In Hungary, the earliest political memory of my generation is the death of the first democratically elected prime minister after the fall of socialism, József Antal, in 1993 but for far from political reasons. On the state television, the cartoon Duck Tales was suddenly stopped in the middle of episode. After maybe half an hour or silence, suddenly an announcement by the deputy prime minister was made about the PM passing away in the hospital. The two-hours Walt Disney programme on the television on the Sunday afternoon, of which was part of, was something all children were looking forward for the whole week. Needless to say that at the time there were no Hungarian cable channels only the two state channels, and ‘the Walt Disney’ was pretty new as an American programme on the television. I was ten years old when this happened, and in my age cohort really everybody still remembers this with memories of shock and confusion. The episode in question was only showed many years later on television again.”
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Last autumn we ran an experimental online public engagement series called 'earliest political memories'. We collected a total of 68 memories that were generously contributed by members of the public. You can read all the contributions here. The series caught the attention of our colleague Rachel O'Connell in the School of English who…
In "earliest political memories"
Only after reflecting on your request did I realise that my earliest 'political' memories are all related to gender. May I share two 'proto-political' memories and one which I would term political? My first 'proto-political memory' comes from when I was a young primary school child, perhaps 7 or 8,…
In "earliest political memories"
I was six years old. It was afternoon and, suddenly, everyone was gathering at the coastal avenue to welcome Karamanlis. They were crying “we are free”. I didn't know who Karamanlis was and I had no idea from whom we had been freed[1]. Ήμουν 6 χρονών. Ήταν απόγευμα και ξαφνικά…
In "earliest political memories"