanding of the way
conflicts arise, are managed and, potentially, resolved. Their approach, called "pragmatic" for
its interest and attentiveness to the evaluative competence of individual agents, rests on a
framework of six different orders (worlds) of worth that people can draw on to justify
themselves and their causes in the public: the market worth of profitability, the industrial
worth of efficiency, the domestic worth of tradition, the inspired worth of creativity, the
opinion worth of renown and the civic worth of abstract solidarity with humanity (Boltanski &
Thevenot 2006; Thevenot 2001a); finally, a seventh green worth related to environmental
friendliness has been provisionally added (Thevenot & Moody 2000).2 5
Conflicts and mutual
denunciations can escalate and be resolved in a compromise, or they can subside unresolved;
either way, these outcomes are never permanent and can be revised in a future contestation.
Furthermore, qualifications are in no way permanent or deterministic, but are open to
situational challenge (a test) based on the same or on different evaluative criteria. Conflicts
and mutual denunciations can escalate and be resolved in a compromise, or they can subside
unresolved - either state is open for revision.
Though isolated analytically and often used selectively, in practical situations, the regimes
of justification can become profoundly entangled. This is well illustrated by an anecdote
featuring monsieur Picasso and one of his admirers, cited by Boltanski and Thevenot from one
of the managerial handbooks they used to identify the different regimes. Noticing the famous
artist in a cafe, a fan approaches Picasso and requests of him, if he could scrawl something on
a napkin for her, offering to pay whatever the author felt the work was worth. When, upon
complying with her wish, he asks for $10,000, the stunned art enthusiast declares the sum
inadequate and points out that its completion only took Picasso a moment. In a stern
opposition, Picasso responds that to accomplish this the napkin improvisation has actually
taken him several decades (Boltanski & Thevenot 2006:272). In this complex situation, we first
observe a famous person (opinion world) confronted by a wealthy admirer, who offers money
(market worth) in exchange for the work of a genius (inspired world). Faced with a test from
the market world, Picasso chooses to switch from the world of inspiration into the industrial
register and perform a mock translation of his genius into the realm of acquirable skill. This
example shows that different registers of judgement may be functionally mobilized in a contest
2 5
More recently, Boltanski and Chiapello have elaborated another order of project worth valuing flexibility
(Boltanski & Chiapello 2005; Boltanski 2010) which, however, remains unutilized in this dissertation.
50
for worth and a negotiation over moral superiority might take a bit of haggling about the most
appropriate one. While multiple worths may apply to a person or her objects and actions at
any given point, the concrete regime of justification is often a matter of strategic choice
dependent on the perceived chances in the debate.
The central ambition of the model of plural orders of worth is to explain "the ordinary sense
of justice" (Boltanski & Thevenot 1999:364), to illuminate how it comes about and the rules
and mechanisms involved in it. Boltanski and Thevenot emphasize that their theory of
justification focuses on moments of dispute and does not account for all situations and courses
of action; indeed, in most situations, critique is evaded and eyes remain closed over potential
conflicts so as not to disturb "pacified relations" (Boltanski & Thevenot 2006:347). At the same
time, using the model beyond critical situations is not completely out of place as "requirements
similar to those of justification may weigh upon an individual's behavior (...) when constraints
of coherence and control come into play" (ibid.) Reflecting on a course of action, especially on
an unsuccessful one, an individual enters a self-testing mode that allows him to coordinate
with his own past and future self and manage a justifiable position in the world. Therefore,
even in the absence of heated public dispute (which for the present dissertation is most of the
time), feeling for or eliciting justifications from agents still reveals valuable data on the way the
public mnemonic arena operates.
Individuals and groups striving for public support or recognition must make their projects
general and, thus, fit for a test of justification. In this test, "grandeur" can be qualified in various
ways: by the domestic worth of an authoritative or traditional interpretation of past; by the
civic worth of solidarity with victims; by the inspired worth of artistic involvement regardless
of others' judgement; by the worth of fame drawing on popularity of a mnemonic signifier; by
market worth promising revenues from tourism; or even by the industrial worth of, say, political
pay-offs (for a discussion of how orders of worth work in the production of heritage, see
(Raposova et al. 2013)). If contesting justification seems too demanding or hopeless, or if its
results are dissatisfying (as is often the case in confrontations between dominant and marginal
agents), attempts to claim universal value can be dropped for more particularistic approaches.
Before we discuss them, we must first deal with the different ways in which individuals engage
with the world around them.
51
Market Industrial Civic Domestic Inspired Opinion Green
Mode of evaluation (worth) price, cost technical efficiency collective welfare esteem, reputation
grace singularity
creativeness
renown, fame
environmental
friendliness
Test
market
competitiveness
competence,
reliability, planning
equality and solidarity trustworthiness passion, enthusiasm
popularity, audience,
recognition
sustainability,
renewability
Form of relevant proof monetary
measurable: criteria,
statistics
formal, official
oral, exemplary,
personally warranted
emotional
involvement &
expression
semiotic
ecological,
ecosystemic
Qualified objects
freely circulating
market good or
infrastructure, project,
technical object,
rules and regulations,
fundamental rights,
patrimony, locale,
heritage
emotionally invested
body or item: the sign, media
pristine wilderness,
healthy environment,
service method, plan welfare policies
patrimony, locale,
heritage
sublime natural habitat
Qualified human beings
customer, consumer,
merchant, seller
engineer,
professional, expert
equal citizens,
solidarity unions
authority creative being celebrity environmentalist
long-term planned
future
eschatological,
Time formation short-term, flexibility
long-term planned
future
perennial customary past revolutionary, vogue, trend future generations
long-term planned
future
visionary moment
Space formation globalization cartesian space detachment
local, proximal
anchoring
presence
communication
network
planet ecosystem
Table 4. A "Schematic summary of orders of worth" cited in (Thevenot et al. 2000:241).
On going public: Concern for the past and regimes of engagement with the future
Following his work on the regimes of justification, Thevenot has worked independently to
elaborate a theory of scaled regimes of engagement with reality.2 6
These regimes capture
changing ways of relating to the environment, as the individual moves from engagement in
personal habitual attachments to familiar settings to an instrumental engagement in a plan
and, from there, to an engagement in public justification within orders of worth (Thevenot
2007; 2008; 2013). In French, the word engagement resonates with both an interaction with
material surroundings - like when a person walks down a corridor or when a key enters a lock
- and a moral commitment in an activity, emphasizing the realism and the moral dimension of
Thevenot's engagements (Thevenot 2001b:80). Thevenot has theorized four regimes of
engagement with the world (Thevenot 2001b; 2008), defined by different standards of what
constitutes the desired good: a regime of public justification (governed by conventions of the
common good), a regime of regular planned action (governed by conventions of effectivity),
regime of familiarity (governed by intimacy and personal convenience), and a regime of
exploration (governed by the logic of creativity and innovation).
Engaging in
justification for the
common good
Engaging in an
individual plan
Engaging in
familiarity
Engaging in
exploration
Evaluative good
worth (qualifying for
the common good)
accomplished will
ease, comfort,
personal
convenience
excitement by
novelty
Information format conventional functional usual, congenial surprising
Capacity, power qualified, worthy
autonomous,
wilful
attached to curious, explorer
Mutual engagement
legitimate convention
of coordination
joint project,
contract
close friendship,
intimacy
play
Table 5. Four regimes of engagement with the world, (Thevenot 2014:13).
The continuum of engagements begins in the most intimate engagement in familiarity,
which describes an area of inarticulate, embodied habituality based in the experience of
cultivating a relationship to well-known surroundings to facilitate feeling at ease. Such close,
2 6
Parallel to Thevenot's vertical typology of individual engagements, Boltanski (2011) has worked in a horizontal
direction to differentiate different regimes of action - besides that of justification, he theorized a regime of
violence, of unconditional love and of familiarity. While these concepts are not put to active use here, it is useful
to take note of them as a way to contextualize the concern for "justification" as just one of the possible ways of
acting in the world.
53
particular attachments are difficult to relate or study in any other way than perhaps through
shadowing and ethnographic techniques. As Thevenot notes, familiar engagements "are the
least favorable to large-scale coordination with others, and are therefore disregarded by social,
economic or political theories" (Thevenot 2013:165). Reaching its good through habituation,
this kind of engagement is decisively backward-looking, "rooted in a personalized and localized
past" (ibid.:167).
While familiar engagements can be too embarrassing and ineffective for tasks of
coordination in public, a partial distancing from their particularity to a semi-general
engagement in a plan provides much better options. Engagement in a plan is based on an
instrumental logic, on functionality that serves an intention or a project. At the root of this
engagement is a "projection of the individual will into the future" (Thevenot 2014:13); the
commitment to oneself remains, but is shaped by considerations of and commitment to others
and their plans. "The inherent good of engagement in a plan," Thevenot writes, "is nothing less
than the formation of individual will within a plan that binds a person to herself (or himself)
and can be transposed and grasped by others without their having to become intimate with
her" (Thevenot 2013:167).
The engagement in public justification requires one to aggrandize his personal attachment,
to "relate it to some kind of general interest, and thus to generalize one's concern above the
particularities of one's own idiosyncratic situation" (Thevenot 2010:6). To qualify for evaluation
within one of the multiple orders of worth, a process of de-personalization is necessary;
individual concern or motivation must be accounted for as good for humanity at large. Whether
qualifying as worthy based on market competition, a demonstration of talent, a verdict of a
traditional authority or establishment of abstract solidarity, justified individuals find
themselves "invested with the power claimed to be beneficial to all through mutual
interdependence, thereby allowing large-scale public coordination to be effected" (Thevenot
2013:168).
In addition to these three gradated kinds of engagement, Thevenot later adds a fourth
regime, the regime of exploration, which is focused on "a deeply idiosyncratic and emotional
experience of discovering the world" (Thevenot 2014:15). This engagement is neither
concerned with an effective achievement of a plan, nor with a contribution to a common good
or with personal comfort and safety. Quite to the contrary, its goal is the momentary exaltation
of surprise and discovery. As in the regime of familiarity, the coordination potential of
exploration is marginal, but its temporality is the present. Newness, shock, curiosity, reordering
54
and renewal are the order of the day in this regime, which gains valence with the advance of
communication technologies that make of the constant refreshing of screens and updating of
software an archetypal experience. In another words, exploration is "a basic component of
contemporary consumption and production, and contributes to the blurring of boundaries
between the two spheres" (ibid.).
If I use Sandor Marai as an example to demonstrate these regimes' presence in the
mnemonic practices surrounding his legacy in his home town, I might begin with the very
intimate engagements that some of individuals of old Kosice descent acquired with his work
during the socialist era, when he was a forbidden exiled bourgeois author. Reading a book is in
itself an intimate experience, but this one was even more intimate for those who felt that
Marai's stories, even his way of writing related to the environment they grew up in and felt was
diminishing as Kosice became a growing industrial city. Some of the locals have maintained ties
with Marai's family, others perhaps had memories of him or his wife from the time before his
final emigration to the West. It was likely from such a milieu that the very first post-socialist
memorial plaque emerged on a house on Butcher Street in March 1990 to honor Marai. When
the idea of building a public memorial to Marai came a decade later, a consensus of familiar
engagement (which I will shortly present as the grammar of shared affinities to commonplaces)
would not suffice.
First a more general engagement was required - an engagement in a plan - to coordinate
people who wanted to join this project. Rules of cooperation, strategies of implementation,
ideas about funding - all of this and more had to be composed in a regime oriented towards a
future goal. While such activity was clearly aiming higher - to public justification - we should
note that even such instrumental engagement brings interpersonal benefits like the experience
of organizing, networks of alliance between civil associations, a feeling of self-efficacy and
meaningful activity. Proceeding to an implementation, however, a public justification that
would grant the approval of the municipal authority to build a statue on municipal property
needed to be attempted - a step requiring further "aggrandizement" and universalization of
language. Hypothetically, this could be done in several different ways, and one of the registers
most valued by Marai's admirers is the civil worth of his universal humanism and antitotalitarian
mindset - a legacy deemed an asset to the general community of the city. Besides
such idealistic reasoning, the engagement in Marai's commemoration by means of a public
memorial was likely primarily justified by his world fame, further supported by claims regarding
the artistic qualities of his work (worth of inspiration), and, potentially, combined with the
55
promise of attracting more international tourists (market worth). As soon as this tourist arrives
and downloads into her smart phone the application designed to guide visitors on the
discovery of the places related to Marai's life and work, and then, later in the evening, attends
a performance of a local experimental theatre company which draws inspiration from Marai's
complicated life story, we are witnessing the engagement in exploration - a curiosity's journey
into the past as another country.
Despite the different temporal horizons relevant to each engagement, I hope to have
demonstrated that they can be used to untangle the different meanings associated with
people's involvement in mnemonic practices. Thevenot's engagements make it possible to
unwrap the complexities and tensions inherent in different situations, in which individuals
combine different ways and levels of relating to the world (Thevenot 2013:163). By charting
the way individual engagements become aggrandized, built up, elevated to higher degrees of
generality, Thevenot's theory of engagements provides a potential route towards alleviating
the tension and bridging the divide between disparate theorizations of individual and collective
manifestations of concern for the past. While this opposition is hardly diminishing (as all grand
theories aiming towards its overcoming have, thus far, failed) the link between these as
theoretical "levels" can be strengthened and populated by concepts that paint a vivid picture
of the field: by analyzing the dissonances between different agents' engagements, their ability
or inability to model them into ones more favorable to finding a common ground, or the
strategies used to denounce others' public engagements or defend one's own. Furthermore,
conceived as instruments of securing continuity and coordination with oneself, they offer,
according to Thevenot, "a fresh view on personal identity," which "escapes both the too strong
(and collective) notions of identity, or the too light flexibility and hollowness that leaves no
place for the kind of continuity required by promise" (Thevenot 2010:4).
56
Grammar of justification in
multiple orders of worth
Grammar of liberal individual
choice among diverse options
Grammar of affinities to
multiple common-places
Assumed background
engagement
engaging in justification for the
common good
engaging in an individual plan engaging in familiarity engaging in exploration
Evaluative good
worth (qualifying for the
common good)
accomplished will
ease, comfort, personal
convenience
excitement by novelty
Information format conventional functional usual, congenial surprising
Mutual engagement
legitimate convention of
coordination
joint project, contract close friendship, intimacy play
Communicating by
aggrandizing personal concern
into worth as qualification for the
common good
transforming personal
attachments into individual
choices for options open to the
public
personal affinity to a common-
place
Composing [settling] a
difference [disagreement] by
critical denunciation and by
compromising between the
plurality of forms of worth
individually opining and
negotiation between individual
choices
diversely associating common-
places
Intermediary objects
entities qualifying for the
common good (worth) or
allowing a compromise between
different orders of worth
options publicly accessible for
individual choices
personally invested common-
places
Table 6. Overview of grammars of commonality and their background engagements. Based on (Thevenot 2014).
Grammars of remembering: Multilevel meaning-making and the power of the
common-place
Following comparative work with Michele Lamont on national variation in repertoires
of evaluation between France and the United States (Lamont & Thevenot 2000), Thevenot's
theory took another important turn towards further rethinking of what it takes to reach public
legitimacy. The differences between the political cultures of the two countries, of which the
former was decidedly more confrontational and geared towards a consensus, whereas the
latter much more preoccupied with the delineation of freedoms and rights, led to the
realization that they, indeed, followed fundamentally different meta-languages of solidarity.
After further explorations of Russian political culture, Thevenot has proposed a triad of
"grammars of commonality": the grammar of justification for the common good, the liberal
grammar of individuals choosing among diverse options in a liberal public and the grammar of
personal affinities to multiple common-places (Thevenot 2014; Thevenot 2015). These
grammars can be understood as sets of rules historically and culturally developed to "alleviate
structural tension among human beings living together" (Thevenot 2014:9) that serve to
"communicate" between personal attachments and "compose" differing voices to form a
"pluralist common ground forthe community" (ibid.:17). As general integrative principles, they
constitute different ways in which the first-person plural of a political community takes shape.
The grammatical triad mirrors Thevenot's earlier theoretical work on scaled individual
engagements with reality and it is their characteristic "good" around which the differing voices
are integrated in the respective grammars.
As already discussed, the grammar of justification builds on the good of ordered,
negotiated deliberation and a judgement based on predefined registers of evaluation. While
theoretically most potent in resolving conflicts, the grammar of justification is also the most
costly to maintain and its expectation of convergence around a compromise of disparate goods
often leads to radical criticism and heated conflict. Under the grammar of justification,
projected commonality arises around a struggle for the right thing to do - how "we" ought to
remember and honor the high and low points of our shared past. In memory politics organized
around orders of worth, evocations of certified heritage or authoritative interpretation of the
past (domestic), artistic value (inspired), moral imperatives and solidarity with victims (civic),
general popularity of a mnemonic signifier (fame) and nature preservation (green) typically
clash against the commercial potential of heritage capitalization (market) and viability concerns
5 8
(industrial). Discussions concerning national cultures of memory, notions of symbolic guilt and
the need for coming to terms with violent legacies, but also evocations of national pride
centered around the foundational traditions of states, typically fall into this register of
commonality building.
In the liberal grammar, claims to universality have been abandoned in favor of the deescalation
brought about by the introduction of relativity. Developed in the early modern era
to prevent religious wars (Stavo-Debauge 2012), the liberal grammar allows the partition of
the world into independent provinces of meaning and interest so as to prevent damage caused
by over-heated struggle. By framing engagements as personal choices or aggregate group
interests, located within acceptable boundaries of variation, this grammar "tames
disagreements and channels them within the boundaries of interests or preferences expressed
by individual choice in public" (Thévenot 2014:10). This also implies that the possibilities and
assurances of finding common ground are less generous than in the previous grammar of
commonality. Eliminating the risk of denunciation based on universal criteria of worth, the
grammar of individual choice also requires comparatively less sacrifice and effort to format an
object or claim for common appreciation. Whenever the liberal grammar prevails, different
stakes in commemorations and a multitude of versions of history can either develop in parallel
fashion (a situation described as "pillarized mnemonic regime" by Kubik and Bernhard (Kubik
& Bernhard 2014)) or confront each other in a contest for resources, space or attention. The
minimal entry requirement is the ability to negotiate respect as choices that individuals and
groups can freely subscribe to - an acknowledgement of the liberty to pursue one's mnemonic
interests and choose one's own mnemonic path. Resonant with notions such as that of a
marketplace, of autonomous archipelagos, or, indeed, that of participative urban planning
(Pattaroni 2015), commemoration in this grammar is a matter of finding windows of
opportunity. Frustrated minority agents and entrepreneurs, who are content with
implementing a particular vision in a field populated by other contenders, will prefer this
grammar over the previous one.
Commonality in the "third grammar" of shared affinities to common-places builds on past
experiences of "being together," which give rise to tacit, self-explanatory understanding that
requires little or no verbal articulation. Thévenoťs hyphenated use of the common-place is
meant to set its conceptualization apart from the derogatory associations with the banal and
underscore its original meaning: as locus communis, in which "various personal expressions
find a common ground to communicate deep concerns, attachments and feelings" (Thévenot
59
2014:20). In contrast with the previous two grammars, the grammar of shared affinities offers
an even lower threshold on the way to commonality, as it requires neither "the detachment of
public spaces from personal attachments, (...) nor the discursive character associated with
arguing in a public sphere" (ibid.:19). As a result, this grammar allows, and even presupposes,
intimate forms of communication based on inarticulate resonance - through a gesture, an
image, a narrative, a literary trope, a smell, a poem, a film or, indeed, a place and virtually
anything else to which people can become deeply personally attached. Since such deep
resonance of attachments is inevitably based in a shared or comparable experience, this
grammar is essentially "backward-looking," favoring nostalgic sentiments ("when I was a kid"),
fostering habituality ("since time immemorial"), cheering old acquaintance ("I have always
liked/hated it here"). Importantly, just as in Nora's lieux de memoire - the crystallizations of
collective historical reflexivity sensitized by the decline of their respective milieux (Nora 1989)
-the "place" in common-place is more than a spatial metaphorforcognition: in common-place,
placeness and materiality intertwine with emotions and identities in a mutual sharing of
lifeworlds. Common-places are inherently pluralistic and have variable scales and "geometry"
(Thevenot 2015:95). They can consist of a pair of lovers or nations, a group of close friends or
a cohort of devoted readers of a specific fantasy bestseller. They can become nested,
dependent on one another, intersecting and supportive of one another, and as such, collide in
the lives of individuals and groups.
The grammar of common-place was not only "widely spread in ancient cultures" (ibid.:12),
but also plays a crucial role in contemporary movements advocating the cultivation of urban
spaces or nature preservation. Though routinely disregarded by analysts and researchers, as
Thevenot notes, the third grammar is a "significant component of the up-to-date social
networks cultures which are equipped by information and communication technologies and
which rest on personal tastes to be expressed through common-places, that are in that last
case largely marketized" (ibid.). In a cautionary remark, however, Thevenot notes that by
privileging communication through symbols, generic narratives and subliminal appeals to
emotion over arguments, contestations and delimitations of freedom, this grammar does not
only foster specific forms of communication, but also lends itself to abuse as an opportune
springboard for populisms. The relative ease with which the commonality of this grammar can
be established can become both a blessing and a curse: while offering extraordinary capacity
to communicate difference, the plurality and the dynamic nature of common-places can be
reduced to serve exclusivist rhetoric. In the end, the way of the common-place "remains as a
60
recourse for those who do not face up with the demands of the other grammars" (Thevenot
2010:23). On the other hand, although the requirement of intimacy can in the first step exclude
outsiders, an affinity to a common-place can often be acquired - by joining in the "being
together," the practices and spaces, from which the sense of commonality arises. In fact,
commonality based on shared affinities is comparatively easy to create - in contrast with the
costly procedures required by qualification for the common good or for an independently
planning and choosing subject (Thevenot 2010). The common-place is thus a double-edged
sword, which can bring both detriment as well as hope in times of crisis. In a similar vein,
Pattaroni has related the rise of common-places' valence as a model platform for social
criticism to the Western "expressive turning point" of the 1960s and 1970s, which turned away
from grand ideologies to "direct action" and the belief in "changing our way of organizing and
experiencing everyday life" as a means of social change (Pattaroni 2015:147).
Considering the tendency of memory to spatialize, and the rootedness of the third
grammar in habituation and shared inarticulacy, shared attachments to common-places will
frequently be a usual suspect in rendering places, events, icons or memorial projects a shared
matter. "Places or monuments," Thevenot writes, "are protected not only as historical relics
but as common-places which are invested personally and emotionally" (Thevenot 2014:22).
While the content of familiarity is, indeed, deeply personal and sometimes (though not always)
idiosyncratic, the fact of having a familiar attachment to a tree, a courtyard, a street name, a
functioning traditional market, or, for instance, a particular furnishing of the downtown
restaurant students of one's generation frequented for dance nights back in the 1970s, etc.,
can be shared across a wide collectivity. And she, who has such an attachment, has both a
language to communicate about it with others, and potential stakes in its maintenance or
destruction. Urban imaginaries can also be viewed as large depositories of common-places,
limited and bounded with many more remaining outside of their authorized versions to bind
sub-cultures and communities of counter-memory. Finally, common-places are presumably
also the primary arena for articulating cultural trauma - as the individual experience with shock
and suffering is embodied and deeply personal. The question is whether such articulation is
sufficiently open and robust to appeal to those outside of the victim group's circle of firsthand
experience.
The fact that the three grammars were originally elaborated in case studies of the national
political cultures of France (orders of worth), the United States (liberal grammar) and Russia
(common-place) should not be taken to mean that these present discrete alternatives. Rather
61
than discrete registers of communication and meaning-making, grammars of commonality are
best understood as ideal-typical, which in real life form mixtures, amalgams and strategic
configurations. In the building of the common, each grammar plays "the role of a critical
opening so that, in turn, attachments do not imprison, convictions do not crush and interests
do not neutralize the possibility of the political" (Pattaroni 2015). Studying the building of
commonality, we should aim to "analyze the dynamical and creative crafting of mixed
combinations" (Thévenot 2015:102; Gajdoš & Rapošová [forthcoming]). While individual
situations or cases can be dominated by one of the grammars, more often than not, the process
of negotiating the limits and forms of commonality takes place in multiple parallel ways. At the
same time, the potential simultaneous presence of different grammars does not mean that all
elements of all grammars are equally available to all individuals across different situations. We
thus need to conceptualize and explain both the grammars' simultaneous presence and the
moments of their mutual exclusion.
Starting with the latter, it has been noted that if one grammar dominates a situation or an
institutional arrangement, it is effectively "working against other forms of political
composition, thus reducing the forms of difference taken into consideration" (Pattaroni
2015:170). This is what Thévenot called "bounded justifiability" (Thévenot 2010), a state in
which engagements2 7
not favored by the grammar in question are oppressed, resulting in
exclusion of people from a commonality. Thus, the grammar of the orders of worth can
suppress close bonds, the grammar of shared affinities holds back public engagements and the
liberal grammar muffles civic as well as intimate attachments in favor of planned action
(Pattaroni 2015). But oppressive dominance can also be strategically produced in the process
of framing a conflict, not unlike the way purification is accomplished in contests for justification
(Boltanski & Thévenot 2006). As Ivana Rapošová and myself have recently shown in our analysis
of a television debate on LGBTIQ rights, a participant in a dispute can attempt to strategically
push his opponents out or relegate them to a grammar he prefers to deal in. Thus, to facilitate
a regular confrontation of worths, for example, she may frame the conflict thus far waged on
the level of common-places in terms of justification, or, on the other hand, to prevent such
confrontation, she may consistently formulate the matter within the grammar of liberal choice
The fourth engagement - exploration - remains notably undertheorized in Thevenot's recent writings with no
precise association with one of the three grammars. As I will later show, its volatility arguably fares well under
the auspices of the liberal grammar. While exploration is fundamentally geared against familiarity, its explicit
negation of it brings it also in contact (and potential collaboration) with the grammar of common-place. Its
disregard for standardization, however, seems to disqualify it from gaining proper justification.
62
(Gajdoš & Rapošová [forthcoming]). Consequently, the grammars can also serve to qualify
"errors" and transgressions, and if used by powerful agents, they can become instruments of
oppression. Delegitimization of oppositional claims, plans or practices can be effectively
achieved by powerfully framing a situation within one particular grammar and, simultaneously,
excluding from such situation unfavorable elements as grammatically incorrect or out of place.
On the other hand, just as interaction often integrates argumentative and emotional
dimensions, claims and practices can incorporate elements, or rather resonate with the logic
of multiple grammars at the same time. Mnemonic practices, from school curricula to
television docudrama series to memorials, can become involved and entangled in any or all of
the grammars, which means that mnemonic agents have important choices to make.
Acknowledging that, from time to time, even very unlikely grammatical mixes are possible,
Thévenot recalls the combination of egalitarian civic goals and local populist tactics used by
French and Italian communists in times of their broad support. Here, "Objects and
arrangements which qualify for civic solidarity and equality of access, in cultural and social
activities in particular, were associated with common-places that, in contrast to collective civic
worth, foster the communication of personal attachments" (Thévenot 2014:28). In another
pragmatic amalgamation of civic values and elements of the grammar of common-place, one
civic movement cited by Thévenot promoted the support of undocumented migrants by
creating the status of a "civic godparent," combining thus the grammars' "critical openings"
(Pattaroni 2015) to promote a noble cause (Thévenot 2010).
In organizing a background understanding of the way the common good is to be identified,
the grammars of commonality represent a kind of meta-language of solidarity accounting for
both individual investments in public matters and the way such engagements feed into and
shape the commonality produced. The central analytical question then is not simply which
grammar is at work, because often more than one are operating, but rather which of them is
dominant in relation to which public (audience), and what the specific configurations and uses
of these grammars are in a particular case.
Thefirst-person plural ofcultural trauma: How to make suffering a common
matter?
There are different ways of engaging in remembering the past and, consequently, also
different kinds of investment in memory's form - from narrative topoi, to physical memorials,
6 3
to individual performative acts, to tourist-oriented mobile-phone applications. Thevenot's
grammars of commonality in the plural help us discern the deep underlying structures of
meaning that shape the potential of solidarity-building in such mnemonic practices. In
pluralistic democracies, public interventions into practices of remembering are required to
justify themselves in an arena of potential criticism. In such negotiations of legitimacy, civil
principles can clash against customary arguments, commercial opportunities intersect with
concerns for reputation, artistic visions seek to harmonize with requirements of viability. Even
in the absence of open conflict, justifications are often stacked in reserve to bolster a project's
public standing. At other times, especially those exalted or unhinged by an acute crisis of the
extant political order, attachments to common-places can become the leading principle in
remembering. In the aftermath of a destructive war or after a revolutionary regime change,
whole cohorts often share a strong mutual understanding and resonance that goes beyond
explanation; based on the past or current experience, discussion is superfluous - what needs
to be done seems obvious. In scenarios with unequal power balance, a dysfunctional civil
sphere, or strong individualistic culture, a grammar of favoring independent mnemonic paths
may become most advantageous, and even cast as a virtuous path. Whether it is the
impossibility of a compromise or its lacking appeal, the potential of the liberal grammar to
promote a solidarity in plurality is limited. While the communitarian grammar based in
common-place creates openings leading to the further cultivation of a community of
experience, especially if bound to a physical place, the liberal grammar will expectably favor
loose, more isolated and potentially also more utilitarian approaches to memory projects with
correspondingly looser relationships. While solidarity built on common-places is far from
universal, it can be extended and linked to objects qualified in the civil world. The liberal
emphasis of interests, on the other hand, makes building solidarities cumbersome, unless
combined with elements of common-place or justification.
Bringing the concept of multiple grammars of commonality into the discussion of the
cultural dynamics of memory politics opens new ways of analyzing the pragmatics of
mnemonic practices (Olick & Robbins 1998) as well as their potential in building solidarities. If,
asThevenot notes in an interview with Paul Blokker and Andrea Mubi Brighenti, common-place
"will never pass the test of Jeff Alexander's civil society, because he will consider it to be
irrational and emotional" (Blokker & Brighenti 2011:391), we are compelled to ask: can the
civil worth of commemorating a cultural trauma be effectively communicated without a
reference to shared affinities to common-places? If it can, how? And if not, how can an
6 4
extension of existing common-places, or the crafting of new ones, contribute to building
solidarity? Paraphrasing Alexander's definition (Alexander 2004b:l), we can say that cultural
trauma occurs when a group-related experience of violence, an inequality in mnemonic conflict
or a forced rupture in shared development is successfully made common within the broader
polity. With the passing from communicative to cultural memory, this can hardly be
accomplished by relying on common-place alone. At the same time, common-place is an
opportune and intuitive way to go about such a task. In the following, I seek to develop a more
sensitive understanding of how different combinations of grammars and their background
engagements contribute or hinder the process of culturally signifying a troubling past as a place
where polities come together.
6 5
Chapter 3. "A European city has to have this!" Memorials to cultural
trauma and the three grammars of commonality
In the spring of 2002, an angel descended on Main Street in Košice, Slovakia. Bearing the
city's 500-year-old coat of arms, the bronze celestial visitor landed on a memorial hotspot
previously occupied by symbols of changing political regimes - including an 1848 Hungarian
revolutionary, the Czechoslovak general Milan Rastislav Štefánik, the Hungarian royal crown
and the Czechoslovak communist president Klement Gottwald. Twelve years into the postsocialist
"ideological sanitation" of Košice's urban public space (Gajdoš 2016), the angel's
arrival symbolized a final neutralizing measure mitigating mnemonic tensions accrued in this
space and, by extension, in this city. Consistent with the ongoing strategic rejuvenation of local
patriotism, this symbolic recourse to a mythical medieval belle époque - the time before
nations - performatively filled an uneasy void in the heart of an ethnically mixed city. Against
the backdrop of such nostalgic solidarity building, this chapter examines local activist critique
to explore the cultural repertoires involved in creating commonality around a traumatic past.
In this chapter, I present three initiatives memorializing the cultural trauma of ethnic
cleansing sampled from the urban mnemonic arena of Košice, Slovakia. All of these projects the
unfinished "civic memorial" to the Holocaust, the private memorial to "Slovak exoduses"
and the memorial of the Hungarian minority politician Jánoš Esterházy - appeared between
2009 and 2014. Besides their shared spatial and historical context in the East Slovak city of
Košice, all were initiated by civic associations about two decades after the fall of communism
(between 2008-2014) and thus, they can be read as attempts to append or correct the postsocialist
reevaluation of local history. While all three projects refer to narratives of forced
displacement and ethnic persecution primarily related to the events of the Second World War,
the events and victim groups they focus on vary. The more intriguing level of variation among
them, however, lies in their radically differing approach to how their agenda would enter the
public sphere. Through reading these memorial initiatives as complex local mnemonic
practices through the lenses of "grammars of commonality," this chapter sheds light on the
ways in which the politics of regret can take shape and to what extent it can open possibilities
for the extension of civic solidarity. If addressing the past as a cultural trauma can aid in
identification across boundaries of grievance, in sharing in the suffering of others and,
ultimately, in extending solidarity, how does this happen? In societies composed of disparate
mnemonic communities, how can commonality be built around remembering past injustice?
66
Image 1. An angel holding the Košice coat of arms, awarded to Košice in 1369 by King Louis I. of Hungary. The
statue by Arpád Račko was unveiled in May 2002. Photo by the author, June 2017.
Drawing on an eclectic corpus of data - composed mainly of interviews with individuals
involved in the projects' implementation, texts published in print or on-line and ethnographic
observations -1 seek to identify the variegated sense of good involved in the three cases and
6 7
to understand how the sense of commonality is communicated in the way these projects have
been justified and implemented. In unfolding this puzzle, I pay attention to areas or levels of
meaning making, namely to rhetoric, organizational styles and, finally, the aesthetic, material
and spatial aspects of each memorial. The different degree of acceptance of these narratives
in national and transnational cultures of memory, as well as the different engagements of
individual agents in these narratives, helped shape the way commonality is constructed; at the
same time, the grammars of commonality appear mixed in all three projects. By reconstructing
the landscapes of meaning in which these memorial initiatives operated, and by unfolding the
kinds of commonality they constructed for their respective causes, I critically discuss the
implications of the different grammars used for the solidarities that these figurations of cultural
trauma bring forth.
Before delving into a thick description of the selected three cases, I will first pause to
considerthe memorial as a mnemonic medium and then briefly review some of the milestones
in the development of Kosice memorials in the past century.
Memorials as intermediary objects
At first sight, memorials are often boring, not just as a mnemonic practice but also as a
research approach. They are a conservative medium, they appear static and inconsequential Robert
Musil even called them "invisible" (Musil 2012:64). Abandoned as they often are by the
public, they sometimes seem to attract a disproportionate amount of attention among
memory scholars, which might have to do with their aesthetic appeal, their opportune
definitiveness or their proximity to the scholars' middle-class habitus. Can any new treats be
recovered from opening this worn box of chocolates?
This chapter approaches memorials opportunistically, as gateways to access the visions of
solidarity and the meanings of specific ways of commemorating injustice that have given rise
to them. Such a perspective dovetails with that of Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz,
who see memorials as devices, as purposefully designed and mindfully crafted tools of
consciousness-raising. Such a concept of memorials requires us to "understand it as a
construction process wherein competing 'moral entrepreneurs' seek public arenas and support
for their interpretations of the past" (Wagner-Pacifici & Schwartz 1991:382). Memorials, in
other words, embody a concern with remembering; invested with meanings and propped by
engagements, they point at their producers and users.
68
As intermediary objects, communicating and composing a variety engagements and visions
of the good, memorials are "the focus of human beings' attention or emotion towards which
communicating and differing expressions are directed" (Thevenot 2014:17). To read memorials
as a statement - what, how and why we ought to remember - we must pay attention to the
baggage of the framings, interpretations and uses that these material anchors accumulate. If
memorials can be seen as focusing devices of meaning making, they can consequently be used
as heuristic devices that illuminate what would otherwise remain hidden - the agents involved,
their preferred aesthetic genres, the tensions against which they compete. When conceived as
mnemonic projects of agents active within a mnemonic arena, and contextualized with respect
to relevant competing narratives and discourses, memorials can be analyzed as crystallizations
of the collective processes of remembering, as intersection of the conflicting interests of
representation, and as tests revealing the "rules of the game."
Memorials arise when collective memory's natural tendency to crystallize in space meets
the political. For those who wish to stabilize fluid communicative memory into the cool and
reliable cultural memory of institutions, memorials provide the necessary "fixed points"
(Assmann & Czaplicka 1995:129). To capture this intention, Gray Allan Fine has conceptualized
a specific type of mnemonic agent - the reputational entrepreneur - to describe "self-interested
custodians" of the public image of a given historical figure (Fine 1996:1162). The individual or
group interest in promoting an iconic historical representative are, as Alderman notes, twofold,
as commemorative figures work both as reflections of a society's present ambitions as well as
historically rooted guides for future action (Alderman 2002:103). While the notion of interest
is surely present also in the evaluations of participating agents, an interpretive (rather than
critical) inquiry may be better served with an interest in meanings invested in the objects of
veneration. At the same time, if we retain the strong association between the reputation (that
is public standing) of the remembered intermediary object and the group that identifies with
it or wishes to be represented by it, we can extend the notion of entrepreneurship to
impersonal objects as well.
Traditionally, monuments have served as vehicles of authorized historical narratives
legitimating dominant ideologies (Stachel 2007). Most classical memorial ensembles celebrate
triumphs and victories - their task is to inspire pride. Typically placed at central, representative
locations, memorials have been designed and financed by dominant groups to visualize their
own lasting quality and to shape official public memory. The democratization of memory
politics (like the one that occurred in Slovakia after 1989) brings a different kind of memorial
69
into play - one grounded in the grassroots initiative of a group or a benefactor with
differentiated ambitions regarding the endorsement of public authority. Furthermore, the
proliferation of the mnemonic trope of apology and regret (Olick 2013b) has given rise to
memorials devoid of triumphalism, uniting their audiences through a shared repudiation of
evil. If in the post-communist corrective reflex there is a tendency towards an obsession with
remorse, then memorials to victimhood are its prime localizations. If the prime interest of postsocialist
memory politics is, as always, the legitimation of the current democratic regime,
negotiations over new monuments to traumatic past are at the same time re-negotiations of
the boundaries of solidarity in democracy.
A comparative view of civic initiatives striving to build a public monument to trauma offers
a vantage point for studying what it takes to turn particular interest into something everyone
can understand and accept. Constructing a memorial is, indeed, an "investment in form": it
produces a tool that facilitates the movement from particularity to commonality and stabilizes
this move in time and space (Thévenot, 1984; 2013). Memorials are built to materialize a topos
of shared memory - a common-place of a lifeworld shared simply because a group of people
live together - as well as to make this lifeworld accessible to others. On the one hand, they have
the power to re-present, re-emplace metaphorical shared spaces (common-places are similar
in this respect to Nora's lieux de memoire), but their primary task, on the other hand, is to
translate locally, ethnically, linguistically, generationally or otherwise specific meanings into a
(more) universal language. Because they are condensations of such investment in form,
choosing memorials as a heuristic shorthand allows us to trace the path (or paths) from trauma
as a group agenda to trauma as a cultural structure. Exploring how memorials can model
solidarity within a pluralist polity, a framework bridging the gap between the abstract level of
cultural meanings and an individualist actor-centered perspective can offer more complex
insights into the multiple ways traumatic memory is made meaningful and useful in
contemporary societies.
Symbolic gardening: The changing landscapes of memorials and plaques
between 1918 and 1989
Only about a decade after the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic did
commemorative items associated with the new regime appear. The first one was, apparently,
the plaque to the writer Rehor Uram Podtatranský installed in 1928 at the margins of the
70
center, and the most significant was certainly the 1929 representative statue of general Milan
Rastislav Štefánik on the southern tip of Main Street. In the following years, a bust of President
Masaryk was unveiled in a park encircled by a newly constructed functionalist apartment block
on today's Summer Street (Letná), at a discrete distance from the city center, the yard of the
nearby officers' academy on Komenský Street was decorated with a combat helm of the
Czechoslovak Legionaries in France and a small plaque to Masaryk was attached to a facade at
the edge of the historical town. Then, in 1935 and 1936, the Republic column and a statue of
St. Wenceslas were respectively built in the space between the cathedral and the theatre.
While these were surely meant as statements of Czechoslovak political domination
(concomitant with a large renaming of streets in 1936; see further Chapter 4), a relief
celebrating Ferenc Rákóczi II (albeit in Latin) was also unveiled in 1938 on the northern
cathedral wall.
Most of the plaques installed during the Second World War had come in celebration of the
reunion with Hungary and their leitmotif was the suffering of Hungarians under Czechoslovak
leadership. In November 1940, a series of four small plaques was unveiled, memorializing
several civilian victims of the turbulent year 1919. Other plaques marked the seat of the
reunited Abaúj-Torna County, the only Hungarian elementary school functioning during
Czechoslovak rule and the Hungarian-speaking Calvinist church ("In this church, during the
twenty years of Czech rule, only Hungarian singing, prayers and preaching resounded" (Bauer
2007)). For Hungary, the surprise bombing of Košice on June 26, 1941 became a decisive
moment leading the country into the war against the Soviet Union. The town itself
commemorated the tragic loss of 29 lives through a monument built next to the post office
building, which sustained the most extensive damage. A stone bomb on a pedestal surrounded
by 27 smaller bombs (indicating the total number of bombs deployed) was unveiled on the first
anniversary of the event in 1942; the inscription decried the treachery of "Russian Bolsheviks,"
whose responsibility was assumed by the Russian inscription found on one of the shells.
After the reunification of Košice with the gradually liberated Czechoslovakia, all of these
and several other new memorials were removed, including the monument to the victims of
the bombardment. The plaque commemorating Count Gyula Andrássy from 1899 as well as
the one celebrating Romantic poets Sándor Petófi and Mihály Tompa from 1904 were taken
down. The travertine Crown of St. Stephen installed on Štefánik's vacated pedestal was also
71
removed and the 1938 Rákóczi relief on the cathedral was placed in a museum depository
after being vandalized. Interestingly, the oldest plaque in town, honoring the founder of
Hungarian art history and monument protection Imre Henszlmann and installed high on the
wall of a corner building facing the entrance to the cathedral in 1897, survived this purge. The
Slovak monuments and plaques evacuated in 1938, including Štefánik, Záborský and
Podtatranský, were mostly restored; the statue of St. Wenceslas was not and its fate remains
unknown. Most importantly, on what would soon become Liberators' Square, a memorial to
the liberating Soviet army was built by Soviet soldiers themselves between April and June 1945.
The Košice Government Program was memorialized by a plaque at on the facade of the former
county headquarters already on its first anniversary; in a decade, it would be replaced by a
marble one, which in 1975 would again give way to a fresh design that remains in place until
this day. The brief visit of President Edvard Beneš was also memorialized in a small plaque
installed on the building he inhabited during his short 1945 stay - the Jakab Palace.
The era of communist rule began with the dismounting of the Milan Rastislav Štefánik
Memorial in May 1948. Less than two years thereafter, a plaster statue of Stalin was installed
just south of its former location in front of the regional branch of the Association of
Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship (today, the State Scientific Library); within a couple of months,
however, the statue was damaged and consequently removed. A Memorial to the Unknown
Soldier, complementary in mass and orientation to that of the Liberators, was added to the
major traffic intersection in 1949. Interestingly, the first Holocaust plaque - completely in
Hebrew and hidden from sight in the inner courtyard of the old Orthodox synagogue - was
installed on September 9, 1950; another plaque, also private and completely in Hebrew, was
unveiled in the new Orthodox synagogue in 1964. In terms of physical memorials, the 1950s
and 1960s left surprisingly small traces on Košice's mnemonic landscape - the most significant
were the 1958 memorial to one of the leaders of the Slovak National Uprising Ľudovít Kukkoreli
in the city park, the 1964 plaque on the facade of the historical town hall celebrating the shortlived
1919 Slovak Republic of Councils and, curiously, a 1963 bilingual Slovak and Hungarian
plaque commemorating the 17th century Hungarian poet and revolutionary Jánoš Batsányi.
Starting in 1970, the streets of Košice were flooded with commemorative plaques. While
according to Bauer's inventory, nine plaques were installed between 1960 and 1969, ten were
installed in the single year of 1970. In two cases, plaques to General Viest and President Beneš,
The relief was restored again in in 1967.
72
both marginalized after 1948, were restored; three others had to do with the anniversary of
the War's end (including a plaque commemorating the "anti-fascists" hung on Main Street by
adherents of the Hungarian Fascist Arrow Cross Party in January 1945). The remaining five were
dedicated to cultural personalities - the renaissance poet and mayor Bocatius, the pedagogue
Murgaš, the theatre director Borodáč, the journalist Prídavok and two local painters Csordák
and Halász. In the following years, the number of plaques declined, and included Slovak, mostly
local artistic, personalities (like Krón in 1971 or Myszkovszky in 1980), local Hungarian
communists and their organizing bodies (like Schónherz in 1972 or the Kassai Munkás editorial
office in 1977), and, occasionally, a Slovak national icon (like Ľudovít Štúr and Jonáš Záborský
in 1971 or Kuzmány in 1984). Several documents in the archive of the Monument Authority
confirm that with the advent of Normalization, commemorative plaques became a matter of
precise planning with five-year cycles consonant with the rhythm of the state economy.
Without more in-depth archive research, we can only speculate about the factors behind this
heightened interest in plaques; still, the sudden rise in activity after the commencement of the
post-1968 "Normalization" period suggests that cultural production - including organized
remembering - served to counter unwarranted civic mobilization by overwhelming and
distracting the public. The year 1975 marked the 30th anniversary of the "liberation" and the
Košice Government Program, which was marked by a new plaque and a new permanent
museum exhibition in House of the KGP, as well as the unveiling of a statue of Klement Gottwald
in the place where Štefánik once stood. The last significant memorial of the Communist era
was the more than four-meter-high likeness of Lenin, installed in 1987 in front of the
Communist Party headquarters. He would only last for three years.
