The first two years of Victor Orbán’s new government have seen a determined campaign to refashion the cultural landscape of Hungary in a conformist spirit, as institution after institution is transformed, rebranded or rerouted in a dramatic settling of accounts in Hungarian cultural life. The takeover of many of the country’s leading museums and theatres by Fidesz favourites has been accompanied by a painful process of restructuring and downsizing, with compulsory staff reductions, cost-cutting amalgamations and shrinking programme budgets multiplying the impact of what critics regard as blatant political interference in the arts.

Demonstrations outside the Uj Szinhaz

Drama at the Theatre

One of the first warning shots in a series of skirmishes over the running of key cultural institutions was the organisation of demonstrations by the extreme right in front of the National Theatre in December 2010 to demand the resignation of director, Róbert Alföldi, on the grounds that he had promoted a programme that is ‘obscene, pornographic, gay, anti-national and anti-Hungarian’. Although the storm eventually blew over and Alföldi survived to fight another day, everyone knows the celebrity liberal’s contract is due to expire in 2013 and another five year term is far from a done deal.
Less lucky was the previous director of the Új Szinház or New Theatre, who was replaced after the city’s first ever Fidesz mayor, István Tárlos, decided to ignore the advice of an advisory committee and appoint instead a hard right sympathiser with a mission to put an end to ‘degenerate, sick, liberal hegemony.’ In fact, the ending of two decades of liberal and socialist dominance in Budapest City Hall may prove to be just as significant for the future orientation of Hungarian culture as the landslide victory of Victor Orbán in national polls in 2010, as some of the most controversial decisions have come not from central government, but from the offices of the mayor.

The scandal over the appointment of György Dörner, an actor who used to do the Bruce Willis voiceovers in the dubbed version of Hollywood movies, has reverberated strongly both in Hungary and abroad. On his first day at work, hundreds of demonstrators turned up to protest, only to be met with an aggressive counter demonstration by a motley band of extremists. Further afield, an open letter in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, signed by a wide range of cultural luminaries, including somewhat ironically the grandson of Admiral Horthy, cautioned that the campaign against a liberal Hungarian theatre ‘is part of a move in Hungary towards intolerance and against democracy’, with ‘obvious’ and ‘chilling’ historical parallels.

Those on the political right take a polar opposite view, arguing that Hungarian culture has been dominated for too long by a left-leaning clique of cosmopolitan intellectuals that have sought to pander to foreign interests and neglected national traditions and tastes. According to this populist narrative, the rendszerváltás or system change of 1989 did not go far enough in ridding the country of the residues of communism, while the mission of the current government, empowered with a constitution-busting two thirds majority, is to finish the job by renaming squares and removing off-message statues, establishing guilt for the crimes of communism, and carrying out a radical restructuring of national institutions.

Museum Mergers

Along with a pattern of political interference in the selection of directors, government plans to radically shake up the fundamental structure of Hungarian culture have done much to upset the normally sedate world of museum curators. The uncertainty facing provincial museums, responsibility for which was transferred in January from regional to central government, led the Trade Union of Culture (KKDSZ) to launch last month an impassioned plea for support. The petition warns in no uncertain terms that the ministry’s latest plan to transfer the 212 cultural institutions (and the 22 million artefacts they look after) directly to impoverished local councils would unleash a ‘cultural Tsunami’ and throw ‘irreplaceable professionals onto the street’.

The Hungarian branch of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) have also launched their own campaign to draw attention to the hurried decision to merge two of the nation’s most important museums, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Gallery.  Officially justified on the basis of as yet undefined plans to create a new museum district near City Park, while the current premises of the National Gallery in the Castle District would be turned into government offices, AICA has criticised the lack of public or professional consultation about the merger plans, as a result of which ‘one of Hungary’s most important public collection institutions will cease to exist.’

Trouble at the Trafó

Many devoted fans and professional collaborators of Budapest’s only independent cultural venue with a genuinely cross-disciplinary, international profile are deeply concerned by the challenges facing the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts. At the time of writing, the institution’s annual budget has still to be approved, while no one knows who will be running the show after current director György Szabó steps down at the end of June. While Szabó was to have been replaced by choreographer Yvette Bozsik, whose controversial appointment was approved by the Mayor, in an unexpected turn of events the incoming director has announced that she will not be taking up the position after all.

Although it may turn out to be pyrrhic, her decision to throw in the towel represents a victory for the many arts and culture professionals who sought to put pressure on Bozsik, who they regard as unqualified for such a demanding position and in effect a government pawn. In the immediate aftermath, Mayor Tarlós told a radio chat show that that the Kossuth-prize winning dancer and choreographer had been on the receiving end of ‘such brutal and ignoble attacks’ from the circle of ‘self-declared liberal thinkers’ that she had been forced to put her family life and the interests of her children first. Against this background of vitriol and recrimination, the city is expected to organise another competition for the newly vacant post.

Life without Liget

In many cases the precarious situation faced by cultural institutions is caused by a mixture of short-sightedness brought on by dire financial straits and a deep-seated suspicion towards the perceived elitism of avant-garde culture on the part of rightwing politicians, who would apparently rather support mainstream pursuits, such as folk dancing, than more specialised cultural activities. The recent decision to pull the plug on another touchstone of Hungarian alternative culture, the Liget Gallery, has left the art world visibly shocked, as artists and curators ask themselves, ‘Who’s next?’.

Having survived the censorship of late socialism – from the very beginning providing a bridge for neo-avant-garde artists to the international art world – and managing to keep going through two decades of post-communism, finally the game appears to be up for an independent art space that is a model of openness and communitarian spirit. While acknowledging the gallery’s ‘leading, high level professional work’, the local council recently decided that it can no longer afford to maintain the Liget Gallery. A planned new cultural centre in a converted Zugló bus garage is to cater for local people’s future needs for cultural education.

Curator of the Liget Gallery, Tibor Várnagy, who has nurtured the innovative art space from the very beginning, clearly finds the official reasoning behind the decision to withdraw funding hard to compute. He told us that after 29 years of activity the news came as ‘more than a surprise’, with the main problem lying in the fact that ‘members of our local district have a very different idea about the role of culture and contemporary art than our colleagues in the art scene.’ The gallery has in fact bent over backwards in the last year to reduce its running costs to the absolute minimum by no longer printing invitation cards and saving on heating costs by holding weekly one-night shows during the winter. While he accepts that the district is short of cash, he makes the point that ‘even during a time of economic crisis, the amount of money they spend on the gallery (less than 4 million forints last year) is extremely small.’

The Future

The underlying problem with many of the radical changes to the structure and personnel of Hungarian cultural institutions is that they will be very difficult to reverse. Appointing an unsuitable person to the leadership of a major art institution has a direct influence on what is shown and the overall profile of the venue, and while it can take years to build up the international reputation of a theatre or gallery, its precious stock of symbolic capital can evaporate in a moment. Ultimately the consequences of closing a cherished art space or theatre cannot be measured in purely financial terms, as what is also lost is the living archive in the stage floor or gallery walls that preserves the collective experience of generations of audiences, actors and artists.