Cover Osteuropa 12/2011

In Osteuropa 12/2011

Hinterland
Or: punk is not d

Esther Kinsky


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

Hungary’s right-wing politicians invoke the dream of an ethnically pure “hinterland”, of a homeland of long-suppressed “true Hungarian” values whose turn has now finally come again. György Doerner and István Csurka, the newly appointed directors of Budapest’s New Theatre even want to re-name the house “Hinterland Theatre”. A name with a programme. But how do things look in the hinterland? A visit to the country’s southeast, the small part of the Banat on the Romanian and Serbian borders shows: decline and poverty dominate the picture. But rebels were always at home there.

(Osteuropa 12/2011, pp. 205–212)