This chapter analyzes the putative absences in the local culture of memory concentrated
around three major historical events - the Shoah, the post-war persecution of Hungarians and
the communist era. In all three initiatives, chosen to represent and unfold these potentially
traumatic dimensions of local history, both individuals' experiences of these events and the
forms of their collective remembering are intertwined. The Holocaust in Košice had different
dynamics than in the territories of war-time Slovakia, but was even more suppressed as a way
of renouncing responsibility for Hungarian territories; the post-war ethnic cleansing of
Czechoslovakia was not only comparably suppressed from official historiography and
commemoration by the communist regime, but is now also compared to the wartime
persecution of Jews; and the experience of post-1989 democratization, shared across the
borderlines of ethnic loyalties, calls forth different expectations and evaluations from variously
73
defined victim groups. In order to provide the necessary context for the spatial practices of
commemoration in these three broadly defined streams of thought, I will review the postcommunist
development of the respective stratum of local mnemonic landscape in the
introduction to each of the three following sections.
Citizens to citizens: Reclaiming the Holocaust, justifying repair
A bearded middle-aged man in a straw hat stood at the edge of a sun-lit platform of the
Kosice train station facing a small crowd of adults and school-children. As one of the last
speakers at the opening of a mobile exhibition presenting the Holocaust of Hungarian Jews
installed in a small cattle car, he shared with the audience his distress at the invisibility of the
Jewish tragedy in the public space of his hometown. He then converged to a poignant
conclusion: "As citizens of this city, we need to join efforts and funds in erecting a proper
Holocaust memorial." Over the next months, I witnessed him emphatically plead for public
support of this civic initiative at several other occasions. The responses I witnessed were far
from enthusiastic. Then, in July 2014, five years after its launch, the collection had to be closed
despite being several thousand Euro short of its funding goal. Three years later, Ladislav
Rovinsky has yet to find a way to honor his murdered compatriots with a dignified monument
that Kosice, in his view, lacks.
Intro: On the Marginality of the Holocaust of the Hungarian Jews in Slovakia
When I first met Rovinsky2 9
at Kosice's main train station in May 2013, the public collection
to finance a representative Holocaust memorial had already been running for several years.
The ambitious idea of mobilizing cultural elites as well as the general public and catalyzing a
consensus in the imagined popular will failed - despite fervent hopes - to deliver before the
eruption of the European Capital of Culture 2013 festivities. Witnessing Rovinsky's pleas for
this "European" cause on several different occasions throughout 2013 and 2014, I gradually
understood that under the proclaimed institutional umbrella he was, indeed, a solitary warrior.
And while the idea of citizens chipping in for an ornament of theirtown was, indeed, somewhat
old-fashioned, it was at the same time revolutionary in its radical appeal to the public
engagement of Rovinsky's compatriots. Built on a criticism of the proclivity of both the general
In cases where anonymization of my interview partners was either impossible or counterproductive with
respect to the significance of their role in the analysis, I refer to them using their real surnames. In all other cases,
pseudonyms in the form of given names are used.
74
public and the key mnemonic agents to ignore the Holocaust, Rovinsky's mnemonic activism
lends itself as an opportune springboard for a discussion of the different responses to the
challenge of the "forgotten Holocaust."
If the initiative to build a "civic memorial" to the 12,000 Kosice Jews murdered in the
Holocaust presumes to address a void in the city's memoryscape, it speaks of a lack of quality
rather than quantity. There are, in fact, several reminders of the Shoah in Kosice, but in terms
of visibility, their presence is weak. The earliest plaques, put up by the Jewish community to
mark the 10th and 30th anniversaries since 1945, are hidden inside the synagogue premises
and the traditional Jewish place of Holocaust mourning - a sizable Star of David removed from
the Kosice Neologue synagogue before its re-appropriation into a philharmonic hall in the
1960s - stands in a secluded Jewish section of the municipal cemetery in the urban outskirts.
The one publicly visible explicit monument to the Shoah is the 1992 memorial plaque installed
on the last functioning synagogue on Pushkin Street, commemorating the 50th anniversary of
the first transports from wartime Slovakia. Yet, while this plaque did attempt to bring the four
decades of marginalization of Jewish heritage in Czechoslovakia to a symbolic end, from the
local perspective, this gesture of mnemonic repair had two principal shortcomings. Initiated
and financed by the Slovak Ministry of Culture as one of seven of similar design installed across
the country, this plaque's existence reflected anything but the initiative of the local civic society
or municipal authorities. On a deeper level, however, the plaque's timing and language that
marked the anniversary of the first Jewish transport from war-time Slovakia in 1942, obscured
the fact that it was in 1944 and under markedly different circumstances that Jews living in
today's southern borderland of Slovakia were deported. Besides regular mentions of the
annual Hazkara ceremony at the cemetery and occasional reports on the scandalous state of
Kosice's synagogues, the idea of a representative memorial did appear in the local press. In
1998, Mayor Rudolf Schuster (who soon thereafter left office to become the first directly
elected president of the country) announced the plan to build a memorial financed by the
German partner city Wuppertal in the dilapidated old Jewish cemetery on the northwestern
edge of the city center.3 0
The plan never materialized and when 60 years after the deportations,
the Jewish community was installing plaques at their cemetery to thank the donors
contributing towards the restoration of its recent vandalization, the local theatre historian
Source: "Památník holocaustu." Košický večer, June 4,1998, p.l.
75
Tibor Ferko observed that "in Košice, silence surrounds the Holocaust" and opined that
mementos should rather be built by the non-Jewish majority (Ferko n.d.).
Despite such diagnoses, local Jewish heritage did gradually become a matter of public
interest after 2000 - a movement heralded and facilitated by a set of topical publications
(Balega et al. 2000; Halásová & Schmiedová 2002), including one produced by a Wuppertalbased
author who chose an exceptionally haunting title: "Košice was a European city" (Okroy
2005).3 1
Three years after the book's appearance, Košice succeeded in the bid for the title
"European Capital of Culture 2013" (ECoC 2013) and the imagination of reclaiming the city's
multicultural heritage - of making Košice European once again - was one of the major sources
of the project's initial momentum. It was in this context that the initiative "Citizens to Citizens"
was founded in 2009 by a consortium of three civic associations. In the years following the
2005 book, an upsurge in efforts at the cultivation of a Jewish Košice imaginary took place. The
renovations of the synagogue on Pushkin Street were finished in 2009 and the gradual
rehabilitation of another one on Bellmaker Street, damaged by decades of lacking care and
inadequate use, was commenced; the annual Jewish Košice guided tour, aimed at locals,
recorded rising visitor numbers year after year; a festival of Jewish culture "Mazal tov!"
(modeled after the famous Krakow festival) had been founded in 2012 and the art and life story
of the iconic Jewish painter and Holocaust survivor Ľudovít Feld has received rising attention
as well. Parallel to these large projects and movements (and, in fact, pre-dating many of them),
the initiative Citizens to Citizens attempted to create common appreciation of the Shoah organizing
small exhibitions and concerts, holding commemorative gatherings, and, most of
all, by a lasting presence at Jewish-related occasions - in order to inspire mourning for the lost
culture, compassion with victims and responsibility for their honoring. The most interesting
feature of this mnemonic project, however, has been its consistent and purposeful selfjustification
primarily on the scale of civic worth. Insisting on financing the project from the
individual contributions of locals, stressing a transparent procedure for selecting artwork and
attempting to garner support of local elites from different areas, it was the process of creating
the memorial as an expression of popular will that established the weight of its political
statement.
In the following, I will depart from a brief recapitulation of the physical and symbolic
resources that comprise the Holocaust-related stratum of Košice memoryscape. Having
Interestingly, the title cites Sandor Marai, who (though himself not Jewish) also appears on the cover of the
book along with several decidedly "Jewish" visual motifs.
76
mapped the extent and shades of oblivion - the premise on which the initiative Citizens to
Citizens is founded -1 analyze its attempt to fill the perceived lack of Holocaust remembrance
as an act of mnemonic critique and a bid for a renewal of solidarity in the wake of trauma.
Noting the conditions of its failure, I will complement the analysis with three contrasting
instances of Holocaust commemoration in Košice, whose strategies of emplacement turned
out more successful than Rovinský's, and discuss the mnemonic engagements on which they
were founded.
"Košice owes this to its citizens"
The idea of a civic memorial to Košice's victims of the Holocaust dates back to 2009, when
three befriended civic associations - the local branch of the Holocaust survivors' organization
"Hidden Child," the mostly Hungarian-speaking "Košice Civic Club" (Košický občiansky klub Kassai
polgári klub) and Rovinský's recently founded urban activist group "The Society for the
Support of the Beautification of Košice" (Spolok na podporu skrášľovania Košíc) - decided to
organize a public collection under the title "Citizens to Citizens." Rovinský recalled that the
ethos of the day was shaped by the recent success of Košice in the European Capital of Culture
(ECoC) competition as well as a revival of interest in local Jewish heritage materializing in the
appearance of several topical publications (including one published by the Club). Central to the
project was the belief that the wanting awareness and appreciation of Jewish heritage is best
confronted by a grand gesture of civic participation and that building a representative
memorial financed by contributions of individual citizens would be an exceptionally strong
statement.
Before proceeding with a more detailed overview of the public justifications of the project,
let us pause a little to appreciate the "we" this initiative sought to enact. While the intimate
engagements of the "hidden children" with the realities and consequences of the Holocaust
are not hard to guess, the other two groups brought familiar engagements of their own into
the project. While most Košice inhabitants' awareness of the pre-1945 life of the city was rather
low, several members of both the Civic Club and the Beautification Society were natives with
ancestral ties to the city and a deep awareness, passed onto them by relatives, of what life was
like in Košice before and during the war. Too young to remember himself, Rovinský explained
his own involvement through his childhood memories that generated mobilizing emotions:
They were personal things (...), I grew up in a house, from which people were
deported, attended a school, which in its entirety ended up in a concentration
7 7
camp. And... it irritates me that Kosice doesn't seem to have a problem [with this].
And that is why I said, something like this needs to be done (...)
Through his experience of living in the very same places Jews used to live, Rovinsky can relate
the victims' lifeworlds to the places he considers his own. The unease of living in their place,
of learning in their school, playing around their dilapidated synagogue turned into a warehouse
and, somewhat later, into a philharmonic hall - these everyday experiences had grown
through personal moral reflection and with the help of a growing activist involvement in a civic
cause. Deeply rooted in the familiarity with spaces shared with the murdered Jewish children,
a concept of a community of this common-place, a solidarity of Kosice citizens surpassing the
genocides and migration ruptures of the 20th century had emerged; Kosice Jewish victims had
become "our" fellow citizens.
Image 2. School girls from Pushkin street. Source: Facebook group "Pamätník obetiam holokaustu v Košiciach iniciatíva
'Občania občanom'.3 2
While a mourning imagination may be a matter of spontaneous reaction for the initiators,
the emotional pull of the common-place be reconstructed for willing audiences. While typically
achieved on many levels and through different media, a photograph chosen for the header of
the initiative's Facebook fan page in 2013 illustrates the process well (Image 2). A
Available at: https://www.facebook.eom/135656826551917/photos/a.184138468370419.39068.
135656826551917/409315079186089/?type=l&theater; accessed on October 31, 2017.
78
monochromatic image of a girl's class gathered in front of the gate to the Jewish Orthodox
elementary school on today's Pushkin Street, dated 1940, is accompanied by the
administrator's comment: "I am wondering, whatever the fate of these girls and their teacher
was...".3 3
While these are pupils of a different Kosice Jewish school than the one whose building
Rovinsky later attended, the resonance, however, is evident. For the "willing audience," the
next closest point of entry is the common-place of elementary school photographs: most of us
have them and know how retrospection of ourselves and our cohort triggers nostalgic
evaluations of later developments. Through this analogy, the Facebook group invites its visitors
to imagine themselves in these girls' shoes, whereby the unspeakable of cultural trauma is
represented and the political is made personal at the same time.
As a legal mediator, communication consultant and civic activist since 2004, Rovinsky - at
my request - skillfully bolsters the civic worth of the memorial idea as a prophylactic measure.
The local Holocaust tragedy must be "brought out" of oblivion as a memento against the still
very present risks of intolerance and political extremism. As far as public presentation is
concerned, however, a shorthand built on the post-socialist imagination of a great return to
Europe overrules these more technical concerns of democracy. On multiple occasions,
Rovinsky asserts that making the Holocaust a central point for local cultures of memory is a
sign of cosmopolitanism, implying that the failure to do so proves Kosice's provinciality; in
Rovinsky's own words, "A European city must have this!" (fieldnotes). Such rhetoric is in
complete resonance with the tone set by Sändor Märai's nostalgic quotation that Okroy chose
for the title of his book Kaschau war eine Europaische Stadt ("Kosice was a European city";
Okroy 2005), as well as with one of the leitmotifs of the ECoC 2013. The overt appeal to the
worth of fame, bestowed on citizens of an open-minded, cosmopolitan city that takes part in
the contemporary commemorative trends, does, however, have a common-place
underpinning, namely, a subliminal appeal to the sense of post-socialist backwardness, the
reflexive self-disciplining in catching-up with the West, the constant awareness that "we" fail
to resemble "Europe." This initiative demanding that "we" - the Kosice "we" - finally build a
proper Holocaust memorial thus feeds on the common-place of post-socialist frustration with
public life and the wish to finally overcome the legacies of socialism.
"Source: https://www.facebook.eom/135656826551917/photos/a.184138468370419.39068.
135656826551917/409315079186089/?type=l&theater; accessed October 31, 2017.
79
Emphasizing the role of remembering the Holocaust as a lesson for democracy and relating
this practice to a broader European consensus about the foundations of the post-war
international and political order were both indicative of the initiative's preoccupation with the
civic worth. Amalgamating the civic values of equality and human solidarity with the commonplace-based
imagination of a timeless Košice community, Rovinský publicly cast the memorial
as an act of penance ("We, Košičania, were unable to help them.") and of repaying a debt ("I
think that the city of Košice owes this to its citizens."). Citizens to Citizens' objective, however,
was not just to finally show due respect to the forgotten victims. The proposed procedure had
been designed as a formative democratic experience for the local polity. The popular collection
of individual citizens, in which participation would be granted not based on wealth, power or
political allegiance but on an individual moral stance, was to model a renewed "we." As
Rovinský said to a foreign journalist:
We are citizens commemorating our fellow citizens. Many small gifts are better
than a few large ones. We also want our city's residents to do this, not outsiders.
The memorial isn't as important as the number of residents supporting it (cited in
[Korchnak2013]).
Rather than relying on institutional grants, corporate gifts or foreign donations, the memorial
was to be funded by ordinary local citizens - and thus, it would model a mature, responsible
political collective. Financial contributions were only to be received from individuals as
sponsorship, institutional grants or public subsidies would undermine the moral strength of a
grassroots memorial initiative.
Rovinský's insistence on democratic funding as an exercise (and a test) of civility evokes his
account of the Beautification Society's founding in the aftermath of the grand public
consultation of a local strategic developmental plan in 2004. Having taken part in the planning
procedure, a group of ten (out of the approximately 350) participating citizens wanted to
continue improving their city on a voluntary basis, with the help of the announced and soon to
be introduced "small grants." The rather cumbersome Slovak name they gave their association
was no accident, according to Rovinský, as it drew on an imagined legacy of the long forgotten
"Kassa városszépítés elómozgitó egyesúlet" - a civic grouping active in the city until the end of
the First World War. The name was, in fact, a cipher of the style of activism this group preferred:
(W)e liked that it was the Kassa városszépítés elómozgitó, that is an association for
the support of beautification - not a beautification society, like to go, grab a
paintbrush and what not, but to support those activities, that make the city prettier
80
- that is searching reserves, drawing attention, demanding, pleading, you know?
(...) It is difficult here, you know, because when you help the city, for example, by
raking, cleaning up and so on, you are actually helping to sustain a dysfunctional
system - because someone took money for this. The mayor should have not made
fireworks for 10,000 Euro but he should have given 10,000 Euro for raking and
cleaning" (Rovinský).
In Rovinsky's retrospective account, the goal was not to labor at the city's embellishment, but
to exert pressure on politicians to do their job. In a similar vein, the goal of the memorial
initiative was not, primarily, to implement it as an instrumental project - from fund raising, to
artwork selection, to strategic selection of patrons, et cetera. The goal was to inspire, instigate,
impel the broad public to collective action worthy in the civic register of evaluation.
The emphasis on Košice residents in the quoted passage is symptomatic of yet another level
of solidarity present in the broader agenda of the participating civic institutions: placing the
locally under-appreciated tragedy of the Holocaust on the local mnemonic agenda would help
unsettle the widespread ignorance of the city's multi-ethnic history, lost in the violent events
of the Second World War, its ethno-political aftermath and finally, due to massive immigration
from surrounding rural areas in the wake of the industrialization of the 1960s. Besides duly
honoring Jewish victims, the memorial would give more weight to the imagination of past
diversity, which aids the reparation not just of a broken local history, but also of contemporary
civic culture. The centrality of a bottom-up civil procedure, completely independent of
institutions both state and business related, thus resonated, in a way, with an important aspect
of early post-socialist political culture - non-formal civic organizing. The limited meaningfulness
of this experience, which more or less only the generation of the 1989 considers normative (a
common-place we shall encounter again in the case of the Memorial of the Exoduses), helps
explain the failure of the initiative to take off.
Besides the prominence of financial independence for the initiative's civic justification,
other kinds of worth had been considered to make the project robust in the public eye. In a
grand vision of a popular collection, the consortium had planned to first raise several thousand
Euro for an artistic competition and, subsequently, run a second fundraising round to finance
the winning artistic project (worth of inspiration). At the initial stage, individuals of prominent
standing - politicians, historians and leaders of religious communities - were asked to join a
support committee (worth of fame). To resonate with the imaginations of "Jewish heritage"
and, at the same time, occupy a representative location (worth of fame again), the original
81
vision was to install the memorial in front of the House of Arts; when this proved to be too
explosive (considering the still unresolved lawsuit between the city and the Jewish community
over the ownership of the Neologue synagogue, now part of the philharmonic building) the
space in front of the new Orthodox synagogue on Pushkin Street was considered most fitting.
The memorial was to become a sort of mnemonic Gesamtkunstwerk in which aesthetic,
performative and ideological meanings would merge into a single reparative gesture.
Despite the initiators' noble wish to test their city for moral resolve and thereby to provoke
this resolve's emergence, the initiative had failed to justify itself in the foreseen way. As I
observed at several discussions in the late phase of the project, some contesters found the
planned budget too high for a memorial of as yet unknown form (market worth). Others,
especially after the collected sum stagnated just above 3,000 euro, suggested a more pragmatic
approach and multi-sided financing (industrial worth). Still others questioned the need for
another Holocaust memorial altogether (domestic worth). The crucial problem: Rovinsky was
unwilling to compromise the original vision. In May 2014, in a discussion after a film-screening
organized to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Shoah, he revealed his "secret wish"
to unveil the memorial this very year, and passed a bitter comment on the absurd success of a
young conceptual artist (Tomas Dzadon), who had just recently raised money to install
historical wooden village huts on the roof of a concrete block apartment building - as if what
Rovinsky was looking for was institutional grants. "One thing is clear," said a former ally from
the Hidden Child Club in response to Rovinsky's plea for suggestions as to what to do
differently, "the way it is done does not lead to the end." His later comment from the same
event betrays how hard it was for Rovinsky to actually think of alternatives: "If we cannot create
an atmosphere [in which this monument could materialize], the memorial will be worthless!"
After the initial round of donations, the project failed to gain momentum, and following
the death of the president of the Civic Club, the coalition disintegrated. When I first met
Rovinsky in 2013, he was the last man standing and the civic memorial was teetering on the
verge of becoming his memorial only. As he later complained to me, the local Jewish leadership
had distanced itself from the memorial initiative, the city had deleted the information about
the collection from its official website and even the popular local-patriotic tour-guide Milan
Kolcun publicly questioned the need for yet another Holocaust memorial "(b)ecause what we
need to be doing is saving Jewish culture and not building a monument. Well, so what, I say:
Do one AND the other, too" (Rovinsky). With all of the founding members of the Beautification
Society gone passive, he was "practically carrying it alone." Besides Rovinsky's unwillingness to
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compromise, one other thing seems to have played a major role in the reluctance of the public
(including the municipal agents and the local Jewish community) to support the project:
Rovinsky's own unfavorable reputation. A steadfast and outspoken critic of the local political
and economic establishment in several areas (including environmental issues, urban planning
and sustainable mobility activism), several locals denounced his approach as arrogant and his
criticism as destructive. Two of my interview partners said Rovinsky spread himself too thin
and that his ostentatious activities rarely bore any fruit. Besides Rovinsky's inflexibility and
disinclination towards compromise, the initiative seems to have been undercut by the
unresolved tension between his self-professed civic worth and his notoriety.
After five years of refusing alternatives (including investing the collected money in
mnemonic projects he found in conflict with the original principles), a 2014 change in national
legislation forced Rovinsky to close the collection and, indirectly, to consider alternatives.
Rovinsky upheld the independent financing principle, but gave up on representative form and
location and scaled the project down. In the summer of 2015, the new plan was to place a
simple brick wall with an informative inscription next to a supermarket that was planned in the
area of the former brick factory - a now mostly forgotten place that served as the last area
where Jews were concentrated before their deportation. Two years later, the supermarket has
not yet been built and the story remains open-ended. While this may not be the final word,
Citizens to Citizens has been an initiative struggling for the dominance of a grammar of
justification and, specifically, of civic worth. Forced into a compromise, its reformulation
strengthened elements of a liberal grammar (using private property for non-commercial, civic
purposes) and the relative significance of common-place as a defining element (localizing a
place of memory based on authenticity and emotional resonance) - while maintaining the civic
worth of visibility and independence of political influence.
8 3
Image 3. The House of Arts, whose rear half used to be the Neologue Synagogue before being converted into a
granary (1940s) and later into a music hall (1960s). The paved area in front of this representative facade was
originally foreseen by the initiative as the most appropriate location for the civic memorial. Photo by the author,
March 2015.
Image 4. The former location of the brick factory, now mostly occupied by residential housing built in the 1960s.
The building in the foreground is the last remainder of the extensive compound. Photo by the author, May 2014.
8 4
Some viable alternatives
To highlight the costs of Rovinsky's principled approach and multi-level critical involvement,
let us look at three alternative projects that have recently attempted to emplace the memory
of the Holocaust in Kosice's public space: a memorial plaque to the 137 Jewish transports
installed on Main Street, a students' interactive artistic intervention at the old Jewish cemetery
and a bronze statue of a popular artist and a Holocaust survivor in a synagogue yard. These
three events each challenges Rovinsky's concept while showing alternative meaningful ways of
responding to a perceived "lack" of Holocaust remembrance.
Switching Contexts: Kosice as a Holocaust Logistics Hub
My account of Rovinsky's project began with a scene from the May 2013 opening of an
exhibition hauled to Kosice in a small cattle-car from Hungary. After speeches by mostly
Hungarian guests, the schoolchildren and the adults could learn some basic facts and a handful
of stories about the infamously swift Hungarian deportation chapter that started 69 years
before, almost to the day. In Kosice, a city without a Holocaust museum or a "proper"
memorial, the exhibit only stayed for a couple of days before moving on to another city in the
territories governed by Hungary in the years of the Shoah. The difference between this
Hungarian exhibition and the Slovak one displaying stories of rescuers in the State Technical
Museum some two months before was that while the latter brought nothing even remotely
related to Kosice, the Hungarian import was well informed and even included Kosice-specific
examples.
A year after the cattle-car exhibition, it was again Hungarian agents - though this time
mostly based in Slovakia - who facilitated a commemorative as well as scientific appreciation
of Kosice Shoah history. A week after the traditional commemorative gathering organized by
the Beautification Society in May 2014, the Forum Institute for the Research of Minorities
based in Samorin (in cooperation with the Hungarian embassy in Bratislava) brought to Kosice
a conference of Slovak and Hungarian historians, accompanied by a book presentation and an
unveiling of a commemorative plaque to the 401,439 Jews transported from Hungary through
the Kosice main station. The unveiling of the plaque, dedicated to the 137 transports carrying
about 90 percent of all Hungarian Jews transported to concentration camps in 1944 and to the
two men that opened the two-day event, was attended by several hundred people, including
the deputy mayor, yet the ceremony itself was not as interesting as the place where the plaque
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ended up. The original plan was, allegedly, to place the plaque commemorating the passengers
of the Jewish transports as well as the two local men Mikuláš Gaško and István Vrancsik who
recorded their number and origin (Jesenský 2014), onto the symbol of this logistics operation,
the railway station. According to unconfirmed rumors, however, the agreement was sabotaged
by the station's management with short-notice, with the excuse being that the station was
presently under reconstruction. The plaque's emergency installation onto the facade of the
State Scientific Library, whose premises or immediate surroundings played no specific role in
the local history of the Shoah but which much later became the central meeting spot of the
1989 public gatherings, thus paradoxically put the Holocaust into one of the most central and
sacred of Košice public spaces.
Reflecting on this development, Rovinský opined that the course of action taken by the
railway station management "betrays that something is not in order here." Still, he was
dissatisfied with the pragmatic solution for its sacrifice of both the authenticity of place as well
as the possibility of civic contestation; choosing a liberal leeway effectively diminished this
mnemonic gesture's value. Rovinský even goes so far as to suspect that the compromise was
motivated by a need to deliver the unveiling of a project financed from a money grant. Still, he
did in retrospect contemplate the possibility that the funds raised, insufficient for his own
vision, might have contributed towards this project - if only he had not only learned about it
days before the event.
The bilingual conference that followed the unveiling (and the subsequent presentation of
the trilingual edition of Gasko's memoir) was attended by Hungarian and Slovak scholars of
diverse affiliations. That said, it brought virtually no new or polemical knowledge to the fore,
nor was there room for discussing their individual contributions. Indeed, one of the
presentations (delivered by the Košice-born scholar of the Budapest Holocaust Documentation
Center, Pavol Salamon) and the short final discussion allowed a rather picturesque flash
exposition of the variety of voices representing Holocaust remembering in Košice - including a
Slovak nationalist history professor with a Yad Vashem award, a local Hungarian amateur with
unique oral historical data and speculations built on them, and an activist with a failed
Holocaust memorial project. Still, the conference, framed as a follow-up to the pioneering local
scientific gathering in 1994, was primarily a symbolic, commemorative event. With several
significant Slovak memory institutions absent from the audience or the program (like the
Slovak Institute of National Memory or the Holocaust Documentation Center in Bratislava), the
repeated lamentations over the scant attention paid to the Holocaust in the south of Slovakia
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sounded like shooting in the air. Once again, the overall impression was that the "southern
research agenda" was for the Hungarian scholars to define and tackle.
Image 5. Members of the public lay stones on a shelf mounted under the plaque to the 137 Jewish transports
that passed through Košice in 1944 and the two men who recorded their number, unveiled just moments before.
The improvised, almost amateur way the shelf is attached to the facade, as well as the simple industrial hooks for
hanging wreaths may have to do with the fact that the plaque was, originally, meant to be installed elsewhere.
Photo by the author, May 2014.
The Holocaust in regimes of exploration
The central memorial to the Holocaust that was to be built by German money in the old
Jewish cemetery never materialized. In December 2013, however, a group of students from the
Košice Technical University organized an experimental student happening that briefly
materialized the feeling of void in the place where remembrance is in order, highlighting the
creative potential of ruins. The event, titled "Forgotten names" (which despite formal
organizational participation of the scientific library and the Jewish community was only
circulated among friends and faculty staff) was to begin with a presentation at the newly
established cultural facility "Výmenník Štítová," an old technical heating facility converted into
a community hub within the ECoC 2013 project, and it would culminate in a commemorative
act at the Jewish cemetery on Tatra Street. The professional-looking invitation betrayed an
aesthetic preoccupation: set in a trendy "hand-written" font against a dark grey concrete-like
8 7
background, it bore no explicit reference to the Shoah and concentrated instead on
experiencing Jewish culture:
"Forgotten names" has the objective to remember and pay tribute to the people
buried at the Jewish cemetery on Tatra Street. Laying a symbolic stone on the place
of peaceful rest, we will fulfill an old Jewish tradition of paying respect to the dead,
but also create little memorials, which were blown away by the unforgiving time.
Thanks to the accompanying program, as participants we will get a firsthand
experience of the shades of life of the Jewish culture, or their merits. Photos,
projection, music and Jewish traditional food; all this awaits you at the place of
forgotten names.
The absent presence of the Holocaust in the short text is striking: tribute is to be paid at a
place ruined by an anonymous, mythical "unforgiving time." Neither the ruination nor the dead
buried here are mourned - the absence of gravestones is grasped as a creative challenge. We
are invited to relive tradition and honor it in the process - to experience the "shades of life" of
"the Jewish culture" and to celebrate "their merits." The third person plural (their) could
indicate the dead buried at the cemetery (the "people buried" mentioned in the first sentence),
but also Košice Jews at large, a community, whose disappearance is implicitly cast as a vast
cultural, social and economic loss to the city. The first-person plural in turn denotes the "we"
of the organizers and anyone else who decides to join in.
Taking place on a regular December workday, the event commences at 3 pm; one should,
as I later learn, not enter a Jewish cemetery after dusk. About a dozen people, including
students, their teacher, Rovinský (the usual suspect) and myself are present. At the Výmenník,
there is a slideshow of generic photographs of "East-European Jewish life," and after a skilled,
if somewhat starchy, welcome replica, we rush to grab some hummus and halva supplied by
the local Israeli buffet Burekas before heading to the nearby graveyard. When I ask the students
how the idea came about, they mention urban explorations of derelict, disused urban sites
with their teacher, the local urbanism activist Michal Hudák. This particular place had made
such a strong impression on them that they decided to organize this event. Just as in the
invitation, no explicit mention is made of the Holocaust - and indeed, it was not the Holocaust
that made this cemetery, closed in 1889, a ruin. Still, I keep asking myself: were it not for the
void left by the Holocaust, the mystery of the lost culture, the fact that the bones outlived their
bereaved, of all the dilapidated cemeteries in town, would these young people be drawn to
this particular one?
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As we enter the cemetery, there is a pile of clean, mid-sized pebbles - enough to fill about
one wheel-barrow - ready. I ask one of the students where the pebbles are from, and learn
they were lifted directly from the Hornád river. They wanted them clean like this, he says, to
have "the symbolism." Although I do not quite understand, I do not inquire further. To the right
of the entrance, in a flat, slightly sloping section of the cemetery devoid of gravestones, two
dozen cylinders made of wire netting rise from the frozen grass. Organized along an imaginary
rectangular grid, the repetitive unobtrusive voids signify missing objects - like items drawn by
dashed lines in children's books. One of the organizers explains what is to happen: to honor
those whose gravestones are no longer here, we will now follow the Jewish custom of laying a
stone on a symbolic grave. The important variation from the custom is that we put the stone
into one of the wire enclosures so that, stone by stone, a symbolic gravestone comes into being.
What first sounds like a reasonable concept suddenly feels awkward: in such a small group, I
feel that picking up a pebble and laying it on command does not allow an authentic posture of
mourning. To escape this numbing script, I lay my stone instead on an old gravestone nearby
before going back and complying with the order in a second round. In a second awkward
moment, it turns out that the unobtrusive containers, about thirty centimeters in diameter and
height, can actually hold hundreds of pebbles and thus, cannot be filled by the mere symbolic
act of stone laying. After each of the few partakers solemnly deposits one or two stones, the
organizers switch into problem-solving mode and begin to fulfill the original concept by
systematically transporting the remaining pebbles into the prepared net cylinders. Some of us
join their effort, and about twenty minutes after its casual launch, the intervention is
completed. By this time, dark has set in. It is only after the wire enclosures are filled that,
illuminated by two well-placed industrial spotlights, the symbolic objects suddenly stand out
in the medley of grass and snow.
One could, of course, ask what sort of outcome - beyond an awkward artistic performance
and production exercise for a handful of undergraduates - remains behind this student event.
Contrary to memorial projects like Rovinský's, leaving a lasting physical mark was decidedly not
an ambition of this project and even if there was a hint of civic critique of the neglect of this
place, it was not central or pronounced. What was central was the experience. The event was
primarily framed as engagement in exploration of the aesthetic and sensory qualities of
remembering together, and it is this experiencing of an attractive, mysterious place and, on a
larger scale, the city as an imagined community to take hold of here and now - that emerges
as the central motif of this remembering exercise in exploration.
8 9
Image 6. A student dropping her stone into one of the wire enclosures at theTatra street cemetery. Recently built
luxury condominiums in the background. Photo by the author, December 2013.
The Adorable Survivor: Ľudovít Feld
If there is one Jewish personality rooted deeply in the communicative memory of Košice's
inhabitants, it is Ľudovít Feld. A painter and illustrator representing interbellum Košice
modernism (Strauss 2012), Feld was memorable not just for his artistic skill but also for his
moving life story - and his extraordinarily short height. The Jewish artist and art teacher, whose
growth had been thwarted in childhood by a rare condition, had had a chance to escape
deportation after one of his students consciously removed him from a deportation list; when
his entire family was escorted to the local brick factory, however, Feld decided to join them and
turned himself in. After disembarking from the transport in Auschwitz, he was mistaken for a
child and selected for medical experiments. When his drawing skills were discovered by Doctor
Mengele, Feld was appointed an illustrator for the laboratory (Jesenský 2013). Returning to
Košice as one of three survivors of his entire extended family, Feld continued to paint urban
and rural motifs while teach drawing to children at a popular art school for the rest of his life.
As a result, several generations of Košice inhabitants of various backgrounds and professions
share childhood memories of their curiously short and remarkably kind drawing teacher "Lajči
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báči." According to Lila, a frequent guest of events related to Jewish culture, Feld's works are
still found hung on the walls of thousands of Košice households.
The official Jewish community's view of Rovinsky's initiative has always been rather
reserved. While members of the Hidden Child group were initially part of the mobilization, and
several of them also contributed financially towards the cause, one of the members of the
Jewish community summed up the official stance: "It was said: Jews will not build a memorial
to themselves" (Edita). Rather than publicly weighing in on Holocaust victimhood, the local
Jewish community went along with the rising public interest in Feld, significantly boosted by
the popularization and networking activity of Feld's former pupil and later emigrant to the
United States, Silvia Fishbaum, and chose Feld as a positive representative figure. The wellknown
painter of Kosice's streets, a survivor primarily respected for his artistic skills, and who
besides representing the Holocaust was a personal acquaintance of and role-model for Jews
and Non-Jews alike. In Feld, worths of fame and inspiration combine with the common-places
of enthusiastic learning, with local-patriotic sentiments and the compassionate witnessing of
a difficult life to create a positive - even mascot-like - symbol, devoid of the divisive undertones
and prescribed self-examination present in explicit commemorations of the Shoah. While the
Holocaust must be mourned, the survivor Feld can be celebrated.
The life-sized statue of Feld was unveiled in the gated courtyard of the only functional
Košice synagogue, on Pushkin Street in September 2016. Initiated by Fishbaum, created by
respected Košice sculptor Juraj Bartusz and Feld and embraced by the Jewish community, the
memorial was unveiled in the presence of a considerable crowd, including Kosice's mayor. In a
small building guarding the entrance to the synagogue's premises, just a few meters from the
statue's location, a two-room cultural center with a gallery had opened a year before - named
after Feld. The potential of this petite facility to represent the Jewish community and its
heritage was limited - only open two Sundays each month (or on request for school classes or
groups), it could hardly substitute for the much debated but never opened Jewish museum. At
the same time, with the gallery and Feld's statue, the synagogue compound reinforced its
centrality in the local imaginary of Jewish culture. Better informed than in the case of the Gaško
and Vrancsik plaque, Rovinský allegedly considered the possibility of contributing the money
he had raised towards its production. However, he found the plan to place the statue in an
enclosed, private area of the Jewish community lacking in public character - a feature of civil
worth he was not willing to compromise.
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Image 7. Most of the time, the slightly larger-than-life statue of Feld can only be spotted through the bars
protecting the entrance to the Orthodox Synagogue compound on Pushkin Street. When I took this photo, a
simple poster hung on the closed entrance invited the public to a tour called "Jewish Košice - 3 in one," including
a visit to the two Orthodox synagogues and the Ľudovít Feld gallery (the entrance to it is visible blurred behind
the poster). Photo by the author, June 2017.
The Memorial to Exoduses: Authenticity through Autonomy and Amateurism
At the edge of Košice's city center, bordering one of the urban traffic veins, a cluster of
mostly office buildings of different sizes, ages and styles overlooks a small parking lot. When
approaching it from Main Street, you are greeted by a commercial-style banner reading
"Freedom Park" in sleek white font on a bright red background. A strange name for a business,
you might think, and in the meantime, you might miss an assemblage of metal objects tucked
in an island of urban green just 20 meters from the latch at the entrance. And no wonder despite
its four meters of height, the grey altar-shaped structure fails to stand out among the
trees and bushes, protective railings and parked cars. Formed by a colorful grid of symbolic
reliefs differing in genre as well as material, the altarpiece bears familiar signs: barbed wire,
footsteps, the Star of David, traces of blood. If you come close enough to discover the fading
inscription on the altar table, a list of thirteen episodes of violence and a dedication to "all
victims of exoduses from Slovakia in the 20th century" outlines a universalist take on national
9 2
history. Symptomatic in its unobtrusiveness, this idiosyncratic memorial bears witness to three
men's freedom to publicly remember.
Intro: Ousting Dinosaurs, Memorializing Anti-communism
The symbolic clean-up of Košice's streets after 1989 eliminated most, though not all explicit
commemorations of communism and its icons. The significant removals were those most
visible - the 1975 bronze statue of Klement Gottwald installed in the memorial hot-spot on
Main Street and the monumental 1987 Lenin erected in front of the Communist Party
headquarters in the Western borough Terasa. Besides these two prominent symbols, both
removed from public sight and later deported to a museum depot (unintentionally, but
symbolically close to the furnaces of the Košice steel mill in Šaca), several plaques marking
venues associated with post-war presence of the Communist Party as well as with Košice prewar
activists celebrated by the regimes as representatives of local revolutionary traditions
(namely Zoltán Schónherz, Štefan Košík and Mikluáš Wurm) were taken down. The few that
remained mostly concerned the local labor movement (for example, two different locations of
the local Kassai Munkás labor newspaper offices). The two exceptions were a 1984 memorial
to the journalist, poet and politician Ladislav Novomeský located in the center of a housing
project carrying his name, and a 1963 plaque commemorating the young communist Jan Bačík,
captured and martyred in a Nazi concentration camp.3 4
All of these plaques as well as the
memorial to Novomeský, were relatively marginal in terms of location and appear to have
flown below the radar surveying ideological offense to a post-communist regime.
As far as permanent memorial items in the public space are concerned, the
memorialization of anti-communism and of the Velvet Revolution was preceded by
commemorations of the regime's victims. Of the several inconspicuous plaques, including one
on the former prison on Pribina Street (now part of a library building) and one dedicated to
"political prisoners" installed on a less prominent spot on Main Street, the one gaining most
public attention has been the plaque listing the victims of the 1968 military occupation of
Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact, undertaken to prevent attempts to liberalize the
communist regime. The simple black plaque, originally authored by a group of people including
Peter Kalmus, was supplemented with a name belonging to a man shot by a Soviet deserter,
whose death was previously not associated with the other casualties, mostly victims of street
Interestingly, both of these names were also spared the purification of the toponymic grid Wurm
or Košík.
unlike Schónherz,
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incidents. This addition has been contested and performatively negated by Kalmus and his
associate activist Ľuboš Lorenz, who continue to cover the name with red tape on the grounds
that as an active member of the secret police, the deceased was not a victim of the Soviet
occupation but in fact one of the perpetrators. A more representative memorial
complementing the victim list, envisioned by Kalmus as a lifeless iron tree and proposed for
the 40th anniversary of the event, was never realized.
In 2008, as the second decennial of the regime change was approaching, the city
administration announced a competition for the design of a representative memorial
combining the November 1989 and the August 1968 events. While there was no doubt that
both presented major milestones in local communicative memory, the suggestion of a
continuity between the different processes earned some serious criticism. The winning project,
based on the idea of flipping the numbers 68 and 89 on a stylized film strip, became too
controversial and was shelved. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of communism's demise
in Košice, two different memorial plaques were put up instead: one installed by the municipal
authority on the facade of the State Scientific Library, whose balcony served as the speaking
tribune for many of the 1989 public gatherings, the other one initiated by a loosely connected
group of 1989 activists, who marked the first headquarters of the Civic Forum just opposite
from the entrance to the cathedral. In the past years, especially after the dominant leftist party
"SMER - Sociálna demokracia" (SMER - Social democracy; "smer" being Slovak for "direction")
took control of the local and regional administration, these plaques have defined the split
between the official municipal and the activist-based protest cultures of memory as practiced
on the memorial day November 17. The 25th anniversary in 2014, however, was different.
"Thanks to November, we can build this"
On the 25th anniversary of the Czechoslovak "Velvet Revolution," there were at least four
commemorative gatherings in Košice. Three of them - the official municipal meeting, the
meeting of the opposition parties and a third one organized by a handful of local persons "of
November" (including Rovinský) - took place on the city's main street; the fourth took place in
an unlikely interstice between office buildings, an apartment block and a prison complex.
Completely out of the spotlight, three friends, along with a couple dozen others, celebrated
the anniversary by unveiling a memorial to past waves of forced migrations and the violent
events that shaped modern Slovak history. The "Memorial to Exoduses" was in fact the
outgrowth of a larger project which, according to its ideological father Miro Poliak, began in
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2008 with the need "to understand the contemporary behavior of inhabitants" in the nearby
region Spiš (Pollák, 2015, p. 9). Unsettled by his compatriots' ruthless manners, mutual envy
and suspiciousness, Pollák came to believe that the underlying cause of this collective condition
lay in the repeated mass violence and the involuntary departures of whole groups of people
that plagued the country over a century. As he wrote in a book reporting on the activities of
his association "Beautiful Spiš":
"Gradually, we uncovered the truth of the involuntary departures, expulsions and,
in the most cruel cases, of forced deportations, imprisonment and murders. For all
of these exiles and manifold departures, removals, atrocities, liquidations,
deportations, killing, and murders we used the word exoduses" (Pollák 2015:9).
In order to break the spell of these multiple layers of cultural trauma, this civic activist started
touring the rural communities of his home region, organizing discussions, events and
exhibitions and promoting an integrated view of Slovak history as a history of layered trauma.
By early 2014, he had organized over 40 events, edited a book and written a film script - and
then, he met an old acquaintance, Roland Bušša, who, 25 years after the fall of communism
and the advent of freedom, felt he needed to "do something" to commemorate it. Their Košice
memorial materialized less than six months thereafter.
Before we hear how the initiators interpreted this mnemonic act, let us take a closer look
at the memorial site. The slightly mysterious structure is positioned in a veritable non-place,
devoid of form, name or public standing. Its location is hidden from sight - both from the main
streets, but also (thanks to the urban greenery) from the immediate passersby. The
surrounding environment is unspectacular, abundant in distracting and interfering elements
like vehicles, tree branches or railings that obscure access. While its altar-like shape is quite
straightforward, the meanings of the thirteen individual symbolic reliefs comprising it are not
always easy to fathom. The more schematic of these emblems, each created by a different
technique by a different author, employ generic symbols like the swastika (broken and
chained), the Star of David wrapped in red barbed wire or the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of
overseas migration. A somewhat playful cartoon-like drawing of Leonid Brezhnev and
Alexander Dubček shaking hands with a speech bubble with an "Au!" ("Ouch!") symbolizes the
Soviet invasion of August 1968. The more cryptic ones include a block with the protruding
footsteps of a family, a stone block with a small relief of a head, a key and some illegible
inscriptions and a series of diminishing head profiles with a cross and a line of gothic window
frames in the background. The materials used - roughly welded iron coated with grey and gold
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Image 8. The main altar-shaped part of the Memorial to the Exoduses. The bilingual description, written by hand
on the altar table, lists 13 disparate violent episodes of 20th-century Slovak history: early 1900s: work migration
to America; after 1918: departure of Hungarians after the fall of monarchy; 1939: expulsion of Czechs; 1939-1945:
forced labor in Hitler's Empire; 1942-44: deportation of Jews; 1945: abduction to the gulag; 1945-47: revenge on
Carpathian Germans; 1950s: liquidation of the bourgeoisie; persecution of Ruthenians; liquidation of private
peasants; liquidation of priests, religious orders and their protectors; 1968: emigration after 1968; 1990s:
displacement of the Roma. Photo by the author, June 2017.
paint, reliefs partly made of weather sensitive plastic or untreated metals - give off the
impression of a somewhat raw, non-durable, low-cost project (the cartoon described above,
for instance, is drawn on a piece of plexiglass with a permanent marker). At first sight, the
placement, the aesthetic form and the materialities of the monument invoke a sort of
carelessness and even vulgarity. Now, give it a second thought and you might recognize
something more subtle - a tribute to informality and improvisation.
One of the striking features of this memorial initiative was the distinction (though not
incompatibility) between the interpretations of its two main actors. A sense of dissatisfaction
with the present material anchors of anti-communism in Kosice's public mnemoscape played
9 6
a comparatively lesser role than in the previous case. The initiator and sponsor of the memorial
site Bussa contextualized the spur to commemorate the regime change by his increasing
awareness (and imagination) over the past decade of the limits the previous regime would
have imposed on his entrepreneurial and personal life, and the consequent gratefulness for
the freedom he enjoyed. Looking around the surrounding buildings, he pointed out that the
whole block was full of people who "took their skin to the market" and became independent
economic subjects. As one of the immediate effects of the regime change, free trade and
entrepreneurship were, for Bussa, part and parcel of the anti-totalitarian heritage. Unhappy
that the legacy of democratization lacked "supporting points" in Kosice's public space (there is
not even a Street of 17th November, as in many other towns), he adorned the entrance to the
inner part of the block with a banner and a set of flags stating "Freedom Park" several years
ago - to signal that this is a space of free business activity. Interpreting the memorial as a
further materialization of this thankfulness, he juxtaposed the power of individuals like himself,
or the people working in the block, or even the welders, who constructed the memorial's
frame, to seize their freedom in a non-restrictive regime with the restrictions and persecutions
rendered on the altar.
In Pollak's case, the critique is more subtle and philosophical. Explaining the relationship
between the motifs of the 1989 regime change and waves of past forced migrations, Pollak first
comes up with a made-up quote by "one important person still living today," in whose view "if
a memorial does not include a tribute to victims, such a memorial isn't worth a penny." He then
explains the hierarchy:
Thanks to November we can do this. If this were a memorial to November only, I
would not be doing it. Despite the fact I was there in November, I think I wouldn't
find it worthwhile... You see, November meant something else and made possible
many things and thanks to that, I can create (...) this memorial of exoduses - for
who would have given me approval (before 1989) - and how?
