At a conference in Budapest about identity the Eastern Europeans and those from Southern countries still outside the European Union talk only of national and ethnic identities. They talk, paradoxically, about their pride in their reclaimed national identities while claiming ‘there is no problem with minorities in…’. They strongly resent the suggestion that all national identities are coded for violence and carry the implication of inevitable past and future violence. My friends from Kosovo, all Albanian, try to appear dignified in their fresh victory, not gloating or triumphalist. Independence was declared on February 17th with tacit EU and American support. They are keen to stress the spirit of reconciliation; the secular nature of the new state; the protections for the Serb minorities – and how all these high-minded ideals are guaranteed by their aspirations to join the European Union. All talk of tradition, religion, memory, landscape and separate cultures is banished. Inherited identities are too dangerous even to mention. I, rather rudely, point out that it profits a man nothing to lose his soul to gain the whole world, but the European Union? Even more rudely, I predict that the Albanian elite may end up prosperous, deracinated cosmopolitans eager to get the hell out of Pristina to Geneva or Brussels. Meanwhile the Serbs, with their spiritual home (as they would see it) now in the territory of Kosovo will be the only ones with memories and meanings drawn from a rich and troubled past which lives on vividly. The question on the minds of the young politicians, none of them Serbs, is the question of St John of the Cross, Tolstoy and Lenin: what then is to be done?
The Western Europeans listen politely but are probably a little bored and a little impatient with all this national/ethnic old-think, described disparagingly as ‘anthropological’. Waving flags is so over. For them also, but for different reasons, inherited identities are a thing of the past. They want to talk instead about gay adoption, Pop Idol and plastic surgery makeover television shows. Even in Northern Ireland apparently more people attend the Gay Pride parade than the St. Patrick's Day parade. These concerns all seem narcissistic and, sometimes, insufferably smug – the pain of alienation only being the flipside of carefree prosperity. The question for the Northern and Western Europeans is not what is to be done, but what have we become?
In a field outside Budapest is the ‘Statue Park’. It’s not really a park at all. It’s a windswept field, halfway up a hill with ugly views, criss-crossed with power lines. Electricity pylons march unrelentingly across the landscape. Onto this field the Hungarian authorities have towed all the old Communist statues. Lenin, Marx and Engels guard the entry. Inside, statues of a few besuited, bespectacled men represent Hungarian Communist leaders. They don’t look like much of a match for Russian tanks. But the most monumental statues are the ones of anonymous heroes. They are huge, bulging, muscular men in dramatic action poses. They are crudely crafted in the Social Realist tradition and, to our post-modern eyes, have a homo-erotic tinge. The statues of women and children represent symbols of purity and clarity. Strength lies with the men. You don’t have to be an ex-Communist to feel some sadness at the loss of idealism and the descent into an unheroic (cowardly?) era where no one seems willing to fight for anything much anymore. In order perhaps to reduce the sense of complicity and guilt, the park presents Communism as kitsch. The souvenir shop sells mouse mats with South Park-like figures saying ‘They killed Lenin, the bastards.’ Kitsch - and the ironic language in which kitsch speaks - is all that is left. There are no Hungarian visitors to the park and only a few foreigners.
The Hungarian National Art Gallery is popular with Hungarians. The exhibition about the Medicis is crammed. Hungarians are voting with their feet about which bits of their past they intend to validate as part of their contemporary identity. The gallery is in Heroes’ Square and is one of the greatest collections of old masters in Europe. The stars of the show are their collection of Spanish masters and the best of these are the several El Grecos. El Greco’s most important insight in these paintings is a profound understanding of human fallibility and failure. One picture is of the agony in the garden, the sky at dusk showing a red version of that stark, unique El Greco chiaroscuro. In front of the kneeling, praying Christ are the apostles asleep and oblivious. Another picture is of the disrobing of Christ. As in the Gethsemane picture he stares upwards, his face brightly lit, from within and from above, transcending the ugly and violent scene. Behind Christ El Greco has painted two thickset Roman soldiers looking shame-facedly at each other, as if to say ‘We know this is wrong, but what else can we do?’ They are not asleep and unaware. They are awake and active, but don’t seem to have any choice. These pictures of human shortcomings next to the transcendent and translucent Christ move Yvonne to tears. Her tears are not for what we have become, but for what we are.
for pictures of Statue Park, Budapest go to www.flickr.com/photos/gerardlemos/sets
The Western Europeans listen politely but are probably a little bored and a little impatient with all this national/ethnic old-think, described disparagingly as ‘anthropological’. Waving flags is so over. For them also, but for different reasons, inherited identities are a thing of the past. They want to talk instead about gay adoption, Pop Idol and plastic surgery makeover television shows. Even in Northern Ireland apparently more people attend the Gay Pride parade than the St. Patrick's Day parade. These concerns all seem narcissistic and, sometimes, insufferably smug – the pain of alienation only being the flipside of carefree prosperity. The question for the Northern and Western Europeans is not what is to be done, but what have we become?
In a field outside Budapest is the ‘Statue Park’. It’s not really a park at all. It’s a windswept field, halfway up a hill with ugly views, criss-crossed with power lines. Electricity pylons march unrelentingly across the landscape. Onto this field the Hungarian authorities have towed all the old Communist statues. Lenin, Marx and Engels guard the entry. Inside, statues of a few besuited, bespectacled men represent Hungarian Communist leaders. They don’t look like much of a match for Russian tanks. But the most monumental statues are the ones of anonymous heroes. They are huge, bulging, muscular men in dramatic action poses. They are crudely crafted in the Social Realist tradition and, to our post-modern eyes, have a homo-erotic tinge. The statues of women and children represent symbols of purity and clarity. Strength lies with the men. You don’t have to be an ex-Communist to feel some sadness at the loss of idealism and the descent into an unheroic (cowardly?) era where no one seems willing to fight for anything much anymore. In order perhaps to reduce the sense of complicity and guilt, the park presents Communism as kitsch. The souvenir shop sells mouse mats with South Park-like figures saying ‘They killed Lenin, the bastards.’ Kitsch - and the ironic language in which kitsch speaks - is all that is left. There are no Hungarian visitors to the park and only a few foreigners.
The Hungarian National Art Gallery is popular with Hungarians. The exhibition about the Medicis is crammed. Hungarians are voting with their feet about which bits of their past they intend to validate as part of their contemporary identity. The gallery is in Heroes’ Square and is one of the greatest collections of old masters in Europe. The stars of the show are their collection of Spanish masters and the best of these are the several El Grecos. El Greco’s most important insight in these paintings is a profound understanding of human fallibility and failure. One picture is of the agony in the garden, the sky at dusk showing a red version of that stark, unique El Greco chiaroscuro. In front of the kneeling, praying Christ are the apostles asleep and oblivious. Another picture is of the disrobing of Christ. As in the Gethsemane picture he stares upwards, his face brightly lit, from within and from above, transcending the ugly and violent scene. Behind Christ El Greco has painted two thickset Roman soldiers looking shame-facedly at each other, as if to say ‘We know this is wrong, but what else can we do?’ They are not asleep and unaware. They are awake and active, but don’t seem to have any choice. These pictures of human shortcomings next to the transcendent and translucent Christ move Yvonne to tears. Her tears are not for what we have become, but for what we are.
for pictures of Statue Park, Budapest go to www.flickr.com/photos/gerardlemos/sets
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