Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-Socialist Hungary

Download or read book Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-Socialist Hungary written by Lisa Pope Fischer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-socialist Hungary, Lisa Pope Fischer shows how personal practices symbolically refurbish elements from the Communist era to fit present-day challenges. A generation who lived through the socialist period adapt to post-socialist Hungary in a global context. Life histories weave together case studies of gift giving, procurement strategies, harvest ritual, healthcare, and socialist kitsch to illustrate turns towards mysticism, neo-traditionalism, nostalgia, nationalism, and shifts in time-place. People’s unrequited past longing for future possibilities of a Western society facilitate desires for a lost way of life. Not only does this work gain understanding of an aging population’s life experiences and the politics of everyday practices, but also social change in a modern global world.