In this passage, Pollak takes distance from turning the November 1989 Velvet Revolution into
a political fetish and its partakers into a mnemonic elite. For him, "November" is not an object
of celebration, but a space of creativity and active engagement. The anniversary framing is
almost coincidental here, except that it creates a contrast between a light-headed
triumphalism and a responsible acknowledgement of the layered trauma, and thus, an
opportunity for mnemonic critique. "November" is not the end in itself, but just a door to
possibilities and responsibilities, to a landscape of freedom.
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While the two men's understanding of the memorial, which one of them calls the Memorial
of November and the other the Memorial of Exoduses, differ, both agree on the relative
unimportance of broad public participation in or acceptance of the memorial. In this project,
whose rare inclusive perspective of history might serve as a basis for a solid civic argument, the
unifying principle seems to be the expression of autonomy in the local mnemonic arena,
mnemonic agency and independence from the political establishment or bureaucracy. "From
the very start," Bussa asserts, "it was private - no, a civic matter," yet the "civic" is understood
as the opposite of "dependent on politics." In this liberal version of publicness, the "purely
civic" means activation, collaboration and effectiveness in implementing a plan - all without
the need for a justification. How does such disregard for public recognition go along with both
men's generic critique of the feeble historical consciousness of the general public?
Image 9. The layout and positioning of the memorial ensemble in the midst of a parking lot. Photo by the author,
June 2017.
Living culture - the sap of democracy
The key to understanding the contrast between the grand interpretive ambition and the
prosaic appearance of the memorial placed in this non-place of a parking lot is Pollak's concept
of "living culture." While its meanings reach from authenticity to amateurism, its crucial
9 8
dimension resonates with spontaneity. This is, first of all, manifest through the way the use of
private property, originally a matter of convenience, is valued as a superior option. Although
the original vision had preferred a more representative location, after a round with district
mayors, the initiators "understood that following the official procedure was impossible" as it
required a "statement from hygienists, philatelists, parachutists..." (Bussa). Second, the
construction of the memorial required constant improvisation, individual initiative and creative
solutions to unexpected problems (like welding a huge iron object with a minimal budget).
Third, the initiative's formal lack of restriction went far beyond the lack of ideological constraint
and included a disregard for the obligation to obtain a construction permit. When I ask if they
had obtained one, Pollak seems disinterested and explains the initiative's evasive strategy as
self-defense against administrative "bullying":
Well, things are in reverse now. Let them ask us to legalize it now. (...) Alright, if
they tear it down. Tear down a memorial to exoduses, if you want! Will they?
Taking bureaucracy hostage, but mainly perhaps relying on the marginality of the site, the
initiative had taken the liberty to go against the limping, retarding standard procedures to
advance their plan. In doing so, amateurism is cast as independence from concerns unrelated
to the message, minimalist funding and reliance on volunteer work as independence from
constraints and expectations set by donors, the absence of figures of "public standing" at the
unveiling as independence of political establishment (the organizers "didn't want anyone in a
suit" [Bussa]). In going about one's civic engagement, Pollak seems to hint, one must master
civil disobedience as a method if things are to be accomplished and civic agency is to be
practiced. For the purposes of justification, such defiance of official legal procedures could also
be read as a bid for the worth of inspiration predicated on absolute submission to a task
regardless of outside evaluation. At the same time, a living culture independent from
bureaucratic constraints (indeed, in tension with them) builds on the counter-cultural
common-place of 1970s and 1980s Czechoslovak dissent, represented by Charter 77, Vaclav
Havel and the samizdat. All in all, this grammatical mix serves to twist and stretch the
boundaries of legitimate choices presumed by the liberal grammar that dominates this
initiative.
The focus on the performative and experiential aspects of the initiative has further
ramifications for the use of the memorial. The memorial's unveiling had been mostly attended
by those involved in its building and their close ones: in the crowd of four or five dozen, neither
local 1989 activists (who by the time of the invitation had already made other plans) nor
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representatives of the represented victim groups (who were not invited at all) were present.
My question regarding future use of the memorial again does not seem to move either of the
men. Pollak as a trans-local agent denies the existence of any "club" tending to the memorial's
future, and Bussa only mentions a plan to plant hedges to separate the memorial from the cars
and crimson roses that would crawl through the bunkbeds in the front section of the
assemblage - and "let nature do what it will." The main point of the structure, however, is to
be available.3 5
Showing disinterest in organizing commemorations, Bussa points towards the
memorial's immediate surroundings (including schools, office buildings and a prison) and the
different kinds of people passing it, stopping by to smoke a cigarette: "That's it! They don't
have to read anything; everything affects us subconsciously, too." The introverted focus and
presentism in terms of modeling the meaning of the memorial are also in line with the openendedness
of the liberal grammar. Far from a private commemorative device, this memorial
wishes to be an open invitation to a novel reading of common history - except that to take
advantage of it, one must seize it actively in a regime of choice.
Besides the prevailing engagement in a "mnemonic plan" and an emphasis on the freedom
of audiences to interact with it, the two striking moments are the presence of exploration and
the missing connection to familiarity with the commemorated suffering. Especially in Bussa's
account, the project had become a collaborative challenge, almost a journey that fulfills its
meaning by its sheer realization. The refusal to conform to the limits of bureaucracy, the
manifest enjoyment of the improvisation and flexible adaptation to changing circumstances,
the openness to the work of nature and the chance encounters with passing pedestrians - in
all this, there is a sensitivity for engagement in exploration (Thevenot 2008), experimentation
and innovation, which arguably forms the "alter ego" of the liberal grammar.
At the same time, neither of the two men mentioned any personal stakes in the
commemorated events, nor did they invite any representatives of their respective victim
groups. The fact that embedding the memorial in the local mnemonic landscape had no priority
for either of the two men, the fact that they invited neither the Carpathian Germans, nor
religious orders, nor post-1968 emigrants is in itself revealing. Rather than a medium of
repentance or a gesture of regret reaching out to the exoduses' victims, the memorial may be
seen as an aid in "our" - collective and common - way forward:
That said, it deserves to be noted that before the year's end, the decks of the four iron military beds, installed
at the far end of the imaginary open-air sanctuary to signify the "coldness of the regime" (Bussa), were removed
so as to prevent "unwanted activities" (Jabrik 2014).
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Regarding the cross (cutting through the center of the memorial), Bušša
emphasizes that it is a spiritual cross, not a religious one. An isosceles cross - that
is a cross of truth - not a cross of suffering like the Christian one. That was made
up by humans, that has nothing to do with the spiritual. The goal is forgiveness - to
ourselves as well. Not to delve into remorse, but to realize this, to forgive
ourselves, to draw strength - not to cry (fieldnotes).
Taking distance from the religious genre of the monument and its ritual connotation (to which
Pollák and the main designer František Guldan may have a more embracing relationship), Bušša
presents the memorial as a kind of pragmatic device. A quarter century after the regime
change, it facilitates a moral stock-taking and opens the possibility of a clean slate. The "secular
altar" is a place where forgiveness is bestowed upon us by ourselves and according to Bušša,
there is no need to dig too deep into the past. Awareness of past evil, he says, serves as a
source of strength and, at the same time, as immunization against future threat of
totalitarianism - through an appreciation of our present freedom.
Parallel to the Memorial to Exoduses' unveiling, a small group of local citizens, organized
by the activist Rovinský, commemorated the 25th anniversary of communism's demise. The
commemorative walk on Main Street, which included stops at several memorable places like
the place of the 1989 demonstrations or the plaque to the victims of the 1968 Warsaw Pact
invasion, forces itself as a post-scriptum to this discussion of living culture. At the third or fourth
stop, the former House of the Košice Government Program, Rovinský addressed the small
crowd, explaining the plight of the German and Hungarian minorities that resulted from the
celebrated document. Subsequently, he symbolically covered the 1975 memorial plaque with
a wide white sticky tape, erasing it, thus, performatively from the prominent public spot.
Though only up to a dozen participants were reportedly present at this semi-improvised event,
this rare manipulation with the pre-1989 symbol of Košice as site of state building represents
an alternative to Pollak's and Bussa's approach. In contrast with the considerably more violent
strategy of the local artist Peter Kalmus, who has in past years attacked memorials associated
with communism with red paint, Rovinsky's is an intimate gesture of protest; though
performed on-site, its public reception does not exceed a couple dozen views in the Facebook
gallery, in which I had learnt about the event myself. While tapping an existing common-place
(the abbreviation of the iconic Košice Government Program - the "KVP"- deeply ingrained in
the ears and paths of the local dweller) rather than formulate a new one (exoduses), both of
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these acts of criticism remain below the radar of the general public and despite self-conscious
civil reasoning, remain ineffective in extending solidarities within the public.
Jánoš Esterházy: An Ersatz monument to Hungarian Suffering
Installed in the back courtyard of a burgher palace on the northern end of the main street,
the memorial to Jánoš Esterházy is both central and inconspicuous. When approaching the
main street through the narrow Poštová alley, a sturdy fence protecting a concrete-paved
interstice with some decorative evergreens, a pizzeria terrace and a car or two appear on your
right just before the arched entrance to the city's center. Close to thefence, a massive rock with
a shallow round depression (a 19th-century gravestone brought overfrom a defunct cemetery)
and wreaths with Hungarian tricolor ribbons accompany the modest bust positioned at the grey
painted rear of the Csáky-Dessewffy palace. Placed on a pedestal of red marble, the slightly
over-sized bronze likeness depicts a middle-aged man with distinct facial features, including a
characteristic mustache. A large four-digit number, "7832," decorates the base, which
otherwise bears no inscription. Hundreds of locals pass the fence daily with a generous view of
this gentleman, whose elegant attire contrasts strongly with the prisoner-like identification on
the stand. In the city that - thanks to the ethnic cleansing announced by the "Košice Government
Program" of1945 - became emblematic of Czechoslovak post-war retribution against Germans
and Hungarians, this mute statue is the most explicit reference to the hardships local
Hungarians suffered in the wake of "Liberation."
Intro: Returning Hungarian Exiles
Monuments to Hungarian history, memorials and plaques commemorating Hungarian
personalities and symbols of Hungarian statehood in Košice were obliterated following the
Czechoslovak conquest of the city. If in 1919, the destruction was practically limited to the
statue of the Honvéd statue south of St. Michael's chapel - and in that, despite its violent
consequences, quite surgical - the erasure was comprehensive in 1945. Besides all increments
of the Horthy era (several tablets honoring the local Hungarian victims of 1919 or the memorial
of the 1941 bombardment), all but one element of the symbolic landscape explicitly
reminiscent of the Hungarian kingdom were removed - the one that remained was a 19thcentury
plaque to the art historian and museologue Imre Henszlmann. The ban on Hungarian
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icons eased over the course of the 1960s and 1970s: first, a bilingual plaque to the "Hungarian
Jacobin" Jánoš Batsányi appeared in 1963, several years later, the 1938 relief commemorating
Rákóczi (damaged in the fury of 1945 and now restored) was returned to the northern
cathedral wall, and after the Warsaw Pact occupation of 1968, the systematic annual
commemorative planning of new plaques and memorials enhanced Košice public's space with
a handful of Hungarian-sounding names of artists or leftist politicians. At the same time, not
even a hint of restoration of previous Hungarian cultural and political presence was thinkable:
a 1972 proposal by the local Batsányi circle and the Hungarian cultural association CSEMADOK
(short for "Csehszlovákiai Magyar Dolgozók Kultúregyesúlete" or "Czechoslovak Hungarian
Workers' Cultural Association") to honor the 150th birthday of the Hungarian poet Sándor
Petófi with a bilingual plaque installed on the same facade from which a 1904 Petófi plaque
was ripped away in 1945 was never realized.3 6
While different Hungarian cultural organizations
continued to operate throughout the period of post-occupation Normalization (1970—1989) including
the theatre Thalia founded in 1969, the Industrial Secondary School or the
CSEMADOK (Csalová 2002) - the cultural presence was not allowed to materialize. The
exhibition in the replica of Rákóczi's Rodoštó house, conceived in 1908 and mostly completed
between 1938-1945, did not materialize until shortly after 1989.
It is in a way symptomatic that the first new arrival to the post-socialist Košice mnemonic
landscape was Sándor Márai. Engraved on the underside of a recycled older plaque
commemorating Hungarian communist journalist and poet Aladár Komját,3 7
the simple plaque
the recently deceased Hungarian writer was installed on what later became colloquially known
as Máraiház - Márai house - in March 1991. Over the course of the first decade of the
independent Slovak state, several plaques were installed on Main Street including the 1994
plaque to the 18th-century poet and linguist Ferenc Kazinczy, a 1995 plaque to his collaborator
Dávid Baróti Szabó and the 1999 plaque to the engineer of the Corinth and Panama Canals Béla
Gerster. In a 2000, two years after the parliamentary election defeat of the nationalist populist
Movement for Democratic Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko, HZDS) lead by Vladimir
Mečiar, a Hungarian consulate was opened in the historical university building on Main Street
From a proposal found, without any further related correspondence, in the Archive of the Regional Monument
Preservation Authority.
3 7
An amusing fact unearthed by the local heritage activist and art historian Gabriel Kladek in an episode of his
local television series "Postrehy z mesta" ("Spotted in the city") focused on commemorative plaques. Available
at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4J4tgm2WDM; accessed on October 31, 2017.
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- a moment that could be read as a final, decisive affirmation of the Hungarian symbolic
presence in Kosice's public space.
Image 10. The 2004 memorial to Sandor Marai by Peter Gaspar. Photo by author, July 2017.
Yet, Hungarian "re-territorialization of space" (Olah 2015) in Kosice, an area of past cultural
dominance, continued and perhaps its most prominent manifestation was the gradual (and, in
a way, gradated) unveiling of three statues of "returning exiles." The first of these was (again)
the memorial to Sandor Marai, initiated by the Hungarian consul and coordinated by the Kosice
Hungarian Social House (whose members overlapped largely with the Kosice Civic Club).
Funded partly by a popular collection, but also from grants of various foundations and state
organizations, including the Slovak and the Hungarian governments, the statue by the SlovakHungarian
sculptor Peter Gaspar was unveiled in 2004 at the intersection of Butcher and
Armory Streets, on a small patch of grass neighboring the now defunct Hungarian Social House.
The interactive, generously laid out, yet conceptually modest and very approachable, take on
the assigned topic "Dialogue," Gaspar's winning proposal presents a life-sized likeness of Marai
seated on one of two facing chairs, with the other one left empty in a gesture of invitation to
the passerby. Settling in Budapest in the interbellum period, the Kosice Hungarian burgher
Marai was cut off from his native city by the Treaty of Trianon and after he decided to flee the
rising communist regime, he spent the rest of his life cut off from Hungary altogether - in New
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York City, in Salerno, Italy and finally, San Diego, California. Márai, whose longing for his native
city was to remain forever denied fulfillment - not just by constraints of travel across the Iron
Curtain, but also by the profound and irrevocable changes Košice underwent - died only
months before the fall of communism and, thus, became a nostalgic voice exiled from the
places and forms of life one holds dear.
While Márai spoke to the personal experiences of many an "old Košičan," the second homecomer
Ferenc Rákóczi II was rather a projection screen of olden political mythologies. Following
the defeat of the last counter-Habsburg Kuruc rebellion, its leader Rákóczi and his entourage
were forced into Turkish exile where they would spend the rest of their lives. Rákóczi's reburial
in Košice in 1906 became celebrated as a confirmation of national sovereignty and was a major
milestone in elevating Košice into a Hungarian nationalist lieux de memoire of the first order.
Though the urban festival celebrating the spectacle's centennial in 2006 was, in a way, an
acknowledgement of the Hungarian political heritage of Košice, the primary framing was on
the religious and ethnic tolerance that Rákóczi and his case stood for. The oversized bronze
statue of Rákóczi, showing the Kuruc leader along with his motto "Cum Deo pro Patria et
Libertate" (With God for fatherland and freedom), donated by the Hungarian state was placed
in front of the Košice Rodoštó replica - in a central, yet enclosed courtyard managed by the East
Slovak Museum.
The 2011 unveiling of the monument to the Czechoslovak (and later Slovak) Hungarian
politician Jánoš Esterházy, a martyr figure of Hungarian minority politics and a symbol of the
post-war retribution, became a third and final step in this gradation. As in the previous two
cases, the Košice Civic Club played a crucial coordinating role. If the nostalgic legacy of Márai
mainly represents the longing for lost cultural domination, the revisiting of Rákóczi's political
cult resonates with the late 19th-century Hungarian ambitions to become independent of the
Habsburg. Problematic as both of these are for the Slovak version of Hungarian history, in
which the ruling nation oppressed minority cultural rights and denied the self-governing
ambitions of ethnic minorities, it is the last of the triad - the extension made by Esterházy - that
touches the most sore spot for both mnemonic communities: for in Esterházy, the traumatic
narrative of interwar Czechoslovakia's disintegration, in which Hungarians are cast as traitors,
clashes with the trauma of Trianon and of the post-war retribution, in which Hungarians
become victims of ethnic violence.
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Who is Jánoš Esterházy and what has he to do with Kosice?
Jánoš Esterházy was a prominent Hungarian minority politician in interwar Czechoslovakia,
an outspoken critic of the 1920 border arrangement between Czechoslovakia and Hungary
(codified by the Treaty of Trianon) and a 1930s representative of Košice in the Czechoslovak
parliament. In 1938, after the First Vienna Award reattached extensive Czechoslovak
territories, including Košice, to Hungary, Esterházy chose to continue representing the
Hungarian minority as its only voice in the legislature of the newly founded Slovak state, a
German satellite. Following the restoration of Czechoslovakia in 1945, he was arrested and put
on trial for high treason. However, before the retribution court punished his participation in
the politics and intelligence leading up to the disintegration of the republic in 1938 with the
death penalty, he was seized by the NKVD and sent to the gulag like thousands of his
compatriots. Extradited in 1949, his sentence was mitigated to life internment, which he served
in the infamous Mirov prison until he died in 1957.
Despite the fact that his personal tragedy is technically related to his active political
involvement, Esterházy arguably works as a mnemonic glue for disparate strata of Hungarian
cultural trauma. Born in 1901 in Nyitraujlak (now Veľké Zálužie), he is a symbol of the
disintegration of Hungarian community in Felvidék (Upper Lands) that started with the breakup
of the Hungarian kingdom and finished with the so-called Beneš decrees. The 1920 Treaty
of Trianon, which deprived Hungary of three quarters of its territory and two thirds of its
population, became a defining moment of his personal and political life, and at the same time,
the central event in Hungarian history of the 20th century (Kovács 2016; Michela & Kusá 2013;
Szaló & Hamar 2006). Running parallel in time to the collective post-war ethnic persecution of
Czechoslovak Hungarians, Count Esterházy's post-war humiliation, his physical suffering, his
expropriation and his unjust legal process, transform him into a symbol - a surrogate mnemonic
signifier - for a Hungarian cultural trauma so difficult to articulate in condensed form.3 8
Despite the recently intensified cross-border debate, professional evaluations of
Esterházy's political legacy are radically different in the Slovak and Hungarian historical
communities. In accord with their Czech colleagues, Slovak historians focus on the his active
The varied forms and legal manifestations of the post-war persecution of Hungarians fits neither under the
Hungarian equivalent of the German Vertreibung (expulsion) - "Kitelepites," nor under the label "Benes decrees"
(named after the Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes and applied as a shorthand denoting anti-German
retribution). While the latter is, indeed, used as an iconic representation of the loss of citizenship, it fails to
represent later developments of post-war retribution such as population exchange with Hungary and the forced
change of ethnic self-identification (so-called Re-Slovakization).
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role in bringing about interwar Czechoslovakia's break-down and identify his close
coordination with contemporary Hungarian foreign policy as disloyalty (or outright enmity) to
his state (Deák 2011; Mitáč 2012). Hungarian historians, in turn, emphasize the legitimacy of
contesting the problematic Trianon border (defiant of the principle of national selfdetermination),
bring into evidence Esterházy's moral integrity (especially his assistance to
persecuted Jews) and point to the political biases of the judicial procedures after 1945,
especially evident in comparison with the trials of other war-time Slovak politicians of Slovak
nationality (Janek 2016). More extreme nationalist evaluations on the Slovak side have labeled
Esterházy an admirer of Hitler and a Hungarian spy,3 9
whose hostility to Slovaks is symbolically
evidenced by his welcoming of Regent Miklós Horthy in Košice on November 11,1938 (Korzár
2011b). Esterházy's admirers, on the other hand, along with much of Hungarian political elite
celebrate Esterházy as a man of personal and political integrity, a bold defender of Hungarian,
Slovak and Jewish rights and as an idealized martyr, for whom they seek rehabilitation and even
beatification (see, for instance, (Molnár 2010)).
Esterházy's martyrdom, undeserved in the eyes of his admirers, is complemented by
virtues, of which the most foregrounded is his opposition to the murder of Jews. His
demonstrative refusal to vote "yes" on the bill legalizing transports of Slovak Jewish citizens to
German concentration camps in May 1942, as well as the assistance he offered individual
persecuted Jews, are central to Esterházy's image of a principled man and humanist. The
humanistic motivations and factual impact of Esterházy's vote have been contested: the vote
was a retro-active legalization of deportations that had already been commenced two months
before the vote, Esterházy had supported all previous anti-Jewish legislation and while he was
no "vulgar anti-Semite," he definitely knew how to play the "Jewish card" to prevent a
precedent that could later hurt the Hungarian community (Kamenec 2002; Mitáč 2012; Šutaj
2012). Nevertheless, the rarity of this bold public gesture, paid for by political marginalization
and personal persecution even before the war's end, endows Esterházy with civic worth
difficult to find in any of his Slovak parliament contemporaries, of which none dared to do the
same. This makes him a powerful battering ram for a much larger set of Hungarian countermemories:
if the post-war logic of the triumphant Czechoslovakia made Hungarians collectively
responsible for Hungarian "fascist" aggression against the Slovaks, Esterházy's courage makes
In an exemplary moment, this position was expressed by the contemporary Slovak president Ivan Gašparovič
in an interview for the magazine Bojovník several months after the unveiling of the Košice statue (Aktuality.sk
2011a).
107
room for a symbolic exchange of historic roles. In Esterházy, Hungarians become heirs of his
resistance vis-a-vis the Shoah, while Slovaks descendants of its perpetrators and bystanders.
"Why wouldn't we build him a statue here, if there's such a campaign against it?"
The initiative to mark Esterházy's 110th birthday by unveiling his statue in the second largest
Slovak city came from the Košice Civic Club (Kassai polgári klub - Košický občiansky klub).
Founded in 1998 by a cohort of friends who first met in 1960 in the local Hungarian cultural
youth organization Új Nemzedék,4 0
the organization's main focus has been a rehabilitation of
the non-Czechoslovak, pre-1945 heritage of their city. My first visit with the Civic Club took
place at a moment in my research when I was quite uncertain about the salience of forced
migrations (the theme originally defining my topic) for the communicative memory of the
people I was meeting in my research field. In an attempt to test its relevance, I had framed my
project rather broadly as research into the remembering of Košice history in the 20th century
- with the hope that if crucial for the present members, the theme would emerge by itself. The
immediate response by one of them was an irritated one: this formulation is way too loose and
I should make a decision as to what I was interested in. As I later recorded in my fieldnotes, he
immediately jumped right into the post-war situation, his second or third sentence, meant to
negate some popular myth about those times, remained unfinished: "It is not true that..."
Summarizing the situation for me, he went on to say that, as a result of the Košice Government
Program, "the Hungarian community was eliminated" after 1945. In Košice alone, some 700
people were convicted and deported just because they were Hungarian and the rest faced
physical violence (slapping, beating, humiliation by cutting their hair) for speaking Hungarian
in public. "Such were those times," he adds in a definitive tone; as I later learn, several
members of the club had first-hand stories of deportation, forced resettlement on existential
insecurity due to job or property loss to tell, including the organization's president, who was
the only member of her family to remain in today's Slovakia. While none of them made an
explicit link between the Beneš decrees and the memorial to Esterházy, it was clear from my
first visit that the Civic Club was not just bound together by youthful memories of the relatively
liberal 1960s, but also by those of their families' plight in the 1940s.
4 0
Uj Nemzedek, or "New generation," was a platform for several group activities of Kosice Hungarian Youth,
including a choir, a folk dancing ensemble and a literary club, founded in 1961. The activities of the organization
were curtailed significantly after the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 (Csalova 2002).
108
Image 11. During the Christmas market, staged annually in the Csáky-Dessewffy palace courtyard, Jánoš Esterházy
solemnly oversees jovial meetings over mulled wine and mead. Photo by the author, December 2013.
4 1
Source: http://www.pluska.sk/fotogaleria/?foto=bitka-esterhazyl.jpg&clanok= 412914, accessed on October
17, 2017.
109
The Košice Civic Club came to the fore in 2004 as the initiating and coordinating force
behind the artistically unique and generally well-received memorial to the writer Sándor Márai;
their memorial to Jánoš Esterházy was, however, different. Unlike the generous and somewhat
intriguing Márai statue, Esterházy's bronze bust on a pillar of marble followed conservative
aesthetics and was, in fact, a cast copy of a village memorial unveiled in 2009 in Lakitek,
Hungary. There was, indeed, one mysterious and unsettling thing about the memorial: besides
a four-digit number, there was nothing to identify the honorable man. Originally a mistake by
the artist, who allegedly forgot to bring along the stylized signature present on the Lakitek
original when the statue was installed in Košice, the statue effectively speaks a message to the
knowledgeable; anyone else is left wondering. While donated by the Hungarian government,
the bust was placed on a privately owned, yet publicly accessible, location. This, according to
the owner of the property, Juraj Major, was a matter of convenience: the president of the Club,
Kornélia Csala, knew that "the city would never approve it," and thus devised a scenario that
promised minimal institutional barriers. Both of the required permits - one from the
construction authority, another from the Monument Authority - were obtained without any
complications; controversy, as Major immediately suggests, was foreseeable nevertheless.
As expected, the unveiling in March 2011 spurred on a short but lively storm in media
across the country. A group of historians from the Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as the
president of the central Jewish organization, published protests against Esterházy's
glorification. The mayor of Košice, for his part, opined that the city needed more control over
its memorials. The unveiling itself was accompanied by a loud counter-demonstration of
several dozen Slovak nationalists. The photogenic event was depicted by the media as a
juxtaposition of two crowds: one densely filling the fenced yard with the statue, attentively
listening to solemn speeches held in both Hungarian and Slovak; the other waving Slovak flags,
disrupting the event with national hymns and derogatory exclamations ('Fascists!') from behind
the fence. Immediately after the unveiling and blessing by a Roman Catholic priest, the local
conceptual artist Peter Kalmus approached the statue and attempted to wrap its face in toilet
paper; in a matter of seconds, he was physically removed and kept at bay by several indignant
men. The pending media scandal, briefly exacerbated by a scoop of red paint poured over the
memorial some two weeks after its inauguration, however, soon deescalated. Left behind was
a place of gathering for the local Hungarian elite, an unobtrusive decoration in a space used as
a pizzeria terrace in the summer and a Christmas market in the winter, and it reinforced
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symbolic boundaries between local Hungarians and non-Hungarians. Could a memorial to such
a polarizing historical icon advance mutual understanding and solidarity in any way?
In exploring this question, it is useful to appreciate the amalgamation of universal civic
principles and shared affinities to this icon based in a common-place. First of all, by
exacerbating the conflict around Esterhazy's historical evaluation, this memorial creates a
shared battleground in which interpretations of history may be voiced and heard. The
memorial project was implemented thanks to a "public-private partnership" between the
initiating local-patriotic association, the Košice Civic Club, the Hungarian state donating the
statue and the owners of the downtown palace, which offered space for the installation.
According to Major, one of the owners of the property, it was clear that 'the city would never
permit' Esterházy to occupy public space proper. Convinced that "multi-culture must be
respected and room needs to be made for other opinions," the initiators devised a scenario
with minimal institutional barriers. At the same time, a confrontation with the official policy
and majority sentiment was a deliberate choice:
We decided, that - why wouldn't we build him a statue here, if there is such a
campaign against it. (...) somewhere this has to be spoken about, because only
through speaking and mutual dialogue do we move forward. When we don't tell
each other certain things..." (Major).
Four years after the unveiling, Major presents the memorial controversy as a strategic tool for
entering into dialogue and advancing mutual understanding. Over the course of the cited
passage, the meaning of "we" oscillates between the two levels of meaning-making this project
had engaged in: the narrower community commemorating Esterházy and the broader
community of the nation state. The motivation to revive civic "dialogue," however, is not an
end in itself, but serves the underlying wish to rehabilitate Esterházy - and with him, the entire
Hungarian minority in Slovakia.
This embodiment in Esterházy of a Hungarian ethno-specific common-place of collective
displacement from their homeland brings us to a second level of grammatical mixing. Esterházy
had repeatedly proven his commitment to his homeland and people by choosing the more
difficult of options. In 1938, instead of reorienting his career toward work in an enlarged
Hungary, he chose to stay in the diminished Slovakia and represent the remaining Hungarian
minority, in 1945, instead of flight and emigration, he chose to stay and accompany his
compatriots in whatever would follow and in 1950s, in the communist prison, he ignored
opportunities to escape and retained hope for an official exculpation. As the current president
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of the initiating civic association lldikó Palenčárová reflected in an interview with me, such a
relationship to one's homeland is "difficult to explain, especially to young people." Still, she
ventured to explain a universal dimension of Esterhazy's loyalty:
He was offered a parliamentary mandate, [so] he could have gone to Hungary - no,
this is where his home is. (...) He could have escaped all that evil and he would
surely have fared differently, but... he was quite loyal, generally, not just to
Hungarians, but... to people at large (Palenčárová).
On the one hand, enduring evil because of one's attachment to a place (its people, their
language, culture, ties, etc.) can be extrapolated to all Hungarians of the former Highlands
(current Slovak territory). On the other hand, Esterhazy's course of action should be intelligible
to and respected by anyone as his loyalty was a genuine expression of humanity. Thus, wrapped
in a common-place, we find an appeal to civic worth - a universalist appeal to justice that can
only be heard from a particular perspective. And while this civic element can be seen as a mere
alibi for practicing competitive victimhood, its presence suggests that to local interpretive
communities, values of the civil sphere only become meaningful by means of familiar
engagements.
The capacity of Jánoš Esterházy to signify the Hungarian cultural trauma of post-war
persecution as well as universal humanity reached an unexpected level of performative fusion
on April 5, 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the Košice Government Program. To commemorate
the suffering the "Košice Government Pogrom" had brought to Hungarians, some two dozen
young men and women from the right-wing Hungarian youth organization "Via Nova - Új út"
gathered in front of the East Slovak Gallery (formerly the House of the Košice Government
Program) clad in black4 2
(Balassa 2015).4 3
On what happened to be an Easter Sunday morning,
the small crowd held bilingual banners reading "Down with the Košice Government Program"
and "Rehabilitate Esterházy" as they listened to Via Nova's president László Gubik demand that
the legal status of war criminals hovering over Hungarians of the Highlands since 1945 be
revoked.4 4
Harnessing the Easter symbolism, Gubik stated he expected an apology,
4 2
Though Via nova ifjusági csoport (also Via nova - Új út, translating as Youth organization Via nova, or "New
path") presents itself as an independent civic association, it is in fact a youth organization of the Party of
Hungarian Community, a minority political grouping with largely nationalist agenda. Besides striving to open a
debate on Hungarian regional autonomy in Slovakia, it also maintains close ties with the right-extremist party
Jobbik in Hungary, from which it has also received some funding (Morvay 2013).
4 3
All citations from this source are dynamic translations (i.e. not strictly literal but focused on meaning) produced
with the assistance of my colleague Gábor Oláh.
4 4
Source: "Hetven éve kollektív búnósók afelvidéki magyarok, azóta is érvényben van a sárga M betu." Available
at: http://hunhir.info/index.php?pid=hirek&id=83205; accessed on October 31, 2017.
112
underpinned by legal rehabilitations and restitutions of property, as one expects resurrection
from the dead:
It is a simple and humane gesture. As far as I am concerned, only after this gesture
can I believe in sincere brotherhood. Until then I can only hope that it happens,
because this is precisely what it is about: we are awaiting our salvation. The
Hungariandom of the Upper Lands also awaits its Easter.
As Gubik admitted to the members of the press that were present, he did not expect an
actual change in Slovak policy. His hope was formulated in eschatological terms ("divine justice
will prevail"), the point of the event was to just "draw attention" to the issue. The goal was to
inspire Hungarians to visit their local memorials (be they devoted to the deportations,
Esterházy or just the typical Hungarian commemorative wooden spear poles (see for example
[Juhász 2008]) and say prayers for their "torn-up families," deported relatives, victims of the
Petržalka concentration camp - the Hungarian community at large - and to establish a
commemorative tradition (Hunhir.info 2015). While the latter has, in retrospect, not been
successful, the political goal remains ambivalent: while the rather clearly defined "gesture" of
regret conditions the reconciliation and solidarity (brotherhood) between Slovaks and
Hungarians of the Highlands, it is at the same time viewed as Utopian.
The articulation of Hungarian trauma was not just deeply interwoven with Christian
symbolism, however, but also with the iconography of the Holocaust. Marching from the
former House of the KGP to Esterhazy's memorial (with a short stop at the cathedral with
Rakoczi's crypt and commemorative relief), the protesters wore Esterhazy's prison number
"7832" and a yellow letter M (standing for "Maďar," Slovak for Hungarian) pinned to their
chests. On this Christian holiday of the resurrection, Hungarians were thus not just identified
with the Esterhazy's Christ-like vicarious suffering in the Czechoslovak judiciary complex, but
also with the suffering of the Jews, who - in a "thrilling parallel" (Gubik) (Balassa 2015) - were
made to wear a yellow star (in Hungary) exactly one year before the Košice program declaration
(on April 5,1944). The event, reported on by Hungarian television, went practically unnoticed
by the local public and did not inspire a new tradition. All the same, the methodic layering of
Christian motifs of martyrdom and self-less sacrifice, and more general mnemonic tropes of
innocent mass victimhood in the wake of ethnic discrimination, anchors the cultural trauma of
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Hungarian post-war suffering in a common-place forged around the Košice commemoration of
Esterházy.
Image 13. The Chairman of Via Nova responds to questions regarding their 2015 Kosice protest for a Hungarian
TV channel. Behind him, protesters bear banners with a crossed popular exclamation "Hungarians beyond the
Danube," "Away with Kosice Government Pogrom" and "Rehabilitate Esterhazy."45
Annually in mid-March, around Jánoš Esterhazy's birthday, dozens of Hungarians, typically
including the Hungarian consul and representatives of Hungarian speaking churches
communities, gather in the courtyard behind the Csáky-Dessewffy palace to pay tribute to the
controversial figure. In counterpoint to the solemn spring meeting, every December, this same
place serves as a venue for a small Christmas market. Surrounded by stands with refreshments
and Christmas decorations, Esterhazy's likeness joins in the revelry and becomes a complement
to the atmosphere of this semi-public space: accessible but guarded, central yet privately
curated, open yet sheltered from the gaze of the regulating authority. During the summer
season, a pizzeria housed in the adjacent building rolls out its open-air seating. In Major's own
words,
Life itself shows best, that people -1 wouldn't say they are indifferent, but as there
is this pizzeria - a zillion people sit there during the summer and no one is
intimidated. So really, it is just a kind of political hate-mongering.
While many passersby remain indifferent to such ideological decoration, Esterhazy's
shadow has been present in the consciousness and discussions of local history professionals
Source: "Via Nova ICS kassai megemlekezes, 2015.04.05.", available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k kZ6DoDQVY; accessed October 31, 2017.
114
and the more general educated public. Not only did Esterházy's bust surface as a case in point
(exemplifying either Hungarian colonization tendencies or Slovak intolerance), some of my
interview partners (including, for example, the historian Štefan Šutaj) indicated that previous
cooperation between Hungarian and Slovak agents on the municipal level has been harmed by
this one-sided demonstrative emplacement of a divisive symbol. As the Civic Club complained,
Košice Mayor Richard Raši even forced the exclusion of the statue from a tourist booklet that
was to be presented in Budapest, threatening to cancel his attendance at the event if the
association between Esterházy and Košice remained in the material. Esterházy's arrival on a
Košice street certainly harmonized with the Hungarian government's systematic efforts in the
past decade to establish him as one of the central icons of modern Hungarian history,4 6
and
could thus be considered a Hungarian state ideological import. Rather than dismiss the
initiative on this ground as foreign and implanted, my focus on how this resonated deeply with
local agents shows that Esterházy is, at least partially, adopted, for want of a more inclusive
symbol. The composite commonality of his presence remains suspended between assertions
of his moral superiority, claims at freedom of expression on private property and his deep
emotional resonance with those who see in his victimhood their own.
Summary and discussion: Participating in the Different "We" of Cultural
Traumas through Memorials
Departing from the assumption that cultural trauma can help build solidarities and that
memorials as "small acts of repair" (Tornquist-Plewa 2016) have the capacity to become
models of civil repair, I have examined the concepts of the "we" underlying three different
memorial initiatives to past collective suffering. Engaging with the pragmatic vocabulary of
multiple grammars of commonality, I have demonstrated that while memory typically stands
knee-deep in common-places, its public figuration requires its agents to engage in more
general principles of justification. Across the three cases, there are two basic kinds of variation:
first, the varying presence of each of the three grammars in different areas or levels of
meaning-making (from interpretive rhetoric to organizational styles to aesthetics and
symbolism) and, second, the differences in the overall character of the case shaped by one
dominant grammar. To a varying degree, all three initiatives integrated elements of all
4 6
Gábor Egry asserted so in his lecture "Controversial personalities in Hungarian history" at the conference
"National Identities in Central Europe in the Light of Changing European Geopolitics 1918-1948" in Brno on June
30, 2015.
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grammars and their background engagements: they presented a claim to civic benefit or the
relevance of the projected memorial (civic justification), they built (or plan to build) their
memorial on private property (liberal choice) and projected an emotionally resonant narrative
onto a shared time-space (shared affinities to common-places). At the same time, each of the
studied cases also gravitates towards one dominant grammar. Encouraged by Thevenot's
exhortation to explore grammatical mixes and co-resonances (Thevenot 2014; 2015), I have
sought to show that grammars of commonality often work simultaneously - sometimes in
harmony, sometimes in contrast. Summarizing and comparing the way they constructed
commonality, what can we learn about the ways cultural trauma can aid - or hinder - extensions
of solidarity?
At the level of rhetoric, civic justifications appeared in differentiated amount and form in
all the initiatives. The Civic Memorial to the Holocaust declared the ambition to symbolically
unite locals by giving them a chance to contribute towards this common purpose. By coming
together, Kosice citizens would take ownership of the lesson of history regarding the dangers
of intolerance and political extremism. The Memorial to Exoduses also emphasized the need
to edify the public and to acknowledge traumas as a precondition for broader civic
understanding. At the same time, the initiators interpreted the exercise of their freedom to
engage in a project they find meaningful as a way to honor the legacy of civic activism
associated with the peaceful regime-change. The liberal element of freedom of expression was
also central to the justification of the Esterhazy memorial. Besides this, however, a strong
current of common-place associated with the idea that attachment to a home brings suffering
and tests of loyalty was present, as well as an appeal to the civic relevance and worth of
Esterhazy as someone who fought against the persecution of others - Jews, Hungarians,
Slovaks.
In terms of organizational dynamics, the initiatives appeared less mixed. Formed by three
different civic organizations - a local-patriotic Hungarian club, a second-generation Holocaust
survivors' group and an urban activist association - the Holocaust memorial initiative had civic
worth inscribed in its name. While there was surely a measure of familiar bonds between the
members of the organizations (associating a common-place), and while in its late stages under
Rovinsky's lead, the initiative slipped into a more modest, private mode of realization (akin to
liberal grammar), the overreaching ambition was to demonstrate the power of a public project
organized in a transparent manner and run by selfless volunteers. The renouncement of
political sponsorship (to eliminate denunciations of self-interest) and a focus on the
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"democratic" support of individuals was a risky strategy, whose main purpose was to establish
the highest form of generality and universal relevance. The Memorial to Exoduses was created
and implemented by individuals, who chose instrumental approaches and adapted to the
constraints of the situation to swiftly make their project a reality. When Viktor, who provided
the impulse forthe initiative and provided space as well as material and organizational support,
asserted the civic character of their undertaking, his idea of "civic" relied on an antibureaucratic
concept of the public sphere as a space of freedom. In the building of Esterhazy's
bust, elements of the grammar of justification (especially as far as the Hungarian state was
concerned) mixed with the liberal setup of emplacement (requiring minimum official
certification).
In all three cases, the placement on private ground (as opposed to public space proper)
speaks of a resignation from the ambition to justify the memorial as a universal good and
settlement for the grammar of liberal choice. The initiators of the Esterhazy memorial knew
they would never succeed, the patrons of the Memorial to Exoduses refused to subject
themselves to lengthy bureaucratic procedures and the advocate of the Civic Memorial of the
Holocaust retreated into a private supermarket after he failed to attract a critical mass of public
supporters. If representative space was given up in all cases, the visibility and symbolic meaning
of the location was a different matter. Although relatively far from the center, the foreseen
marker of the Kosice brick factory would likely be placed in the public eye - and, what is more,
in an authentic place of suffering. Esterhazy's likeness, in contrast with several other
"Hungarian statues" hidden in courtyards throughout Kosice's old-town, oversees a busy
central side street and is provocatively visible. In addition, he also resides just next door to the
only downtown bookshop with an extensive Hungarian section. The fact that the civic altar of
"exoduses" landed where it just happened to be viable - disregarding the public gaze or the
symbolism of the location - affirms its central orientation in the liberal grammar.
The variation in the grammatical emphases of the memorial initiatives is also palpable in
their performative styles: in their aesthetic language, their spatial setting, their materiality.
Although in the case of the Civic Memorial to the Holocaust, we can only assess a vision
partially tested by the perils of implementation, the central tendency was to balance artistic
qualities (valued in the world of inspiration) with symbolic clarity (domestic worth of traditional
visual tropes) in a representative location (abundant in the fame and prestige of frequented
places). As mentioned earlier, the hopes for an iconic object that would publicly (and in a
publicly acceptable, functional way) codify local imagery of the Holocaust yielded to a more
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modest plan, in which the loss of prestige is partially balanced by the radical simplicity of
contextualizing a mundane place with a simple plaque on a brick wall. The placement of the
Memorial to Exoduses, in contrast, ostentatiously disregards concerns of visibility and
traditional propriety. In combination with improvised, "budget" materials (privileging
exploration and personal convenience over artisanship), the informal spatial presentation
(defiant of the conventions of official mnemonic projects), the stylistic and symbolic
heterogeneity and unfamiliar (though not illegible) conceptual layout, the site offers a
multiplicity of readings and uses for the audience to choose from. Finally, in the conservative
material and aesthetic form of the Jánoš Esterházy memorial, generic features (domestic
worth) outweigh its artistic qualities. The bust, which is in fact a copy of a village memorial
installed in Laktitek, Hungary, does not seek to overwhelm by aesthetic or spatial impression it
is rather a placeholder for meanings already familiar to those who participate in the
veneration (or critique and defamation) of the martyred politician. In summary, while the first
memorial's concern for civic propriety and democratic message signals strife for justification,
the second's informality and liberal open-endedness invites independent readings and the
third aims at "ringing a bell" of a common-place inhabited by the initiated.
Answering the initial question concerning the kinds of solidarities and symbolic boundaries
these initiatives help foster and create is thus not simple - the different grammars of
commonality intertwine and there is hardly one type of envisioned togetherness these
memorials embody. At the same time, there is a prevailing grammar in each of the cases.
In its original vision, the Civic Memorial of the Holocaust was dominated by the justification
of the civic world based on equality and solidarity. It did not just aim at acknowledging the
tragedy of the "Other"; by speaking of "our co-citizens," it also imagined a community of
conscientious symbolic descendants with the ultimate goal of defending current diversity and
opposing intolerance. In order to do this, the project shifted the scale of belonging from the
national to the local and extended the temporal boundaries of Košice citizenship to include
those forcibly displaced and murdered. If realized in its reduced version, the memorial would
hardly attain the foreseen civic grandeur; it is likely to join the mosaic of other memorial sites
in Košice geared at raising awareness of the past tragedy. While the transformative power of
the project was largely lost, the humanistic message and the testimony of civil activism behind
it is still possesses civic worth.
While the authorized interpretations of the Memorial to Exoduses did resonate with civic
justifications - from claims that acknowledgement of others' suffering is a means of healing for
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the nation to the broader context of this memorial within Pollák's ongoing independent and
self-funded exhibition project - the dominant grammar structuring this case was one of
individual choice in a liberal public. The design and location of the memorial limits its reach
and impact to a few interested passersby; yet, the authors do not see this as a shortcoming.
They foreground the memorial's openness to reading and its capacity to embody the meanings
and care for the past they chose to invest in it. The memorial calls us to a universal, allencompassing
grief, then to "forgive ourselves" (Bušša) and move on. Just as its initiators seized
their freedom and molded their sense of responsibility into this form, the spectators are called
to act upon their freedom and formulate their own response.
Of the three analyzed projects, the Esterházy memorial is the one most heavily infused with
affinities to common-places - to the extent that common-place arguably forms the prevalent
grammar in this case. While rhetorically justified by civic worth and hedged by claims of a
minority's right to alternative views of history (especially on private ground), the memorial
primarily draws on shared imagery of victimhood and creates, in turn, a place in which the
symbolic boundaries around a victim group are reaffirmed. Unlike in the previous cases, this
memorial was built by a victim group for its own benefit. While five decades after Esterházy's
death, there was hardly anyone in Košice who remembered him, there were many whose lives
were affected by post-war retribution legislation. The "we" of both the Civic Memorial to the
Holocaust and the Memorial to Exoduses was exclusive of the victims - "us" represented a claim
to everyone else, while no familiar experience in either the promoters or the audience of the
"horrendous event" was assumed (although the Civic Memorial initially did have the support
of the local survivor group Hidden Child). Esterházy, in contrast, represents those who "have
been there." The sustained cultivation through regular gatherings, the visits of Hungarian
tourists continuously evidenced by fresh little wreaths, the local communicative memory of
the controversial unveiling and the simple visibility to the everyday passersby arguably make
Esterházy into one of the hinges of current Košice local mnemonic culture.
