Northern (N): Hungary (NH). Art and Literature

A file containing documents concerning art and literature in Hungary. Subjects discussed in a dispatch from Ivor Pink, the British minister in Budapest, include the official attitude to art and literature in the country; the Hungarian refusal to accept significant Soviet influence on culture; the government's continuing tight controls on the intelligentsia following the Hungarian uprising; and the special position of the intelligentsia within Hungarian society. Pink's despatch also includes consideration of the Hungarian attitude to prison-camp literature such as the novels of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; Hungarian reluctance to embrace Socialist Realism; and the need to import Western left-wing literature and plays to Hungary to satisfy the population's cultural appetite. The file also discusses the fine line that the Hungarian government must tread between needing to control the ideas displayed in Hungarian culture to prevent any further unrest, and the required movement towards liberalisation following the Twenty-Second Congress of the Soviet communist party.