Why and how and to what extent do particular historical memories have the ability shaping political climate, propelling nationalist mobilization, and reproducing and (re)forming the nation, national identity and the corresponding subject formation and belonging in particular historical moments? And how we can understand these processes in light of regional geopolitics and larger historical forces? These questions convey importance and are relevant – but less explored in the literature – to understand the success of the self-proclaimed illiberal right-wing Hungarian government's (FIDESZ) political project since 2010, in which the recurrent invocation of the Trianon Treaty 1920 and its revitalized legacy of grievances became a cornerstone in a meticulous political design of reimaging the present in terms of a particular past. This treaty was a specific peace pact applied to Hungary concluding the First World War, and its historical content signifies the country's sheer defeat. I posit that the interwar and contemporary Hungarian politics bear strong resembles in terms of a society-wide existential crises and instability, and in both, the extreme rise of nationalism resonating to a larger external structural crisis, creating a moral vacuum for right wing parties/leaders to grab power. By looking at these two illiberal realities, their implemented 'mnemonic practices and products', their official historiographies of and the attached significance to the Trianon Treaty, I seek to reveal how those enable the process of the (re)formation of nation, national subjects and belonging and fuel virulent nationalism. What I propose in this paper is going beyond methodological nationalism by looking at those two comparable historical eras at the junction of the national and the larger historical. I will illustrate that after the First World War and during the interwar period, the Trianon Treaty was constructed as historical trauma and entailed ressentiment, stemming from the social-psychological feelings of being defeated and overpowered and buttressed by political impulses for revenge and hatred. In contemporary Hungary since 2010, it seems, FIDESZ too successfully capitalized on the intensified society-wide discontent and disillusionment – attributable to decades long unfulfilled expectations to catching up to the "West", the perceived neocolonialization due to unequal incorporation within the European Union, jointly with the effects of neoliberal austerity, sealed by the 2008 crisis – and built on the elicitation of anti-European Union struggle and national sentiment. Thus, the ongoing extreme nationalism also has been grounded in the 'politics of injury' and 'politics of pity', embedded in political discourses as reference to the betrayal by the "West". While FIDESZ has been self-imaged as a freedom fighter against foreign powers, promising national salvation, and mobilizing Hungarians inside and across the border, wide-range reversal of democratic implementations took place; free press, free speech, and intellectual freedom suffered along with the suppression and retaliation of critiques by the opposition. This paper also hopes to illustrate how a member state within the EU is not only shaped by regional geopolitics but also has the ability shaping it.
