The Living Memorial

Building resilience based on grief in an illiberal regime

Abstract

The paper investigates grief based activism in an illiberal system. The Living Memorial was initiated in 2014 as the Hungarian government announced the installation of a memorial of the German occupation of 1944, which denied the responsibility of the Hungarian state in the Holocaust. The Living Memorial aimed to contradict the government's memorial by offering an inclusive remembrance through telling personal, family stories. According to the results of a grounded analysis, three different actions were realized by the Living Memorial, which all enhanced the resilience of the group on different levels. The discussion of personal and family stories, sharing grief reinforced the collective identity of the group. The personal remembrance also helped to deconstruct the government’s memorial, which was a political action. The political discussion and presentations raised the political consciousness of the participants and strengthened their self-image as rational political actors. It is also revealed that the resilience against illiberalism in the case of the Living Memorial was realized by a continuous process of reframing and community building; and also by the simultaneous recall and rationalization of grief and relating emotions.