Comparing these three cases, I have shown that memorials typically consist of elements
pertaining to different grammars - not least because both the civic worth (by virtue of public
placement) and common-places (because of the attachments these places as well as the
commemorated objects attract) are salient to the genre of memorial by definition. Still, one
grammar seemed to prevail in each case: the grammar of justification in the Civic Memorial to
the Holocaust, the grammar of liberal choice in the Memorial to Exoduses and the grammar of
common-place in the Esterházy memorial. The comparative analysis of the grammars involved
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in these initiatives allows us to formulate several concluding propositions. Mnemonic projects
emphasizing due process will tend towards a "we" grounded in the grammar of justification.
While wielding a promise of establishing a firm foundation for inclusive remembering, the road
from grassroots motions to robust civic justification is demanding and uncertain. On the other
hand, projects stressing efficiency, creativity and individual agency in mnemonic projects are
likely to feel at home in the grammar of liberal choice. Lacking the universalism presumed in
bids for justification, their weight rests on independent thought and the organic growth of the
togetherness of conscientious individuals, a view resonant with some of the liberal tendencies
in post-socialist cultural landscapes. Finally, initiatives addressing group attachments to
narratives, shared experiences or places will likely project a community rooted in commonplaces.
Recalling the initial theoretical musings on the risks of the low-cost, sentimental "we"
of common-places, what have we learned about this grammar of symbols, smells and
contextually contingent affinities?
In his discussion of the progressive expansion of solidarity and the changing direction in
which it unfolds, Alexander evokes the image of a pendulum of social change that has swung,
in the past two decades, away from liberty over to primordial obligations (Alexander 2016b).
Reading Thevenot's warning concerning the potential of abuse inherent in common-places in
this light, we are compelled to ask if its primordial appeal can be safely integrated with the civil
values of solidarity and equality. The ease and spontaneity of utilizing the gravity of commonplace
certainly carries a danger of being used by exclusivist rhetoric that reduces the inherent
plurality of engagements to strengthen particular identities. Yet, in the analysis, we have also
seen the potential of common-places in strengthening civil solidarity. In the humanistic plea
accompanying the divisive memorial to Esterhazy, in the recollections of participation in the
Velvet Revolution framing the meanings of the Memorial to Exoduses, as well as in the
multicultural urban imaginary evoked to support the initiative "Citizens to Citizens," it was
common-places that made the more abstract values of civility intelligible to local interpretative
communities. Besides proper justifications and procedures steeped in civic worth, iconic
objects as a medium of communicating the civic implications of cultural trauma, facilitating civil
repair, and giving shape to shared Utopias may prove indispensable.
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Chapter 4. "Everyone Got Something, but Not Within the City Walls":
Managing Pluralism in Post-Socialist Toponymic Re-Visions
On the 497th anniversary of Luther's October 31 reformation, several stones in the
recently renovated paving of the Street at Miklus's Prison were exchanged for two oblong
blocks of granite. For decades, this cozy, quiet space, overseen by the modest spire of the
Reformed Protestant church, has borne a name derived from the municipal penitentiary and
its fabled cruel warden - and irritated the mostly Hungarian-speaking Church community,
whose founding figure, Jean Calvin, the 1967 change had displaced. Serving as an intersection
of pathways to and between two museum buildings and Potter Street, planned since the
1980s as a tourist attraction showcasing ancient handicrafts, the playful street name seems to
have been designed with the museum visitor in mind. After unsuccessful official attempts at
Calvin's restoration, the name Calvin Square unexpectedly landed in the center of the
pedestrian street in both Slovak and Hungarian. Three years after the guerrilla naming act,
celebrated as a part of the 2014 Reformation Day festivity, not only are the granite blocks still
in place, but a renewed re-naming request has also been filed with the local authority. If, as
Jaroslav David has put it, the city center serves as a "compass needle" (David 2013) in times
of change, what sort of meaning making does this persistent testing of the Kosice toponymic
order betray?
Explicit political symbolism in the Kosice city core - communist and ethno-national alike had
been eliminated in a resolute gesture in the summer of 1990, in what was effectively the
first of two waves of a post-socialist toponymic clean-up. In an explicit recourse to a prenationalist
past, the medieval heritage zone was to become an ideologically neutral ground,
stabilized by a legal heritage status. The ritual return to the original names used in the Middle
Ages was, in the end, not fully implemented. The excavation and conservation of most of the
names suppressed by "political regimes" foreshadowed the broadband unravelling of an
Middle-Ages-centered imaginary, of which the costly reconstruction of the neglected
historical center starting in 1994 was a powerful herald, as a strategy of evading a
confrontation with the more recent conflict-ridden past. In contrast with the priority handling
of and the "holistic" approach to heritage reservation in the most central area, toponymic
revisions in the rest of the city were characterized by the diversity of local interests and
inspirations, unequal willingness to embrace change and limited control of the central
coordinating body - the so-called Toponymic Commission - over the decision-making of the
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newly established 27 Kosice boroughs. This resulted in intriguing variation in the way
problematic presences as well as problematic absences were dealt with in different locations
across town.
Post-socialist renaming is usually cast as a matter of the early years of transformation and
in Kosice, this process of ideological stock-taking was, indeed, swift (at least compared to both
Budapest and Bucharest, as described by (Palonen 2008; Light 2004)). Yet, two decades after
the review, two proposals struck at the heart of the Kosice toponymic tapestry. Both initiated
by civil agents coded as Hungarian, their emergence resuscitated the question of symbolic
justice in representation of "minority heritage" and implied that this post-socialist task had
only been seemingly finished. Each of the two proposals received a radically different official
response. The establishment of Sdndor MdraiSquare on a side street off Main Street was not
just approved by the central Kosice borough, it was included in the official program of the
European Capital of Culture 2013 (ECOC 2013). In contrast, the abandonment of the existing
Street at Miklus's Prison for the previous name Calvin Square has been repeatedly dismissed
as violating the city's toponymic guidelines. Reading the official celebration of Sandor Marai's
advent and the persistent struggle over Jean Calvin's return into the Kosice toponymic system
and against the background of the post-socialist revision of street names, I argue that these
late moments of mnemonic critique reveal unresolved tensions in Kosice's post-socialist
toponymy and show what the commonality constructed about them reveals about the limits
of inclusive mnemonic imagination.
As a more casual mnemonic medium, commemorative street names tend to prefer
celebration over mourning - in toponymic management, the celebration of shared heritage
has more weight that than the honoring of victims. Yet, questions of representation and
marginalization do occasionally emerge and with a history of ethnic polarization, it seems
reasonable to ask whether the revolutionary stock-taking did, indeed, aim for balancing and
mending damaged inter-ethnic relations at all. In this chapter, I will first review the toponymic
development of Kosice in order to size up and measure the challenge of coming to terms with
the fall of communism. Subsequently, I will examine two distinct phases of Kosice postsocialist
renaming and analyze the role of the District Toponymic Commission, various
municipal authorities and civil agents to describe and detail some of the leading tendencies
and illustrative dilemmas encountered in this process. Finally, I will turn to an analysis of the
two most recent cases of street renaming and discuss their meanings as reparative measures
in the context of the cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing. The central questions of my analysis
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are: How were different ideas of historical justice and justifiable heritage management
reconciled? What role did past ethnic conflict and national domination play in the modeling
of the toponymic network as a neutralizing instrument of the early 1990s? What meanings
were at stake in the two recent renaming initiatives and how were the different approaches
presented as justified?4 7
What's in a name: Authorized indices and performances ofjustice
The power of street names as a mnemonic medium is subtle and complex at the same
time. Staying below the threshold of individual consciousness, street names manage to
condense complex narratives and smuggle them into "many facets of daily urban life such as
through road maps, phone book listings, the sending and receiving of mail, the giving of
directions, advertising billboards, and of course, road signs themselves" (Alderman 2002:101).
Commemorative toponyms anchor a historical meta-narrative in physical space and its daily
routines - and thereby also in the cognitive apparatus of individuals using them. Through
casual and mostly unreflective use, street and place names permeate spheres deemed
inaccessible to ideological influence; a certain element or vision of the past is thus rendered
"not only familiar, but also self-evident," the "official discourse of history into a shared cultural
experience that is embedded into practices of everyday life" (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010:459).
At the same time, toponyms are also crucial for the emergence and persistence of emotional
attachments to places (ibid.:458); they partake in the sense of familiarity by serving as nodes
associating meanings located in the there and then. Thus, while mnemo-political potential is
usually associated with commemorative toponyms, often inaugurated with the explicit
intention to populate space with persons, events or places of (geo)political relevance to the
dominant regime (Drozdzewski 2014), even seemingly apolitical, descriptive toponyms can
become a matter of contention, whether in silent resistance of communicative memory or in
organized memory projects poised against dominant mnemonic discourses.
Compared to the relatively democratic and flexible medium of memorials, toponyms
contain more inertia. They are generally more costly to introduce and change, they tend be
subject to more standardized regulation and they are less varied in form. The low malleability
and complicated procedures of implementation make toponymic changes a rare occurrence,
A previous version of this chapter was published under the title '"Everyone Got Something, but Not Within the
City Walls:' Post-Socialist Toponymic Revisions in Košice Between Neutralization, Representation and Ignorance"
(Gajdoš 2016).
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and while in small scale, "reparations" and "festive occasions" do occur, there is a high
demand for justification that is, for changes large in scale, typically only satisfied after a regime
change. According to Maoz Azaryahu, the renaming of public spaces signals a deep
restructuring of power relations and institutions: it demonstrates the "resoluteness and selfconfidence"
of the new regime (Azaryahu 1996:316). In a single movement, renaming is an
assertion of ownership, a "celebration of triumph and a mechanism for settling scores with
the vanquished regime" (ibid.:319). The ritual dimension of such toponymic stock-taking has
a dual effect: it displaces the dated representations, committing them thereby to oblivion, and
emplaces prospective ones, be they new or "historical." To understand renaming as a ritual
gesture, both the inscriptions and returns, and the erasures and symbolic expulsions, must be
accounted for. And if displacement is at stake, it is crucial to note that with the banishing of
"names," the users who have grown accustomed, even fond of them, can often feel alienated
as well. Street names are not just collective signposts delivering a vision of collective identity,
they become headings under which individual and communal experiences unravel, producing
inadvertent emotional attachments to the places they denote (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010). As
John Berger notes in his often-quoted essay "Soul and the Operator," the deep concern with
names, so characteristic of those positioned on peripheries or threatened by displacement,
hearkens back to the sense of continuity with the past and the future that names bring about
(Berger 2014).
From the semiotic perspective, street names have been read as "locally constructed 'texts
of identity'" (Azaryahu & Kook 2002:195), yet this identity has typically been understood as
an abstract, elite project. Such hermeneutics of such city-texts thus faces a fundamental
dilemma of relating its core metaphor to the social processes that produce it. Who are the
readers and to what extent are they consciously interpreting this identity text? And, equally
important: Who are its authors and in what ways is an "authorized past" written? Critical
semiotic studies of toponymy, which proliferated in the 1990s, saw naming and renaming is a
place of struggle over the power to shape the city-text - a space of hegemony. When Azaryahu
writes that in toponyms, the "past is interwoven with daily life," thereby gaining "the
appearance of naturalness," he feels obliged to assume a critical stance and call this "a most
desired effect in light of the past's function as a legitimizing factor for the ruling order"
(Azaryahu 1990:34). Yet, neither the homogeneity of an official version, nor its constant and
exclusive control by a political elite as the implied, personified "author," should be taken for
granted. Rather than envisioning a seamless narrative, or even a palimpsest, we might be
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better off with a more contemporary intertextual vision: as Azaryahu himself has noted, the
city-text "does not provide its reader with a historical story, but rather with an authorized
index of such a story" (Azaryahu 1996:327). Staying wary of the unequal capacity to assert
oneself in the compilation of this spatialized index, it is necessary to examine the context and
dynamics of its production.
In social geographic analyses of post-socialist urban mnemoscapes, semiotic analysis has
been used amply and yielded bountiful fruit. Studies like those by Azaryahu on a reunified
Berlin (Azaryahu 1997), Duncan Light on post-socialist Bucharest (Light 2004) or Danielle
Drozdewski on multiple waves of renamings in Krakow (Drozdzewski 2014) have analyzed the
extent and thematic emphases of political inscriptions, evaluated the relative impact of
individual actions in terms of their localization and traced some of the characteristic
toponymic controversies. In an exemplary combination of a semiotic and a critical approach,
Emilia Palonen's study of the Budapest city-text has traced the main themes, trends and points
of contention in the post-socialist revisions of both toponyms and memorials (Palonen 2008).
While several studies do discuss the technical processes, more detailed accounts of the
authorship and readership - and their potential conflicts involved in the production of citytexts
- are rare. Observed as a memorial arena, toponymy is a site of contestation between
competing interests or claims to representation and ultimately, as noted by Alderman in his
discussion of local initiatives critical of the white Anglo-Saxon cultural dominance of American
cities' mnemoscapes, a "place for debating the appropriateness of commemorative agendas"
(Alderman 2002:101). Sensitivity to relations of power does not mean that existing
asymmetries should be conflated into a simplistic vision of struggle between the "elite" and
the "marginalized" - as such an approach "obscures the multiple axes of exclusion at stake in
the production of commemorative spaces" (Rose-Redwood 2008a:447). For besides allowing
local orientation, street names situate their users morally - they "[assist] the public in making
moral and ethical judgements about themselves and others" (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010:458).
Thus, besides revealing sources of influence or competence, "differing" around toponymy
(and mnemonic landscape in general) betrays agents' understanding of justice and citizenship.
The attention to contestation, negotiation and coordination brings us to the third
dimension of symbolic landscapes (as outlined by (Dwyer & Alderman 2008) and reviewed in
Chapter 1) - to performativity. While daily use of street names and the occasional conscious
reflection on their meanings naturally fall under this category, the renaming of streets itself is
a social performance par excellence. Using the structuralist language of Arnold van Gennep
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and Victor Turner (van Gennep 2013; Turner 1991), Mariusz Czepczyňski has framed the postsocialist
transformation of cultural landscape in terms of liminality. The transition from one
political regime is a liminal experience, "characterized by ambiguity, openness and
indeterminacy" (Czepczyňski 2008:113), and this concerns the landscape as well. After a
disassociation from previously stable (self)understandings, the old is destabilized, reinterpreted,
de-contextualized, re-framed, experimentally tested - and sometimes destroyed
- so that something new can be built up before liminality gives way to routine again. Reuben
Rose-Redwood, in contrast, has developed a performative approach to toponymic change on
the Austinian notion of speech acts, in which toponymy presents a "performative practice that
produces a space of political utterances" (Rose-Redwood 2008b:890), in which perlocutions
of a naming authority may clash against popular resistance to an unfavored new name. In both
of these perspectives, the central analytical questions are: What does renaming do? What is
it meant and understood to be doing by the participating agents? How does it become
meaningful, how is it dramaturgically accomplished and what sort of action and reaction does
it elicit? As noted previously, the turn to performativity is not to substitute, but to deepen, the
understanding of toponymy facilitated by semiotic and critical perspectives. Departing from
the reading of Kosice's toponymy as a text, I consider both aspects of inequality and
performativity in search of a more complex interpretation of the way street names become
visible and meaningful in Košice.
A recent comprehensive review of the approaches assumed in toponymic studies by RoseRedwood,
Dwyer and Alderman converges in an urgent call to a diversification of method. To
reach a more complex understanding of the processes shaping toponymic landscapes and
their meanings, scholars should go beyond the traditional reliance on readings of maps and
engage in "archival research, participant observation, interviews, and ethnographic methods"
(Rose-Redwood et al. 2010:466). In resonance with this call, my case study combines diverse
kinds of material in an attempt to understand the dynamics of decision-making and,
potentially, of the contestation present in the process of post-socialist toponymic review
between 1990 and 1992. While the analysis of historical maps remains fundamental, I also
sought out and consulted archival materials related to the activity of the municipal (and later
district-based) Toponymic Commission found in the State Archive in Košice and the Košice
Municipal Archive. Unfortunately, due to the low degree of cataloging of such recent materials
in the local archives, I was only able to retrieve a fraction of the Toponymic Commission's
agenda which, nevertheless, provides telling insights into the developments and factors
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influencing the final results. Furthermore, I used printed and electronic research tools to
locate articles covering toponymy in the local press. Besides these written sources, I
conducted two interviews with witnesses of the toponymic change (one with the former
president of the Toponymic Commission, Jozef Kirst, another with the longstanding municipal
representative and former burgomaster in the central district of Košice, Ján Suli) and recorded
numerous ad-hoc exchanges on the topic with diverse interview partners in Košice. Finally,
some clarifying information, as well as interesting data concerning the meanings and salience
of street names for some of the more reflexive inhabitants, have been derived from localpatriotic
internet fora set up to primarily to share historical photographs, contextual
knowledge and opinions on heritage management in the city. Combining these sources, I
explore how past political domination and the related cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing
resonated in the way "historical justice" was constructed in various cases, phases and localities
of Kosice's post-socialist toponymic review.
My analysis unfolds along three different scopes. In the first section, I focus mostly on the
toponymic history and post-socialist "reconstruction" of the city center and select adjacent
areas. As is evident from the map in Figure 4, two larger segments were excluded - the area
west of Kuzmány Street (c5) and the area south of the municipal park (c23). Both of these
areas underwent demolition and a radical urbanist redesign in the 1970s, with most of their
toponyms forever disappearing from the map and while this is no doubt an interesting
analytical moment in itself, my focus is on the post-socialist revision. After dealing with the
city center, I widen the scope to discuss developments in less central boroughs, including but
not exclusively the vast socialist housing developments surrounding the "old town." In the
third movement, I focus on two squares located at the border of the medieval heritage zone
and discuss their meanings for minority-majority relations in the city.
To facilitate a true and engaged "reading" of the spatial dynamics of toponymic changes
in the studied area of the inner city, I have visualized the post-socialist toponymic changes in
two complementary maps - one highlighting the streets renamed after 1989 (Figure 4), the
other listing those left untouched by post-socialist renamings (Figure 5). Inspired by Michele
Tucci, Rocco Ronza and Alberto Giordano's visual analysis of the "toponymic tapestry" of
Milan (Tucci et al. 2011), the maps display the extent of post-socialist change and the historical
era of origin of current Košice street names. Throughout my analysis, select streets or squares
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are referenced by alpha-numeric codes to allow the reader to find the street's location. For
all streets in the studied area delimited on the map, changes as well as continuities can be
further studied in a synoptical table in Appendix 4.
The map is divided into four sectors with recognizably different codes - the medieval core (numeric codes), the
wider city center (codes starting with "c") and sectors "north" and "south" (codes starting with "n" and "s"
respectively). Within these sectors, streets are generally numbered from top left to bottom right.
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Period of origin for Kosice street names changed after the fall of communism (names with
pre-1989 continuity are shown in dark gray):
earlier name post-war Czechoslovakia (1946)
late Austro-Hungarian period (1912) socialist Czechoslovakia (1985)
^ ^ • C z e c h o s l o v a k i a (1938) H post-socialist (Czecho-)Slovakia (2015)
Figure 4. Streets renamed after 1989. (map)
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Period of origin for Kosice streets names unchanged after the fall of communism (streets
renamed after 1 9 8 9 are shown in dark gray):
earlier name post-war Czechoslovakia (1946)
^ ^ • l a t e Austro-Hunqarian period (1912) ^ ^ H s o c i a l i s t
Czechoslovakia (1985)
^ ^ • C z e c h o s l o v a k i a (1938) post-socialist (Czecho-)Slovakia (2015)
Figure 5. Streets, whose names remained unchanged after 1989. (map)
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Re-writing or un-writing? A short history of the progressive politicization of
Kosice's toponymy
Streets in pre-modern cities had generally borne descriptive names and it was only after
the discovery of their symbolic power by state-building nationalisms in the 19th century that
they became massively used as vehicles of ideology and identity building (David 2013). While
before the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867, the official toponymic languages in Košice
were German and Latin, the first post-compromise map from 1870 already shows two
commemorative street names: a side street named after Jánoš Hunyady, a 15th-century
military leader of the defensive campaign against the Turkish conquest, and an Eastern
tangent named, most likely, after the Kuruc field marshal Ferencz Barkóczi, a contemporary
of Ferenc Rákóczi II. In his research on public life in Košice in the late 19th century, Frank
Henschel observes that, throughout the final decades of the 19th century, the Košice
municipality faced the increasing pressure to undertake a "Magyarization" of public spaces
from both press and civic groupings with persistent reservation (Henschel 2013). Until 1911,
less than a dozen commemorative street names were introduced - including the revolutionary
Kossuth, the author of the Austro-Hungarian compromise Deák, the anti-Habsburg icons
Rákóczi and Bocskai and several local personalities, including the 19th-century mayor Imre
Darvas. Unprovoked by any specific impulse, the first larger wave of renaming took place in
1912 and, after 35 years of public criticism concerning the insufficiently national tenor of
Kosice's public space, shifted the primary scale of toponymic commemoration from the local
to the state level. After 1912, the number of streets commemorating personalities tripled to
32 in 1918 (Blicha 1986:200). Henschel notes that while in 1912, "personalities, that could not
be unambiguously categorized as 'Hungarian', were ignored despite their significance for the
spiritual life of the city" (Henschel 2013:394), there is no record of protests by representatives
of non-Hungarian ethnic groups against this symbolic marginalization. At the same time,
according to Henschel, the decades-long push towards a decisive "Magyarizing" fixation in
toponymy betrays the ambiguity of the city's contemporary ethno-national status (ibid.:395).
After the Czechoslovak forces finally secured power over Košice in 1919, the contested
regime change was symbolically affirmed by a strategic renaming of very limited scope. The
primary focus of the political reorientation, which affected less than 20 selected streets, was
on the main communication routes: along with both of the dethroned Habsburg dynasty
(represented by squares dedicated to Franz Joseph and Elisabeth [cl and c2]), central political
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icons associated with the colonial era of Hungarian state-building like Kossuth, Deák or Baross
were discarded. At the same time, the association of Košice with anti-Habsburg rebellions,
reflected in the parallel Rákóczi and Bethlen Boulevards (c5 and c6) and several other streets
of lesser significance, were left untouched. Hungarian poets (like Kazinczy, Vórósmarty and
Petófi) also remained respected, as well as several local historical figures like historical mayors
Darvas, Feja and the bishop and benefactor Bubics. The restraint with which this early
symbolic occupation of a hostile city was approached is illustrated by the example of two
streets cutting Main Street in half: while the one running west of the cathedral was named
after prime minister Vávro Šrobár (supplanting the first Hungarian prime minister after the
Austro-Hungarian compromise), the one to the east of it, formerly honoring the 1849
revolutionary prime minister Kossuth, returned to its historical name - Mill Street.
The approach changed in the second decade of Czechoslovak rule. After the census of 1930
reported just under 20 percent of Hungarian citizens (a result many consider fabricated still
today), Czechoslovak state power was inscribed into the toponymic system with decided
confidence. Just two years before the Trianon borders were revised in 1938, a set of early
Medieval Slav princes (including Mojmír, Rastislav and Svätopluk), recent political figures (like
Masaryk and Ruman) and Czech and Slovak nationalist figures (from the poets Holly and
Neruda, to the politician and journalist Štúr, to the lone female writer Šoltésová) populated
previously mostly apolitically named streets in the wider center. Besides this thickening of
symbolism, symptomatic of rising ethno-national tension in the local and international
context, the renaming also brought a gesture of political violence: Main Street, defended from
an honorary renaming throughout the late Hungarian era, was named after the general and
co-founder of Czechoslovakia Milan Rastislav Štefánik. To give such honor to a man whose
1929 representative statue already recoded the former area of the Honvéd memorial (toppled
in 1919 by members of the Czechoslovak legions that Štefánik himself had created) but who
had never even visited Košice, was an act of violation that offended both Hungarian
nationalism sore from the division of Trianon, and local sentiments often more reserved to
nationalizing tendencies.
The re-joining of Košice with the Hungarian Kingdom brought a virtually complete
obliteration of Czechoslovak toponymic increments. Yet, though portrayed as a return, 1938
only rarely meant a revival of the short-lived 1912 street names: with the notable exception
of the one named after the local historian Blanár (s21) and two newly built streets with
descriptive names, Czechoslovak era names were exchanged for commemorative toponyms,
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leading to further politicization. While two of the most central icons of 19th-century
Hungarian state-building, Lajos Kossuth and Gabor Baross, returned to their prominent
positions, a host of descriptive names were discarded in favor of up-to-date commemorative
names - including several traditional names like Barracks (newly Mussolini) Square or Jesuit
and Bell Streets (newly commemorating Rakoczi's wife Zsófia Báthori and Martin Luther
respectively). The Habsburg royal couple, displaced from the two squares at either end of
Main Street by the Czech reformer Jan Hus5 0
and the Czechoslovak Legionaries, were not
restored; instead, more Hungarian royal figures were evoked by the historical Transylvanian
voivod and Polish king István Báthory and the currently ruling regent Miklós Horthy.
In line with the international legal annulment of the 1938 Munich and Vienna conferences
that bolstered the post-war reconstruction of Czechoslovakia, all Hungarian additions to the
toponymic memory index were automatically discarded in 1945. The clean-up, however, went
further. Parallel to the planned ethnic cleansing of the redeemed republic of disloyal German
and Hungarian minorities, all remaining elements of Hungarian cultural and political heritage
were systematically removed. Wiped out were all Kuruc leaders (Rákóczi, Bethlen, Thokoli and
Bercsényi), church figures (St. Ladislaus), as well as artists (Jókai, Petofi and even the Košice
baroque composer Tinódy). The replacements were commemorative dedications of three
kinds: besides an increased density and centrality for Slovak political and cultural icons (many
of which were appended with information tablets proclaiming the honored person's merits
forthe nation), the city administration honored military and political leaders of Czechoslovakia
and the Allied countries and, symptomatic of the changed geopolitical orientation, Russian
artists. The cornerstones of Hungarian state mythology Rákóczi and Bethlen were replaced
with the cornerstones of Slovak 19th-century revivalism Štefan Moyzes and Karol Kuzmány
(c5 and c6);5 1
the Hungarian military heroes Hunyady and Barkóczy were replaced with
representatives of the Allied forces Rodion Malinovsky and Winston Churchill (cl2 and c30);
the poet Kazinczy and the composer Liszt made room for Pushkin and Tchaikovsky (c26 and
4 9
With 44 percent of streets named after a personality, the degree of politicization of toponymy had been
already high in Košice in 1919 (compared to 22 percent in Bardejov or 33 percent in Prešov). After the Hungarian
toponymic revision following the return of Kassa to Hungary in 1938, this share rose to 71 percent (Blicha 1986).
5 0
Recoding the "Czech" Hus Square (commemorating the 15th-century reformer and Czech national martyr Jan
Hus) into the "Slovak" Hlinka Square (honoring Anton Hlinka, a recently deceased Roman Catholic priest and a
leading Slovak autonomist politician) was the only toponymic change brought about in the three weeks of 1938
Slovak autonomist rule in Košice.
5 1
The former a Roman-Catholic bishop, the latter a Lutheran superintendent, these two men were the founding
fathers of the short-lived Slovak cultural organization Matica Slovenská, whose closing by the centralizing
Hungarian authorities in 1875 became a symbol of the Hungarian denial of ethnic minority rights in an era cast
as a central cultural trauma of Slovak nationalism.
133
c27). Interestingly, already at this stage, two peripheral streets were dedicated to Karl Marx
and to the Czechoslovak communist leader, later the first communist president of the country,
Klement Gottwald.
Image 14. While the new toponymic order was likely a project largely dictated by the occupying "foreign" power,
this picture of soldiers in Hungarian uniforms posing with dismounted name-plates (probably in November 1938)
captures a moment of the Hungarian triumph over the Trianon arrangement. The photograph, published in a
local-patriotic Facebook group, was framed by one discussant as displaying Hungarian "spoils of war," only to be
seconded by an alternative vision stressing local vs. non-local agents: "It could have easily been Košice soldiers
living on those streets..." Source: Facebook group "Kaschau Kassa Košice * fotografie starých Košíc * staré
fotografie Košíc."5 2
Over the four decades of socialist management, the ideological exploitation of the city's
symbolic resources only deepened. Within the first year, a handful of strategic renamings took
place: to start, the northern half of the axial Štefánik street became Lenin street, the
representative Legionaries square came to honor the Liberators (whose contingent had been
buried there and celebrated by a memorial unveiled in June 1945) and Churchill gave way to
the leading SlovakCommunist and laterprime minister Viliam Široký. Presidents of democratic
Czechoslovakia Masaryk and Beneš were superseded by Marx and the city of Stalingrad, and
the first Czechoslovak minister of economy Alois Rašín was displaced from his representative
Available at: https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xapl/t31.0-
8/10862485 10203386354003123 6927661459142729532 o.jpg; accessed on October 31, 2017.
134
location (c22) by the current president Gottwald. It was not long, however, before the city
administration needed to do away with unwanted heritage of communism itself. After Stalinist
crimes and the "cult of personality" were denounced in 1956, Stalin Square (el) was "quietly
renamed" Peace Marathon Square (Podhorská 2007), Stalin's minister of foreign affairs
Vyacheslav Molotov was discarded for the local communist martyr Ján Bačík and the Stalinist
Czechoslovak prime minister Viliam Široký for "Antifascist fighters."
Besides the increasing politicization of Košice's toponymic landscape, the communist era
brought into commemorative toponymy a shifted politics of scale. Local heritage references
were only introduced if they helped underpin communist heritage in Košice: the Košice
communist martyrs Zoltán Schónherz and Ján Bačík, and even the later rededication of
Stalingrad Street to Marshall Petrov, the commander of the army that liberated Košice,
exemplify this tendency. Most other additions were, however, either of national or
international (often Soviet) provenience and to their installment, an array of old descriptive
street names were sacrificed. Before 1965, traditional names like Water Street, Butcher Street
or Barracks Square were disposed of to make room for the futurist author Mayakovsky,
Bolshevik Sverdlov and one of the leaders of the Slovak National Uprising (respectively). The
fact that, in little over a decade, the latter was soon renamed again to commemorate the
Congolese de-colonization leader Patrice Lumumba, assassinated in 1961, speaks of the
flexibility with which toponymy was understood as a symbolic resource to exploit in the first
two decades of communist rule. Starting with the massive housing construction of 1960,
ideological demands regarding toponymic landscaping were mostly satisfied outside of the
inner city, and even here, according to its former longstanding member Jozef Kirst, the
Toponymic Commission (TC) had had some leverage in preventing technically or conceptually
unsound proposals.5 3
Besides the systematic removal of references to democratic politics, communist city
administration also erased references to religion. Soon after the suppression of church
autonomy and the persecution of their elites in the early 1950s, all four street names referring
to Roman Catholic religious orders were abolished. Yet while Dominican Square and Nun
Street were named after the Bulgarian communist Dimitrov and the martyred communist
journalist Urx respectively, two other Roman Catholic orders - the Franciscan and Jesuit - were
To illustrate the absurdity of party directives and the professional standards applied by the TC, Kirst told a story
how, despite considerable pressure, the naming of a new street after Pchyongyang was rejected after Kirst asked
the present party representative to pronounce "Pchjongjangska" correctly three times in a row.
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Ĺ I C H A R D O M A
ULICA
mKmmimm-xmimit
mHAHMSlOVÍHSKŕSPISOmi
Images 15 and 16. Information tablets complementing post-war commemorative toponymic interventions with
explanatory notes enlightening the public. Presenting a presently marginal figure in the Slovak literary canon, the
old auxiliary tablet above states "Daniel Lichard (1812-1882), writer and revivalist." In the other image, the new
tablet - a rare installment by an unknown party, perhaps in replacement for a lost older one - affirms the
significance of the well-known "important Slovak writer" Martin Kukučín.5 4
replaced by leftist Hungarian poets Jozef Attila and Endre Ady. The marking of these central,
albeit insignificant, streets in a city just recently cleansed of all Hungarian heritage, with names
of "leftist" Hungarian poets is only explicable as a favorable gesture towards the local
Hungarian population, copying the gradual reestablishment of minority cultural life. There was
one exception to the otherwise systematic "atheization": Calvin Square (16). Remaining in
place until late 1960s, its name was exchanged for a variation of an earlier medieval name and
recast as the Street at Miklus's Prison, reflecting the popular name of the former municipal
penitentiary that, at that time already, housed an exhibition curated by the East Slovak
Museum. While it remains unclear if Calvin was originally spared due to the anti-Catholic
thrust of his reformation or some other reason, this exchange of a commemorative name for
a depersonalized reference to medieval heritage was, according to Jozef Kirst, an early herald
of the sanitizing principle implemented on a much larger scale after 1989. Though this may
Available at http://s4.postimg.org/fx4s2etl9/lichardova.ipg
http://s3.postimg.org/yrikOaxsz/kukucinova.ipg respectively; both retrieved on July 7, 2015.
and
136
well be an early application of such rule, the decision to include in the name the mythological
figure of Rakoczi's executioner Mikluš also makes it an imperfect one, for it was through
Mikus's shadow that Calvin returned to haunt the post-socialist toponymic arrangement when
all thought this to be a closed chapter.
Breaking with unfavorable pasts: Post-socialist toponymic revision and its
discontents
After the peaceful revolution of 1989, the spirit of stock-taking of public ideological
symbols was in the air from the very start. Within weeks of November 1989, the statue of
Gottwald adorning the symbolic center of the town was wrapped in black plastic foil, the
hammers and sickles were removed from the Memorial of the Liberators and even the
monumental bronze Lenin, just recently unveiled in front of the party headquarters, was
deported to a museum depository in the southern borough Šaca - threateningly close to the
furnaces of the East Slovak Steelworks. While name-plates could be - and some, indeed, were
- ritually removed (like the "Gottwald" one, unmounted from St. Urban's Tower by the local
artist and pronounced anti-communist Peter Kalmus in Image 17.), the actual change of
ideologically dated street names involved considerably more administrative preparation than
banishing of statues from public sight. City maps from the final years of the socialist era reveal
a landscape dominated by political figures. Since the turn of the 20th century, several streets
have had five or more different names, a fact that, according to an early document of the
toponymic review, called for "immense political prudence."5 5
Besides an understandable
geopolitical reorientation from Soviet to Western symbols and a rehabilitation of proscribed
personalities, the renaming was understood as an opportunity for immunization of the local
toponymic system, especially of the "heritage" zone, against future swings in political moods.
Thus, management of conflicting expectations and careful projection of an ideologically
balanced collective representation was a task the toponymic authority consciously assumed.
The traditional coordinating and advisory body for naming matters - the Toponymic
Commission - has, according to its long-standing member and chair Jozef Kirst, always
exercised informal authority over the management of toponymy. Though lacking the legal
power to enforce its vision, its advice was generally respected before 1989 and after.
Kosice Municipal Archive (AMK), records of the Kosice Municipal National Committee (NVMK), Protocol from
session on May 7,1990, resolution Nr. 802, page 2.
137
Composed of historians, archivists and other representatives of the local cultural
establishment, its task was to oversee the continuous production of a technically, ideologically
and aesthetically coherent toponymic system. While its composition and style of work
remained more or less unchanged after 1989 - with the important exception of the cooptation
of the hitherto marginalized local historian Michal Potemra - the post-socialist decentralization
of public governance in 1990-1991 brought a brief, yet significant, disruption in this continuity.
Having functioned as a regional (district) body for decades, the TC found itself in an
organizational and competence vacuum after state-wide governance reform separated state
and public administration in early 1991 and the naming rights were thus transferred to the 27
Kosice municipal boroughs and only resumed activity at the end of the year. In the liminal
period of reassessment of public symbolism, the relatively short hiatus in the TC's activity was
enough for the boroughs to "mess up completely" (Kirst) what could otherwise be a consistent
and thorough stock-taking.
The post-socialist toponymic review in Kosice had two distinct phases, each of which
followed different guiding principles and faced unique organizational challenges. Focused on
purification of the central heritage zone, the first one had primarily "restorative" logic, experts
(namely Kirst and Potemra, according to the former's testimony) in leading roles and was
implemented after the state-wide moratorium on changes of place names related to the June
1990 parliamentary elections was over. In the second phase, which focused on the rest of the
city and had been mostly finished before the split of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the
commission's role was a more reactive one, consisting primarily of critical commentary and
alternative propositions to the proposals sent in by the local administrations of individual
boroughs. While the scheduling had been slowed down by further moratoria related to local
elections in November 1990 and a national census in March 1991, the process became stalled
after the disassembling of the district office in early 1991. Without organizational backing, the
agenda was left without a coordinating body for nearly a year before the four newly
established city circuits arranged for the commission to resume activity in late 1991. While
some boroughs (for example Kosice-West) waited, albeit impatiently, for an assessment of
their suggestions, the central borough used this phase of toponymic anarchy to implement
some "aesthetic" modifications to the recently established historical toponymy of the city core
- changes that the commission would never again have the leverage to reverse. In the following
sections, I analyze the general trends, the emblematic cases and the ideological conflicts
present in the two phases of toponymic review in order to outline this early stage of post-
138
socialist politics of memory in Kosice. As I survey the hardships and outcomes of heritage
management, the process of decommunization and the representation of minorities in
toponymy, I seek to address the question: What sorts of imagined communities are erased
from and inscribed into the map and at which level of governance?
Local-patriotic forum at Skyscrapercity. com; available at
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=577442&page=194; accessed ono October 31, 2017
139
Sanitizing the medieval district (Phase One)
In the first months of democratic transformation, the purification of the medieval urban
core became a priority. The historical district, virtually demarcated by a fortification system
demolished in the first half of 19th century, was declared a national architectural heritage
reservation in 1983.5 7
The restoration of its toponymic layer was understood as a way of both
enhancing its heritage value and protecting its street names from future ideological reshaping.
At the same time, the restoration of historical names did not aim at any historical
names: it meant a journey back to the period before the nationalizing redesigns of late 19th
century. To circumvent potentially explosive debates about the restoration of particular
versions of ideological paint, the symbolic heart of the city was to be purified of all political
references, persons were to be evacuated and "original names" were to resume their place,
creating thus a neutral ground for a more stable future of a multi-ethnic city. In clarifying the
general approach to the review of the Kosice medieval core, Kirst related that "it was clear
upfront, (...) that everyone will be dissatisfied - yet no one will be able to open their mouth.
This was the criterion."
While it is not true of most city-texts, the Kosice subchapter written in this first phase did
have a distinct, central author. With their eyes focused on producing a "a self-contained block
without a flaw" (Kirst) that would subsequently be legally protected as part and parcel of the
reservation's heritage value, the president of the TC Jozef Kirst and the recently drafted
historian Michal Potemra wished to cleanse the medieval district of all non-original toponymic
sediments. The documentation and restoration concept had, according to Kirst, been lying in
the "drawer" ready since the mid-1980s, and although contemporary local press suggests that
public consultations of toponymic alterations took place in the first revolutionary months,5 8
Kirst says these were only instances of post-revolutionary participatory folklore; the concept
was authored exclusively by the TC's leadership. The intention to "throw out" of the center all
personalities regardless of their direct connection to ideologies was expectably unpopular, but
Kirst recalls there was no bias:
This is a surprisingly late date considering both the size and the architectural riches of the city. With eight
mostly medieval towns across the Slovak part of the CSSR given legal protection status (including the nearby
Prešov) in 1950 and three others before 1983, Košice was obviously not a priority case for national heritage
protection.
58
One invitation to such an event was published in the local daily Košický večer under the title "We are having a
dialogue about street names: City center first" ("Vedieme dialóg o názvoch ulíc. Najprv o centre.") on January
16,1990.
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In the center, when you look at it, Krasko was thrown out, replaced by Side
[Street]. Attila Jozsef was thrown out, Ady Endre was thrown out - this, for
example, which was to an extent accepted as Hungarian - but bear in mind these
were little streets in the center, which didn't have any address either, mere
passageways - (still) many, many people felt offended.
Because on the sacred ground of local history ethnocultural partisanship of any sort was
unacceptable, the departing communists Lenin, Dimitrov and Šverma were joined by Slovak,
Hungarian and Russian literary figures like Krasko, Ady and Dostoyevsky, whose names thus
disappeared from the city-text completely. At the same time, a return of Czechoslovak icons
was prevented, too. The prominent interwar Slovak politician Vavro Šrobár (who had
incidentally belonged to the more radical advocates of the post-war expulsion of Hungarians
(Šutaj 2005)) was "not let into city walls" (Kirst) After the renaming of the street's inner-city
section, Šrobár Street was reduced to a stub.5 9
In addition, despite their location outside of
the fortification, streets celebrating the Stalinist president Gottwald and Stalin's main
ideologue of socialist culture Zhdanov were both included in this first phase of renaming. The
latter street, leading up to the House of Arts, was named after the local composer Grešák, the
former came to honor Milan Rastislav Štefánik, whose return to Kosice's Main Street
(symptomatic of the 1936 and 1945 reaffirmations of Czechoslovak presence in Košice) was
not desirable.
Despite its strong appeal, the restoration concept was never implemented in its full form.
This was, firstly, due to several deliberate diversions and exceptions on the part of the
reviewers. The central Freedom Square, originally located north of the cathedral and only later
moved south of it in the 1930s, was left untouched, left in place because of its politically
inoffensive and "passive" character (Kirst). In the viewfinder were those streets and spaces
that had some orientation function or administrative presence in addresses. Introduced in the
1960s instead of the 1912 name Calvin Square, the alleged personal reference to a 17thcentury
torturer in the Street at Mikluš's Prison was left in place - perhaps as an element of
local folklore. The most telling violation of the purist principle, however, is the neighboring
University Street. While part of Prison Street until the early 18th century, the narrow street
linking Blacksmith and Main Streets became Jesuit Street (Duchoň 1996). Rather than bring
Though, this stub is certainly not devoid of impact as it houses a reputed secondary school, as well as the
headquarters of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University.
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back the actual medieval name or restore the later historical descriptive one, Kirst and Potemra
engaged in "intellectual play" (Kirst) and compromised their vision, as well as confessional
loyalties, for a higher purpose:
As a Catholic - a fervent Catholic - [Potemra] was willing to accept that it will not
be Jesuit [Street] but that it will be called University [Street]. (...) The basic idea
was embraced that there can be scores of Jesuit Streets in Slovakia, because
Jesuits were stationed in multiple cities. However, we did NOT have universities
(...).
Despite the predictable criticism from Roman Catholic circles, of which both men were a part,
the fact that Košice (unlike most other cities in present-day Slovakia) had had a university as
early as the 17th century was considered a "heavier weight" (Kirst) than the original
confessional heritage.6 0
Though these three cases may question the "restorative" effort, the
more important underlying criteria of local relevance and of national non-partisanship were
observed in all of them.
The second kind of compromise imposed on the sanitization qua restoration effort
occurred due to an unsuccessful (or, potentially, insufficient) justification of this heritage
engineering to the recently revived "demos." In the case of Post Street (12), the TC pushed for
the return of the historical name "Brewery" but clashed against public criticism calling for a
reestablishment of the name "Poštová." The fact that this descriptive name, officially used
from 1905 until perhaps the beginning of the 1930s, survived commemorative dedications to
the local consolidator of Czechoslovak rule and first Slovak president of the county of Košice
Ján Ruman, the war-time Hungarian prime minister Pál Teleki and the early Czech Communist
politician Bohumír Šmeral, only to resurface six decades later as the "original name," shows
the kind of tacit resistance urbanites can deliver faced with the whims of political elites. The
argument that the post office - a much older one than the Czechoslovak functionalist one
overseeing the western end of the street since 1928 - used to be located on the corner just
beyond the medieval city walls, was of little help to the TC's cause: local representatives voted
in favor of a renaming to Post Street in May 1992. Even more interesting, however, was the
case of "Hnilná" - Rotten Street. This major urban axis cutting into Main Street at the very gate
of St. Elisabeth's Cathedral, had had a commemorative name since 1905 and neither its
Though, in a way, Jesuits were also honored by the commemoration of the university that they had founded
in 1657, the reference was implicit at best.
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medieval German name Faulgass (meaning foul, rotting, stench-filled street), nor the 19thcentury
Hungarian transposition thereof - Forgács (splinter, shaving, sliver) - ever had a
functioning Slovak equivalent. The TC thus proposed an evocative translation "Hnilná" - Rotten
- in line with the theory that the street was, indeed, an open sewer in the Middle Ages. The
first objections were raised by the municipal national committee even before the change took
effect,6 1
and after it did, it expressed decided aversion. Recalling both of the problematic cases,
the long-standing local politician and later president of the central borough Ján Suli said:
The people did not want Brewery street. They said, "The brewery is no longer here;
why Brewery street Rotten? Yuck! Why is it Rotten? It used to be Rotten, right,
because they dumped garbage there and that rotted there. But it was never
Rotten, it is just a translation of Faulgass; that was a German name."
Alleged feelings of uneasiness on the part of the inhabitants moved the borough to reverse
the change in July 1991 (after the naming competence was briefly moved from the regional to
the local level and the TC left without institutional backing), and later renamed to the current
Elisabeth Street in February 1992. While as Štefan Eliáš, a local historian and heritage activist
has noted, this reference to Saint Elisabeth, the patron of the Cathedral, is a formal faux pas
since saints' names could traditionally only appear in toponymy indirectly through names of
religious orders (Eliáš 1998), the name was decidedly more popular and became a symbol of
the ruin that befell the project of toponymic medievalization in the unstable times of early
democratization.
Negotiating the limits of de-communization (Phase Two)
The second phase of post-socialist renaming in Košice, in which most of the city's
toponymic web was reviewed, was shaped by the reorganization of naming competences,
which the 1991 administrative reform handed over to the boroughs' representative bodies.
Though consultation concerning toponymic changes with the TC was obligatory, local
ideological priorities, as well as the willingness to comply with the TC's suggestions, varied and
so did, in the end, the results of the review. The nearly 400 new streets built in the rapidly
growing Košice between 1945 and 1989 constituted a massive demand for new street names.
Still, despite the local historian of toponymy Michal Blicha's claim that ideological and cultural
See "Návrat do historie. Schválili nové názvy ulíc." Košický večer, July 7,1990.
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sources of inspiration were privileged in the naming practices, the degree of ideological
exploitation among toponyms in most of the new housing projects was rather low. While some
boroughs overtook the initiative and organized consultations over street-name changes with
the public (for example, the borough Košice-South), a few of them ignored the agenda
altogether,6 3
creating thus the sense of an unfinished, untidy state. What were some of the
characteristic tasks and dilemmas of the de-communization of toponyms in the "second
phase"?
