hulit1-7, Exercise 1: Control and change

Model answer (check the details):

How literature was controlled: after the communist takeover publishing was nationalised and state publishers, editors and review of manuscripts decided what appeared. In the early years socialist realism was imposed, demanding that literature serve the Party. Writers were sorted informally into those supported, tolerated and banned, and control extended to paper, print runs and informal pressure. Many writers also practised self-censorship.

Why the control changed over time:
1. The early years under the Stalinist leadership were the harshest, with silencing and imprisonment.
2. The uprising of 1956 was crushed and followed by reprisals, but from the early 1960s the Kadar government relaxed its grip in a trade-off with society, allowing more writing within limits.
3. The 1970s and 1980s saw more room, samizdat and publication abroad as the system weakened.

The pattern is of a system that tightened and loosened according to politics, not a single constant.