Régi elit az új demokráciában Magyarországon
The Old Elite In The New Democracy In Hungary

Summary/Abstract: In the paper the author is in quest of an answer to the question what role the political, economic, and cultural elite groups of the old system, of the state socialist dictatorship play in the new democracy in Hungary. The basic issue of the paper is whether these groups were pushed into the background after the change of the system in 1989-1990, whether they had to endure some kind of being taken to task as it happened for instance, in the reunited Germany, or in the Czech Republic, or, on the contrary, the elite of the old system continues to play an active, decisive role, or even governs the ongoing processes. The approach of the paper is fundamentally that of political history and it is an analytical one, but also relies on the empirical research into the elites of the past years. At first the writing attempts to clarify some theoretical issues related to the topic, primarily the one how the massive presence of the old elite, attached to dictatorship, can be approached, and whether there can exist any point of evaluation. Next the author studies the process of the change of the system, the relationship between the old and new elites, the return of the successor party twice to power and its causes, and the attempts of the two right-wing governments to alter power relations along an approach of political history and political sociology. He dwells not only on changes of the political power relations, but on those of the economy, culture and media as well during the past 14 to 15 years, and finally, some theoretical conclusions are also drawn.

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