Katalin Izsák-Somogyi
PhD Student, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary

In line with the Hungarian post-holocaust memory-laws I would like to ask some questions about the connection of the Hungarian laws and our memories: about the commemorate and the remembrance, about the legal ways of the commemorate or about it how the law can influence our memories. Memory laws can be examined by jurisprudence and also by psychology. The consequence of this two-fold situation is that the research is interdisciplinary. I have to approach the problem of the normativity (as the sine qua non of the law) and the weight of commemorate, or remembrance. I would like to demonstrate the relation between genocide and law and try to explain what the expression „memory law” means. The questions of memory laws can be examined from the standpoint of the practice of law, not only analysing the methods of legislation or the semiotics problems. On the one hand, I find the Holocaust is a starting point in this traumatic-commemorate-fold. I do not want to make a distinction between genocide and genocide; I do not say the holocaust (capitalised or not) is more outstanding than other genocides. But I claim that in the 20th century, it had a huge effect on the postmodern thinking in law, in literature, philosophy, psychology, and in historiography. With the help of this effect, the people are able to think about their life in other dictatorships. On the other hand, the history of Central Europe is unique: the region experienced two opposing dictatorships one after another– and hence, the remembrance of the genocides is different than in Western Europe or in the USA. In the region, Hungary included, the politics of the remembrance is stacked up with various feelings.

Keywords: memory laws, remembrance, legal philosophy, postmodernism, Holocaust.

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