From Chastened to Unchastened Crowd, 1989 to the Present

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Crowd politics has been an essential element of Hungarian nationalism since the nineteenth century. Political scientists have made a sharp division between crowd politics and festive gatherings, between grassroots activism and government orchestrated events. But Hungarian politics invariably interconnect the two. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán operates within this tradition. Since 1989 he has employed political demonstration theater.

This paper will examine the assumption of the role of crowd leader by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán including his ability to use, seize, or orchestrate both festive gatherings and politically defiant crowds for regime change or to increase his hold on power; for electoral victories or parliamentary advantage, to attract international support or rally internally against foreign opinion.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Alice Freifeld received her PhD (1992), M.A. and B.A. from University of California, Berkeley. She joined the University of Florida in 1994 after teaching at Wheaton College, University of New Hampshire-Durham, University of Connecticut-Storrs, University of Nebraska, and Transylvania University, Lexington, KY. Professor Freifeld has published Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848-1914 (2000), which won the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize in 2001. She also coedited East Europe Reads Nietzsche with Peter Bergmann and Bernice Rosenthal (1998). She has published numerous articles and is currently working on a manuscript entitled Displaced Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48.