In the parts of town built before the Second World War, the communist efforts to mark the
ideological shift left significantly more marks than in the newest quarters. In 1990, boroughs
in the inner city and pre-war settlements produced lists of Soviet ideologues and military
leaders, Czechoslovak communist politicians, writers and martyrs and, occasionally, a historical
event like the "February victory" that were to be forgotten. In the newly built housing districts,
the irritable was often more subtle. In the newest tahanovce housing project, still under
construction in 1992, the foreseen toponyms were mostly inspired by geography, with only
three major boulevards bearing ideologically loaded "virtues" - Fellowship, Friendship and
Solidarity. While to match the overall character of the project, these were renamed after
continents (Europe, Asia, America), the street names based on cities in the former Soviet bloc
were selectively renamed: while Bucharest, Berlin and Belgrade, as well as, curiously, Havana,
Hanoi and Beijing were retained, a set of names derived from Soviet nations (Estonian,
Turkmen and Kazakh) were exchanged for European cities (Helsinki, Madrid and Sofia)
articulating the geopolitical shift away from the influence of the USSR. While a similar purge
of Soviet geography (including Kyiev and Volgograd) took place in Košická Nová Ves, the Soviet
lakes (Azov, Yenisei and Ladoga) defining a significant share of toponymy in the South-Eastern
housing project "At the Lake" ("Nad Jazerom") was kept intact - as were names evoking the
space program (Galaxy, Gagarin, etc.). The abandoning of two such names - Bajkal and
Astronaut Streets - was rather motivated by the streets' enormous length, which made
orientation among the scattered newly built apartment blocks difficult. Unlike in Tahanovce,
the replacement names did not follow the "lake-or-space" logic and introduced a third
concept: place names evoking the East Slovak region (like Levoča or Čingov). It could be argued
6 2
Among these sources were progressive traditions, the communist and working-class movements, socialist
patriotism and liberation. (Blicha 1986)
6 3
The correspondence of the TC with tl
archive box made available to me at the State Regional Archive in Kosice.
6 3
The correspondence of the TC with the boroughs, referenced in this chapter, was found in an uncatalogued
144
that this reinforced a regional identification at the cost of outdated Soviet imports, or that
facilitating a better user orientation among the "inhumane" socialist concrete blocks, was a
kind of political statement in its own right. Based on the newspaper coverage these changes
received, the dominant motivation for changes in At the Lake was practical (Anon 1990a).
Though de-communization was the order of the day, the criteria for distinguishing the
unacceptable from the harmless were mostly intuitive. Even in dealing with one of the
seemingly more straightforward topics - the military cult of the Soviet army - the
administrations faced the challenge of separating ideological exploitation and the memory of
oppression from historical merit. For the borough Kosice-South, for example, perhaps the most
problematic item on a relatively short list of names to address was Liberators Square. A major
traffic intersection, the location on one hand of the memorial to the liberating Soviet army,
and a site of violence in the Soviet invasion of 1968, its future spurred heated debate in the
three public consultations organized by the borough in February 1992. While each of these
favored a different solution - a return to Legionaries Square, a renaming to Main Square or
retaining Liberators' Square - and while the TC favored the first option, this name (unlike the
rest on the borough's list) remained unchanged. Reframing rather than rewriting was likely
prioritized; despite the grim association of the Red Army with the 1968 occupation, a decommemoration
of the city's 1945 liberators would, as one citizen pointed out in the meeting,
be an offense to the soldiers who fought for it. In the borough Kosice-North, a major traffic
vein, formerly honoring Dukla Heroes (commemorating the Carpathian mountain battle in
which the Soviet Army broke through the German defense and commenced the liberation of
Slovakia), was renamed after the interbellum Slovak autonomist and Roman Catholic priest
Andrej Hlinka. At the same time, the adjacent Park of Dukla Heroes, which the TC had
suggested to be renamed the Park of Fathers (complementary to another new arrival nearby,
the Park of Mothers) was not erased but strategically reframed. The final solution, the Park of
Dukla Victims, as the TC's response to the local communists' 1995 request that the park's name
be restored shows, was a compromise that chose reframing instead of erasure: rather than
obliterating the event from the memoryscape, the ideologically sensitive heroism was
exchanged for a reference to individual sacrifice of the more than 20,000 fallen soldiers. If local
toponymic language had been infused with the memory of the liberating heroes, however,
neither the small square in the borough Kosice-North, nor the neighboring road were
145
responsible for it; the concrete block housing project named after the heroes of Dargov was.
Incidentally, it was this borough, whose name recalled the heavy battle preceding Košice's
January 1945 liberation, that became a symbol of the toponymic review's failure.
As already noted, some boroughs chose an active approach. In the oldest large-scale
socialist development Terasa (officially called Košice-West), the leadership actively pressed the
TCin 1991 for a response that would allow completion of the stalled naming process, referring
to citizen's complaints. That same leadership later vehemently opposed the TC's
recommendation that two of the names it decided to replace (one named after the socialist
association for cooperation of civilians and the army "Zväzarm," the other after the communist
martyr Gábor Steiner) be left in place. Keeping Steiner was in conflict with "the principle not
to name streets after persons, especially not after such persons, whose contribution for the
nation has not been evaluated by historians and is not generally known" and "Zväzarmovská"
was a case of the military names that "are to be re-named." In contrast, the new borough
Košice Government Program Development ("Sídlisko Košického vládneho program,"
colloquially abbreviated as KVP6 5
), whose toponymy was composed of partner cities and local
personalities, first submitted a list of four names to dispose of; after getting several more in
response from the TC, along with a bid to change the tongue-twisting name to Dubina
(Oakwood), the local council voted in February 1992 to drop the matter entirely.
If the main problem of the KVP was the name of the borough, this was the least pressing
problem in the Dargov Heroes borough ("Sídlisko Dargovských hrdinov"). Built in the 1970s on
the slopes east of the old town, nearly all its streets have an explicit ideological message.
Boasting names of Stalinist Czechoslovak politicians (dementis, Benada and Maurer), antifascist
military heroes (Konyev and Jaroš) or World War II geography (Kursk, Yalta and Lidice),
the ensemble is, in Kirst's words "stupid but consistent" and could be dealt with in a minimalist
fashion so that the general concept remained intact. Ironically, the borough never submitted
their list of proposed changes to the TC and, in line with the popular disregard for the clunky
commemorative name of the borough, the local council voted the vernacular name "Furča"
(after the hill the project was built on) to become official. Although the contemporary
administration went ahead to order new stamps and header paper (as is evident from the
The battle of the Dargov mountain pass, taking place between early December 1944 and early January 1945,
was the decisive battle, whose victory opened the way for the Red Army to liberate Kosice on January 19,1945.
6 5
The name is routinely used in the abbreviated form "kavepe" or "Kavepecko," and daily users often do not
recognize the original meaning of the name. According to Kirst, the dysfunctionality of the complicated name
was contested in the TC at the time of its introduction, but the pressure of the party was too strong to resist.
146
letter announcing this change to the TC), the change never became legal - such renaming
would, indeed, have to be approved by the state. The selective approach to ideological
purification of the socialist-construction's toponymy has been observed by several authors and
related to the lack of preexisting names, low public awareness of street-name meanings or the
reluctance of leftists in local leadership (Czepczyňski 2008; Light 2004; David 2013). The local
historian and native of "Furča," Ondrej Ficeri, opined (in personal communication) that it was
precisely the fear that opening the issue of street names would destabilize the ideological
name of the borough that caused the inaction of the last-mentioned boroughs. If this perhaps
applies to the KVP, the case of Dargov Heroes raises doubt; the change of the borough would
likely have been welcome. A logical, albeit speculative, explanation might be that local
decision-making dynamics did prefer or allow this topic to assert itself before the second phase
of renaming in Kosice was over. If the need to exchange obsolete commemorative names in
1991 was a matter of shared common-place understanding of "the times," the sabotaging of
this process by two boroughs amounts to a defiance of this grammar and a deliberate or
inadvertent shift to a liberal grammar, facilitated by the unique circumstances of newly
allocated competence and the temporary unavailability of the higher professional authority of
theTC.
In the continuously updated Microsoft Excel table listing all Kosice streets, maintained by
another member of the Commission, Karol Lokša, who was kind enough to share it with me,
the names deemed "inappropriate" because of their communist overtones are still highlighted
in red. Despite repeated, almost ritual, lamentations of local intellectuals over the communist
toponymic relicts left in the Dargov Heroes Project and elsewhere, the kind of large-scale
toponymic change their eradication would require seems virtually impossible today. In
answering the question of why this is so, I spontaneously think of one suggestion recorded in
the minutes from a public consultation in the borough Košice-South: one of the citizens
present voiced the opinion, that instead of pointless expenditure on trivialities like street
names, the money should be channeled into the much-needed and unsatisfactory
maintenance of the sidewalks. In 1990 or 1992, considerable ideological-aesthetic
interventions into daily lives were possible thanks to a general consensus that, besides raking
off leaves and shoveling snow, the reestablishing of a functional political culture and an
elementary sense of justice required a clean-up of the symbolic mess. Two decades later, the
shared awareness of a liminal phase in the management of the cultural landscape - an
experience of common-place logic self-explanatory there and then - is gone; the grammar of
147
justification now dominates the game. Considering the low valence of principled civic
arguments (based on the crimes of the commemorated persons) as well as the domestic
authority of heritage institutions in a non-revolutionary situation, it seems that, in all
likelihood, the remaining two dozen Stalinist military icons and communist underground
martyrs are there to stay.
Localizing identities: Nation, minorities and local heritage in street names after
1989
The previous review of the ideological sanitization of the medieval city's toponymy and the
attempted but incomplete de-communization of street names in the rest of the town focused
on the displacement - but what about emplacement? Speaking of solidarity, how was the
memory of past ethnic conflict reflected in this complex act of heritage rebuilding? As I have
noted, several Hungarian communist politicians or poets disappeared. Were they replaced by
references to the Hungarian past in Košice or to the representatives of the Hungarian minority?
What about the other, more marginal, minorities? Were they represented in any way? How
did the democratized authorities deal with the multiple past layers of nation-building gloss
while doing justice to the city's multicultural heritage?
To ask these kinds of questions may sound somewhat detached, unreflective of the
academic, theoretical perspective through which I read my data. However, it was not I who
introduced the idea of representing multi-ethnicity into the picture - it was Jozef Kirst. Beyond
the neutralized heritage zone, he said, the toponymic commission advanced a diversityconscious
approach:
It was agreed that Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans will be saturated. Catholics,
Lutherans, Calvinists will be saturated... and so everyone got something - but
behold, not directly, not in the center, not within the city walls (...) so everyone
could subsequently be dissatisfied... and at the same time they couldn't say
anything because every one of them got something.
Letting every ethnic or confessional mnemonic community "get something" and representing
their different mnemonic canons was, according to Kirst, a conscious strategy of active defense
against conflict. The result of the renaming, however, does not display any sort of balanced
representation - neither symbolic, nor arithmetic. Despite mentioning the Germans in the
equation, Kirst confirms my impression that German presence is not felt in the toponymic
148
landscape, which he explains by the lack of German personalities equivalent in significance
and scope to the Slovak or Hungarian ones already used. When inspecting the map for
Hungarian names, half of the streets in the central area (designated on the map as the "wider
city center") have commemorative names associated with the Slovak (or Czechoslovak)
national canon and none with the Hungarian minority.6 6
Similarly, not a single street draws
attention to the lost Jewish heritage. (Despite the fact that almost 20 percent of the city was
Jewish before 1944, the only street name related to the Jewish presence - Prayer Street, which
once led from the city center to the Neologue Synagogue - was not returned to its pre-socialist
location and instead dedicated to the memory of musical composer Jozef Grešák.)6 7
In the
context of the synagogue's repurposing and reconstruction into the municipal House of Arts,
this toponymic erasure just a block away from the medieval toponymic heritage reservation
gives the impression, however unwanted, of deepening the invisibilization of past Jewish life
in Košice.
While the failure to return a traditional descriptive name in favor of a thematic
commemorative one with little regional resonance may reflect another moment of TC's
"intellectual amusement," the temperance on the part of the TC in creating potentially divisive
names two years after the regime change is understandable. While, as already noted, the
extent of necessary change varied across the 27 boroughs, it was precisely here that
opportunities for the representation of minorities - or of the Slovak majority - could be more
effectively raised, especially after the temporary disappearance of the TC from the scene in
1991. In Košice-North, several new toponymic commemorations of local or national Slovak
personalities of local or national relevance (like the bookseller Julius Kustra, Bishop Jozef
Cársky and the revivalist Ján Straka, all of them associated with the national cultural
organization Matica Slovenská in Košice) presented a second wave of "Slovakization." The
national sentiment present in such namings is illustrated by the rationale provided by the local
representative body for naming a street after Seton W. Watson:
"[Seton Watson] was an English journalist, who visited Austria-Hungary before
World War I and was the first one in the Western press to describe that there is a
Mainly owing to the TC's emphasis on continuity, yet still significant in this sort of comparison, two streets in
this area honor Russian art icons and one a U.S. president. There are only five "Hungarian" names in the studied
area altogether - three of them named after 20th-century Hungarian-speaking, Kosice-born painters, one after a
16th-century Protestant pastor and one after a Hungarian noble family.
6 7
The thematic and regional rationale notwithstanding, Rovinsky, an advocate for Holocaust commemoration in
Kosice, remains upset that the traditional local toponym was let go in favor of "an organist from Bardejov."
149
small pestered nation living under the Tatra mountains, a nation no one knows
about. He thereby apparently contributed to the creation of the first Czechoslovak
republic.6 8
Despite the commission's technical objection that such a foreign name would never be
pronounced properly in daily spoken practice, the name was implemented. In the same
borough, the desire to underline the presence of the Technical University by celebrating the
local "educational heritage" in street names brought to the map not just the Slovak
mathematician Juraj Hronec - but also József Szakkay, the founder of the technical secondary
school, and Benedikt Kisdy, a 17th-century bishop and the founder of Košice University. As one
of the contemporary representatives, proponent of these names and current president of the
Henszlmann Society Juraj Halász recalled, the Hungarian-sounding name had irritated some of
the residents, who had gathered some 100 signatures on a petition against the "Hungarian" in
the street name and even restored the infamous collectivist Soviet pedagogue Anton
Makarenko on an improvised paper nameplate. After some time and an explanatory article by
Halász published in the local newspaper, the opposition ran out of steam. Nevertheless, this
rare instance of the active popular resistance of misinformed individuals who feel threatened
by a hint of symbolic return of Hungarian dominance suggests how difficult it was in the early
1990 to imagine "toponymic justice" in terms of representation.
Upon closer look, it is the relative relevance to local history that emerges as the principal
guiding criterion for post-socialist alterations of Kosice's toponymy. It was precisely the vision
of recreating a local identity index that kept Kisdy in place.6 9
This trend, according to Kirst, was
not new - it began long before 1989. Considerations of a differentiated "saturation" were not
in place during the phase that the TC controlled - the medieval center was to be purified, not
balanced. In the second phase, the TC was no longer a designer but just an elite consultation
and coordination body. Globally, everyone got something, albeit not within the city walls.
Would they be content with it?
6 8
Correspondence of borough Kosice-North with the TC, State Regional Archive, Kosice.
6 9
The year 1992 was in fact Kisdy's return onto Kosice map, this time, however, to a much more marginal position
than the one he briefly held during the Second World War.
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Home again: Hungarian icons moving downtown
In any growing city, new street names are a necessity and despite the stagnation in
population growth, Kosice has since the early 1990s seen moderate development, especially
on the urban fringes. Besides assigning new names to previously nonexistent places, streets
sometimes change names following petitions of institutions or residents - like the very recent
exchange of the antique medic Galen for the Kosice surgeon Jan Knazovicky, or the exchange
of the local factory owner Ungar for the earlier name Hussar Street. From time to time,
however, special occasions substantiate, even encourage, the memorialization of recently
deceased revolutionary (Lumumba, number 2 on the map) or a local sculptor (Mathe, off the
map), typically by naming a traffic intersection or some other, as yet unnamed intermediary
space without an address.
The establishment of Sandor Marai Square in January 2013 was an exemplary instance of
such a symbolically powerful, while quite inexpensive, gesture of official recognition. In what
one member of the Civic Club in retrospect recalled as a strategic choice of location, the 2004
Sandor Marai Memorial landed in a nameless communication space with no address attached
with the hope that someday, this space could be named after the world-famous author. A
routine commemorative name-dropping at first sight, the public endorsement of the naming
proposition becomes much more intriguing when its position directly on the fortification line
- that is, inside the medieval heritage district - is considered. The fact that a compromise with
the applicable ordinance regarding toponymy in the heritage reservation was warranted
invites the question of how Sandor Marai's presence was justified vis-a-vis the legal obstacles.
The initiative to restore the name Calvin Square to the space renamed in late 1960s to the
awkward Street at Miklus's Prison is a different case. As this space has an eventful history of
previous names, counterarguments based in the authenticity of heritage can be raised more
effectively. While Marai's entree into the local toponymic pantheon was justified by a
combination of his artistic singularity, world-fame and resonance with current multicultural
imaginaries, Calvin's place in the center of Kosice is argued along questions of historicity and
the right to representation. Both of these cases - one successful and non-problematic, the
other contested and still unresolved - challenge the assumption that post-socialist toponymic
revisions are a closed chapter and provide insights into what is at stake in toponymic
recognition of the Hungarian minority.
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Námestie Sándora Máraiho - Sándor Márai Square
Sándor Márai Square was brought to life from a nameless, shapeless space with no
addresses or historical names to consider. A quiet intersection of three side streets just a
minute off Main Street, with a patch of grass, a couple of trees and, since 2004, a statue of the
writer, this "interstice" became a square on a truly festive occasion, at the high point of the
weekend-long opening ceremony of the European Capital of Culture. Of the four personalities
chosen as emblems for the ECoC project,7 0
Sándor Márai was arguably the most famous
abroad and, through his nostalgic recollections, the one most explicitly emotionally bound to
the city of his youth. In January 2013, roughly two decades after the post-communist
toponymic sanitization of the medieval district, Márai was the first non-saint to breach the
delicate balance.
Sándor Márai, a Hungarian novelist and a native of Košice (born in 1900), has earned worldwide
acclaim for his prose documenting and mourning the demise of the old Central-European
elite. Having spent his childhood and teenage years in Košice, Márai left his home town in 1918
and after several years as a journalist in Hungary, France and Germany, Márai settled in
Budapest to become a respected Hungarian author in the 1930s. After the ascent of the
communists to power, Márai and his wife Lola left the country in 1948; they later lived in Paris,
New York, Salerno (Italy) and finally, San Diego. Though Márai had a last chance to briefly visit
his hometown in 1941, the Kassa of his youth remained a leitmotif of his writing throughout
his life. After both his wife and his adoptive son died one after another, Márai, who forbade
his works to be published in the Eastern Bloc as long as the Soviet military continued to occupy
Hungary, committed suicide in February 1989, just months before the fall of the Berlin wall
(Mészáros 2008).
Márai's books, many revolving around his ruminations on traditional Košice bourgeois
milieus and their effect on his worldview, were covertly read and shared by the knowledgeable
few already before 1989. It was, however, especially after his death and communism's
concurrent demise, that Márai began to live a second life in Košice as a symbol of a home
forever lost - a home that has only survived in one's memory.7 1
Partly, this loss was to the
The other three personalities were the prolific architect of several interbellum modernist buildings Lajos
Ôelschäger, the popular film maker of the Czechoslovak "new wave" Juraj Jakubisko and the emigrant Argentinabased
sculptor Gyula Košice, famous for his kinetic art.
7 1
The first commemorative gathering in his honor - a conference held in the Comitet Palace on Main Street took
place in December 1990 (Source: "Márai opäť doma." Košický večer. December 18, 1990.) and in March
152
passage of time - to modernization, revolutionary political changes and the historical realities
of war. "There was a world, which was worth living and dying for. This world has died. And with
the new one I have nothing in common," Márai wrote in the midst of the destructive war in
1942 (Demjánová 2011). The sense of a civilization's decline and the duty, albeit desperate, to
defend it permeated his work and resonated with nostalgic imaginations in a city transformed
by concrete, coke and steel. On a deeper level, though, Márai lost his home in territorial and
spatial terms as well due to the troubled re-drawing of political boundaries and, ultimately,
due to his lifelong exile. Having spent half of his productive life in countries whose customs,
cultures and landscapes remained foreign to him, Márai came to embody his own hard-learned
wisdom that a "(m)an's true fatherland is his language" (Juščák 2004), an experience in effect
not so distant from that of many Košice Hungarians after 1945. For many locals of Hungarian
descent, Márai became a distant compatriot who, like themselves, remained fixed on the
nostalgic memory of the pre-industrial, pre-Socialist, pre-Czechoslovak times.
Launched years before Marai's posthumous international breakthrough in 1996, the Košice
local culture of remembering Márai first became officially endorsed by the municipal authority
in 1998 in the act of opening of the "House of National Minorities and Sándor Márai Memorial
Room" on Butcher Street. When I inquired about the genesis of this idea, its longstanding
manager Julia Sokolová mentioned that the project originated in the 1980s and early on
became pragmatically coupled with the idea of giving the many ethnic minority groups a
meeting space; Márai professed tolerance, "so let us create a club of national minorities and
Sándor Márai can slip in along that." She further explained the intended message:
The genesis was that each "ism" was simply alien to him, whether communism, or
fascism, or whatever "ism," so that is why we said that that tolerance belongs to
him and the city of Košice is... really, in comparison with other cities (...) [in my
view] is more tolerant to other nationalities. What I - in spite of the fact I saw how
my mother was slapped in the face in 1947, for speaking Hungarian (...)
Speaking only a couple of moments after the initial scene of my first encounter with the Košice
Civic Club cited in the introduction of my analysis of Jánoš Esterhazy's memorial, in which I was
confronted with a resolute thematization of post-war violence against Košice Hungarians,
Sokolová paints an alternative picture: a picture of a tolerant city. Her contrasting mention of
1991, a plaque was unveiled on the house formerly belonging to Marai's parents as the very first post-socialist
addition to Kosice's mnemoscape.
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the slapping - a generic story I heard from multiple people in different research situations, one
that likely condenses the experience of becoming strangers in their own city for a whole
generation of local Hungarian speakers - becomes an exception that confirms the rule. The link
between Marai's opposition to oppressive ideologies ("isms") and Kosice's inter-ethnic
tolerance, asserted at the beginning of the passage and not quite clear at first sight, relates to
her interpretation of the post-war excesses as an aberration from an otherwise non-bigoted,
open-minded culture. Cast as a critic of hateful politics, Márai comes to represent the original,
tolerant local spirit, the imagination of a cooperative multicultural undercurrent of local
history that is hoped to resurface with Marai's commemoration.
Though it is not explicitly mentioned here, the implied disregard for abusive politics in
Marai's idealized worldview resonates with the local version of ethnic indifference - with the
concept of Košice nationality. This association of Márai with either a downplaying of clear-cut
ethnic identities, or with the imagined harmonic coexistence of their representatives is, in fact,
a selective reading of his opus, which bears witness to the author's Hungarian patriotism and
contains repeated assertions of Kosice's ancient Hungarian character. A fair portion of the
Slovak audiences find Marai's denial of the historical Slovak presence in Košice (made explicit
in his famous dictum claiming that "Slovak was never spoken in Košice" (Wlachovský 2011))
irritating at best; in an early reaction to the 1991 unveiling of a plaque to Márai, an expressively
nationalist author even decried such an act of commemoration as a reminder to Slovaks of
"the occupation of Southern Slovakia by fascist Hungary" (Molnár 1991).7 2
Though in this
respect, Márai was understandably influenced by the preferred languages of his family and his
social milieu, by the culminating Hungarian nation-building of early 1900s and the resulting
suppression of Slovak public and community life, his non-acceptance of the Czechoslovak
control of his hometown and broad ignorance of the Slovak element in it have made it difficult
for many to accept him as a figure whose humanistic legacy could bridge ethnic boundaries.
Despite the fact that popular awareness and interest in Márai and his work rose in the 2000s,
the decisive impulse that cast Márai into the center of local discourses and city-branding
vocabularies came with the European Capital of Culture 2013 (ECoC).
Though Kosice's winning bid for the ECoC title was primarily constructed as a participative
shift from a post-socialist industrial situation to a creative economy of the future, Sándor Márai
fit the needs of the project as an expression of both cosmopolitan and strongly local-patriotic
For a polemic response by a Kosice Hungarian intellectual, see (Balassa 1991).
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Image 18. Sandor Marai Square inaugurated on the final day of the four-day festivities opening the European
Capital of Culture year in Kosice in January 2013. Sitting on the bench opposite Marai's likeness with a rose in her
hand is the deputy mayor, who instead of opening with a traditional speech engaged in an imaginary dialogue
with the famous writer. Photo by the author.
attitudes. Drawing a parallel between Marai and Kafka in the way they became steeped in
their relationship to their respective hometowns, the application brochure states the intent to
"introduce the image of an intellectual in central and eastern Europe in the middle of the 20th
century, struggling with totalitarian regimes" and "draw attention through the person of
Sandor Marai to the multiethnic and tolerant character of Kosice."7 3
While the position of
Marai-related projects in the ECoC scheme was, in the end, hardly central, the project
sponsored the translation into Slovak and the publishing of Marai's complete works (of which
only a fraction was available in Slovak before), hosted an original ballet production inspired by
the writer's life, propagated Marai in all tourist materials and, last but not least, ushered him
into Kosice toponymy.7 4
The Sandor Marai Square inauguration, scheduled on a Sunday afternoon as a final note or
a post-scriptum - to the kick-off festivities of the ECoC, opened with a dialogue with the
Source: "Interface" project brochure - final version, p.130; available at
http://data.cike.sk/cik/download/interface-sk-fin.pdf; retrieved on October 31, 2017.
7 4
As far as I could ascertain, the renaming was formally proposed by the alumni club of the local Hungarian
vocational school, an organization of mostly retired men whose regular meetings take place in the "Marai house."
155
author. In the dimmed light of a freezing, snowy day, the deputy mayor, a blonde woman in
her forties, sat down on the ice-cold bronze chair across from Márai and addressed him with
words of admiration. Around the statue in a large circle, more than roughly a hundred and fifty
locals, guests, tourists and media staff gathered to witness the unveiling. Of the several
speakers appearing in the fully bilingual Slovak-Hungarian event, three stood out as especially
telling of the meanings Márai had come to signify in the ECoC year. One of the very first ones
was the contemporary Slovak minister of education Dušan Čaplovič, whose greeting and
somewhat unimaginative appreciation culminated in an attempt to deescalate the potential
political risks of honoring Márai:
Yes, Sándor Márai belongs to Košice. He belongs to it not just due to his
relationship, but I think that also Košice inhabitants, Slovaks, too, and other
nationalities as well, can be inspired by the fact that (...) such an excellent author
grew up in this space, who represented this region so well. We do not have to
agree with everything, all his opinions, but we must tolerate each other and,
primarily, accentuate his work and return (it) back to our citizens of the Slovak
Republic.
The minister acknowledged Márai as an artist, as a "public relations" asset for the city - and as
a local patriot. Acknowledging the tension around Márai by highlighting "Slovaks, too," he
suggests simply disengaging with the unfavorable facts and focusing on the substance - Márai's
work - instead. The imperative to tolerate each other, in Čaplovič's wording, does not emanate
from Márai's example but, on the contrary, comes as a requirement, if the notably deethnicized
"citizens of the Slovak Republic" (a rare formulation in Slovak political culture) are
to come together around his work.
Immediately following Čaplovič, Hungarian Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog
presented a well-articulated, picturesque speech with a grandiose beginning:
In every city's life, in every society, there comes a moment, when all energies
converge in a single point - energy, culture, cultural heritage and unanswered
questions of the present and the past. For Košice, the moment has come.
After the Slovak minister's lukewarm friendliness, the Hungarian one frames the renaming act
(and, by extension, the ECoC in Košice as a whole) as a nexus connecting the past and future
of this city. Three sentences into Balog's speech, the present moment feels like the symptom
156
of a watershed. The past and future of this city may be a puzzle but there is now a convergence
of creative "energies" (plural as there are multiple pasts in this city) and the riches of heritage
to aid in its solving. A couple of sentences later, he situates Marai in this puzzle:
Marai is a symbol of Central Europeanness and the common fate of Central
Europeans. German, Slovak, Ruthenian, Jewish, Hungarian fates are found in his
works. The hope of Kosice is precisely to somehow realize this unity, this
polyformity.
Marai is a documenter and an embodiment of our "common fate" - regardless of ethnicity. The
trope of multi-ethnic harmony is evoked as both a task and a "hope" for this city - and Marai
represents a symbol of this as a reunion of the city's past and future.
In a short personal note towards the end of the ceremony, Marai's grand-niece Judit Jaky,
who has spoken at the memorial multiple times in the past decade, shared with the audience
her sense of obligation to her grand-uncle's legacy:
I see it as my duty to protect and pass on that way of thinking, the humane attitude
and uncompromising approach and steadfast moral values, which Sandor Marai
as Kosice citizen acquired right here in this city...
Although short, this excerpt captures what Jaky had to say about Marai's legacy for the local
community in its stunning vagueness: Marai was a man of character and this city was
implicated in it. While the time was short and Jaky quite likely moved enough to excuse a
recourse to cliche, I believe this brevity indicates more than the circumstances of the rejoinder.
Marai as a signifier of a specific, somewhat conservative and critical morality, of faithfulness
to his roots and openness to the world, and much more, has been an established trope among
his fans. To pluck this string once is enough to bring out a chord of aliquot notes in the skilled
ears: those familiar with Marai will know how being a Kosice citizen relates to moral integrity.
For the author of the heritage concept of local toponymy, Jozef Kirst, bringing Marai into
the city center was, expectably, a major faux pas. It is not that Marai would not deserve a street
named after him - on the contrary, according to Kirst, he deserves to be honored by a street
much more prominent. The problem with the present solution is its infraction of the neutrality
of the medieval heritage zone by a name with political connotations.
To the local Hungarians and self-professed local patriots, Sandor Marai Square came as a
satisfaction - despite some initial criticism of the intersection as an insufficiently dignified
157
location for an author of Marai's standing. For the general public, this event was a confirmation
of Marai's centrality to their city's updated urban imaginary. Combined with the presence of
the statue, the regular commemorative gatherings around it, as well as the memorial room
situated less than a minute's walk away, the toponymic inscription strengthens and extends
the network of Márai-related meanings and practices concentrated in the area. At the same
time, the official appropriation of Márai (manifested in ubiquitous, often superficial mentions
in all sorts of situations and materials) was criticized by the civic agents that have kept Marai's
memory alive. Ignác from the Civic club said:
Yes, they [the city] have adopted Márai, because they went to Marseille, also (...)
a European Capital of Culture, and on every corner, they bumped into Márai when
abroad. They then went after it on purpose, to bookshops, and everywhere
they met Márai. And if there already is a Márai statue, they seized it - yes, this is
globally relevant...
The ECoC team and the city administration did not turn to Márai for the quality of his work, or
for resonance with his love of Košice - but for profit. Their appropriation was calculated, based
on his fame and international reputation and the potential revenue he could bring as a
"product" branding the city. Considering the pull of Márai for the Hungarian-speaking and the
multiculturalism-seeking tourists, the denomination arguably does constitute a case of
commodification in toponymy (Light 2014). Yet this in itself is not the point of the critique - it
is the absence of authentic, heartfelt respect and fandom that smacks of a shared common-
place.
Kalvínovo námestie - Kálvin tér - Calvin Square
The Street at Mikluš's Prison is a place of ambiguous meanings. Framed by short historical
buildings with one or two restaurants and overlooked by the modest, yet dominant tower of
the local Reformed church, the short and slightly wider-than-usual pedestrian street presents
one of the more picturesque, quiet corners of the old town. Crossing the arcades to the right
of the church entrance, you reach a massive Renaissance bastion and its exotic looking annex
- a replica of Ferenc Rákóczi's house in Rodoštó (presently Tekirdag) built in 1940s, but not
open to public until 1991. To the left of the church, the massive gothic building with small
windows and uneven walls is the eponymous "Mikluš's Prison" which, along with the bastion,
the Rodoštó replica, has for decades served as an exhibition facility focused on medieval and
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early modern local history. A passageway between the prison and the church leads you to the
Kosice version of Prague's Golden Lane, planned as a living showcase of "ancient crafts" with
experiences to gain and souvenirs to buy. It might be the robust presence of such medieval
imagination that rendered the name of this street unproblematic: the legend of the cruel
Miklus, a municipal executioner of the Rakoczi era, probably seemed to reflect the artificial,
exploratory purpose of the ensemble and provide it with a fitting, harmless brand. And yet,
since at least 2009, the Kosice Reformed community - including a Slovak- and a Hungarianspeaking
congregation - has repeatedly called for a roll-back to the "original" early 20thcentury
name of this space: Calvin Square. What is at stake in this, heretofore unsuccessful
initiative?
In the Middle Ages, the street first used to be called Painted Street (Gemollte gasse) as it
connected the so-called Painted Gate with the central Main Street.7 5
After the municipal prison
was built at its far end in late 16th century, it became called Prison Street - Buttelgasse or
Tomlocz utcza. At the beginning of the 20th century, the prison was closed down and the street
named after Calvin in 1912. In the late 1960s, as the last toponym with religious overtones,
Calvin Square was dismissed for a variation on an old name - this time including the legendary
torturer already present in the name of the prison-turned-museum. While it is unclear just
how Calvin's name managed to survive the purge of the 1950s, it is equally uncertain what
motivated this late and isolated change; though, according to Kirst, the disposal of Calvin in
the relaxed political atmosphere of the 1960s was an early foreshadowing of the
depersonalization trend of the 1990s, the inclusion of Miklus in the name remains
unaccounted for. Be that as it may, Miklus's name in the medieval core is best explained as a
projection of a romanticized medieval past, as the introduction of a fictitious character who is
more of a mascot than a historical person, even as an early "Disneylandization" of urban
toponymy that aims at branding a place with a non-conflictual local myth.7 6
See "Budova na ulici Pri Miklusovej vaznici c. 1.", available at http://www.svkk.sk/index.php/budovy-svkKosice;
accessed October 31, 2017.
7 6
Ironically, the myth of Miklus as Rakoczi's executioner, originating in the 1940s, has recently been debunked
by the local historian Richard Papac, who identified the origin of the epithet with the historical 19th-centuryjailer
Ferentz Miklossy. (Papac 2017) In this year's round of proposing and resisting this square's renaming, this
information still played no role.
159
Image 19. A view of the short Street at Mikluš's Prison. The prison building is visible just left of the church
entrance. Photo by the author, July 2017.
In 2009, the Slovak and Hungarian congregations jointly appealed to the municipal
authority to restore the "original" name that associated this place with the Calvinist Reformed
church. Though given a go-ahead at the borough level, the motion was rejected by the
Toponymic Commission based on the local regulation that prohibits the change of names
within the medieval fortification to be changed, the existence of older documented names in
the location and the general principle of avoiding personal commemoration in the medieval
core. After another attempt several years later to negotiate a more favorable stance bore no
success, the re-naming initiative took an unexpected turn. At the beginning of November 2014,
the local press reported that a non-official, self-help renaming of the square took place as a
part of the annual celebration of Reformation Day, October 31 (Kocsisová 2014). In what
became a part of their pre-election campaign, two politicians - the former chair of the central
borough and a member of the Hungarian Reformed congregation Ján Suli being one of them decided
to finance the installation of two simple granite blocks with the inscription "Kalvínovo
námestie" and "Kálvin tér" in the center of the recently refurbished pavement. The bilingual
form of the resulting performative act reflected the duality of the Church with two language
communities, and by extension, of the whole city.
160
Image 20. Guerrilla bilingual renaming of Calvin Square. The missing street-name plate on the museum building
is reportedly a coincidence, not an act of vandalism or symbolic action (another one hangs on the building just
opposite the prison). Photo taken in June 2017 by the author.
Despite the fact that management of roads and pavements does not fall within the
jurisdiction of the Monument Authority, this renaming act was portrayed by the local press as
a kind of a "guerrilla action" performed behind the Authority's back. Siili, who oversaw the
renovation of the street's paving several years before, admitted in an interview with me that
he did notify the authorities of the intention - but before doing so, he fended off my
speculation that his intervention might have been unauthorized by reminding me of his
constitutional right to do anything not explicitly prohibited by the law. The congregation
disavowed any direct responsibility, referring to the independent action of the said politicians
which it, considering its previous proposal, welcomed as an expression of symbolic support
(Kocsisová 2014). The two grey and rather slippery granite blocks have since 2014 remained in
the pavement as a singular instance (albeit unofficial) of rehabilitation of a "Hungarian-era"
name in the city center, to the satisfaction of many an "old Košičan."
Súli's liberal act of independent toponymic expression notwithstanding, the official
toponymic alteration, attempted again in 2017, would again confront tests in the grammar of
justification. In the bid for recognition as "heritage," historicity is the contested category. The
161
proposal of the Reformed community attempted to construct an appearance of Calvin's
originality by attaching an "old map" from 1914 or listing the development in several other
street names that have since 1989 returned to their "previous" name, except for Calvin Square.
While the rationale for the non-inclusion of older names documented in earlier maps is
unclear, it was precisely the existence of preceding alternatives that both the TC and the
Monument Authority used to delegitimize the "historicity claim." In their letter of guidance to
the municipality, the Monument Authority also drew a more general argument: the prison has
been present in the area (and in the memory of the inhabitants and visitors) for almost 400
years, as compared to the 200 years since the building of the Calvinist church.7 8
In a largely
technical objection, the Monument Authority in 2017, as well as Kirst in our 2014 interview,
dismiss the proposition that the space is a square, as it lacks its basic attributes: a central area
surrounded by representative buildings and, potentially, adorned by "small architecture" like
fountains, memorials and the like.7 9
Standing in the middle of what he calls an "intimate little
square," Suli denies this technocratic vision and points around: "there are one, two, three,
four, five streets feeding into it - it's a little square." Last but not least, a counterargument
stated by the municipal spokesperson stated that retaining "Mikluš's Prison" in the name "is
significant in the context of the development of tourism" (ibid.), implying that this really is a
descriptive name and as such, serves the visitors of the medieval torture exhibition as a
signpost.
For the Reformed Protestant community in Košice, and especially for its Hungarian
segment, the prospect of a symbolic affirmation of belonging by re-entering Košice's
toponymic landscape bears somewhat different and potentially darker meanings. In the
aftermath of the Second World War, the Košice Reformed congregation was decimated in both
number and organizational coherence (Mullins 2013:93). Counting roughly 6,000 exclusively
Hungarian-speaking members in the wartime era, the congregation lost hundreds including 63
of its 72 elders and its pastor to flight, expulsion and forced relocation within the first months
of "liberation."8 0
The Slovak Reformed congregation, which had not institutionalized in the
interbellum period, was founded by the newly immigrated believers in 1945 and demanded a
7 7
The proposal, directed at the borough Košice-Center, was made available to me by Juraj Gembický and is
available in the archive of the Regional Monument Preservation Authority.
7 8
Pri Miklušovej väznici, Košice - premenovanie ulice: metodická a odborná pomoc vlastníkovi. June 25, 2017.
File code: KPUKE-2017/16980-02/58032/GE. Archive of the Regional Authority for Monument Preservation.
7
Source: "Miklušova väznica má dlhšiu históriu ako kostol." Available at:
http://kosicednes.sk/udalosti/miklusova-vaznica-ma-dlhsiu-historiu-ako-kostol/; accessed on October 31, 2017.
8 0
Personal communication with the current pastor of the Hungarian Reformed congregation, Zoltán Oremus.
162
merging of the two congregations - in the expectation that most Hungarian Calvinists would
be deported from the city in the planned population exchange. These were decidedly opposed
to the idea, not least because of the implicit transfer of property involved. After it became
clear that complete deportation of Hungarians would not take place, the merger occurred in
summer 1946 under substantial pressure from the interim managing pastor - a Slovak.
Although the fact that most Hungarian Calvinists have, in the meantime, "re-Slovakized" only
supported the case for "unity," Hungarian services and pastoral work continued in the
predominantly Hungarian congregation throughout the socialist era.
After 1989, according to Oremus, the relations between Slovaks and Hungarians in the
congregation were good; still, whenever ethnicity was concerned, there was a tangible
tension. The rising demands for equal administrative competences and, finally, for an
ethnically Slovak pastor, exasperated the situation. By the late 1990s, there was already no
living witness of the traumatic post-war development and when the historical records of the
merger were found in the archives, splitting the congregation again along the ethnolinguistic
divide seemed like the best solution, according to Oremus. Proceeding "gradually, sensitively"
(Oremus) in preparation for the split with the national Church leadership, the forced 1946
merger was proclaimed void, after which two independent linguistic communities emerged in
2002. The redistribution of property that came with the split thankfully took place "without
getting [the local community] into television" (Oremus). The Hungarian community, still
significantly larger than the Slovak one, kept the church and the historical parsonage, and the
Slovak community received financial reimbursement.
If read in the context of this recent act of emancipation, the impulse to return Calvin Square
to the map of Kosice can be interpreted as a claim at symbolic restitution of representation in
the city's mnemoscape. Ingrained deep within the communicative memory of regular and
sporadic church goers, as well as the broader local community, Calvin Square is implicated in
the nostalgic memories of the first two post-war decades - it is a common-place for the
Reformed Protestants with broader societal resonance. For the Hungarian and the Slovak
segment of the Reformed community, this square has slightly different meanings. While for
the latter, the renaming mainly serves to illuminate Kosice Protestant traditions and boost the
congregation's visibility in the public, for the Hungarian community, the name resonates with
an older, somewhat deeper common-place - of a once owned and then lost belonging. Though
the appeal of such symbolic affirmation for a marginal Protestant church in a predominantly
Roman Catholic country should not be wholly discarded, the joint call of the two communities
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for an alignment of their "address" with their name has little to do with advertising. Although
none of my interview partners expressed this explicitly, my impression from the repeated
mentions of Calvin Square across different interviews and chats with Hungarian-speaking
locals is that Calvin's significance goes beyond representing the Church community. More
generally, it resounded with mourning for the lost home of a city. Reflecting the persistence of
"Kálvin tér" in the memory and occasional use of the older Košičania, the initiative seems to
"give place" not just to a confessional group, but also, in a way, to an ethno-national
community. The confessional common-place - resonant with the narrative of Calvin's
involvement in Church reformation, casual citations of his theological tenets, the name of the
church itself - is broad enough to accommodate the Slovak partner congregation with their
own interpretation. At the same time, Jean Calvin - or Kálvin Jánoš - is a staple toponym across
Hungarian cultural landscapes: a street or a square named after Calvin can be found in most
Hungarian towns. The implicit ethnic indexicality of the name was confirmed by several
different agents, including Rovinský, who even suggested that the official resistance to the
initiative was rooted in nationalist prejudice: it sounds Hungarian - "so, no good."
This subtle politics of an apolitical commemorative name calls forth the last principled test
formulated by no other than its initial creator, Kirst: there is no room for historical personalities
in the medieval core. This is an argument combined from domestic valuation of continuity and
civil appreciation of impartiality and inclusion that together seek to create a secure and
permanent neutral space devoid of symbolic oppression. Although Calvin is not a modern
political figure, a general precaution against political controversy prevents endorsement.
Kirst's emphatic claim that the abolition of Calvin Square in the 1960s was not justified by
ideology seems to implicitly suggest that any initiative towards its restoration, in turn, might
be. In his response to this objection, Suli understandably presents Calvin as non-conflictual,
almost impersonal - Calvin is no fleeting political celebrity and there is no reason to suspect
that any future regime should want to remove him. Besides this conservative objection
situated in the domestic worth, however, Suli voices a charge saturated with a civic wish for
non-discrimination:
Their principle is that we should not name streets in the old town (...) after
persons. But Saint Dominic - was a person. Elisabeth of Hungary - also an existing
person. Saint Francis of Assisi also an existing person; he was not unknown - so
their argument I cannot accept. I would - I WOULD - if it was a politician, or a
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sportsman - alright. But Calvin, in my opinion, has at LEAST the same merit in
reforming the Church as the others.
On the one hand, technically speaking, the Franciscan and Dominican in toponymy refers not
to historical persons but to orders and cloisters located in these spaces - the only anomaly, St.
Elisabeth Street, was introduced in response to the popular resentment against the Rotten
Street, of which, paradoxically, Siili was a part. On the other hand, Siili aptly frames the
rejection of Calvin from the local identity index as the suppression of Protestant heritage and,
in effect, the untenable discrimination of Reformed Christians. For if a technical criterion of
age is selected and the "oldest" name or building in the square preferred (as noted in the
paper by the Monument Authority), the past marginalization of Protestants, who were only
allowed to build churches in the inner city after the 1781 Patent of Toleration, is effectively
replicated in the present. Siili charges against such confessional blindness with a
supplementary test of inspiration: Calvin's theological contribution is equal, if not superior, to
the named saints. His rejection thus puts all the other's worth in question.
"Who has greater merit in the city of Kosice - Calvin or Pushkin?" asks Siili in response to
the implicit, ever-present test of "having to do something with Kosice," and the answer seems
obvious. The fine distinction that Pushkin is located just beyond the fortification line, is
irrelevant to a "lay user" like Siili; after all, where else should Calvin be honored, if not at the
Calvinist church? Opposed to the proposal on account of its a-historicity, Juraj Gembicky from
the Monument Authority has an alternative solution: why not create a Calvin Square at the
nameless space and parking lot in front of the ice hockey stadium, U.S. Steel Arena, built at
the location of the demolished Calvin cemetery?8 1
When I point out that the blanket
application of the "medieval principle" replicates the historical marginalization of Protestants,
who thus end up in a non-representative, peripheral location, the expert on domestic and
inspired worth reaches out for an industrial perspective to challenge my civic thesis of
representativeness as centrality: the well-known and frequented spot adjacent to the stadium
offers much greater potential for marketing Calvin, especially among the younger generation.
Somehow, I suspect that this was not what the renaming initiative had in mind.
The old cemetery, closed in 1889 along with the neighboring Lutheran one and a score of other old burial
grounds in the wider city center, was sold for construction of private homes in the 1920s.
