Attila MELEGH, sociologist, 1963

Author: zsuzsa

How did the change in regime influence your professional activity and interest?
I met a great number of people, which reinforced me in my belief that professional career is a lot more important. I saw the change my friends and acquaintances went through. Unfortunately, I only recognized later what the most important social processes were and how they related to political discourse – in short: why such a change can be regarded as a socially retrograde process.
What part of your role in the regime change do you consider most important today?
In contrast to others, I began to realize the incredible consequences of the transformation as early as 1992. This was very late in terms of when the process began, but, in comparison to others, it is early even today. Slowly, I began to work on the global reading of state socialism. This still makes me think.
What cornerstone events or publications in art / politics / public life / the professional sphere do you remember, in which you participated, or to which you reacted in some way?
I was present at most larger protests and demonstrations, which were funny even in retrospect. I only began to react after 1992; it was by then that a rudimentary interpretation began to form in my mind.
What sources and experiences have determined your view of the transitional period – both during and in retrospect?
Social statistics, discourse analysis, everyday milieu, increasing tendencies of racism, the segregation of social classes as a process.
Has your picture of the regime change and its ideas been altered – if yes, in what way, and as a result of what – in the past 20 / 10 / 5 / 1 year(s)?
Yes, it has gradually gotten worse and worse. Today, I believe that the fundamental steps of the transition should have been taken in a different direction – the critique of state socialism was a mistake.