On May 9, 2013, the Department of Political Science and the Department of Aesthetics held a round-table discussion titled "Reflections on authority". Guest speakers included Ferenc Kulin (literary historian, former floor leader of MDF), Tibor Wehner (art historian, former head of the art division of the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage), and Endre Kukorelly (writer, former member of parliament). The moderator was Ferenc Hörcher (PPCU FFHS, Department of Aesthetics).

The discussion started with the participants' recollection of how artists encountered dictatorial power during the communist era, telling about their personal experience of being under continuous surveilance because of their publications or class background. Professor Hörcher suggested that artists had to live in a sort of self-contradiction, having to make concessions in order to make ends meet. Kukorelly agreed with this statement; as Wehner added, he had to give up writing to study art instead; while Kulin had to join the ruling party in order to remain a general editor.

The subject of the regime change has divided the participants. Kukorelly stated that he was content with what he called the 'net sum' of freedom, but he also thought that freedom had its disadvantages: artists these days have to be not only radical but also extremely lucky to make a name for themselves in the endless field of the media. In Wehner's opinion, the "regime re-exchange" makes the artist want to confront authority once again. Kulin played an active part in the regime change, and recalled both the initital euphoria and the subsequent moral conflicts and political traumas that finally led to disillusion. He concluded by saying that today it is no longer possible to maintain cultural politics in the classical sense, because the nature of conflicts is completely different in the world of politics and culture.

János Makk - Kitti Rózsa