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Summary and Discussion: Representation of minorities as an unfinished
task?
The intrinsic logic (Low 2012) of the post-socialist toponymic review in Košice rested on
the duality of a central balancing strategy and the political emancipation of the boroughs. The
de-communization of public spaces in post-socialist cities has typically not been complete or
thorough after 1989 (see, for example, (Czepczyňski 2008) or (Light 2004)), and Košice is no
exception to this rule. The historical circumstances and causes for this inconsistency, however,
have (to my knowledge) not been previously observed elsewhere. The combination of a rediscovered
local heritage, national symbolism and appropriable remnants of the socialist
toponymic increment, characteristic of the central area of Kosice's toponymic palimpsest, also
conforms with the generic outcomes of toponymic revisions across the European "zone of
post-socialism." At the same time, the consciously neutralizing approach implemented in the
historical core, aimed at preventing future conflicts in a city shaped by competing state's and
nationalities' claims to ownership, was rare, possibly even unique in the region.
The manifestly monumentalizing approach to the heritage district of the Toponymic
Commission stands in sharp contrast to the realpolitik of the renaming process in the rest of
the city. The end of communist ideological control over the urban symbolic landscape brought
about an abrupt expiration of the international histories and geographies associated with
Soviet-driven geopolitics. The resurgence of local heritage and regional ties came as a decided
antithesis to the past dispossession of local identities, to the extent that names referring to
regional realities became more prevalent than national symbols. The local supplanted not
merely the ideologically obsolete, but in several instances also names with continuing national
or international relevance. Anti-communism was not positively commemorated - except,
perhaps, for Milk Street, whose resonance with the communicative memory of
collectivization, claimed by the local representative body in a letter to the TC, is, however, nonobvious
even to the more attentive user.8 2
Paradoxically, the ideological cleansing was not
necessarily the only or primary framing of such a localizing shift: the ritual toponymic cleansing
offered an opportunity to deal with a much more diverse "socialist heritage," including
"It was along this street that the property of our citizens, members of the cooperative from Košická Nová ves,
was carted away. Milk, cattle, swine, poultry as well as machinery were carried away along this street. Bare walls
are all that remain from it today. It is ironic - that is why we suggest this name." Source: Letter of Košická nová
ves borough requesting approval of the suggested new place names from April 22,1991. (Archive of the district
authority 1991-1996, no inventory to date).
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inadequate planning. Finally, in the face of rising political engagement among the public, the
"local perspective" beat even the elite strategy of neutralization through monumentalization
after the citizens and their elected representatives altered toponymy based on the popular
voice.
The solidarity-building gesture of the sanitization of the medieval urban core was two-fold:
it removed the offense and instability of the three Czechoslovak-era legacies, but instead of
negotiating balance or representation or considering the worth of individual alternatives, it
establishes a common ground of medieval heritage. In the new era, anyone could identify with
this neutral (because it was pre-nationalist) naming scheme, steeped in authentic local
heritage. The grammar of justification, combining civic equality in exclusion and the domestic
authority of historical documents, dominated this elite-driven phase of toponymic rewriting,
which sought to heal through a recourse to ancient traditions. Remarkable as this attempt is,
its eventual compromising with the resurgent popular sentiment, rooted in a gut-feeling-based
dislike of the Foul ("Hnilna") and Brewery streets, seems equally significant as a reminder that
heritage experimentation has its limits.
The second phase of post-socialist renaming, in contrast, resounded with the liberal
conditions created by the reform of self-government. While the Toponymic Commission as a
testing facility remained respected and the general task of doing away with the legacy of
communist ideology (untenable vis-a-vis the ever-present renewal of civility) in most
boroughs, the local dynamics, sensitivities and priorities varied - and so did the degree to
which civil repair came to the fore. While some boroughs were scrupulous about decommunization,
others dismissed it entirely, while some introduced primarily apolitical names
(after regional place names or types of jewels), others ventured a densification of Slovak
national icons. While in most places, outdated symbols were discarded in harmony with the
general social ethos of a clean start, such symbolic emplacement of a new start was not
granted to all areas of the city. The failure, from a summary point of view, to eliminate all
residues of communist ideology can be explained by the expiration of revolutionary liminality;
since at least 1992, the dominant theme of Slovak political discourses was not setting accounts
with the communists, but with the Czechs. Two decades after the review, "communist"
segments of the toponymic web, like the ensemble in the Dargov Heroes' project or the
acronym for the Project of Kosice Government Program, "Kavepecko," have become urban
common-places in their own right.
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In a city with a multi-ethnic heritage, reestablishment of minority presence in the city-text
can be seen as a matter of justice and right to representation. Although post-socialist renaming
introduced several Hungarian artists into the city map, there was no single instance of the
"restoration" of a pre-1945 commemorative name; newcomers were included only insofar as
their legacy was substantial from a majority point of view. Given the centrality of stability and
continuity for the selection of names to revisit, it is understandable that names deemed
acceptable in the post-socialist situation were left untouched. This logical, pragmatic
procedure, however, had the unintended effect of affirming the dominance of an unmistakably
Czechoslovak canon in the most symbolically salient central area. The persisting criticism
surrounding the remnants of the communist pantheon or the latent tensions and rising
disputes regarding Hungarian presence in the historical center suggest that post-socialist
renaming is, in fact, an unfinished matter. Both the official Sándor Márai Square and the
unofficial Calvin Square have breached the impartiality of the urban core, in an attempt to
address the underrepresentation minority cultures.
Unrelated in terms of institutional background, the Márai and Kálvin initiatives each
seemed to fit in a window of opportunity. Based solely on an overview of toponymy, stating
conscious, strategic work at a re-territorialization of space (Oláh 2015) by cultural marking
might sound like an overstatement. Yet, both in the eyes of the critics of such projects, who
see them as acts of Hungarian expansionism, and of those who acclaim them as the successful
restoration of local heritage proscribed for its primarily Hungarian character, these projects
effectively become framed as bids at minority representation. In what we could perhaps call a
third phase of post-socialist renaming, it was precisely the representation of minorities - a
concern suspended in the medieval core and effectively unconsidered in the remainder of the
city center (the "compass needle" of political change (David 2013:5)) - came to the fore as a
central ambition. While street names even more than memorials present a celebratory
medium that only seldom evokes victimhood, the semantic field of both Márai and Kálvin for
the respective initiating communities resonated with a communicative memory of post-war
ethnic cleansing and the consequent suppression of Hungarian community life after 1945. In
capturing the very different initial contexts and the contrasting outcomes of the two cases,
two moments stand as defining: the presence (or absence) of a naming history pertaining to
the site and the scale of universality of the icon to be commemorated.
The name of Sándor Márai arrived in a pristine new space, which was, in addition, precultivated
by his 2004 statue and devoid of rivaling meanings. At the same time, through the
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launch of the ECoC 2013, Marai's local fame had been built up to support both his aesthetic
appeal as an artist, his domestic resonance as a "local" and his civic virtuousness as an integral
personality and a victim of communism. Furthermore, in the broader city-branding context,
the naming could also be taken as a market asset, amplifying the city's association with Márai
as a propagation shorthand. Lastly, the scope of Marai's universality was global; as Gembický
summed it up, Márai was "an exceptional, supranational event/person via the ECoC" which
warranted "special consideration" and a compromise with the non-personality rule. With
ample justifications secured, the exile Márai effectively became an indirect representation of
Hungarian common-place, resonant with post-war displacement and an abstract hope of a
home-coming through recognition.
Jean Calvin's name, in contrast, was meant to return to a space inhabited before and after
its relatively brief existence. Yet, what was more significant in shaping the potential of
consensus around this name's return was the multidimensional^ partisan nature of Calvin as
a symbol. While for the two Reformed communities, Calvin was a shared predecessor, and the
name's sound also resonated with many an "old Košičan," the marginality of Protestantism in
Slovakia made the broader resonance of Calvin's theological, cultural and political meanings
impossible. Despite the congregations' attempt to refer to the local history of Reformation and
tolerance, the narrative trope governing toponymy in Kosice's city core is a medieval one - and,
thus, positively Roman Catholic. Though Calvin's impact on the history of the Christian Church
was likely greater than that of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, their inspirational worth judged by the
standards of the dominant Christian denomination are in reverse order. While the obliteration
of Calvin Square had likely no ideological reason, the resulting feeling of non-representation
among the Hungarian segment of local society remains. Indeed, as Rose-Redwood et al. have
remarked, a renaming directed against a group is not just an act of colonization, but of
expropriation - of symbolic displacement from home (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010). While
Calvin's attempted restoration makes such displacement visible, the initiators of the change
have found neither a robust enough justification, nor a way of extending the boundaries of
their confessional and ethnic common-place to include a broader majority. Somewhat
surprisingly, yet symptomatically for the situation, the only functional grammar here has been
the grammar of liberal choice: negotiating a grey zone of public activity, a well-positioned
individual agent can afford to intervene in a seemingly tightly regulated sphere - with the
caveat that the effect of this intervention remains below the threshold of universal justification
and, thus, acknowledgement.
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The tension between sanitization and appropriation is likely to remain present as
toponyms represent not just points of emotional attachment, but also sources of symbolic
capital (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010). Contesting the extant street names and even the wellfounded
sanitizing principle adopted in the early 1990s is a "conduit for challenging dominant
ideologies as well as a means of introducing alternative cultural meanings and narrations of
identity" (ibid.:436). However controversial the outcomes of the post-socialist toponymic
change may be, the resulting city-text bears witness to the circumstances of its revision;
indeed, fragmentation, inner tensions and inconsistency can be analytically read as a memorial
of post-socialist adaptation in its own right.
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Chapter 5. "Why should we build on dead bones?" Planting inclusive
memory in a nearly vacant space
Imagine standing at the edge of a land terrace overlooking a town. Then, as you still cherish
the tranquil atmosphere, look around and mourn the devastation surrounding you. Shaped by
destructive socialist landscaping and finished by illicit dwellers of the post-socialist era, little
remains in place to give away the site's original function. Fragments of the cemetery wall, with
exposed bricks and empty frames that once held plaques with names, dates and epitaphs. In
the middle of the steepest portion of the non-park, a lonely patrician tomb, built in the lavish
neo-gothic style, suggests the former artistic riches of the cemetery; its sorry present state
bears testimony to decades of neglect and vandalism. Descending the hillside, you can still
stumble upon fragments of gravestones in the tall grass.
Strolling around, you will notice a mingling of the rough outlines of the former cemetery
with the public park installments of late 1970s. None of the growth you can see - the several
overgrown decorative shrubs and mostly wild, low quality trees - is older than the crumbling
concrete pathway winding across the slope from the bottom upwards. In what is apparently
the newest material tier of this spatial assemblage, piles of silently decaying garbage of all
sorts, from old clothing, to broken furniture, to food packaging, fill the corners and edges,
concentrating especially around a few arrangements evocative of human dwelling. Walking
past a fire-place and an improvised bench, you realize that to cherish the atmosphere of this
mysterious, interstitial space can mean different things in different life situations. Tucked
between a prison, an abandoned malt factory and a large grassy plain waiting for investment,
this unlikely place of ruin offers a unique vista onto the process of creating a place of
remembering out of - virtually - nothing.
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Theorizing places as "relational, historical and concerned with identity" (Augé 1995:77),
Marc Augé has coined the notion of "non-place" to describe modern facilities like airports or
shopping centers. By their appearance, spatial logics, symbolism and atmospheres, non-places
are defined by a denial of their immediate socio-spatial contexts. Looking at the messy slope
rising from Žriedlová Street, one wonders if beyond a certain measure of destruction, a ruin
too becomes a kind of non-place. Nearly devoid of contextualizing symbols and of specific
practices of care, reduced to assemblages of disparate physical elements and features, such
spaces become illegible to the uninformed observer. An indefinite, interstitial space in the
urban plethora of functional structures (Brighenti 2013), this not-quite-cemetery and notquite-park
seems to resist human attempts to form a meaningful relationship - something
crucial to Augé's understanding of an anthropological place. Is it possible for a non-place like
this to become a place of heritage, and if so, how?
Image 21. A view of the wall with scattered trash, a burn mark on the beaten terrain and a bench improvised
from a piece cemetery of old furniture. Photo by the author, November 2014.
I opened up this dissertation with a romantic vista from the messy slope of a ruined
cemetery. Instead of dropping the reader into one of the cheerfully busy cafes in the shadow
of the cathedral, sitting them down on the ready bronze chair face-to-face with the famous
Sándor Márai or flying with them over the expansive concrete-block housing districts, I chose
this intermediate, shapeless spot as a foreshadowing of the fundamental dilemma underlying
my research. The materialization of the cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing in Kosice's postsocialist
memorial landscape, the phenomenon I set out to investigate, turned out to be
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ambivalent, uncertain, as if suspended halfway between existence and oblivion. The bones of
Eyerman's "tears in the social fabric" (Eyerman 2011) are there, the ruins hinting at lost
meanings and populations can be observed as well, yet neither celebration nor mourning of
ethnic cleansing evolves around them as a potential common platform for solidarity.
When I first heard about the impending project to build an apartment building on an old
Lutheran cemetery, my immediate interest in the topic went beyond the implied scandal of
desecration. As a descendant of a Slovak Lutheran family, I was aware that a fair share of the
pre-1945 property owned by Czech and Slovak Protestant churches, particularly in the cities,
was an heirdom from mostly German communities destroyed by expulsion. Intrigued by the
prospect of relating current urban activism to a broken chain of responsibility for the memory
of a religious community, I started to search for the missing link. I read what there was to read
and interviewed officials, activists and church representatives, but the connection between
the forced migration of the Second World War and the ruination of a cemetery closed over
fifty years before that remained mostly hypothetical. All things considered, the politics of
urban development planning combined with socialist heritage management seemed to be the
primary culprit in the story. But then I met with an old man, whose ancestors' bones lay buried
under the unkept turf and whose attachment to the endangered graves - albeit largely based
in imagination - bridged the seemingly unrelated histories. On another instance, a brief
contemplation by a young "elder," a member of the local church's decision-making body, of
the German Lutherans that had to go after 1945, breached the facade of causality as a
dominant principle of evaluation. Though change had swept up its own footsteps, I could still
recognize their faint outlines.
The politics of ethnic cleansing and the processes leading to this cemetery's ruin were, in
fact, causally unrelated. The principal villain in the story - an index pointing to a broader and
well established cultural trauma of autocratic communist rule - is, indeed, the socialist
landscaping. Admitting this and venturing a contrafactual biography of the site, it is not unlikely
that even if Kassa had remained a part of Hungary after 1945, the need for urban growth and
the heritage-keeping practices of Hungarian socialism would have likely challenged the
cemetery's integrity anyway. On the other hand, historical Lutheran cemeteries in other Slovak
cities like Bratislava, Prešov, Žilina or Banská Bystrica (all of them younger than this one)
survived socialist landscaping with little harm and, thus, we may wonder to what extent a
perceived absence of Slovak heritage in Košice shaped the authorities' indifference to this
cemetery's degradation and, finally, destruction. Compared to memorial projects explicitly
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dealing with traumatic pasts of violence and humiliation, the cemetery provides a different
kind of case for our inquiry: one in which cultural trauma is not at the forefront but contributes
to the more general context of meaning making. In other words, we can ask: What role does
the management of past and present ethno-political confrontations play in the way the
mnemonic value of this cemetery is discursively built up?
Potential traces of ethnic cleansing can theoretically be sought on any instance of heritage
management. Investigations of such traces is especially fruitfully on buildings purposefully
destroyed (like the central Hotel Schalkhaz), expropriated from previous owners and reappropriated
to new uses (like the former Neologue Synagogue), or simply on sites where
violence took place (like the area of the former Jewish ghetto). In contrast with the cases thus
linked to the symbolic or physical displacement of ethnic collectivities, the Lutheran cemetery
has received unexpected public attention during my own research involvement in Kosice
(2013-2014). Even if it is hardly a prominent topic of local mnemonic discourses, I found the
case fascinating for the way its development seemed to exemplify the way meanings can be
brought to a ruined place virtually devoid of familiar attachments. The fact that a place
teetering on the verge of oblivion could be successfully made into place of meeting for
different mnemonic agents and, ultimately, saved from physical annihilation promised to
illuminate the way commonality in remembering can be successfully established. If a virtually
destroyed graveyard - a non-place in its own way - could be made a part of municipal heritage,
perhaps a torso-like public memory of ethnic cleansing could be salvaged as well.
This final empirical chapter analyzes the meanings of the old Lutheran cemetery as they
were mobilized in the process of its recent rescue from development between 2007 and 2014.
After briefly reviewing its history, I will first focus on unpacking the way agents within the
Lutheran Church evaluated the worth of keeping or selling this plot of land and lay bare the
complete absence of any familiar engagement as the central element of these evaluations.
Then, I will review its meaning from the perspective of urban development, outline the
controversy regarding plans for housing construction and discuss the role of different
justifications running parallel to collaborative work on building a shared common-place.
Subsequently, I review three kinds of "opposition" to the construction capturing different kinds
of engagements with the cemetery's past and future. Following such analysis of the "cemetery
as a case," I will attempt a more abstract theoretical reading of its implications for the study of
cultural trauma as a matter of the pragmatic search for commonality.
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Ruins: A point ofdeparture
Ruins are fragments of once-complete structures that our human imagination would see
as whole. Composed of traces of past use and traces of past abuse, a ruin seeks a shaman that
would heal its wounds by the spell of narrative. This poetic language is not to be written off as
self-serving eloquence; ruins do seem to pose a specific moral claim on the viewer. Reminding
us of the lost whole, ruins visualize discontinuity with a "special evocative and emotional
power" and "force us to remember" (Pallasmaa 2009:191). Max Pensky claims that ruin as a
symbol has dual capacity in that it "both threatens and offers significance as a meditational
object-lesson on the relation between social life and physical life" (Pensky 2011:4). As if both
wells and black holes of meaning at the same time, ruins simultaneously suggest narratives of
common experience - and deflate them. Ruins are runes according to Pensky, "a cipher or mark
whose very enigmatic character qualifies it both for occult significance and as a sign of the
constant threat of an insignificant social world threatened at all moments with the
omnipresence of guaranteed oblivion" (ibid.). If buildings and built structures in general
"maintain our perception of temporal duration and depth" (Pallasmaa 2009:190) and thus,
strengthen the structures of meaning we inhabit, ruins may potentially work both ways - to
confirm or challenge the way we narrate the history of our communities (and thereby of
ourselves). As suggested by Csaba Szalo in his discussion of urban ruins, nostalgia as a specific
mode of mourning typically emerging in this context can be viewed as a means of
reconciliation of present with the painful feelings of loss related to the past promises of
modernity forever to remain unfulfilled (Szalo 2015).
As a first step in understanding how materiality shapes the meanings ruins lend themselves
to, we can intuitively distinguish ideal types - or rather dimensions - according to the processes
underlying their implicit "stories of becoming." The first and perhaps most immediate
dimension is that of natural decay. Spontaneous decomposition of stone eroded by water, frost
and wind over long periods of time bears witness to the evanescence of the material and by
embodying the passage of time, it simultaneously evokes continuity. This imaginary of the
material giving in to inhuman forces grounds the nostalgic element present in ancient
structures such as medieval fortified castles, ghost towns in American mining regions or long
forsaken rural homesteads isolated from modern communication routes. Such structures,
often overgrown with trees and ivy, possess an iconic aura of permanent loss of shape, of
original function, of human control - a phenomenon mourned by so many a romantic poet and
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painter. Destruction related to violent forces of war - or of nature - represent the second
analytical dimension. Visions of German cities devastated by carpet bombing in 1945, of the
World Trade Center site after the terrorist attack in 2001 or of Tibetan streets regaled with
rubble after the recent earthquake exemplify a different type of nemesis, the shock of
unexpected, sudden doom caused by forces beyond (immediate) human control. Building
materials mixed with interior furnishings and items of personal use become mixed in unlikely
cocktails and if foliage plays a role in the story at all, it is either burnt, washed up, dissolved to
shreds - or strikingly absent.
The third paradigmatic process of ruining is that of the desecration incurred by ignorant or
willful disregard of the intended use of a place. Objects, buildings or places become ruined by
physical contact with "ritually unclean" things that leave traces behind. In this category, we
find all manmade wrecks, abandoned structures turned into garbage dumps or unkept
historical buildings "appropriated" beyond recognition. In contrast with the first two models,
in which "sublime violence" (Pensky 2011) as the generative principle bestows a specific
aesthetic aura of meaning on material assemblages, there is hardly anything admirable about
mundane disrespectful handling.8 3
One exception, in which desecration marries the sublime,
is ritual destruction. The toppling of dictators' statues, demolitions of historical urban quarters
associated with crime and prostitution (like the Vydrica neighborhood in Bratislava of the
1960s), the tearing down of Bastille or the communist Palast der Republik to build anew the
Berlin Castle ritually leveled in 1950 all signify a violent coming to terms with symbols of times
that are never to return. In such "desecrations," the offense is against the offensive and is thus
understood as a moment of cleansing: defying the ancient regime becomes an act of moral
purification. As such, ritual destruction typically leaves no room for the ruin - often leaving
behind just emptiness and a sense of barren ground.
This sensitizing categorization of ruins based on their genesis is, of course, ideal typical.
Individual ruined structures experience different types of destruction at different stages of
their afterlife and often exhibit multiple genetic layers. Even the paradigmatic ruin of a
medieval castle would often have been first burned down as obsolete or strategically risky
before the roots of plants and the hands of human builders took over what was left; a later
attempt by an official initiative to develop the ruin into a tourist attraction may be viewed by
At the same time, it is important to note that the notion of disrespect is in itself a denunciation of a specific
regime of justification - the efficient industrial or budgeting market one - mainly from the conservative position
of domestic worth.
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preservation purists as yet another (and most morally unsettling) phase of destruction. Taking
yet a different angle of section, the three ideal-types visualize different kinds of background
(human?) action: if decay testifies of neglect and destruction evidences violence, desecration
presents a specific combination of these two principles.
The crucial question for our inquiry here is the relationship between different forms of
destruction and the potential for mnemonic figuration. How do ruins acquire meanings? In
what way do they mediate our relationship to the past? How does a ruin become a symbol for
wound, a cultural trauma? And when it does, how does its cultivation facilitate healing? Finally,
what extent of narrative and physical reorganization do ruins need - and how much of it can
they bear before their ability to testify to destruction becomes blurred? What if there is an
intuitive boundary, beyond which mnemonic cultivation destroys a ruin for what it was, is and
could be? Obviously, such questions point to different levels of analysis: the physical culturing
of a specific ruin as a material place of memory, the (re)production of cultural cognitive and
interpretive templates framing what counts as "heritage" and the discursive clothing of a
structure into the appropriate robe to enter public consciousness as a place of specific
meaning all have different type of bearing on an individual instance of memory emplacement.
Image 22. The tomb of the Pohle-Roth family, the only one spared and later awarded protection as part of national
cultural heritage. First half of the 1990s. (Haläsz 1996:19)
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Old Lutheran cemetery at Žriedlová street: The biography ofa site
The origins of the old Lutheran cemetery, positioned in the southwestern fringes of
Kosice's city center, go back to the Counter-Reformation of late 17th century when all
Protestant worship was banned within the city walls. Košice Lutherans first build a wooden
church with an adjacent cemetery here in 1687 and after this one burnt down during the
Ferenc Rákóczi II uprising in 1706, three other churches - for the German, the Slovak and the
Hungarian linguistic communities - are built in the locality along with a school (Halász 1996:7).
After the building of a walled church, allowed by the 1781 Patent of Toleration, Lutheran
religious life moves closer to the city center; the cemetery remains in use until in 1889, the
municipal ordinance closes all confessional graveyards found along the western suburbs of the
city and redirects burials to the newly established central cemetery south of the city. Burials
into existing family tombs, though infrequent, continue at least until the end of 1920s.8 4
Over the course of the 20th century, the state of the cemetery gradually deteriorates. In
1928, the Roman Catholic cleric and local historian Béla Wick publishes a brochure about old
Košice cemeteries, providing both a list of personalities of interest buried in them, and
documentation of the artistic value of present tombs and gravestones (Wick 1928). In the same
year, the remnants of the Calvinist cemetery positioned across the road from the Lutheran one
are divided up and sold for private home construction. In 1950s, all remaining inactive
cemeteries lining the slopes rising to the western terrace become part of the so-called
"decontamination zone" ("asanačné pásmo") - an area designated for complete demolition
and new construction. Subsequently, the northernmost Calvary cemetery gives way to an
amphitheater in 1954 and the nearby Cemetery of the Saint Cross to what is later called the
Kuzmány housing development; the adjacent Jewish cemetery is damaged in the course of
building but remains undeveloped. While structurally untouched by demolition, the Lutheran
cemetery, counted in Wick's 1928 publication among the important pieces of municipal
heritage, gradually crumbles away with the help of natural forces and vandalism. As one
witness, a retired teacher of Kosice's medical school, had recalled to one of my informants,
towards the end of the 1960s, the students already had a hard time assembling a complete
study skeleton from the crypts that had laid open.
See an incomplete database of the dead buried at Žriedlová cemetery at
http://www.cemetery.sk/?pid=640&s=0&t=Z3JfcGxhY2VidXJ5IExJS0UsJyVLb5ppY2UgLSBTdGFy|SBiaW50b3Ltbi
BldmFuamVsaWtvdiUn; accessed on October 31, 2017.
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AZ ÁG. EVANGELIKUSOK HKG1 TEMETOJE (81-90 1.)
Az elótérben : Sulyovs/ky Menyhcrt (86 1.) és Kiss Yiczay Jozsef (84-85 I.) sirboltja.
A háttérben : Csiszár Terez sírkOve (89 l.) és Rlobusiczky István kriptája (86 1.)
Image 23. A view of the cemetery from the 1920s as printed in Wick (1928:30).
And then, in 1974, three years after the large New City housing project located on the
expansive terrace West of Kosice old town was finished, the Municipal National Committee
ordered the old Lutheran cemetery to be bulldozed. The few contemporary observers I talked
to recalled rash action with little regard for proper procedure: no reburial of the remains
deposited in the ground took place prior to the bulldozing of the premises and neither were
artistically valuable items removed for preservation. With the exception of the largest and
most ornamental tomb in the middle of the parcel and portions of the cemetery wall, any built
structures were simply leveled. In the following years, concrete pathways were laid down,
streetlights installed and decorative bushes planted, yet the transformation into a park was
never completed. Isolated from main pedestrian routes and places of interest, the park never
gained broad popularity and according to one of the officers of the planning office, by the
middle of 1980s, the principal dwellers were from the Roma under-class, living here in sheds.
At about the same time, in 1986, the municipal authority attempted to salvage the failing park
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by hosting an international workshop to recast it as a "Park of Peace" - it was, however, too
late for any action to take place before the demise of the communist regime in 1989.
After 1989, the park continued to fall into disrepair as the remaining metal plaques
gradually disappeared from the walls and waste accumulated. Around 1996, several voices
calling for a revitalization of the park and for the establishment of a "memorial park" appeared
from different sides, with the first one from the Hungarian cultural association CSEMADOK and
the most vocal one from the local archivist Štefan Eliáš of the Košice Historical Association.
Both direct correspondence with the municipal authority and several mentions in the local
newspaper (Bača 1996; Magdolenová 1997) remained without response and the idea
remained dormant for another decade. In December 2007, the plot of land was sold to a
private developer and the impeding danger of the cemetery's final destruction opened a new
chapter in the story - one marked with activist involvement and concerted effort at composing
a cemetery common-place.
Before we continue with this story, let us rewind a little and focus first on the state of
attachments in the local Lutheran community that led to the sale of this property. If religious
communities work primarily as "chains of memory" (Hervieu-Léger 2000), how did this
Christian community come to give up its heritage and disown its very own dead?
Building commonality on bones: Five perspectives
Let us now focus on the different agents' engagements, the grammars of justification that
can be traced in their actions and explanations of the most recent events related to the
cemetery. In the following, I reconstruct five different perspectives of the cemetery as a place
of remembering: of the local Lutheran congregation as the original owner, of the urban
planning authority as the technical overseer of public interest, of the descendant of a person
buried in the cemetery, of the civil activists advocating memorialization instead of
development of the site and of one specific type of activist whose engagement unfolded along
with their performative participation in the protest. At least two important elements are
missing for this picture to be complete: the developer, who unfortunately did not agree to an
interview, and the Regional Monument Authority, which was represented informally among
the activists, is thus merged with the activist sphere. Analyzing the various meanings
associated with the cemetery's past, present and future, I wish to prepare the ingredients for
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the final discussion of the emergent solidarities that the different approaches to handling this
place afford.
Bones dead: Salvaging value for a more godly purpose (the Lutherans)
For Košice Lutherans, the sale of the cemetery has always been a part of a larger story the
story of expansion, development and outreach. The idea of dividing the central
congregation in two and building a second church in Košice has, according to its present pastor,
been around at least since the 1960s - a decade of a rapid urban growth and work immigration,
as well as political liberalization. The restrictions on religious life in Czechoslovakia prevented
the implementation of such plans, but as soon as these became history, the suppressed wishes
and needs for new places of worship resurfaced as religious communities celebrated their
triumph over an oppressive atheistic regime. In Košice, as early as 1990, a state-wide
architectonic competition was announced to build a "Christian complex" in a vacant green area
just behind the former regional headquarters of the Slovak Communist Party positioned at the
heart of the western New City - Terasa. Here, three churches were to be built and an optimistic
newspaper report from 1992 anticipated the construction to begin in 1994.8 5
Though the
Roman and Greek Catholic parishes did, indeed, commence works within two years to
consecrate their churches by the end of the century, the construction of the third Lutheran
church was still just a plan.
Despite their early start, community collections could not yield sufficient funds for the
planned investment. Around 2000, the congregation adopts the idea of selling the former
Lutheran cemetery as the only way to raise money to fund the project. After the property is
cleared in preparation for sale in 2001 (removing fifteen truckloads of accumulated waste,
according to one of the community's pastors, Dušan Havrila), it is first offered to the Ministry
of Culture as required by the inclusion of the Pohle-Roth tomb in the list of National Heritage
Protection. The Lutheran congregation then engages in a series of negotiations with the
municipal authority, debating various forms of transfer of the cemetery to the city - from
purchase, to exchange for other property, to a "financially advantageous rent" (Havrila).
Obviously disinterested in taking over the cemetery, the municipality only offers inadequate
compensation and, subsequently, also declines the church's attempt to reclassify the property
in the Urban Development Plan (UDP) so as to allow future construction. Nevertheless, the
Source: "Na Terase vyrastie cirkevný komplex."Košický večer, November 10,1992.
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community leadership begins to seek a private investor. The first offer only arrives in 2006 and
although it is later withdrawn, the congregation obtains the necessary approval from higher
church authority (the regional body of elders, in this case) to go ahead with the sale. After
another round of unsuccessful negotiations with the municipality, the community finally sells
the cemetery for 21 million Slovak crowns in late 2007. The price is less than two thirds of the
expected revenue based on the 2006 offer. Though in the UDP, the area is still designated
strictly for public green, both parties are pragmatic in their faith that this formal obstacle will
not halt potential construction. The construction of the new Terasa church commences in 2010
and has, mostly due to hardships in financing its swelling budget, continued until the present
day.
Though the socialist regime generally expropriated church property, the ownership of the
cemetery was never formally transferred to the state. The municipal authority took over
responsibility for the cemetery's maintenance in 1957 and remained responsible for it well
into the 1990s. When the cemetery was finally handed over into the congregation's custody,
it was in a "catastrophic state" (Havrila) and promised no revenue or benefit for its owner.
Described as "one big garbage dump" by Havrila, the cemetery's physical pollution was
multiplied by a symbolic one - the presence of Roma living in illegally constructed huts and
devastating its premises. According to Karol, a member of the Terasa community leadership,
the old cemetery had no utility for the community - financial or spiritual - and was only
perceived as a burden; as nice as it would be for the Lutherans to have a park of their own,
this would only generate expenses and the congregation had no capital to spare. The sale thus
became framed primarily as a matter of passing on a useless property - as a means to
accomplishing the institutional and material independence of the newly established Church
community.
From the very first time I heard about this transaction, I was intrigued by the apparent lack
of any relevant familiar attachments to the cemetery among the local Lutherans - for the
community, this seemed to be anything but a piece of their heritage. If there were no direct
relatives of the buried deceased in the broader Lutheran community, which, considering that
nearly a century had passed between the last burial and the sale, is possible, were there also
no local history enthusiasts? Apparently, there were none active in the congregation: the
historical value of the cemetery was "of course not discussed" as there seemed no one who
"felt strongly about this" (Karol). Havrila confirms that no one with relatives buried in the
ruined graveyard was known to him at the time of the sale, and neither were history fans
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abundant in the community. To illustrate this, he recalls some of his earlier inquiries into the
congregation's past, which only elicited dismissal from his parishioners: "Why should we build
on dead bones?" Drawing a lesson for the cemetery case, he continues: "It is impossible to
build (on them), but we can extract, capitalize what is old and useless, but still retains some
(kind of) value." The young elder Samuel is somewhat more reflexive about the current
congregation's inability to reconnect with local Lutheran history. Recalling all of the Hungarian
and German memorial plaques, archive materials or books lining the walls in the community
house (most of the latter two put away in a recent reconstruction), he acknowledges that much
has changed in the demography of the Kosice church and remarks that "it is not us, who is to
blame, but those evacuations." Consequently, he concludes, the families buried at the
cemetery are "from a branch that we are no longer connected to." A few non-elicited remarks,
as if in passing, devoid of nostalgia or remorse, speculated on a historical cause that no one
really brought to the fore.
The Chronicle of the Kosice Lutheran congregation, written up by its former pastor Ladislav
Jurkovic in the 1970s, reveals that ethno-political tension and the effects of forced migration
cut deeply into Lutheran community life between 1938 and 1948. In 1938, owing to the
"calamitous Vienna verdict,"8 6
nine out of ten Slovak Lutherans, including the pastor, are
reportedly forced into emigration. At the same time, the numbers of the parallel HungarianGerman
community, united since 1861, increase in number thanks to the influx of Hungarian
bureaucrats. With the new pastor-who had just recently been evicted from the newly founded
Slovakia - Hungarian is reportedly introduced into community decision-making processes as
well as, partially, into worship - which for Jurkovic is a known sign of "Magyarization." After the
liberation in 1945, fortunes change and the Hungarian-German community is substantially
diminished by evacuation, flight and expulsion. In January 1946, these two communities, now
in the minority, are administratively merged and it is decided that worship is to continue in
Hungarian and German until "the linguistic situation (with regard to the evacuation-transport
of non-Slovak population) is not clarified."8 7
While precise numbers remain a mystery, we can
draw two general points: first, while non-Slovak Lutherans were relatively rare in Hungary and
later Czechoslovakia, this this was not the case in Kosice, where all three ethnicities were well
"Kronika Evanjelického aug. vyzn. cirkevného zboru v Košiciach", dated 1973, page 24; Archive of the KošiceCenter
Congregation of the Slovak Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession.
8 7
"Kronika Evajelického...", page 29.
183
represented; and second, forced migration during and in consequence of the Second World
War profoundly affected the composition of the Košice community, in which Germans and
Hungarians became marginalized.
When the bulldozing came about in 1974, the cemetery had already been in the demolition
zone for almost two decades. Several months before its destruction, Jurkovič writes in his
Chronicle that at least "memorable gravestones"8 8
should be preserved from the looming
doom. Not having engaged in detailed archive research, I can say nothing of potential
contemporary responses or criticisms. Asking around whether the cemetery was still a place
of commemoration for local Lutherans, I received conflicting responses: while Samuel denied
it, opining that "no one saw it as a disaster back in the 1960s" as it was rather about "having a
better city," my interview partner Radoslav Grega claimed that graves were still visited at the
end of the decade. When considering the sale a quarter century later, there were, according
to all the interview partners, no critical voices within the community and no perceived need
to deal with the history:
The congregation's stance was not to open up the past, because it is not connected
to us to the extent it may seem to be. If a sense of grievance was there, we might,
but it was liquidated peacefully (Samuel, fieldnotes).
Save for a single recorded critical voice, raised in a church assembly in early 2008 by an elderly
woman, Mária Jiroušková, a local historian of medicine who had rescued one of the original
epitaphs at the time of the demolition and who only learned about the cemetery's sale after
its completion, the congregation at large and in its leadership was in consensus that the
important discussion was about the budget of the church project. As the elder put it, the
mother community felt it should give the newborn one "something for the journey" (Samuel):
We wanted to give (something) to the living. History cannot be reversed, but
money can help the new congregation - here and now (...) (Samuel, fieldnotes).
While there seem to have been no dissenters in either of the Kosice congregations, old or
new, a pastor from the nearby village became involved in the activist networks created after
"Kronika Evajelického...", page 42.
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the sale. Radoslav Grega, a pastor in Opina, had been aware that to finance the building of a
church for the recently emancipated second Kosice community, a piece of land was to be sold,
but had no idea about its nature. When requesting permission with the regional church body,
the Kosice representatives failed to mention that the useless parcel of land used to be a
cemetery - a framing Grega found deeply misleading. Appalled by such disregard for local
Lutheran heritage, the history and geology enthusiast contributed to the launch of an internal
disciplinary investigation into the formal propriety of the decision-making mechanism;
however, the sale could not be reversed and the persons responsible excused themselves by
stating it was a mistake. Grega's involvement in the activist foment (which mostly consisted in
networking, sharing information and knowledge useful in lobbying attempts) became even
more steady after, in 2009, he recognized the coat of arms of the Keczer family on one of the
photographs of the now demolished crypts. Identifying this grave as belonging to Tomas
Keczer, who had served as a longstanding lay leader of the Opina congregation throughout the
19th century, Grega realized his congregation (though not in Kosice proper) actually
represented the posterity that ought to tend for this grave.
But Grega's different approach has a fundamentally spiritual, even theological dimension:
for him, Lutheran identity and the cultural heritage of his church constitute not a burden but
a mission opportunity. In Grega's view, people nowadays can hardly be attracted by regular
church functions like Sunday services; it is much more effective to raise their interest through
current affairs:
When something comes up in society and it turns out that Dubcek was a Lutheran,
or the Stur adherents were Lutheran (...), even someone who does not live a
spiritual life within a community, says to himself (...) I am a Lutheran as well (...)
and through such awareness, we are one step away from spiritual renewal.
While Grega is obviously upset about the ill repute this instance of disrespect to symbolic
ancestors had brought to the Slovak Lutheran Church at large, his objections are not exclusively
idealistic or based on personal investment in the past. Kosice Lutherans should have sought
grants and funding opportunities precisely because the cemetery might become a platform for
the potential mobilization of believers. The preoccupation with and investment in building a
new church facility instead of attending to the worth of ruins seems to him a misguided
approach to supporting growth:
185
Do they believe that by opening a new church in Terasa, they will reach out to new
Lutherans? I really doubt that. They will reach those already associated, but those
without a link -1 am just very skeptical.
1
Image 24. The new Lutheran church in Kosice-West (Terasa) with a recently finished facade and interior still under
construction. Photo from June 2016, source: Facebook site "Kosice-Terasa ECAV")89
The principal difference between Grega and the Kosice leaders seems to be in his readiness
to recognize the "dead bones" as moral ancestors and the willingness to own the ensuing
responsibility for their legacy. The central Kosice congregation does not have a practice of
commemorating important personalities of its past; when explicitly asked about this in the
interview, the pastor symptomatically retorted "What personalities?" as if not understanding
the question or its relation to the topic. Grega's conviction that, if direct posterity of Tomas
Keczer is missing, it is matter of honor for the Opina congregation to step in as a guardian of
his remains, does not find resonance in the situation described by Kosice leaders; for them,
the plot of land is genuinely meaningless. In reaction to later criticism from the wider Slovak
Lutheran community, Samuel explains the paradoxical difficulty in appropriating a non-existent
heritage:
Source: https://www.facebook.com/kosiceterasa/photos/
a.l499672776935631.1073741828.1495978083971767/1794582634111309/?type=3&theater; accessed on
October 31, 2017.
186
We are blamed for liquidating something Lutheran, but I have a feeling - when this
kind of suggestion is raised, we all have a question mark there - alright, we would
gladly open our eyes - but what to? (fieldnotes)
The past has left without a trace and unless the "opening of eyes" means systematic study of
archives (an option envisioned by Samuel), the imagination of today's Košice Lutherans as
presented by the interviewed leaders is clueless. Well settled in the common-place of churchplanting
and growth, their futurism is in fact a specific selectivity about the past that informs
the legitimacy of their course of action. Grega's criticism departs from a different approach to
a common past and its "utility," one in which a past common-place can be discovered,
excavated, cultivated and repurposed as a source of inspiration. The moral appeal of such
actualization of heritage is underpinned by the fatalism of belonging to a tradition connected
to a place - a mindset foreign to the emancipatory growth mindset of Košice representatives.
Bones absent: Developing a troubled area (the urbanists)
Seen from the broader perspective of urban planning, the lagging development of the
Western "decontamination zone" - an interstitial area contaminated by industrial ruins, its
unkept nature and illicit dwellers coded as Roma "unadaptables" - had been a problem for
decades before the cemetery's sale. One of the leading representatives of the Office of the
Main Architect (OMA) Klaudia, who symptomatically opened our interview with a guided
inspection of a large technical map hanging from the wall, confirmed the recollection of several
of my other interview partners that the socialist "adaptation" was not quite thorough:
(...) no added value was given to the territory (...), some lighting was created,
maybe some trash baskets. I don't know if there were any benches; I think there
were none...
As early as 1986, a mere decade after the conversion into a public park, an international
architectonic workshop was organized to suggest a redesign of the stillborn recreation ground.
The revamped "Park of Peace" never materialized and after 1989, in the continued presence
of homeless persons and Roma, the cemetery continued to deteriorate. Designated as a green
area reserved for recreation in the 1983 urban development plan, the peripheral slope became
a hideout for dubious activities and, as Klaudia mentioned, an opportune spot for relatives
wishing to communicate with inmates held in the prison across from Žriedlová Street.
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In 2006, just as the Lutheran congregation was losing its patience in the negotiations over
the price or compensation for the cemetery's transfer into the city's hands, the municipality
launched two parallel strands of development planning that dealt with the area. On the one
hand, an architectonic competition was announced, calling for projects to revitalize the
"uninviting no man's land"9 0
on the south-west edge of the center. Around the same time, a
different branch of the magistrate coordinated the drafting of a general urbanization concept
of the "New City Center," which was to span the area from the Municipal Hall (the so-called
White House, located in the Terasa housing project) and the western fringes of the old town.
Yet, neither of these included any sort of detailed plans for using the cemetery as a
"monument." The urbanization concept focused on delimiting the functional priorities and
limits as guidelines for future investments in the mostly barren area west of the cemetery wall;
in the presentation found circulating online, the idea of a "Memorial Park" is acknowledged in
one of the visualization views but no adaptations are proposed. Of the 15 proposals submitted
to the competition for a "Park behind the Malthouse," all leave the former cemetery grounds
empty, concentrating their visions of playgrounds, wooden terraces, running pathways and
open-air stages in the upper part of the area and the gorge adjacent to the cemetery slope.
But only three reflect on its solemn atmosphere explicitly by designating it as a "meditation
and relaxation zone," a "quiet backstage of the park" or as a space of dialogue between "the
old" (signaled by ruins) and "the new" (symbolized by sports activities);9 1
a single project, one
by a local author, envisions a park devoted to personalities of interest once buried here but
lacks further details.
After the cemetery's sale in 2007, the foreseeable attempt at loosening the restrictions on
construction in the area took place. The attempt to silently append documents ratified by a
June 2010 municipal council session was, however, spotted by the civil watchdog Rovinský,
who decided to mobilize local civil society and draw public attention to the pending
development of the area by holding a public walk. Mimicking the popular format of guided
tours for locals, invented and run in Košice by the popular local tour guide Milan Kolcun in
monthly intervals, two subsequent walks were organized in the middle of the summer under
the title "Beyond the fortress of the free royal town" - one devoted to the cemetery, the other
to the stagnating project of the "New City Center." The narrated walks attracted about one
Source: http://www.peterbednar.com/Brewery-Park; accessed on October 31, 2017.
Source: http://www.archinet.sk/Galeria/vystava.asp?Vystava=65; accessed on April 15, 2015.
188
hundred participants each, and though this may seem like a small crowd, the de-regulation
was halted. And not just that: the act of public, in situ sharing of the history of this place, of
the life-stories of some of the significant buried personalities, as well as of the proposal to
make it Memorial Park can be seen as a performative guerrilla installation of the park in spite
of the city's lack of eagerness to adopt the idea.
After the 2010 attempt to alter regulation failed, the property changed hands several times
and in late 2013, the then-current owner submitted a proposal to build a multi-purpose
residential building, including 68 apartments on 11 stories and almost 180 underground
parking places. The ban on construction in the green zone was to be circumvented via a legal
exception that could be granted to public amenities supportive of the principal function of the
park, on the condition that it does not exceed 19 percent of its total area. Though commercial
housing does not seem to enhance a public park very much as such, the OMA looked favorably
upon the "Hustáky" project (evoking the old-time local term for the suburbs of this area) as it
hoped that it would help rehabilitate the problematic area and effectively make it available for
public use. What is more, the heritage aspects were not completely left out of consideration:
the plans stated the intention to repair pathways and greenery, conserve the remnants of the
cemetery wall and, inevitably, to renovate the Pohle-Roth tomb, a building listed on in the
national registry of historical monuments. All this finally made it appear a reasonable deal that
could even excuse the relative height of the structure:
(...) we can dispute if the construction was not somewhat exorbitant, but if you
take the area as it is, with the high-rise buildings, with the Cassovar [a recently
built administrative complex nearby], and the malt factory, there is a sort of
gradation. But our view was that if the Lutherans weren't capable of taking care
of it, then he would be bound to repair Roth's chapel, (...) anything that would be
found he would maybe incorporate into the wall, which would also be repaired,
and also he would, say, create that solemn place somewhere, where maybe also...
