Symbolic traces of communist legacy in post-socialist Hungary : : experiences of a generation that lived during the socialist era / / by Lisa Pope Fischer.

• Superior document: Central and Eastern Europe : regional perspectives in global context ; v. 7
• Author: Fischer, Lisa Pope, 1962-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2016]
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Central and Eastern Europe 7.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (231 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In Symbolic Traces of Communist Legacy in Post-socialist Hungary , Lisa Pope Fischer shows how personal practices symbolically refurbish elements from the Communist era to fit present-day challenges. A generation who lived through the socialist period adapt to post-socialist Hungary in a global context. Life histories weave together case studies of gift giving, procurement strategies, harvest ritual, healthcare, and socialist kitsch to illustrate turns towards mysticism, neo-traditionalism, nostalgia, nationalism, and shifts in time-place. People’s unrequited past longing for future possibilities of a Western society facilitate desires for a lost way of life. Not only does this work gain understanding of an aging population’s life experiences and the politics of everyday practices, but also social change in a modern global world.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 Globalized Bonds: Gift Exchange, Liminality, and Embodiment -- 2 Renegotiating Procurement Strategies: Elderly Women Applying Procurement Strategies of the Socialist Era to the Post-Socialist Condition -- 3 Reclaiming Folklore after Communist Era Oppression: Peasant Folklore of the Past Asserted in the Present -- 4 Culture of Communist Past within the Healthcare System: Reorganizing Healthcare and a Mystification of the Body -- 5 The Kitschification of Communist Material Culture: Politics Reinterpreted -- 6 Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index.