A Budapesti Városszépítő Egyesület mint misszió és civil mozgalom az 1980-as években

Absztrakt

The study analyses the history of the Budapest City Improvement Society (Budapesti Városszépítő Egyesület) – established in 1983 and later renamed as the Budapest City Preservation Society (Budapesti Városvédő Egyesület) – from the beginning to the 1990s, placing it in the cultural apolitical context of the 1980s. The activities of the society are interpreted as early civic activism, which, though not expressly in opposition to the government, was critical of the town planning policy of the Socialist regime. The values they subscribed to and propa- gated, their efforts to preserve landmarks at risk, and the message conveyed by their publications did in many respects push the boundaries of political toler- ance. At the same time, through activities designed to establish civic control and local advocacy, the society became a model for other civil associations and advocacy groups, and consequently indirectly promoted the development of the civil society in late Kádár Era Hungary.The study focuses on the reasons for permitting its establishment, the com- promises that allowed the society to be launched in the early 1980s, and the expected requirements to ensure its operation later. With regard to the rea- sons for and the history of its establishment, the essay highlights significance of contemporary media: the heritage preservation movement was borne out of the publicity of a popular TV show, Our Grandchildren Will Not See This (Unokáink sem fogják látni), which was given its own slot in 1981.In the countries of the Eastern Bloc various similar preservation societies were founded around this time. Parallel to these, the Budapest City Improve- ment Society and other Hungarian organisations occupied a place somewhere between civil society and political opposition. For this reasons, although the regime did not consider preservation movements as such a threat, the move- ment’s figureheads and administrative staff were subject of secret surveillance, primarily because of their connections with opposition movements and groups. The study is based on interviews with the founder of the movement, Mihály Ráday, the publicly accessible episodes of TV shows such as Pleas for the City 1 and 2 (Városvédőbeszédek I-II), the analysis of the society’s printed publications, as well as the surveillance reports and secret police files about the individualsassociated with the society.