Levéltári Közlemények, 89. (2018)
Levéltári kutatások – módszertan és gyakorlat - Völgyesi Zoltán: Az ellenforradalom tudatlan szekértolója? A bűnös konstruálása egy 1956 utáni politikai perben
ZOLTÁN V ÖLGYESI THE IGNORANT CATALYST OF THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION? The construction of a guilty person in a policital trial after 1956 This essay presents the story of one of the convicts of the 1956 political lawsuit, highlighting some of the peculiarities of these lawsuits and looking for an answer of how the person was selected for this role and how he was created guilty. The protagonist of the story is the headmaster of a small town school, who was a Marxist Russian teacher, then became the secretary of the Revolutionary Committee. During the retaliations, he was arrested, indicted and sentenced to two years in prison. The preconceptual and constructive nature of the lawsuit can be demonstrated: the discovery and evaluation of the real facts was overridden by the fulfillment of the political expectations of the restored communist power. This does not, however, preclude the fact that the memorials of the trial contain factual data and, even evidence, the documents of the revolution. Therefore, in spite of their limitations, they are indispensable for exploring historical events where few other sources, especially few contemporary sources, are available to the researcher. Levéltári kutatások – módszertan és gyakorlat 226
