Folia historica 24

I. Tanulmányok - Fisli Éva: „A nemzet halottja”, 1945 Bajcsy-Zsilinszky (újra)temetése

hadn't controlled the remembrance of recent times. According to the commentaries of daily papers which were altering from party to party, each political group shaded his Bajcsy-Zsilinszky image from a different point of view. He was called the medium of the civil courage, the dead of Hungarian resistance and personification of the finest virtues. The burial of Bajcsy-Zsilinszky demonstrates the political usage of past and of the dead. It also illustrates the unsteady nature of inteipretation and reference. The study examines the way in which the „greatest Hungarian of 1944" conforms to an existing and mobilizable national narrative in the middle of interruption and political discontinuity. As the hero of the independence struggle and the martyr of the Hungarian freedom, he established the continuity and acceptance of the past. The photos are originated from the Historical Photo Department of the Hungarian National Museum. These images were taken by Sándor Ek (1902—1975) communist painter and graphic artist also known as Alex Keil in Germany in the 1920s. After his emigration he returned to Hungary as the officer of the Soviet Red Army. 196