FINALLY some sort of memorial plaque to all those buried, who are there and
whom we can identify (...) It was our opinion that if - in accordance with the
regulation - we allowed those 19 percent of construction, that the area could really
work (Klaudia)
Truth be told, besides a rather schematic tribute to some of the predictable concerns of the
Monument Authority for the "chapel," the original project documentation mentions neither
189
manipulation with found fragments nor the intention to build a "solemn place" with a plaque;
we can only assume this was a matter of later development and agreement between the OMA
and the investor. At any rate, the functional and attainable solution, compromising the market
(profit), industrial (functionality) and domestic (heritage) worths invested in urban
development, is made to stand out against the background of the church's inability to maintain
the lot. In this, Klaudia joins the chorus of voices regarding the sale of the cemetery by the
church as shameful: its embellishment is thought to have been the church's "dog's duty"
(Klaudia) to which volunteers, collaboration with the city and grants from institutions like the
U.S. Embassy should have been mobilized. What Klaudia does not explain is why, as one of the
pastors asserted in a later interview, the city would not offer adequate compensation to the
Lutheran congregation and then, several years later, had no problem producing suitable
property for exchange when dealing with a private investor.
What both the proposal and Klaudia omitted from their consideration were the bones:
despite an otherwise meticulous review of the local geology and pedology, there was no
consideration of the potential presence of human remains. Klaudia did eventually mention
them, in response to my remark, in which I shared my fascination with the way a barren place
like this could become a monument. She followed up on the thought, but shared her qualms
about the recent inclusion of the cemetery in the newly established list of municipal historical
heritage. In her view, physical remnants of art or architecture with classifiable heritage
features can be called monuments:
[B]ut if it is merely vegetation, which we can use as a park, why then should we
treat it as a monument where nothing can be touched? (...) What will you find
there? Just the skeletons. And what kind of monument is a skeleton? I can say that
the cemetery was there, there are significant personalities, I can create some sort
of memorial spot -1 would rather say that (...) the exhumation should have really
taken place (...) in those years...
In the cited excerpt, the ambivalent status of the cemetery appears as an irreparable glitch in
the way things are done: if bones were properly exhumed, all we would be talking about is the
crypt. Although Klaudia does mention a "memorial spot" for the deceased, the primary way
of dealing with the issue seems to be as if the bones did not exist. Operating strictly in the
190
Image 25. Visualization of the New City Center in the spatial context of the southwestern rim of the inner city by
lnarch.sk studio. The sole remaining Pohle-Roth tomb is shown as a little white structure on the slope below the
projected new development (bluish green).92
Image 26. The scheme of the construction on the cemetery ground. The beige object next to the crossing paths
is the Pohle-Roth tomb.9 3
Source: http://www.inarch.sk/portfolio/2007-new-city-center-kosice/; accessed on October 31, 2017.
Source: "POLYFUNKCNY OBJEKT HUSTAKY - KOŠICE. Zámer podľa zákona č.24/2006 Z.z. o posudzovaní vplyvov
na životné prostredie" (project proposal documentation), page 65; available at:
http://www.enviroportal.sk/sk/eia/detail/polyfunkcny-obiekt-hustaky-Kosice; accessed on October 31, 2017.
191
grammar of justification, she treats the question of human remains in an impersonal, detached
manner, coopting the domestic worth of due respect into the compromise cocktail. At the
same time, not finding for the human remains a suitable heritage category and disregarding
personal affinities boosted by imagination of past glory, Klaudia's primary framing pushes the
bones out of view, even while not denying their existence.
Bones unfamiliar: Deploying ancestors as a platform for social critique (the
relatives)
Pavol, a man in his mid-70s, asked me to present him anonymously as a Košičan. A
passionate sportsman and an enthusiast of the history of his native city, he is one of the few
of remaining conscientious descendants of the deceased buried at Žriedlová cemetery. A
graduate of the Košice Technical Vocational School, he joined the Imre Henszlmann Historical
Society in the second half of 1990s after reading an article about the founder of Hungarian
monument protection, a Košice native, honored in the society's name. Setting up a meeting
with Pavol was not easy - though we had previously met at the Henszlmann Society's meeting
and had a rather friendly chat, he was very reserved when I contacted him over a year later.
When I realized that, as a distant relative of one of the families once in the cemetery, he was
the only person I could identify with potentially intimate stakes in its state, I managed to
convince him on a much later second attempt to meet me despite his cautious doubt.
Eighty-five years had passed between the official closure of the cemetery and its
demolition and so it was clear I could hardly expect to find emotional bonds of bereavement
anywhere. Even if burials into existing family tombs did occur (as some preservation activists
claim) in 1910s or even 1920, the chance that these graves still had caring protectors in 1974
were not high, much less so now. Still, according to some of my contacts in the field, Pavol and
his brother were the only known "heirs" who kept in contact with the activists; there was even
a rumor that in 1974, they had corresponded with the municipal authority asking to be allowed
to save the graves of their relatives. Naturally, I was wondering, why such familiar attachment
- one rather easily transformed into a justified claim that relatives have a right to protect the
place of rest of their past relatives (domestic worth) - was completely missing from the
activist's strategy. Even if there were just a few of these bones' "heirs" left, could they not step
forward as their guardians? And even if they did not desire to do so, were the presumed
intimate attachments to the memory of distant relatives actually there?
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The answer is: yes and no. When I ask Pavol to explain to me who the buried relatives were
and what they meant to the family, there is a long silence before Pavol says "... [It's] hard to
tell now; this was such distant family..." and goes on to explain that he intends to compile
information into a coherent image of the past, but the work is still in progress. He then names
several other families with very old graves and relates his disappointment at their destruction:
Each grave should have been preserved and moved, just as they do now with those
political statues; they carry them into a deposit in Šaca. I can understand why it
was such a problem to lay those marbles, and those bronze and cast-iron plaques,
to rest somewhere...
When I immediately inquire, if the bones - the invisible, underground level of the cemetery were
left in place, he does not engage in a moral condemnation of bulldozer treatment the
way other critics had:
[It's] hard to say, ... because maybe they remained there. From what I know,
people were shocked that children played with bones, kicked... there was a head they
played soccer with it. It was such a freestyle - cloud-kissing mess.
Painting an apocalyptic image of morbid children's play, Pavol decries the barbarian procedure,
but the matter-of-course tone of his voice and the informative framing seems rather detached.
The fact that, replaying the ambiguity of the question - which was previously answered with a
decided yes by several activists and an evasive no by the Lutheran pastor Havrila - he simply
speculates that their continued presence is probable. His earlier indignation at the destruction
of the gravestones and crypts, on the other hand, seems decidedly more personally invested.
Could it be that for one of the last descendants of the Žriedlová dead, the ruined architectural
riches may be more of a loss than the integrity of the bones themselves?
At the beginning of our interview, Pavol framed the whole problem as a disregard of
current Košice society (and the Lutheran congregation as its manifestation) toward the
heritage of past Hungarian inhabitants. He emphasizes that it was primarily Hungarian
Lutherans, and only later also Slovak ones, who were buried there and opined that the
Lutheran church "should have the duty to seek, study and preserve what is valuable in the
past." He then broadened the view and related his impression that the Košice urban history is
not paid due respect and gratitude. The Košice historical core, proudly presented as the largest
urban heritage reservation in Slovakia
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was essentially built by Hungarians, partially by Germans, so it fell straight into the
lap of a new society, which uses it, lives it. This is alright, because life goes on, but
if this is the way it is, it should be emphasized, in schools and elsewhere, brought
to attention who built it, who designed it - these were, indeed, enormous
investments in money and energy...
Pavol's criticism of the lack of acknowledgement for the non-Slovak history of the town
extends beyond architecture. He later mentions a host of prominent pre-war industrialist
families, whose names had fallen into oblivion. The interesting part in the citation is the
hedging strategy: Pavol demonstrates that he is reconciled with the use of the city by a "new
society" in order to position himself as an advocate of the "old one," which deserves credit for
building up this city. Responding to my later question regarding local patriotism, he
spontaneously brings up the Benes decrees "and those cleansings and those abnormally harsh
reprisals" which caused "enormous damage between people." Pavol is unwilling to share more
than a couple of hints regarding his own family's journey through these years and rather speaks
generally of the "deep cuts" that remained despite later normalization. Referring to the later
migration boom of the 1960s, he speaks of a "transfusion of blood," in which Hungarian
majority was mixed with outsiders. In this context, Pavol's emphasis on the preservation of the
monumental aspects of the cemetery seems to indicate that the familial bond to ancestral
bones is but a secondarily explored engagement unreeling from a much more general concern
with the common-place of a city lost to ethnic refurbishment.
Several hours after my interview with Pavol, I met another member of the Henszlmann
Society at a book presentation - Sebastian. When I mentioned my recent meeting with Pavol,
Sebastian was curious to learn what I had learnt. Uncertain where the question was headed
or what Sebastian knew, I responded in a very general manner. Sebastian then told me what,
as he rightly supposed, Pavol did not admit to me: it was in all probability Pavol and his brother
who unwittingly provoked the bulldozing of the cemetery. At the beginning of the 1970s, the
two brothers allegedly wrote a concerned letter to the municipal authority requesting that
something be done about the miserable state of the cemetery. Though details of the appeal
were unknown to Sebastian, he speculated that they probably suggested conversion to a park
- probably expecting some sort of renovation. Popular incentive, as Sebastian noted, was all
"the communists" needed to vindicate action - and immediately sent in the bulldozers. As
Pavol himself never mentioned any correspondence with the communist city leadership and I
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did not feel it appropriate to confront him about it, the factuality and context of such remain
obscure. With the letter or without it, Pavol's current engagement in the heritage value of the
cemetery remains strikingly detached from his familial lineage, drawing its emotional and
moral valence mostly from the common-place of disappearance of Hungarian culture from his
home-town's landscape.
Bones compelling: Creating heritage out of rubble (the activists)
Though individuals and groups have expressed their concern for the state of the desolate
cemetery at least since 1996, the rudiments of the loose network of civic activists that later
pushed for the cemetery's preservation took shape around the time of the cemetery's sale by
the central Kosice Lutheran congregation in December 2007. Crucial to its emergence were
two figures - the local amateur historian Stefan Elias, who as a former archivist was very
knowledgeable concerning the history of the site and the different persons of interest buried
there, and the employee of the Monument Authority, Juraj Gemibicky, who shared up-to-date
information on the approval process and generally maintained the network. When in 2010,
the environmental activist and president of the Beautification Society Ladislav Rovinsky
discovered a camouflaged attempt to secretly lift the limits on construction in the area, he
promptly organized a guided walk with the hope of raising public awareness of the cemetery's
historical value. In the excursion, which was attended by up to a hundred locals, Elias appeared
as a contemporary eyewitness of the destruction, a local history expert and the original
proponent of the idea of Memorial Park. Though I was unable to reconstruct many details of
the program of this event, it is quite safe to expect that the crowd visited the approximate
grave sites of the municipal physician Jozsef Kis Viczay, the 1848 Hungarian revolution veteran
Zsigmund Dessewffy and the adventurer, entrepreneur and soldier Andrej Gallik.9 4
Upon
request by Gemibicky, a reenactment group dressed in American Civil War uniforms took part
in the walk, giving a round of honor at the latter's grave (an engagement that will be discussed
in the following section). As a result of the public attention - or so at least the activists have
told me - the limits defined by the Urban Development Plan remained in place and the
construction was halted.
Owing to Andrej Galffy-Gallik's life in an ethnically mixed region and his international travels, various
transcriptions of his name can be found in different sources, documents and current press mentions, including
Ondrej Galik, Andrej Galffy-Gallik, Andreas Gallik, Endre Gallfy, and Andrew Gallfy. In this text, I will only refer to
this man by the name I found most frequently appearing - Andrej Gallik - with no ambition to address the
historicity of this particular form.
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Image 27. The drilling mechanism performing geological probes seen on site in April 2012 was an early herald of
the construction plans submitted by the OSPOS, s.r.o. company in 2013.9 5
In late 2013, another official attempt to get construction underway was made, this time in
the form of a concrete project applying for official approval. The proposal struck against an
array of resolute objections from both civil groups and select public offices, including
authorities for the Monument Authority, the environmental issues and the central municipal
authority. The gravity of the projects' "shortcomings" led to a formal rejection and demand of
substantial amendments. While this testing situation has been partially sketched in the
previous sections, I will briefly summarize the objections raised - this time in the form of letters
of protest - against the intent to build on this plot. As suggested by the perplexed statement
by Klaudia, the mnemonic value of the bones was difficult to articulate in terms of standardized
categories of monument protection. The factual competence of the Monument Authority was
limited to the Pohle-Roth crypt. At the same time, there was a strong sense among the camp
of dissenters that the cemetery was, in a way, intact - that construction was impossible
because of the presence of the bones. This, however, was difficult to articulate legally, which
Source: http://www.kosice-estranky.sk/clanky/vystavba/proiekty—polyfunkcne-multifunkcne/polyfunkcnyobjekt-hustaky.html;
accessed October 31, 2017.
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led to two ways of addressing the "problem": by creating a sense of moral obligation to the
bones' legacy and by making a proper handling of the situation seem impossible.
According to the provisions in §23 of the Slovak Funerary Law Nr. 131/2010 regulating the
relocation of human remains in the event of abolishing a cemetery, cemetery ground can be
recycled after the "period of decay" has passed. This period, set depending on local geology
by the local authority, should be no shorter than 10 years; human remains found intact after
the set period must be gathered and deposited in a functioning cemetery at the cost of the
party in whose interest the cemetery was abolished. In terms of legal requirements, it would
have been enough for the investor to pledge a due process of reburial if any bones were found,
and then, in reality, do as they please. A more straightforward approach could have appeased
some of the critics. Pastor Grega, for example, conceded in an interview with me, that it is
understandable that new structures must be built and that the whole matter would have been
far less explosive had there been an arrangement between the church and the buyer to show
honor to any bones found. Surprisingly, the investor completely omitted this in the
"construction waste" section, which effectively worked as a red rag for the heritage activists,
who found the fate of the bones compelling. Rovinsky's newly founded "Basic organization of
the Slovak federation of nature and landscape protectors Košice 2013" thus charges against
this "ignorance":
The Lutheran cemetery has never been liquidated according to legal norms.
Graves and gravestones were merely overlaid with dirt. During excavation works,
human remains would be uncovered, which cannot be simply disposed of as
construction waste at a landfill.9 6
Stating the presence of bones as a fact, the otherwise dispassionate and brief list of
environmentally based objections first brings in a legal argument (stating that this is,
technically, still a cemetery) to then evoke a morally unsettling image of bones at a garbage
dump. The Košice Historical Society, formerly headed by Eliáš, calls the project barbaric, points
out that remains are laid in multiple layers and that as such, the cemetery constituted "the
oldest intact cemetery of the Košice community" (ibid:12). In a personal letter, Eliáš
denounced financial speculations with this land, mentioned that the cemetery was "dear to
Decision of the environmental department of the Kosice District Authority, Number OU-KE-OSZP3-2014/00017
from January 3, 2014, page 13; available at https://www.enviroportal.sk/eia/dokument/202147; accessed
October 31, 2017.
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Slovaks, Germans and Hungarians," but also pointed out that the cemetery was a "witness to
discrimination" in the past of both Lutherans and Slovaks (ibid:13-14). The letter from the
Henszlmann Society reviews the destruction only to state that "[h]owever, in the soil of this
cemetery, many of our ancestors still lay at rest" (ibid:15). It then lists dozens of names in
diverse categories (soldiers, nobility, artisans, merchants...), only to finally converge on the fact
that several family members, including the parents of Imre Henszlmann, the architect and art
historian after whom their society was named, were also buried there. On a similar note about
"virtual ancestors," the Lutheran pastor Grega from Opiná mentions his congregation's longstanding
inspector and even uniquely draws a practice of mourning into view (albeit somewhat
distant now) when he says that just the year before the presumed bulldozing, "the plot was
actively visited also by our parishioners" (ibid:15). Whether for the recognition of institutional
indebtedness (notice the complete absence of personal stakes, which at least in the case of
Henszlmann Society could have been raised), for a general respect to resonance with multiple
different audiences, or for the sheer abstract respect for human remains, construction is cast
as antithetical to showing due respect to the dead.
Besides these more or less specific evocations of symbolic ancestry, the Monument
Authority claimed that the cemetery should be preserved in its entirety as an archeological
site. As the objection states, the protection procedure customary in similar situations - an
archeological excavation of the site - would not sufficiently protect the cemetery's
archeological value since due to the complete destruction of its architectural stratum, such
research could not identify the identity of the unearthed remains. "And it is precisely therein,"
states the objection in a refined syllogistic manner, "- in concrete significant historical
personalities, lying in this cemetery - that one of this archeological site's greatest values
resides" (ibid:ll). Thus, paradoxically, the only way to protect the potential archeological
findings (Slovak even has an emphatic term for an archeological site that emphasizes the act
of "finding" - "nálezisko") would be by preventing anyone from finding anything in it. To a
similar effect, the Ministry of Interior warned that there was a "high probability" that war
graves from the time of the First World War were present on the site as there was evidence
that burials continued during the 1910s and 1920s, which posed specific expectations on
handling these graves. As the location of these could, however, never be specified, proper
removal of such graves (if the Ministry required it) would be impossible.
The deficiencies of the Huštáky project documentation, however, went beyond the
absence of a reasonable plan for the events of unearthing bones; it completely failed to
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disperse the expectable environmental objections. This, again, is striking not just because the
parcel was in an area designated as urban greenery, but also because it was part of larger
regional eco-systems and bio-corridors. Rovinský, who was simultaneously engaged in protest
against uranium mining near Košice as well as other environmental causes, pointed out to me
that it was actually the Environmental Impact Assessment (green worth) - and not the heritage
(domestic and civic worth) - that could halt and, eventually, prevent construction on this site.
Rovinsky's objection, as well as the municipality and the regional environmental authority
attacked this weak spot in the proposal and required a comprehensive review of the project,
which originally claimed to have no effect on fauna or flora. Several months after the cited
decision was issued, the city announced that it would trade the cemetery for other land with
the owner. At the beginning of the following year (2015), the city's newly established heritage
committee did certify the site's historical and mnemonic value by declaring it a "municipal
historical monument," a status with a certain signal effect, if little legal protection. In the end,
however, is was likely the green worth of the cemetery's environmental functions and not its
mnemonic potential - the beauty and uniqueness of its residual artifacts (inspirational worth),
the general sense of moral obligation to the ancestors (domestic worth) or its capacity to
manifestly integrate different ethnic imaginations of the past (civil worth) - that played a
dominant role in preventing construction.
Besides the arguments aimed at the municipal and regional agents, there is one interesting
element that evades attention when the matter is perceived through the documentation only.
Trying to maximize leverage and diversify the sources of pressure, the activists sought to find
new allies with a transnational reputation. To this end, Gembický drafted a letter in German to
send to institutions that could pressure the city to act.9 7
This letter referred to the human
remains of "German cultural citizens," including significant personalities like the sons of Otto
Wigand, a prominent publisher who lived in Košice and later gained renown in Sachsen. By
implicitly casting the remains of his infant sons as symbolic hostages to be rescued from this
less civilized part of the world through foreign intervention, the letter hoped to hold the
municipality hostage in turn and see it intervene in the cemetery's fate to its international
reputation. In a similar attempt, Gallik's story was leveraged as bait to win the attention of the
U.S. ambassador during his visit in the InfoUSA section in the Košice State Scientific Library's
Symptomatically, he had little idea who the recipient should be and I, among probably several other people,
was also asked to suggest potential allies that could, upon receiving such letter, voice some concern for the
cemetery with the municipality.
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in March 2014 and to inspire him to intervene in the cemetery's favor. To this end, the local
American Civil War re-enactment group SAMOV was drafted to aid the cemetery cause. In an
exercise of bridging common-places, four members of the group that attended the walk in
2010 stood as guards of honor in the hallway of the library as the ambassador entered the
building. Having thus captured his attention, the group received a three-minute private
opportunity to pitch their request and hand over to the U.S. representative a prepared dossier
with some basic facts on the case. The fact that the construction in the cemetery was
subsequently thwarted was later broadly attributed, amongst other things, to a presumed
letter of concern with a United States stamp.
The activity of the re-enactment group and their way of becoming engaged in the activism
deserves a little more attention, as in their case, it was neither a professional duty nor
sustained interest in matters of local heritage or environment that could explain their
involvement. Reviewing the motivations for and the meanings of this project for these
accidental activists may namely reveal something about the way common-places and an
engagement in justice come together in memory politics seen from below.
Bones adopted: Identifying with a hero of the Slovak nation (the role-players)
Of all the venerable dead in this cemetery, one man seems to have attracted more
interest, respect and admiration than any other: Andrej Gallik, an unsuccessful tradesman and
a veteran of the 1848-9 Hungarian revolution, who after the revolution's defeat, fled political
persecution to the United States. After several years of bizarre undertakings, including a
private fencing school in Ohio, a cigar distribution firm, a maritime job in the Pacific and a
shepherd's placement near Melbourne, Gallik joined the ranks of the Union Army in the
American Civil War. After the war, in which he reached the rank of a major, he opened a private
veterinary practice. Towards the end of his life, Gallik returned to Kosice, died there in 1881
and was buried at the Lutheran cemetery - eight years before its official closure (Ondrejsik
2013). An unlikely story of a local boy gone globetrotter, of a regular citizen who became a
successful commander in the legendary war against slavery, a tale of a self-made man who
after all those experiences returned home, GaNik's biography possesses a unique romantic
appeal with ample potential to symbolically connect the province with the "world." When
planning the August 1, 2010 public walk in the cemetery, Gembicky asked his friends from the
local American Civil War re-enactment group SAMOV to join the ranks of the localpatriots/protesters
- and to bring their arms along. Though mostly clad in the uniforms of their
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Image 29. Visualization of the memorial park as envisioned by the proponents and compiled by the Monument
Authority. Source: internal material made available by Juraj Gembicky.
Source: http://spolok-Kosice.webnode.sk/album/evanielicky-cintorin-na-zriedlovei-memorialnv-
park/#potulka-za-hradby-slobodneho-kralovskeho-mesta-spolu-s-armadou-konfederacie-sme-si-pripomenulipamiatku-andreja-gallika-foto-liptak-jpg;
accessed on October 31, 2017.
201
favorite 25th Virginia Infantry Regiment, which fought on the side opposite to that of Gallik,
the group gladly participated and when the walk reached major Gallik's probable resting place,
the company fired a volley in his honor.
The involvement of the SAMOV group reveals what remains concealed in most other
activists' preoccupation with honoring worthy early modern patricians: common affinities to
a shared object of honor are not always necessarily derived from familiar pleasures and
excitements or customary ways of seeing the world, nor are they confined to collectively
experienced twists of fate. They can just as well arise from an engagement in exploration. The
reenactment group had no prior knowledge of or relationship to Gallik and his legacy - let
alone anyone else buried in the cemetery. As Robert, a member of the group, related to me,
the group agreed to take part mainly out of friendship with Gembicky, who felt strongly about
the cemetery's preservation. Gembicky, himself an occasional re-enactor, invited his friends to
the cemetery through the back-door of familiar engagements - the call of friendly loyalty, of
being helpful was extended by the shared enthusiasm for the game of reliving history in
costumes. Creativity and play in the regime of exploration seem to be at the root of SAMOV's
initial involvement in the events - it was an opportunity to do something new and exciting, and
do it in front of an audience, too. Impersonating American Civil War soldiers at the 2010 walk,
they became enmeshed with a newly emergent common experience that would later unite
opponents of the cemetery construction. When I inquired about the paradox of the conflicting
uniforms several years after the event, Robert explained to me:
Although unfortunately [Gallik was involved] on the somewhat opposite side than
us - yea, we prefer the south, and he fought for the Yankees - but you know, we
don't mind. It is essentially a period we do, the main thing is that he was basically...
a man, who was ... a Slovak ("Slovacisko"), who achieved some success in America.
In Robert's confession, the sectoral orthodoxies and fine distinctions, which normally tend to
play a significant role in reenactment cultures, suddenly subside as a more important mission
is calling. Robert refers to Gallik using the playful aggrandizing expression "Slovacisko," evoking
familiarity and common background: this man, who has been dead for over a century, is one
of our kind. Honoring a Slovak emigrant, who succeeded and returned, is a matter of
remembering one of "our heroes." When I later demand that he specifies, whose hero
precisely Gallik was, he says "generally, of the Slovak nation," and it is possible that Gallik's
presumed Slovak ethnic origin made his story appealing to the re-enactors. While Robert later
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relates that, in his view, Slovaks are closer to the rural and more traditional mindset of the
American South than to the industrial North that Gallik fought for, the main platform for
Gallik's appropriation by Robert and his group seems to be a combination of regional proximity
and thematic match. Gallik's story could thus be engaged as one engages in the re-enactment
play - except this time with a civic twist.
This civic twist consists of the context and the underlying intent of the group's involvement
in the coordinated resistance to "the developer." Joining a protest against the arrogance of the
private owner and the benevolence of the municipal regulating body - a story repeated in
many iterations across the city - was a significant element in Robert's reason for joining, too.
The prospect that "such an interesting place" would disappear because "some Michalovce
company" (i.e. an owner with no relationship or responsibility to the city) wishes to capitalize
on it is appalling to Robert. He also has no illusions about the way potentially unearthed bones
would be handled in the process of construction ("they would just haul the skeletons and
dump them somewhere and be done") and I cannot help feeling that this lack of care where
care is due - this exposing of a scandal - is for Robert a crucial element in his involvement. The
commonality of this place of heritage, thus, seems to emerge as an amalgam of adopted
symbolic ancestry and civic outrage at its violation by a self-interested ignorant owner. Faceto-face
with such an act of liberal choice by an outsider, caring becomes a function of being
local. Not only is the cemetery a new place to meet honorable predecessors, it is also a place
in which local engagements are strengthened and underpinned by a sense of togetherness despite
the fact that after the walk, the group only visited the cemetery once.
Ethnographic intermezzo: Two hundred missing dead and a dormant
opportunity around the corner
It took me several minutes after the bus's decisive turn east to realize, that the vehicle
packed with elderly Hungarians was definitely not going to the nearby Košice municipal
cemetery. Boarding the chartered bus on Sunday, March 15 - the anniversary of the 1848
Hungarian revolution -1 had expected a comfortable lift to the central Košice cemetery, where
I hoped to attend the traditional solemn gathering at the tomb of the prominent Košice veteran
of the revolutionary strife Vilmos Maléter. As the antique diesel engine labored up the slopes
of left of the Hornád river, carrying me on a journey of uncertain direction and length, I had to
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congratulate my amused self for resting content with an approximate understanding of the
Hungarian invitation.
Half an hour later, the bus came to a halt next to a village church. As the chatting
passengers and I disembarked, I bumped into an acquaintance, who finally explained to me
where we were and why. We had arrived in Bidovce, a village about 20 kilometers east of
Košice, and our destination was the local Reformed cemetery - a place of rest for more than
200 Hungarian revolutionaries who fell in the lost battle of Košice in January 1949.
Unfortunately, my acquaintance had to leave me and the old man I asked for help in
understanding the imminent event was willing but unable to translate its content. Walking
back towards the church after the speeches were given and songs sung, I came across
Sebastian of the Imre Helnszlmann Historical Society and, weary of the bizarreness of my trip,
I decided to skip the final church service for a car ride with him back to Košice.
A real sense of absurdity, however, only dawned on me in the car when Sebastian casually
remarked that the was, in all likelihood, no mass grave of fallen Honvéd in Bidovce. The ban,
issued by the victorious Austrian general Schlick, against the burial of Hungarian casualties in
the city, was a historical fact; the story of the transport of the bodies and their deposition in
Bidovce Cemetery, conjured up by a local teacher in the 1980s, however, lacked any evidential
support. Referring to historical weather records, Sebastian stated that, considering the amount
of snow and temperatures around 20 degrees below zero Celsius, the probability that the 200
bodies were transported over some 20 kilometers beyond Košice's city limits was nil. The more
likely scenario, as some sources supposedly suggested, was a mass burial in the fields
neighboring on what now is the Eastern periphery of city.
How is it possible then, I asked in awe, that virtually all of Košice's Hungarian cultural elite,
including the CSEMADOK, the consul, the civic associations and the journalists, keep taking the
annual trip? Is there really no authentic alternative to mark the glorious loss in Košice itself?
Many people see through the legend nowadays, Sebastian responds, the Henszlmann Society
even suggested that graves of revolutionary veterans buried in Košice (some found in the
central municipal cemetery, several more in the old Lutheran and Jewish ones) be visited
instead. Meanwhile, however, over the nearly three decades of revived local Hungarian culture
of remembrance, the traditional pilgrimage to the 200 nonexistent Honvéd has established
itself to the extent that it is now just impossible to abandon.
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Ruins into a Memory park: Rebuilding a community on bones
In late 2014, the city announced the planned acquisition of the cemetery from the
concurrent owner, in exchange for other property more suitable for development. The move
was hailed as a victory by those involved in the opposition, not least because the planned
conversion of this new municipal property into a memorial park was part of the
announcement. Nearly two decades after its first presentation, the city has thus not only
publicly endorsed the idealistic proposal, but has buttressed its declaration through the first
step of securing ownership. Several months later, the Regional Monument Preservation
Authority, in cooperation with the original propagator of the idea Štefan Eliáš, compiled an
elementary conceptual proposal of Memorial Park for the Košice municipal heritage
committee.
The design builds on a simple aesthetics of ruination, emphasizing both authenticity and
the damage done to the place. Among the grass and fallen leaves spreading across the
cleaned-up park, several unobtrusive information panels are proposed in two variants - either
made of glass or simple gray material. The design suggests eight memorial stops, whose
diverse focus represents a plurality of ethnic backgrounds and historical periods: the early
19th-century city doctor Jozef Kis-Vitzay, a group of local "Jacobins" represented by Melchior
Súľovský, the regional journalist and publisher Ján Filip Scharf, the veteran of the 1848
Hungarian war of liberation Zsigmond Dessewffy, the "fighter against slavery and for the unity
of the USA" Ondrej Gálik (discussed in the previous chapter as Gallik), as well as the Slovak
national revivalist Ján Tomáško. In addition to these, a collective memorial to Lutheran pastors
is foreseen in the Pohle-Roth crypt, as well as a memorial wall in the upper section of the park,
bearing the known names of the remaining dead. The whole ensemble is to be framed by an
introductory plate presenting the park as a "lasting memorial" to a Lutheran cemetery, which
was destroyed in 1970s by a "violent intervention of a totalitarian state power."9 9
Keeping in mind that this is but a preliminary proposal, which is potentially incomplete and
which is very likely just a point of departure for some future design, it is instructive to consider
the imagined community it sketches by the choice of persons to bring out and the proposed
manner of presentation. At first sight, there is the evident ambition to create a sense of
diversity and richness of heritage. Three of the proposed information panels present persons
An internal document "Ideový projekt ako zachrániť historický evanjelický cintorín a jeho revitalizácia na
Memoriálny park" by Štefan Eliáš, Juraj Gembický and Marcela Ďurišová; provided to me by Juraj Gembický.
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of general humanist values (a doctor, an anti-slavery fighter, a group of Jacobins), and the two
other ones cater to two competing nation-building narratives - the Slovak and the Hungarian.
At the second sight, a subtle Slovak overlay becomes apparent. The proposal is dominated by
Slovak transcription of historical names - "Melchior Súľovský" and "Ondrej Gálik" likely
because of their presumed Slovak ethnic background,1 0 0
the rest combining a Slovak form of
their given name with a documented form of a surname. Considering the Slovak lexical norm
(Kačala & Pisárčiková 1997), which requires historical names pertinent to the pre-1918
Hungarian era to be phonetically transcribed (so as to symbolically counter the forced
Hungarianization of names in the late Austro-Hungarian era), this selective Slovakization is
intriguing. Even more so is the one blatant exception in terms of both transcription and
language of presentation - the Honvéd artillery captain Zsigmond Dessewffy, whose
informative tablet is proposed in Hungarian only and thus rendered illegible to most Slovak
visitors. Despite the general manifest tendency to shape this park as an intersection of
different chapters of Košice history, the mostly Slovakized transcription and the linguistic
sequestration of the one distinctly "Hungarian" personality make the proposal not exactly
inclusive.
The vignette at the beginning of this section took us on a short field trip to a Reformed
cemetery in Bidovce. After an early post-socialist attempt to commemorate the 1848
Revolution at the former location of the Honvéd statue on the Main Street in March 1990
called forth an irritated reaction from Slovak nationalists, Hungarian celebrations were moved
into private spaces (like the Thalia theatre) and cemeteries. Besides the now-traditional
gathering at the central Košice cemetery, a trip to the commemorative spear pole erected in
Bidovce in 1991 above the presumed mass grave of the Honvéd casualties of the January 1849
battle of Košice became a stable part - even a kind of a climax - of the annual Košice 1848
commemorations. Remembering the courage with which the local pastor and his parish
allowed the burial of over 200 soldiers that the imperial general Schlick forbade to bury in
Košice proper (Juhász 2005:43), a contingent of Košice Hungarian elite regularly joins the locals
in remembering this act of symbolic displacement. My acquaintance Sebastian, himself a
Hungarian and a member of the small non-profit Imre Henszlmann Historical Society, was not
the only one to note the ironic contrast between this preoccupation with Bidovce and the
The Hungarian speaking Henszlmann society for instance refers to these two in their letter of objection to the
2013 project in a more historical manner as Menyhert (Melichar) Szulyovszky Andras Gallik (Galffy).
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simultaneous neglect of local Košice places related to the Honvéd fighters. When I met Štefan
Eliáš, the first thing he showed me was the Zsigmond Dessewffy gravestone, deposited at the
feet of the János Esterházy bust. Eliáš claimed it was himself who made "the Hungarians"
aware of its existence and pointed out that Dessewffy's actual grave in the old Lutheran
cemetery in Košice "is closer" than the mass grave in Bidovce. According to the summary listed
in the 2015 Memorial Park proposal, the old Lutheran cemetery contained, in fact, the remains
of at least four veterans of the 1848 war of independence; granted, none of them was a victim
of either of the two battles fought near Košice. Rather than cultivate a place-based mnemonic
practice in a messy Košice interstice, "the Hungarians" chose to move the stone into safety and
continue the Bidovce tradition. In its present shape, the cemetery was probably not
deemed festive enough for a solemn celebration. In its foreseen cultivated shape, the
cemetery would honor one of the buried Honvéd - yet, can a memorial illegible to the majority
of the public be called an act of recognition?
It may be simply too idealist to expect a universalist memorial to arise in a Lutheran
cemetery. Slovakia, after all, is still mostly defined by a self-professed Roman Catholic majority
and confessional fault lines continue to resonate. On the other hand, the cemetery's ruination
and the severance of virtually all ties of the current city's population with the one that once
used this place may paradoxically open up such possibilities. Precisely because the
confessional is no longer personal to anyone - even the Lutherans themselves disowned it - it
can be recast as common. Judging from the proposal, the inclusion of both a Slovak national
revivalist and a Honvéd fighter suggests a sort of balance, with the overreaching framing by
the destructive experience of socialism cutting decisively across ethnic divides. Looking more
closely, however, dissonant underlying claims as to whose the cemetery really is, appear: while
for Pavol, the cemetery's destruction is related not just to socialism but to the destruction of
the Hungarian Lutheran community, Eliáš sees the Hungarian element in local Lutheran Church
as minor (Magdolenová 1997) and at one point even called the site "the oldest existing
cemetery of Slovak ethnicity on the whole Slovak territory (Eliáš 2008) Even if multivocality is
not the explicit goal of the 2015 proposal (persons relevant to different national histories seem
to be listed for the sheer effect of increasing the "weight" of the case by making its appeal
international), this effect is not entirely unimaginable. The baseline for such an approach
would, however, be a gesture of linguistic inclusion of the Hungarian and German audiences.
Of course, an attempt to translate Dessewffy's merit in the "war for freedom" would mean to
challenge the dominant Slovak historiographic narrative in which the Hungarian revolution of
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1848 is a the ruling nationality's struggle for its own benefit - despite the fact that "more
Slovaks probably fought for the revolution, in the Hungarian army, than against it in the
volunteer legions organized by the uncompromisingly nationalist Slovak National Council.
(Brubaker & Feischmidt 2002:736). An attempt to include the revolution and exclude it at the
same time captures the conservatism of the proponents' imagination, whose primary goal in
the cemetery is a technical one - to "preserve its historical value."
Summary and Discussion: Common-place lost, common-place found (the
dialectic ofruins and bones)
In this final chapter, we stepped off the grid of the cultured memoryscapes in the city
center and entered the messy space on its margins. The cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing
did not figure at the forefront of this case (as it did in the memorial initiatives in Chapter 3),
and neither was the representation of the Hungarian or other minorities a major concern (as
we saw in the two renaming motions in Chapter 4). The multi-ethnic coexistence of past
generations in Kosice and its violent discontinuities could only be traced in the background: on
one hand, ethno-cultural plurality was taken for granted (in the presentation of the
respectable dead), on the other, the past displacement of ethnic "groups" and its role in the
ruination of this place remained largely unnoticed. At the same time, there was a powerful
consensus about the presence of another cultural trauma in this space: the cultural trauma of
socialism. Not only was it the communist leadership that had the place bulldozed, the
traumatic narrative had also good representation among the generation currently politically
active. Even a quarter century after the regime change, the common-place of communism's
barbarism seems to have retained broad unifying potential in overcoming ethnic or ideological
divides, and though the memorial park is not yet a reality, it is quite safe to say that it is
communist destruction that will frame the site's narrative. Despite this universality, however,
an unacknowledged ethno-cultural division remains that threatens to limit the commonality
of this project.
At the beginning of this chapter, I presented a triad of analytical questions. How could a
non-place become a piece of heritage? What role did the memory of ethnic cleansing and
oppression play in its construction as a matter of common interest? What kinds of solidarities
were projected onto (and, thus, potentially radiate from) this emergent memorial park? In
order to tackle these questions and interpret the case at hand, I reconstructed five different
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interpretive approaches to these strange, abandoned, invisible bones. Each of these
approaches implied a different use of the ruins left behind and entailed a different mix of
references to the three grammars of commonality. In a final overview, I discuss what they
suggest with respect to the original questions.
Seen in pragmatic sociological terms, deliberations on the potential futures of the
cemetery tended to slip into the grammar of liberal choice. Both the ruins and the bones
underneath exhibited few face-value aesthetic pleasures and little obvious artistic value, or
the readymade fame or inspirational worth of established iconic personalities. The two more
solid elements of worth - the crypt with the status of protected heritage object and the
ecological significance of the area - seemed both malleable and open to compromise. On the
other hand, powerful narratives, group experiences or existing shared emotional bonds to the
place that could attempt to shape the discussion about its future were missing from the public
domain. Familiar attachments of individuals were missing, even those whose relatives lay
buried there no longer had a habitual, intimate bond with the place. A barren, neglected
interstice, the cemetery lent itself to liberal framing as a development opportunity.
To a decisive portion of the Lutheran congregation in Kosice-Center, the presence of the
bones was inconsequential: for them, these bones were "dead," meaningless, devoid of both
familiar resonance or promise of inspiration. As far as I could ascertain, there was no one in
the community with a sense of duty to or interest in the deceased Lutherans. Mostly termed
as a "plot of land," the cemetery was seen as an irretrievable loss sustained in the development
of the city. Its mass could now only serve as resource to capitalize in the pursuit of a plan,
complementary to the powerful and established community common-place of missionary
growth, which bears in itself the promise of an eschatological reward. The planning authority's
grammatical mixture occurred at the other end of the liberal grammar, where a compromise
around the complementarity between the profit-driven activity of the developer and this
area's future functionality was devised through the grammar of justification. Environmental
concerns were compromised and heritage concerns limited to the visible. Attending to the
ruins (especially the crypt) became a means of manifesting appreciation of the heritage values
of the site, while bones, for which there was hardly a meaningful framing in the proposed
compromise, were treated as absent.
The bones were, on the contrary, decidedly present for the opponents of development,
and not just that: their presence was considered compelling. While it was precisely the bones
that give this place its moral gravity, it was the aura of their anticipated presence, rather than
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their materiality, that explained their impact. Pavol, a distant relative of some of these dead,
could not tell me anything specific about his ancestors buried in the cemetery; it was even
unclear if he ever habitually visited the grave. While remaining notably unfamiliar, the
dishonored bones of his ancestors represented to him a more familiar loss of a larger scope:
the denial of the Hungarian historical presence and present culture in Kosice after 1945. Having
a sense of entitlement and duty to these graves (which the Lutherans did not) and being more
concerned with one past milieu's destruction than with the vision of building a new one in the
future, Pavol spoke from a common-place larger and more general than the cemetery case one
that could be projected onto this malleable ruin.
The commonality within the diverse groups of activists was built through several commonplaces.
The two most powerful ones, which actualized in the preservation effort, were the
trope of socialist destructive heritage management (representative of the "totalitarian
regime" at large) and the more recent practice of urban activism geared toward combatting
corruption in municipal management and ruthless urban development. Arising gradually from
the coordinated activism, however, was a new shared experience of resistance focused on this
specific site: the Lutheran cemetery emerged as a common-place of its own. The
"personalities" used to ground the graveyard's heritage value were cast as a combination of
fame and emotional appeal; some of them already had existing admirers (like the Lutheran
dignitary Keczer, the famous physician Kis-Viczay and the revolutionary fighter Dessewffy),
others almost seem to have been assorted as magnets for the audience's existing engagements
- a publisher, local Jacobin, a Slovak revivalist, even a traveler and adventurer. While for many,
this variety came to stand for the general image of a variegated and ethnically plural past
community, whose commemoration they already espoused, for others, like Robert, it was one
person in particular whose bones' symbolic "adoption" served as a point of entry into the
emergent commonality of this "interesting place."
The revitalization of what seems now to be a mere burial ground into a pantheon (Rugg
2000) of the community's collective ancestors, an overreaching community of heirs, could
arise. Collective ancestors, constructed based on their local achievements or resonance with
international histories, could (despite their confessional monochromaticity) come to represent
an ethno-culturally plural heritage. Considering the era of its operation, the presentation of
the cemetery can hardly include much information on the Second World War - and has, indeed,
little reason to. Still, a conscious re-reading of this history with a view to engage heretofore
disparate mnemonic interests in a dialogue, would be the first step in overcoming strictly
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ethnic visions of history, which fueled and for many, still justify ethnic cleansing. As we have
seen, the discontinuity in the history of the Lutheran congregation due to the forced
migrations of the Second World War could not become a part of the explicit framing. While
any initiative to protect an old Jewish cemetery would likely refer to the annihilation of the
Jewish population in the Holocaust as a major reason for its disrepair, the expulsion of German
and Hungarian Lutherans after 1945 seems to have gone mostly unacknowledged by both the
congregation and the activists. On the other hand, it was precisely the Lutheran congregation's
renouncement of this property as a piece of confessional heritage that made it possible for the
cemetery to be framed more broadly and inclusively as the common heritage of the Košice
public. The two levels of relevance - the denominational and the local-patriotic - are not
necessarily in conflict and could potentially be cultivated in a complementary fashion.
At the same time, the more intriguing question that remains concerns the evocation of
ethno-cultural plurality and the degree of its inclusivity. If the memorial park ever takes shape,
it is quite likely that Zsigmond Dessewffy's headstone, at the moment safely deposited at the
foot of Jánoš Esterhazy's memorial, will return to its original location. With this return, the
grave will perhaps also attract some attention during the annual commemorations of the 1848
Hungarian Revolution. Though one cannoneer can hardly outweigh two hundred imaginary
fighters, incomparably more heroic not just by their death in combat but also by their posthumous
expulsion from the city they fought for, he may lessen the present symbolic
displacement of Hungarian remembering, perpetuated by the Bidovce tradition, and bring
some of the glory back home. If anything can be inferred from the preliminary sketch of the
memorial park, however, it is a tendency of linguistic segregation of the one decidedly
"Hungarian element." This would amount to a dual gesture - of formal inclusion combined with
substantial exclusion of this icon and its community of memory from the communal memory
park. There are, indeed, other famous dead, whose importance will have to be related to the
legacies of Hungarian rule; if no one else, general Gallik could, perhaps, serve as a meeting
point for Slovak overseas migration histories and Hungarian myths of liberation strife. To what
extent the memorial park ends up reproducing Kosice's "pillarized" (Kubik & Bernhard 2014)
mnemonic arena rather than offering an inclusive, interconnected vision of a confessional
community plural in its ethnic background, remains an open question.
If archaeology is to aid memory, it must, according to Alfredo González-Ruibal, "help to
preserve something of the uncanny in the places that it studies, especially when it is dealing
with the ruins of supermodernity's destructiveness" (González-Ruibal 2008:258). In line with
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Gonzalez-Ruibal's intuition, I argue that the transformation of a ruined cemetery into a
memorial can only work if it - first and foremost - becomes a museum of its own destruction.
The conceptual sketches produced by the Monument Authority are moderate in their
aesthetics, complementing stabilized walls and unobtrusively trimmed grass with concreteand-glass
textual panels. Yet, if, as Klaudia of the planning authority suggests, the driving
principle of the cemetery's rehabilitation is producing a public amenity, this scar on the face
of the city will likely be retouched beyond recognition. Contrasting this possibility with the
preliminary success of the activists' saving efforts produces an array of provocative questions.
What if the best intensions to honor the bones deposited herein pave the way to the greatest
and final loss - the loss of authenticity only a true ruin can convey? Has this place not proven
that it can be engaged with - if not intimately, then creatively and civilly? What if the
rehabilitation of the territory destroys the nostalgic emotional charge, molding this still
characteristic place into just another generic sector of public green - something the skeptics
of European integration might caustically call a "euro-park"? There is no doubt that this place
is a mess, but when all the mess is removed - will we be still able to recognize it? What if all
the authenticity stands knee-deep in disgust and moral indignation - will individuals still be
able to relate spontaneously to such a site of memory?
Undoubtedly, they will; it will only require different types of engagements - and some of
these will definitely be more pleasant than the ones available now. The real question is,
whether a preservation scheme sensitive to this ruin is at all possible - whether it will not
inadvertently negate its own objective in the act of procuring it. Certainly, such a revitalization
paradox is just part of the story - the performative value of a collective "moral act" is not
entirely dependent on the outcomes. When turning an irreversibly ruined structure into a
multi-layered memorial object, however, it is not just the glorious heritage (that which was
once there) that is commemorated but precisely the ruin of this heritage. A thorough redress
of the loss (modeled after the Frauenkirche of Dresden) is unlikely in our case; an aesthetic
sanitization, however, is. One of the ways of preventing yet another wave of destructive
creation might be a participatory approach to this ruin's revitalization, another option,
perhaps, the experimental use of art as a means of the aesthetic figuration of meanings.
