The Culture of Distrust: On the Hungarian National Habitus

Abstract

The Hungarian national habitus is reconstructed on the basis of studying some persistently recurring structural configurations and behavioural patterns that govern everyday life from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. My main thesis is that while the structural weight of certain institutions and social groups of key importance (first of all towns and urban middle classes) is insignificant in Hungary in the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern period, other social groups (nobility, gentry, peasantry) and social institutions (state, churches) are over-represented. Some pertinent structural homologies between three system-level changes in the 20th century (in 1919, 1945, 1990) are also pointed out. Finally, on the basis of several examples, the term “national culture of distrust” is introduced.