Youth and the State in Hungary: Capitalism, Communism and Class

This work takes as its focus the nature of Hungary’s youth movements since the 1930s. In a detailed ethnographic study, the text covers the lives of youth workers in the Csepel district of Budapest in the context of the political and economic transformations witnessed during the 20th century. The author follows State-Youth relations from the inter-war capitalism that made pheasants into workers, through the post war state socialism - Stalinism and after - to the reintroduction of capitalism in 1990. This substantial time frame allows an exploration of the transformations and dilemmas of youth, class, gender and ethnicity as they develop across time. In the course of this study two main themes emerge: the reproduction of class in youth culture across shifting socio-economic conditions; and the mobilization of youth movements in resistance to the state.