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Concluding Remarks: Articulating Solidarities in Ruins
This dissertation explored the hardships in and opportunities for establishing cultural
traumas in situations when traces of historical events have been obscured by force, natural
decay or incremental growth. Focusing my study on the urban case of Kosice, which, in a playful
allusion to the famous study on Transylvanian Cluj/Kolozsvar by Brubaker and his colleagues
(Brubaker et al. 2006), I called a "town" despite the fact that its size functions to have qualified
it as a "city" long ago, I sought to focus on a bounded imagined community, with the hope that
such a local approach might make some of the exigencies of cultural trauma articulation more
visible. Kosice's story of decimated ethnic plurality and massive industrialization under
authoritarian conditions resonates with many cities in and beyond Central and Eastern Europe,
which is why a study of this ordinary city (Robinson 2006) can offer novel insights into more
general processes of urban life. The primary focus of my inquiry has been on bottom-up
initiatives that entered the municipal mnemonic arena with the objective to mend and
enhance it with reparative interventions - a conceptual decision vindicated by the observation
that post-socialist municipal memory policy in Kosice built mainly on official reserved
passiveness combined with a fair dose of tolerance for independent civic motions. Analyzing
local practices of remembering ethnic cleansing some seven decades after their occurrence,
the central question was not just how past violence and suffering can be made publicly visible,
but to what extent its articulation can support inclusive solidarities.
To unfold the critical situations such processes bring, I relied on Thevenot's theorization of
three distinct grammars of commonality (Thevenot 2014): the highly standardized and rational
grammar of justification, the permissive and less binding grammar of individuals choosing in a
liberal public and the emotionally vibrant grammar of shared affinities to multiple commonplaces.
Using these grammars as interpretive tools meant subscribing to a broader, pragmatic
notion of solidarity, understood not as a state of mutual agreement and harmony in a
community but as an awareness of mutual interconnectedness and interdependency despite
difference. Pragmatic sociology conventionally situates universal solidarity within the
grammar of justification, where it represents the essential value of the civic worth. Yet, as I
argued in my re-reading of Thevenot's theory, to expect that all inclusive acts of remembering
satisfy the requirements of civil justification could mean that we neglect the messy realities of
many memorial initiatives that gain momentum using diverse framings. Because all three of
Thevenot's grammars afford communicating about differing concerns (that is, "commonality
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in the plural"), and because all three are somehow present in most real-life situations,
establishing the conditions for inclusive solidarity is not so much about using the "correct
grammar" as it is about the ability to promote the recognition and use of a certain grammar
within a broad public. Indeed, as Misztal (2004; also see Chapter 2) and others have warned,
not all ways of relating to the past serve constructive, civil purposes, and this also holds for
cultural traumas. Cultural trauma, like any other complex mnemonic practice and cognitive
frame, can serve as a device for maintaining symbolic boundaries, often built in reaction to
segregation, cultural oppression and life in enclaves of meaning. Looking at the different
attempts to publicly articulate the suffering endured in past episodes of ethnic cleansing or
acknowledge its effects in Košice, what have we learned about the possibilities for
rehabilitation of broad civil solidarity through remembering?
In the first analytical chapter (Chapter 3), I discussed three different initiatives responding
to insufficient public acknowledgement of a cultural trauma narrative: the Civic Memorial of
the Holocaust, the Jánoš Esterházy memorial and the Memorial to Exoduses. While each of the
three cases exhibited elements of all three grammars of commonality - by justifying itself as a
response to a civic duty to acknowledge a wrong-doing, relying on the use of private (and thus
unregulated) land and motivating its promoters through a shared, emplaced life experience each
at the same time displayed a clear preference for one of the grammars. The Memorial to
Exoduses valued the independent, experimental engagements of individuals and openness to
interpretation, and while it consciously limited its public reach, the memorial continues to live
in a community of "friends" and their annual gatherings. The Jánoš Esterházy memorial was
built primarily as a symbol of a community of victims who felt disenfranchised in remembering
and wished to confront the majority's historical narrative - and while it may seem too
provocative to allow a dialogue, it helped establish a point of contention. The Civic Memorial
of the Holocaust aimed high, hoping to create and reflect a broad civil consensus around the
civic and reputational weight of Holocaust commemoration, evidenced by generous popular
funding. Due to the unwillingness to compromise, circumscribed reliance on common-places
of potential supporters and contempt for the partisanship of the liberal grammar, the original
vision failed to withstand the tests it provoked and it remains, as yet, unrealized. Despite the
variegated outcomes, all three initiatives exemplify some of the key challenges and
opportunities entailed in building solidarity rooted in each of the three grammars. At the same
time, their development hinted at the potential limits to these solidarities: common-places of
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shared meanings can remain powerfully exclusive, independent undertakings, isolating and
inconsequential, and universally recognized civility seems impossible to establish.
The second analytical chapter (Chapter 4) reconstructed the post-socialist process of
renaming streets and described the different typical approaches to this task. Mapping the
principles and priorities of the toponymic review of the early 1990s revealed both the
conscious depoliticizing campaign of the District Toponymic Commission, including a sanitized
medieval core and a balanced broader center, and the diversity of local renaming strategies
introduced by political emancipation of the boroughs. Against this background, two recent
initiatives resonant with minority identity politics were analyzed as challenges to the elite
master plan for a neutralized city core: the naming of Sandor Márai Square and Calvin Square.
The differentiated outcomes of these initiatives could be only partially explained by the
"availability" of space for naming: their crucial difference was in the degree to which they
entailed an inclusive commonality. Though each of these historical icons were (among their
other meanings) representative of Hungarian minority culture in Košice, Márai's name in
Košice had been systematically associated with world recognition of his work, his devotion to
his native city and the hardships he suffered as an exile from a communist country. Márai thus
became both a justified public good (whether as a branding icon or a worthwhile Sunday read),
and a common-place of strong emotional resonance for those fond of his native town. At the
same time, Calvin's nostalgic resonance within a small denominational community (even if it
was composed of both Slovaks and Hungarians) and the equally small cohort of old Košičania,
was too little to warrant an exception from the sanitizing rule. In contrast to the memorials,
ethnic cleansing was not present in the objects analyzed in this chapter, but was rather
inscribed in the lives and public engagements of the agents promoting them: placing a familiar
name in the toponymic landscape was akin to a symbolic homecoming, decades after symbolic
and physical expulsion from the public. Though Márai may seem a singular exception to the
post-socialist arrangement, as I was finalizing this dissertation, the idea to rename a portion of
the central Dominican Square after the 19th-century painter Leopold Horowitz was casually
mentioned in a local daily, suggesting that the temptation to populate the streets with more
recent - post-medieval and non-Czechoslovak - history remains.1 0 1
See "Leopold Horovitz sa stal Košičanom kvôli zlému počasiu." Available at:
http://Kosicednes.sk/kultura/leopold-horovitz-sa-stal-Kosicanom-kvoli-zlemu-pocasiu/; accessed on November
15, 2017.
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In the third empirical chapter (Chapter 5), I analyzed the way a ruined Lutheran cemetery
went from being a potential construction ground to a piece of municipal heritage. Demolished
and converted to a park by the local authorities in the third decade of communist rule, the illmaintained
place hardly lent itself to any intimate involvement. It was the belief in the
presence of invisible structural remnants of graves and the principled conviction that they
deserve defense against final annihilation through construction that helped mobilize enough
criticism for the municipality to purchase the plot and make a pledge to its rehabilitation for
public benefit. Discussing several approaches to giving this place meaning by both those
engaged in advocating for the cemetery's preservation, and those indifferent to it, I mapped
the different perceptions of the heritage value for the community at large and showed how,
through activism, this cemetery gradually emerged as a uniting point and a familiar case - a
common-place - in local memory politics. While iconically associated with communist
disrespect for cultural values, the role of ethnic cleansing in disrupting the lineage of care
within the Lutheran community and beyond it remained curiously underappreciated. At the
same time, the necessity to address ethnic diversity in the planned presentation of honorable
dead men brings to the fore questions of balanced representation, recognition of disparate
mnemonic emphases and the difficulty of striking a dialogue between them. To what extent
this memorial park - semi-marginal as it is in both its location and denominational background
- will be imagined as a place of reconciliation is likely to remain open as long as the city lacks
the finances needed for its reconstruction.
Seventy years since the decade of ethnic cleansing in Kosice, local cultures of remembering
of the injustice and violence suffered by Kosice inhabitants of various ethnic backgrounds
remains ambiguous. The prying eye of an educated observer could recognize traces of past
conflicts and deduce the experiences of violence and suffering buried deep (or maybe not so
deep) under the casual surface of everyday interaction. Yet, besides the gradually developing
local culture of remembrance of the Shoah, which has recently gained clearer contours thanks
to building renovation, local-patriotic tourism and the popular rediscovery of the painter Feld,
the scope, circumstances and outcomes of the forced migration of local Slovaks, Czechs,
Germans and Hungarians, as well as the forced labor and mass murder of the Roma occupy
only a marginal role in local mnemonic discourses. Indeed, this dissertation's focus was mostly
on urban public space - the shared experience of suffering is more pronounced in the
community life of ethnic minorities. My observations and interviews with several of Kosice
minority organizations (including the Association of Carpathian Germans and the Slovak
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"Matica"), however, suggest that the public muting of these painful memories often translates
into a parallel underdevelopment of minority sub-cultures of memory. Like the mysterious,
honorable bones concealed by the grassy slopes of the old Lutheran cemetery, traces of
troubled pasts could be written off as dead or absent, or seized as an opportunity to reestablish
a relationship with a lost collective self.
Can solidarity be built on bones? Can civil repair be pursued if what seems to be left is a
motley ruin? While metaphors, like jokes, are best left without much post-hoc commentary, I
want to highlight three moments that connect the cemetery case with my discussion of the
grammars of commonality as environs of solidarity building. First, the preservation initiative
succeeded in capturing popular imagination by utilizing the narrative of barbaric destruction
and offering, as a counterpoint, a set of honorable dead to identify with. Of all the personalities
whose names, faces and life-stories helped transform this mute place into a storyboard, the
adventurer Gallik, connecting disparate places and disparate times, worked as probably the
most accessible and sensational of the dead. Adopting a sense of obligation grew as the case
became more convoluted, which facilitated the emergence of diverse affinities to this shared
common-place. Second, the cemetery was successfully framed as common heritage through
the actualization of a universal "we." While denominational specificity never wholly left the
picture, the divestment of the cemetery by the church may have even enhanced its capacity
to serve as a reflection of the urban community at large. The proposal to build a municipal
memorial park was justified by the cemetery's age, its richness and the density of
archaeological findings, its authentic locality of historical Protestant community life and by the
presence of "famous" dead that were to be re-discovered and reclaimed like a message in a
bottle. Third, the case was won thanks to the successful countering of the fragmentation of
this perspective of common interest into the sphere of self-interested parties. This approach,
formatted by the liberal grammar, which may to some extent become emancipatory in
situations of power imbalance or stringent regulation of public spaces, limits coordination to
non-interference and as such, endangers the collaborative crafting and implementing of
inclusive visions of remembering. We have yet to wait and see what version of history the
memorial park in Kosice old Lutheran cemetery will present. Regardless of the outcome, the
revival of its "dead bones" as a common matter is a solid base for solidarity building, on whose
shape and implications for the future we can continue to differ.
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Annotation
This dissertation analyzes post-socialist cultures of commemoration concerned with the
cultural trauma of ethnic cleansing in Kosice, Slovakia and explores their contribution to civil
repair. Situated on an ethno-linguistic border, more than half of Kosice's population between
1938 and 1948 was subject to ethnic persecution, forced migration or genocide; the loss and
suffering related to these events would, however, remain suppressed by the socialist regime
for four decades. Despite initial expectations that, after the regime's fall and the liberalization
of mnemonic arenas, the recognition of and regret for past ethnic violence would become a
hallmark of democratic transformation, the past experiences of ethnic minorities are still
mostly surrounded by silence and ignorance. Departing from the concept of cultural trauma as
a social cognitive frame tackling a disruption of collective identities by a violent event, and from
the premise that the process of cultural trauma construction can bring about civil repair
(Alexander 2016a), this dissertation seeks to describe and understand the ways past ethnic
violence can be made a common matter - a cultural trauma in the singular.
Following from this descriptive task is an overreaching theoretical objective: to explore and
elaborate the ways broken solidarities can be reimagined through remembering. In order to do
this, I engage the pragmatic sociology of Laurent Thevenot, especially his notion of "grammars
of commonality" (2014). Devised to differentiate three fundamentally different logics of
dealing with difference in pluralist societies, the three grammars - the grammar of justification,
the grammar of liberal choice and the grammar of shared affinities to common-places - capture
different ways that a sense of mutual interconnectedness can be established. Applying this
framework critically to the study of remembering violent pasts, I show how different principles
of solidarity building shape the capacity of mnemonic initiatives to create inclusive
commonality and argue that both the subliminal appeal of particular, familiar experience and
the standardized language of public deliberation must be combined to remember cultural
trauma inclusively.
To reconstruct the landscapes of meaning, in which post-socialist practices of remembering
ethnic cleansing unfold, this dissertation draws on a diverse corpus of data, including
interviews, analysis of local press and participant observation. The question of solidarity
building through remembering is addressed in three analytical sections. First, I compare three
grassroots initiatives, which propose memorials to the Shoah, the post-war persecution of
Hungarians in Czechoslovakia and the repeated waves of mass "exodus," highlighting how the
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different grammars of commonality prevalent in each case shape the memorials' message.
Broadening the perspective, I then review the history of the ideological renaming of Kosice's
street names, locate persisting points of tension and discuss two recent naming initiatives that
have challenged (one successfully, the other not) the neutralizing post-socialist de-escalation
strategy with bids for representation of the Hungarian minority. Moving to the yet more
abstract level of heritage management, I finally discuss the rescue of a ruined cemetery ground
from imminent re-development, reconstruct how relationships of care were crafted in the total
absence of familiar bonds and discuss the potential of the proposed municipal memorial park
to assist the repair of the war-induced discontinuity.
In the conclusion, the image of an abandoned, ruined, neglected cemetery is presented as
a sensitizing metaphor for cases of postponed trauma processes and for the opportunities, as
well as challenges, of building solidarity on the memory of past suffering.
220
Anotácia
(Slovenská verzia názvu: Postavené na kostiach. Etnické čistenie, kultúrna trauma a
budovanie solidarity v stredoeurópskom meste)
Táto dizertácia analyzuje post-socialistické kultúry spomínania dotýkajúce sa kultúrnej
traumy etnického čistenia v Košiciach, pričom si kladie otázku, nakoľko tieto prispievajú k
obnove občianskej sféry (Alexander 2016). Hoci sa v rokoch 1938 až 1948 sa viac než polovica
obyvateľov Košíc, mesta ležiaceho na etno-lingvistickej hranici, stala obeťou etnicky
motivovaného prenasledovania, nútenej migrácie či genocídy, straty a utrpenie zapríčinené
týmito udalosťami boli počas štyroch desaťročí komunistického režimu zamlčiavané. Napriek
počiatočným očakávaniam, že po páde režimu a následnej liberalizácii pamäťových arén budú
dejiny etnického násilia uznané a ľutované, obklopuje bolestné skúsenosti etnických menšín
dodnes predovšetkým mlčanie a nevedomosť. Vychádzajúc z konceptu kultúrnej traumy ako
kognitívneho rámca umožňujúceho vysporiadať sa s narušením kolektívnych identít v dôsledku
násilnej udalosti a z predpokladu, že proces artikulácie kultúrnej traumy môže prispieť k obnove
občianskej sféry, si táto dizertácia kladie za cieľ popísať, ako možno z minulého násilia učiniť
spoločnú vec - teda, ako formulovať kultúrnu traumu v jednotnom čísle.
Hlavným teoretickým cieľom, bezprostredne nadväzujúci na túto popisnú úlohu, je
preskúmať a kriticky diskutovať možnosti reinterpretácie porušených solidarit skrze
spomínanie. Východiskom pri sledovaní tohto cieľa je z pragmatická sociológia Laurenta
Thévenota, predovšetkým jeho pojem "gramatík spoločnosti" ("grammars of commonality";
2014). Tieto tri gramatiky - gramatika ospravedlňovania, gramatika liberálnej voľby a gramatika
zdieľanej náklonnosti k samozrejmostiam - pomáhajú odlíšiť tri rôzne logiky nakladania s
nezhod(nosť)ou v pluralistických spoločnostiach a zachytiť rozličné spôsoby nastoľovania
vzájomnej prepojenosti v rámci spoločnosti. Pomocou kritickej aplikácie tejto teoretickej
perspektívy pri štúdiu spomínania na historické násilie ukazujem, ako odlišné prístupy k
budovaniu solidarity ovplyvňujú schopnosť pamäťových iniciatív predstavovať si spoločné
inkluzívne. Na základe tejto analýzy následne tvrdím, že inkluzívna formulácia kultúrnej traumy
vyžaduje kombináciu nereflektován ej príťažlivosti založenej na dôvernej, partikulárnej
skúsenosti so štandardizovaným jazykom verejného rozväzovania.
Pri rekonštruovaní významových krajín, v ktorých sa odvíjajú post-socialistické praktiky
spomínania na etnické čistenie, sa táto dizertácia opiera o pestrý korpus dát zložených
221
predovšetkým z rozhovorov, miestnej tlače a zúčastneného pozorovania. Otázke budovania
solidarity skrze spomínanie práca venuje tri analytické kapitoly. Prvá z nich porovnáva tri
občianske iniciatívy, zasadzujúce sa za postavenie pamätníkov Šoa, povojnovej perzekúcie
Maďarov v Československu a opakovaných masových "exodov", a zvýrazňuje rozhodujúcu rolu
ktorú vo formovaní vyznenia a významu každého z pamätníkov hrajú rozličné v jednotlivých
prípadoch prevažujúce gramatiky spoločnosti. Druhá empirická kapitola perspektívu rozširuje
prostredníctvom prehľadu procesu ideologickej inventúry Košickej toponýmie; po tom, čo
poukáže na pretrvávajúce ohniská napätia, kapitola rozoberá dve nedávne iniciatívy za
premenovanie verejného priestranstva, ktoré spochybnili (jedna úspešne, druhá neúspešne)
post-socialistickú neutralizačnú stratégiu požiadavkou reprezentácie maďarskej menšiny.
Vystúpiac na ešte abstraktnejšiu rovinu pozorovania kultúrnej traumy - k manažmentu
kultúrneho dedičstva - sa tretia analytická kapitola zameriava na záchranu ruiny cintorína pred
hroziacim zastavaním, pričom mapuje vznik zainteresovanosti na osude cintorína napriek
pôvodnej absencii dôverných väzieb na toto miesto, a následne diskutuje potenciál
navrhovaného mestského Memoriálneho parku podporiť nápravu vojnou zapríčinenej
diskontinuity.
V závere práce sa opustená a zanedbaná ruina cintorína stáva scitlivujúcou metaforou pre
prípady odloženého procesu kultúrnej traumy a pre príležitosti i riziká číhajúce na snahy
budovať solidaritu skrze spomínanie na minulé utrpenie.
222
List of Figures, Tables and Images
Figure 1. Population of Košice between 1850 and 2011 (graph)
Figure 2. Relative ethnic composition of Košice inhabitants between 1850 and 2011 (graph)
Figure 3. Development of the number of inhabitants and of ethnic composition in Košice
between 1850 and 2011 (graph)
Figure 4. Streets renamed after 1989. (map)
Figure 5. Streets, whose names remained unchanged after 1989. (map)
Figure 6. Map showing the period of origin for the street names analyzed in Chapter 4
Figure 7. Map highlighting streets renamed after 1989
Table 1. Number of inhabitants in Košice between 1850 and 2011
Table 2. Ethnic composition of Košice population between 1850 and 1950 (in %)
Table 3. Changes of ethno-national identification in relation to regime changes in the first
half of the 20th century
Table 4. A "Schematic summary of orders of worth" cited in (Thévenot et al. 2000:241)
Table 5. Four regimes of engagement with the world, (Thévenot 2014:13)
Table 6. Overview of grammars of commonality and their background engagements.
Based on (Thévenot 2014)
Table 7. Ethnic composition of Košice's population 1850-2011
Table 8. Diachronic overview of toponymic changes
Image 1. An angel holding the Košice coat of arms, awarded to Košice in 1369 by King Louis
I. of Hungary.
Image 2. School girls from Pushkin street.
Image 3. The House of Arts.
Image 4. The former location of the brick factory.
Image 5. Members of the public lay stones on a shelf mounted under the plaque to the
137 Jewish transports that passed through Košice in 1944.
Image 6. A student dropping her stone into one of the wire enclosures at the Tatra street
cemetery.
Image 7. The statue of Ľudovít Feld.
223
Image 8. The main altar-shaped part of the Memorial to the Exoduses.
Image 9. The layout and positioning of the Memorial to the Exoduses ensemble in the
midst of a parking lot.
Image 10. The 2004 memorial to Sándor Márai by Peter Gáspár.
Image 11. Jánoš Esterházy solemnly oversees the Christmas market.
Image 12. The local heritage expert Gabriel Kladek (on the left) tries to interrupt the effort
of the performative artist Peter Kalmus (center) to wrap Esterházy in toilet
paper.
Image 13. The Chairman of Via Nova responds to questions regarding their 2015 Košice
protest for a Hungarian TV channel.
Image 14. Soldiers in Hungarian uniforms posing with dismounted name-plates (probably
in November 1938).
Image 15. Information tablet complementing post-war commemorative toponymic
interventions.
Image 16. Information tablet complementing post-war commemorative toponymic
interventions.
Image 17. Local artist and anti-communist Peter Kalmus unmounting a name-plate at Lenin
Street.
Image 18. Sándor Márai Square inaugurated on the final day of the four-day festivities
opening the European Capital of Culture year in Košice in January 2013.
Image 19. A view of the short Street at Miklus's Prison.
Image 20. Guerrilla bilingual renaming of Calvin Square.
Image 21. A view of the wall with scattered trash, a burn mark on the beaten terrain and a
bench improvised from a piece cemetery of old furniture.
Image 22. The tomb of the Pohle-Roth family, the only one spared and later awarded
protection as part of national cultural heritage. First half of the 1990s.
Image 23. A view of the cemetery from the 1920s.
Image 24. The new Lutheran church in Košice-West (Terasa).
Image 25. Visualization of the New City Center in the spatial context of the southwestern
rim of the inner city.
224
Image 26. The scheme of the construction on the cemetery ground. The beige object next
to the crossing paths is the Pohle-Roth tomb.
Image 27. The drilling mechanism performing geological probes seen on site in April 2012.
Image 28. A salvo of honor for Gallik.
Image 29. Visualization of the memorial park as envisioned by the proponents and
compiled by the Monument Authority.
225
List of Appendices
Appendix 1. Ethnic composition of Kosice's population 1850-2011 (in %; listed as Table 7)
Appendix 2. Map showing the period of origin for the street names analyzed in Chapter 4
(Figure 6)
Appendix 3. Map highlighting streets renamed after 1989 (Figure 7)
Appendix 4. Diachronic overview of toponymic changes (Table 8)
226
o
c
in
ID
ID
ct
o
o
fD
QJ
QJ
3 -
o
o
2
13
P
Year 1850 1857 1880 1890 1900 1910 1919 1921 1930 1938 1941 1950 1961 1970 1980 1991 2001 2011
Slovaks 46.5 24.4 40.9 33.6 23.1 14.8 16.3 11.0 93.5 93.2 93.5 92.7 90.4 89.1 73.9
Czechoslovaks 48.8 60.8 62.5
Czechs 2.6 2.4 2.6 2.1 1.7 1.2 0.7
Hungarians 28.5 47.6 39.7 49.9 64.8 75.4 38.4 22.7 19.8 76.6 83.4 2.6 3.3 4.1 4.0 4.6 3.8 2.7
Germans 15.6 24.6 16.7 13.5 8.6 7.2 5.3 4.3 5.1 4 2.5 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.1
Jews 7.2 10.9 10.1 0.7 1.1 0.0
Roma 2.1 2.0
Other 2.2 3.6 2.7 3 3.5 2.6 7.5 1.6 2.5 2.4 1.6 1.1 1.0 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.1 1.1
Missing 2.5 19.1
^1
o
•3,
S*
•8
C
Q*
6'
00
9
o
5'
Appendix 2. Map showing the period oforigin in the area analyzed in Chapter
4 (Figure 6)
228
Appendix 3. Map highlighting streets renamed after 1989 in the area
analyzed in Chapters (Figure 7)
Streets renamed after 1989:
name changed between 1990 and 1992
name changed between 1992 and 201 5
name unaffected by post-socialist renaming
229
Appendix 4. A diachronic overview oftoponymic changes between 1870 and
2015 (Table 8)
For the sake of simplicity, the table only shows the final state of Kosice's toponymic
inventory produced by each regime, suppressing individual waves or instances of renaming
occurring within each political period.
With the exception of commemorative street names honoring persons, toponyms are
translated into English with Slovak or Hungarian originals listed in parentheses.
The list of consulted historical maps can be found in the References section.
230
(1870) (1912) (1938) (1942) (1946) (1985) (2015)
Habsburg Habsburg Hungarian Czechoslovak
monarchy monarchy Czechoslovakia kingdom Czechoslovakia Socialist Republic Slovak Republic Code
Medieval city core - Heritage reservation
Main (F6) Main Štefánik Main (F6) Štefánik Lenin | Main (Hlavná)
Barracks
(Laktanya)
Square Barracks
Barracks
(Kasárenské) Mussolini
Barracks
(Kasárenské) Lumumba
Barracks
(Kasárenské)
Square
Arsenal
(Fegyverhaz) Arsenal
Armorer
(Zbrojnicka)
Arsenal
(Fegyverhaz)
Armorer
(Zbrojnicka)
Armorer
(Zbrojnicka)
Arsenal
(Zbrojničná)
Sándor Márai
Square
Thrush (Rigo)
Bastion
(Bastya)
Bastion
(Baštová)
Bastion
(Bastya)
Bastion
(Baštová) Bastion Bastion (Baštová)
Butcher
(Meszaros) Butcher
Butcher
(Mäsiarska)
Butcher
(Meszaros)
Butcher
(Mäsiarska) Sverdlov
Butcher
(Mäsiarska)
Blacksmith
(Kovacs) Blacksmith
Blacksmith
(Kováčska)
Blacksmith
(Kovacs)
Blacksmith
(Kováčska) Blacksmith
Blacksmith
(Kováčska)
Franciscan Franciscan Franciscan Franciscan Franciscan jozsefAntal Franciscan
Water (Vizi) Water Water (Vodná) Water (Vizi) Water (Vodná) Mayakowskij Water (Vodná)
Potter (Fazekas^ Potter
Potter
(Hrnčiarska)
Potter
(Fazekas)
Potter
(Hrnčiarska) Potter
Potter
(Hrnčiarska)
White (Feher) Tinody Tinódy Tinody Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky White (Biela)
Brewery
(Sorhaz)
Post
(Posta) Ruman Teleki Pal Ruman w„ Post (Poštová)
Flower (Virag)
Rampart
(Varsanc)
Rampart
(Hradbová)
Rampart
(Varsanc)
Rampart
(Hradbová) Rampart
Rampart
(Hradbová)
Nuns (Apacza) Nuns Nuns (Mníšok)
Nuns
(Apaca) Nuns (Mníšok) Urx Ursuline
Jesuit Jesuit Jesuit
Bathori
Zsofia Jesuit Ady
University
(Univerzitná)
Prison
(Tomlocz)
Calvin
(Kalvin)
Calvin
(Kalvínovo)
Calvin
(Kalvin)
Calvin
(Kalvínovo)
At Miklus's Prison
(Pri Miklusovej
vaznici)
At Mikluš's Prison
(Pri Miklusovej
väznici)
Dominican
Square Dominican Dominican Dominican Dominican Dimitrov
Dominican
Square
Locksmith
(Lakatos) Locksmith
Locksmith
(Zámočnícka)
Locksmith
(Lakatos)
Locksmith
(Zámočnícka) Locksmith
Locksmith
(Zámočnícka)
Main/Freedom
(F6/Szabadsag)
Square Main/Eder
State Flag
(Štátnej vlajky)
Saint
Elisabeth Freedom Lenin
Main (Hlavné)
Square
Mill (Malom)
Kossuth
Lajos Mill (Mlynská)
Kossuth
Lajos
President
Doctor E.
Beneš General Petrov Mill (Mlynská)
Eagle (Sas) Eagle Eagle (Orlia) Eagle (Sas) Eagle (Orlia) Eagle Eagle (Orlia)
Splinter
(Forgacs)
Deak
Ferenc Šrobár
Szatmary
Gyorgy Šrobár Srobar
Elisabeth
(Alžbetina)
Carnation
(Szegfu)
Szathmary
Gyorgy Szátmáry Kassai Istvan Ivan Krasko Krasko Side (Bočná)
Freedom
(Slobody)
Saint Crown
(Szent
Korona)
Freedom
(Slobody) Freedom
Freedom
(Slobody)
Bell (Harang) Bell
Bellman
(Zvonárska) Luther
Bellman
(Zvonárska) Bellman
Bellman
(Zvonárska)
Pigeon
(Galamb)
Gate
(Varkapu) Gate (Vrátna)
Gate
(Varkapu) Gate (Vrátna) Gate Gate (Vrátna)
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
231
(1870)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1912)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1938)
Czechoslovakia
(1942)
Hungarian
kingdom
(1946)
Czechoslovakia
(1985)
Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic
(2015)
Slovak Republic Code
Wider city center (prefix "c")
Buliders/Franz
Joseph
(Epitészi/Feren
c József)
Square
Franz
Joseph
Square Hussite
Bäthori
Istvän Marshall Stalin
Peace Marathon
Square (Námestie
maratónu mieru)
Peace Marathon
Square (Námestie
maratónu mieru) c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Buliders/Franz
Joseph
(Epitészi/Feren
c József)
Square
Franz
Joseph
Blvd. Hviezdoslav
Franz Joseph
Blvd. Hviezdoslav Hviezdoslav Hviezdoslav
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Crown
(Korona) Tordassy Tordássy Tordässy Molotov Bačík Bačík
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
At the RidingSchool
(Pri
jazdiarni)
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Outer
Promenade
(Kül Sétány)
Bethlen
Blvd. Bethlen Blvd.
Bethlen
Blvd. Kuzmány Kuzmány Kuzmány
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Outer
Promenade
(Kül Sétány)
Rakoczi
Blvd. Rákóczi Blvd. Rakoczi Blvd. Moyzes Moyzes Moyzes
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Mikes
Kelemen Mikeš
Mikes
Kelemen
Slovak National
Uprising
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Sandor
(cont.)
Cyril and
Methodius
(cont.)
Saint
Emerich
(cont.)
Cyril and
Methodius
(cont.) Doctor Kostlivý Doctor Kostlivý
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Sándor Sandor
Cyril and
Methodius
Saint
Emerich
Cyril and
Methodius
Cyril and
Methodius
Dominican
Square (cont.)
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Deak
Ferenc
(cont.) Šrobár (cont.)
Szatmäry
György
(cont.) Šrobár (cont.) Šrobár (cont.) Šrobár
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Hunyady
(cont.)
Hunyady
(cont.)
Hunyady
(cont.)
Marshall
Malinovský
(cont.)
Malinovský
(cont.) Galen
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Hunyady Hunyady Hunyady Hunyady
Marshall
Malinovský Malinovský Timon
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Hospital
(Korház) Frangepan Frangepan Saint Lenärt Tajovský Tajovský Tajovský
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
- Aba Aba Aba Jozef Murgaš Jozef Murgaš Murgaš
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Gyula Gyula Mojmír
Kisdy
Benedek Mojmír Mojmír Mojmír
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Saltpeter
(Saletrom) Pribina
Apponyi
Albert Pribina Pribina Pribina
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Prayerhall
(Imaház) Prayerhall
Prayer
(Modlitebná)
Prayerhall
(Imahäz)
Prayer
(Modlitebná) Zhdanov
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Szepsi
Elisabeth
Blvd Štúr Blvd.
Saint
Stephen
Blvd. Štúr Štúr Štúr
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
Hay/Elisabeth
(Széna/Erzsébe
t) Square Elisabeth
Legionaries
(Legionárske)
Horthy
Miklös
Legionaries
(Legionárske)
Liberators
(Osloboditeľov)
Liberators
(Osloboditeľov)
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
_
Nador Palacký Nädor Palacký Palacký Palacký
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21Factory (Gyár) Factory
Factory
(Továrenská)
Gömbös
Gyula
Factory
(Továrenská) |Thälmann
Factory
(Továrenská)
c 1
c 2
c 3
c 4
c 5
c 6
c 7
c 8
c 9
c 10
c 11
c 12
c 13
c 14
c 15
c 16
c 17
c 18
c 19
c 20
c 21
232
(1870)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1912)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1938)
Czechoslovakia
(1942)
Hungarian
kingdom
(1946)
Czechoslovakia
(1985)
Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic
(2015)
Slovak Republic Code
Muzeum Rašín
King
Matthew
(Matyáš
Király) Blvd. Rašín Gottwald Štefánik c 22
Széchényi Park
(Széchényi
liget) Széchényi
Sokol Park
(Sokolský sad) Széchényi
Marshall
Petrov Petrov
Municipal
(Mestský) Park c 23
Old Bastion
(Stará baštová)
Košice
Martyrs
Square
(Kassai
vértanuk-
tere)
Old Bastion
(Stará baštová) Old Bastion
Old Bastion (Stará
baštová) c 24
Podtatranský
Premonstrát
ensian Podtatranský Podtatranský Podtatranský c 25
Canal
(Csatorna)
KazinczyFerenc
Kazinczy
KazinczyFerenc
Pushkin Pushkin Pushkin c 26
- - - Liszt Ferenc Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky c 27
Gardener
(Kertész)
Darvas
Imre Krman
Balassa
Zsuzsanna Krman Krman Krman c 28
Wood Square Petöfi Petófi Petófi Janko Kráľ Fučík
Wood (Drevný)
Market c 29
Barkóczy Barkóczy Éder Barkóczy Churchill
Antifascist
Fighters
(Protifašistických
bojovníkov)
Antifascist
Fighters
(Protifašistických
bojovníkov) c 30
Rose (Rózsa)
Gróf
Bercsényi
Miklós Bercsény
Gróf
Bercsényi
Miklós
Roosevelt
(Roosvelt)
Roosvelt
(Roosewelt) Roosveltova c 31
Public Hospital
(Kôzkorház) Attila Kuzmány Bern Ján Botto Ján Botto Botto c 32
Liberators
(Osloboditeľov)
Square (cont.) c 33
Vörösmarty
Square vorosmarty vorosmarty
Michal
Miloslav Hodža Janko Kráľ
Hay (Senný)
Market c 34
233
(1870)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1912)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1938)
Czechoslovakia
(1942)
Hungarian
kingdom
(1946)
Czechoslovakia
(1985)
Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic
(2015)
Slovak Republic Code
North section of the studied area (prefix "n")
- - Winter (Zimná) Winter (Tel) Winter (Zimná) Winter Winter (Zimná) n 1
- - Spring (Jarná) Pilsudszky Spring (Jarná) Spring Spring (Jarná) n 2
Autumn
(Jesenná) Tisza István
Autumn
(Jesenná) Autumn
Autumn
(Jesenná) n 3
February Victory
(Februárového
víťazstva) Square Angelinum Park n 4
- - - - - Jilemnický Jilemnický n 5
Calvary
(Kalvária)
Calvary
(Kalvárska)
Calvary
(Kalvária)
Calvary
(Kalvárska)
Czechoslovak
Army
(Československej
armády)
Czechoslovak
Army
(Československej
armády) n 6
Tobacco
(Dohány)
Tobacco
(Tabaková)
Tobacco
(Dohány)
Tobacco
(Tabáková)
Engineer
(Strojařská)
Engineering
Works
(Strojárenská) n 7
- - - - - Nejedlý Bocatius n 8
Bubics
Zsigmond Komenský
Bubics
Zsigmond Komenský Komenský Komenský n 9
Tanner
(Timár)
Tanner
(Garbiarska)
Tanner
(Timár)
Tanner
(Garbiarska) Tanner
Tanner
(Garbiarska) n 10
Tobacco
Factory
(Dohánygy
ár köz)
Railway
(Železničná) Pulszky
Railway
(Železničná) Railway
Railway
(Železničná) n 11
Dyke Alley
(Gát sor) Gorky
Queen
Elisabeth
Strand Gorky Gorky Gorký n 12
_
Tehány
Alley Tyrš Strand
Gizella
Strand Tyrš Strand Tyrš Strand Tyrš Strand n 13
Metallurgist
(Hutnická)
Metallurgist
(Hutnícka) n 14
_
Zoltán Kolisko Zoltán vezér Kolisko Rašky Jakoby n 15
_ _ _ _ _
Miner (Haviarska) Miner (Haviarska) n 16
_
Thököly Thököly Thököly Šverma Košík Alvinczy n 17
Broken
(Lomená)
Broken
(Tört)
Broken
(Lomená) Broken Broken (Lomená) n 18
_
Tree
(Zöldfa)
Tree
(Stromová) Tree (Zöldfa)
Tree
(Stromová) Tree Tree (Stromová) n 19
Klobusitzk
y Masaryk
Deák
Ferencz
Blvd. Masaryk Marx Masaryk n 20
Esterházy Svätopluk
Esterházy
János Svatopluk Svatopluk Svätopluk n 21
_
Arpád Jiskra Bezerédy Jiskra Jiskra Jiskra n 22
Baross
Gábor
Blvd. Wilson Blvd.
Baross Blvd.
/Thurzo Wilson Blvd. Engelsova Bencúrova n 23
_
Jókai Jókai Jókai Jesenský Jesenský Jesenský n 24
St.
Ladislaus St. Ladislaus St. Ladislaus Andrej Kmeť Andrej Kmeť Kmeť n 25
- Moyzes Sibrik (cont.) Lermontov Lermontov Lermontov n 26
234
(1870)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1912)
Habsburg
monarchy
(1938)
Czechoslovakia
(1942)
Hungarian
kingdom
(1946)
Czechoslovakia
(1985)
Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic
(2015)
Slovak Republic Code
- Sibrik Šibrik Sibrik Kukorelli Kukorelli Löffler n 27
_
Thurzó Thurzo Thurzó Thurzo Thurzo Thurzo n 28
Water (Vodná)
(cont.)
Water (Vizi)
(cont.)
Water (Vodná)
(cont.) Ruman n 29
South section of the studied area (prefix "s")
Neruda
Góndór
Gábor Neruda Neruda Neruda s 1
- - - - - Jánošík Jánošík s 2
Artillerym
en (Tiizer)
Artillerymen
(Delostrelecká)
Artillerymen
(Túzér) Žižka Žižka Žižka s 3
- Kinizsi Kukučín Kinizsi Kukučín Kukučín Kukučín s 4
- - Kupecký Klimkovics Kupecký Kupecký Kupecký s 5
Lichard
Dévai Biró
Matyáš Lichard Lichard Lichard s 6
Warehous
e (Raktar)
Warehouse
(Skladná) Szúló Géza
Warehouse
(Skladná) Warehouse
Warehouse
(Skladná) s 7
- - Kalinčiak Mester Kalinčiak Kalinčiak Kalinčiak s 8
- - Rizner Alvinci Peter Rizner Rizner Rizner s 9
- _ Vajanský Rómoves Vajanský Vajanský Vajanský s 10
- Do bo Dobo Dobo Rázus Rázus Rázus s 11
Treasurer
(Tarnok) Rastislav
Hospital
(Kórház) Rastislav Rastislav Rastislav s 12
- Szemere Zborov Szemere Zborov Zborov Zborov s 13
Miller
(Molnar)
Miller
(Mlynárska) Pázmány
Miller
(Mlynárska) Miller
Miller
(Mlynárska) s 14
- _ Šoltésová Déryné Šoltésová Šoltésová Šoltésová s 15
Voivod
(Vajda)
Voivod
(Vojvodská)
Voivod
(Vajda)
Voivod
(Vojvodská) Voivod
Voivod
(Vojvodská) s 16
- Bathory Báthory Tornyossi Gottwald Schönherz Voivod (cont.) s 17
- David Feja David Feja David Feja Feja Feja Feja s 18
Pest
(Pesti) Rd. Švehla Blvd.
Honvéds
(Honvédek)
Rd.
Soviet Army
Blvd. Soviet Army Blvd.
South (Južná
Blvd. s 19
Raven
(Hollo) Hollý
Spirkó
Ágoston Hollý Hollý Hollý s 20
Major Blanár Blanár Maxoň
Firefighter
(Požiarnická)
Firefighter
(Požiarnická) s 21
_ _ _ _ Ludmanská Ludmanská s 22
Szerecsen
y Palárik Patáky Tibor Palárik Palárik Palárik s 23
Luszenszk
y Pal
Guerilla
Fighters
(Partizánov)
Guerilla Fighters
(Partizánska)
Guerilla Fighters
(Partizánska) s 24
Revolution
(Revolučná)
Amber
(Jantárová) s 25
235
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List of Historical Maps Consulted (in chronological order)
Homolka, József. 1870. Szabad királyi Kassa városánaktérképe. (Map of free royal town Kassa.)
Buda: M. K. Katasteri Konyomda.
1912. Kassa tórvényhatósági joggal felruházott szabad királyi város belsóségenek és
kórnyékénekátnézeti térképe. (Map of free royal town Kassa and its surroundings.) Kassa:
WIKO.
1925. Plán mesta Košíc. (Plan of Košice city.) Košice: Štátna knihtlačiareň v Košiciach.
1938. Orientačný plán mesta Košíc (Košice city orientation plan). Košice: "WIKO".
1942. Kassa tórvényhatósági joggal szabad királyi város térképe. (Map of free royal town Košice)
Kassa: Wiko
1947. Plán mesta Košíc. (Plan of Košice city.) Košice: "WIKO".
1949. Plán mesta Košíc. (Plan of Košice city.) Košice: "WIKO".
1965. Orientačný plán mesta Košíc (Košice city orientation plan.) Ústredná správa geodézie a
kartografie.
1985. Orientačná mapa mesta Košice. (Košice city orientation map) Bratislava: Slovenská
kartografia.
With the exception of the map published in 1947, all of the listed maps are available online at
http://fotokosice.eu/index.php/historia/stare-mapy/mapy-mesta. Accessed on September 30, 2017.
253
Author index
Alderman, 42, 43, 44, 68, 122,124,125
Aldermann, 42
Alexander, 11, 21, 44, 45, 47, 63,119
Anderson, 19, 40
Ashplant, 39
Assmann, 13, 37, 68
Augé, 171
Azaryahu, 123, 124
Bača, 179
Bakshi, 42
Balassa, 111, 112
Bauer, 15, 70, 71
Becker, 39
Benda, 24
Berger, 123
Bernhard, 39, 58
Blicha, 130, 132,142, 143
Blokker, 63
Böhm, 25
Boltanski, 12, 41, 48, 49, 50, 52, 61
Bourdieu, 40, 41, 48
Brighenti, 63,171
Brubaker, 9, 19, 207, 212
Bystrický, 19, 24
Chiapello, 49
Csalová, 102, 107
Cunningham, 46
Czaplicka, 68
Czepczynski, 125,146,165
Czepczyhski, 125
David, 120,130,146, 167
Deák, 23, 24, 106
Demjánová, 152
Drozdzewski, 122,124
Duchoň, 140
Ďurišin, 21
Dwyer, 42, 43, 44, 124,125
Eliáš, 142, 179, 194, 196, 204, 206
Eyerman, 44,172
Feischmidt, 207
Ferko, 75
Ficeri, 14, 20, 21, 33, 239
Fine, 40, 68
Gabzdilová, 31, 33
Gajdoš, 15, 61, 62, 65,122
Giordano, 126
Halász, 149, 176,177
Halbwachs, 37, 40,41
Hamar, 105
Harčar, 25
Harvey, 41
Heinrich, 46
Henschel, 9,130
Hervieu-Léger, 179
Huyssen, 42
Janek, 106
Jesenský, 85, 89
Jordan, 39
Jouhanneau, 40
Juhász, 205
Juščák, 152
Kačala, 205
Kamenec, 106
Kansteiner, 41, 45
Kaplan, 27
Kattago, 46,47
King, 20
Kocsisová, 159, 160
Kontler, 19
Korchnak, 79
Kovács, 20, 33, 105
Kubik, 39, 58
Kusá, 19,105
Lamont, 57
Langenohl, 46
Lazorišák, 26
Levy, 21
Light, 121, 124, 146,157, 165
Low, 16, 42, 165
Magdolenová, 179, 206
Maier, 46
Marada, 47
Marschall, 40
Mészáros, 151
Michela, 19,105
Mink, 39,46
Misztal, 46, 213
Mitáč, 106
Molnár, 106
Moody, 49
Mullins, 161
Musil, 67
Muzaini, 41
Neumayer, 39, 46
Nižňanský, 25
254
Nora, 59, 69
Okroy, 9, 26, 75, 78
Oláh, 16,103, 111, 167
Olick, 13, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 63, 69
Ondrejšík, 199
Pallasmaa, 174
Palonen, 121,124
Papáč, 158
Pattaroni, 58, 60, 61, 62
Pensky, 174,175
Pisárčiková, 205
Podhorská, 134
Popely, 29
Potemra, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34
Rapošová, 50, 61, 62
Reed, 11, 44
Regináčová, 23, 31
Ristveyová, 24
Robbins, 37, 63
Robinson, 212
Ronza, 126
Rose-Redwood, 43, 44,122,123,124,125,168,
169
Sáposová, 23, 31, 33
Schwartz, 39, 46, 67
Sik, 40
Singerova, 26
Snyder, 11, 22
Stachel, 68
Stavo-Debauge, 58
Strauss, 5,9, 89
Sutaj, 21, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35,106,114,140
Szalo, 1,105,174
Szarka, 27, 28, 30
Sznaider, 21
Thevenot, 12,17, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 55, 57,
58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 68, 69, 99,115,119, 212
Thum, 21
Tornquist-Plewa, 22
Tornquist-Plewa, 39, 46,114
Tucci, 126
Turner, 125
Vadkerty, 27, 28, 30
van Gennep, 124
Wagner-Pacifici, 39, 67
Wick, 177,178
Wlachovsky, 153
Yair, 40
Yeoh, 41
Zahra, 20, 32
255