The
totalitarian regime left little room for alternative interpretations on
everyday life and social relations. The overwhelming protochronist and
national-communist propaganda build around Ceausescu’s cult of personality
annihilated any dissidence. The controlled media broadcasted exclusively
political programmes, ignoring any entertaining shows excluding football World
or Europe Cups. Practically the public space was under total control, with
serious intervention in private sphere, too (see the reproductive politics
after 1966).
But
in the eastern part of Transylvania a new and interesting grassroot social
practice emerged, and fast became popular: the “informal football gathering”.
During major football events, a great number of football fans organized
themselves and went high up to the East-Carpathian Mountains to “catch” the
Moldavian television signal and combined with the sound broadcasted by the
Hungarian State Radio to “attend” the matches. An alternative social space
emerged, escaped from state control, free from official discourses or
hierarchies. The football supporters – ordinary people from all social strata
with different statuses and professions – had to organize themselves in order
to do this. A complicate underground cooperation and coordination was needed:
antennas, cables, TV sets, radio receivers had to be provided; problems like
transportation be resolved and the site found and prepared. This was well
beyond a simple social event: represented an escape from harsh reality, an
alternative public sphere where people were strangely allowed to do something
on their own, to freely organizes themselves – to deconstruct the reality and
construct an alternative, counter-reality.
The
proposed research, book and presentation – using the constructivist
sociological theory and based on sociological empirical research using in-depth
interviews – will present the natural history of this social practice along
with the narratives attached to (dealing with ethnic identities, economic and
political relation).
Research
team leader: Peter Laszlo
Proposed
team members: 3-5 students
