A Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár évkönyve 2002-2003-2004

TANULMÁNYOK - Pók Attila: A magyarság, mint európai bűnbak

Attila Pók

HUNGARIANS AS A EUROPEAN SCAPEGOAT

The rich collection of stereotypical images of each other contains some especially interesting conceptions of hostility or friendship to mobilize for political actions. The more tragedies and crises an ethnic or national community experiences through its history, the greater demand on highlighting the external causes of tragedies and defeats it has. There are various ways of seeking for the causes: scientific analysis, literary and artistic presentation or simplifying political rhetoric. There is a special individual or group phenomenon, as well as phenomenon of social psychology which can be found in all these forms - that is scapegoating. Usually, scapegoats are hunted by losers; however, it may also be important to examine how scapegoating arises under given circumstances - for instance, the motives of the most decisive external decisions relating to the fate of Hungarians. Respective researches give a definite answer, namely the most typical feature of a scapegoat is that its alien character and minority status that substantially deviate from the accepted norms of the given community. There are no scapegoats without sins. The main element in the process of a scapegoating is to clearly define the guilty party. What sins could the general public of the modern Europe find concerning the Hungarians? It was the war itself - the tremendous devastation of World War I was a cat- astrophy for both losers and winners, but not in the same form and extent. What does European sin mean in this case? Why was it necessary to find an easily identifiable scapegoat?

The study tries to find an explanation for all these questions and examines the faults of Hungarians on the basis of the tragic event discussing the Hungarians' relation with guilt and punishment in view of the European history.

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