Abstract
The idea of telling the untellable might seem to have a difficult unidirectional aim: for example, a rape victim’s ability to talk about the experience of such an atrocity, as with Christine Blasey Ford standing up and testifying on the stage of a congressional hearing. But the difficulty of telling the untellable also lies on the other side, in the transmission to those listening, those who contribute considerably to the characteristic of something being untellable, whether it is in a male-dominated court room, or in a country where the field of gender studies is under continuous attack. Therefore, it is a tremendous effort by historian and professor at Central European University Andrea Pető to publish a book voicing wartime rape with a feminist approach in a country where this same year the study licence of Gender Studies was revoked by the government without official consultation or involvement of any institution.
Moreover, Telling the Untellable has managed to address the problematic memory of politics in Hungary and initiate modification to the image of history the country has about itself. The current mainstream governmental stance of remembering the atrocities of the Second Word War in Hungary centres around the long-standing and controversial House of Terror Museum, where several simplifications and falsifications are represented regarding the Nazi and Soviet presence in the country. One of the worst is the display of the Arrow Cross Party (far-right party led by Ferenc Szálasi in power from 15 October 1944 to 28 March 1945) as the only participant in the persecutions of Jews, whilst the massive deportations transpired from 15 May to 9 July 1944 with the organisation of Hungarian officials, months before the party took power. Similarly, the interpretation of the siege of Budapest in 1945 by the Soviet troops has varied according to ruling governments in Hungary and never really addressed the excruciating truth about the sufferings of the people, but rather claimed to create an identity of a liberated/victimised country. Therefore, today’s historical understanding in the public sphere of Hungary is not only a confusing disorder of narrative shifts, but of a perpetrator conscious martyrdom, which leaves out the significance of carefully redirecting attention and talking about the victims.
Pető’s work, underpinned by extensive research, was recently published in Hungarian. Non-Hungarian speakers might be disappointed in their inability to read and familiarise themselves with such an important part of the history of the Second World War in Europe. However, I have to admit with frank selfishness that this work had to be published in the Hungarian language. The main reason being that scrupulous attention to and awareness of women’s history are increasingly important in today’s Hungary. To that end, this book constitutes a significant breakthrough.
On a more international level, Telling the Untellable is a milestone in contemporary historiography, not only because it adopts interdisciplinary approaches to unfold the history of the silenced female victims of wartime rape, but also because it employs the complex structures of its own politics of memory up to the present. The untold story of the women raped by Soviet soldiers is introduced from the theoretical perspective of feminist analysis and by methods drawn from comparative history.
Besides presenting historiographical bravura, Pető achieves her goal in presenting a holistic history to an audience that extends beyond academics in the field. The book, after its debut at the 2018 Budapest Book Fair and a high-profile book launch event at the National Archives of Hungary, is being introduced to the general Hungarian public at literary festivals, on radio shows, in print and television interviews with the author. Through these events the book furthers its aims of addressing the memory of war rape by establishing itself as a piece of memory in the contemporary public sphere of Hungary. As a result, Pető’s work not only ‘teaches’ and ‘preaches’, but constitutes important action.
The book’s success and the considerable attention it has gained among a wider audience results from the accessible language and clear structure. The introductory section first discusses the main methodological and theoretical framework by focusing on Sándor Sára’s film – which fits with Pető’s interest in Hungarian politics of memory, a focus that encourages readers to (re-)watch the film. The first main section of the book is structured around the historiographical issues that have become taboo in Hungarian history: the Soviet occupations of 1945, and 1956 in terms of freedom and freedom of speech. The question of whether the events of 1945 are to be considered liberation or occupation by the Soviets is closely connected to social issues of Nazi soldiers versus Soviet soldiers and the extent to which Soviet soldiers were more commonly viewed as the other (Asian barbaric and not, for example, white Aryans). The book rightly pinpoints the regime change in 1989 as the end of the taboo on wartime rape and thus the opening up of feminist interpretation. Placing feminist perspectives at the heart of historical enquiry shifts perceptions, most significantly by providing a base of normalcy (telling) to give voice (untellable) for the women who were silenced, whether it is in the form of an interview, piece of writing, artistic expression, academic discourse, etc.
Pető presents a wide range of convincing examples to illuminate the different viewpoints that show the shift of memory in social discourse, not only in genre (film, fiction, testimonies, etc.) but in relation to cultural comparisons. She then presents the theoretical background to the different types and manifestations of wartime rape with analyses of what they aim to do. Pető bases her argument on the question of power relations and persuasively brings together complex issues by warning the reader that highlighting Soviets alone is not sufficient since all soldiers in this period (even Hungarian soldiers) were part of that military culture. Moreover, the rapists should not be easily labelled as male perpetrators, not only because it simplifies the understanding of the complex power structures of any particular group or society, but because in many instances the victims were also men. Pető then questions the multiple quantitative findings and statistics of wartime rape by introducing the difficulties of defining rape, together with the conceptual problems of measurement.
Following the above discussion, the next section of the book constitutes a thorough analysis of memory, which – because it has scarcely been discussed by victims of wartime rape themselves – is foregrounded in the analyses. In order to do this, contemporary memories of wartime rape are examined through a presentation of various cultural products, including films, documentaries, photographs, or word of mouth in the new digitised era. The book engages the reader by considering the difficult issue of public discussion of certain acts and the attendant legal processes. One of the most intriguing examples of memorialisation presented is the statue created by Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk called Komm, Frau, a publicly exhibited artistic manifestation, and reactions to it, which is a significant representation of the current state of acknowledgement and acceptance in society.
Finally, Pető turns the table and introduces the Russian side, calling it the missing piece of the puzzle. With the implementation of the current Russian memory of politics – silence –, Pető carefully inspects the sources of her research up until the point that a paradigm shift can be identified. This last section is rather like a detective story in which the historian reveals the internet as the basic platform for investigation due to the lack of open access and authorisation to enter Russian archives. The wide spectrum of the research on several platforms vocalises the Russian-speaking victims, witnesses and perpetrators and opens the ground for further discussion. In keeping with the European scene of analysis, the Ukrainian and Russian contestation of memory politics is discussed in order to provide understanding of social impacts, whilst also to introduce the topic of female Soviet soldiers.
Overall, this historical contribution succeeds in presenting a complex part of history which is entwined within the complicated world of memory politics. Already in the first sentence, we anticipate the depth of the research that this history book contains: ‘Since 1996 I have been working on the history of wartime rape committed by Soviet soldiers.’ The historian’s contribution from this overarching research is an interdisciplinary history that is more than just a methodological device because it inspires the reader to watch films, read articles, engage in artistic criticism, go online, and not just place the book back on the shelf. Most importantly, Andrea Pető’s book provides the ground for the discussion of rape, shows the strength of those victims who had been silenced for so many years, and offers ways to confront our history in the hope of a better future.