The Democracy Institute Annual Conference, held in Budapest on June 25-26, under the title Imaginary Exhaustion? asked whether contemporary democracies have become trapped by fear and exhaustion, and how collective imagination might be renewed. The panel Rethinking CEU’s Legacy: Education, Engagement, and Democratic Transformations, reflected on the thirty-five years of CEU’s role in democratic change across Central and Eastern Europe. Scholars from different generations formed within the CEU’s framework revisited the principal moments of this history. Within this panel, Prof. István Rév discussed the beginnings of the CEU.
The CEU’s forced departure from Budapest is a story well-known to the broader audience. What is perhaps less known is that one of its most remarkable affiliated institutions, the Blinken OSA Archivum, remained and continued its mission for democracy in Budapest.
In the podcast following the conference, we turn our attention to this archive. We begin by discussing the origins of OSA Archivum and the vision behind its collections. We then explore what makes the Archivum distinctive. As one of the founders of both Central European University and the Blinken Open Society Archivum, Rév reflects on how the OSA Archivum defended democratic culture by opening themselves to researchers, students, artists, and the wider public:
”we thought that we should try to turn the archive inside out and and have a public profile and show whatever we can to the public (…) historical revisionism started already immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall. And since we had access to historical documents, to historical facts, we thought that it was our duty to try to confront the newly emerging official interpretations of the past with historical documents in all sorts of different ways: organizing exhibitions conferences, study tours for both high school and university students, even organizing concerts inviting actors to stage theatrical plays in the archive even locally designed plays based on documents in the archive.”
Another point that István Rév explains is how OSA helped form new generations of historians. In our conversation, heunderlines that OSA Archivum is more than a repository of the past. Instead, it can shape how societies remember, contest, and imagine democratic futures. In an archive, the historical evidence confronts political mythmaking.
Then, we turn to the topic of historical memory. We asked Prof. Rév how would a new chapter of his influential book Retroactive Justice would be rewritten today, 20 years after its publication. Another topic discussed is why political regimes are so much fascinated by death and commemorations.
István Rév is Professor of History, one of the founders of Central European University and the Blinken Open Society Archivum, which he directed until 2025. His research focuses on historical memory, archives, political anthropology, and the politics of commemoration.
The interview was conducted by Adrian Matus. Lilit Hakobyan edited the audiofile.
Photo: Daniel Vegel / CEU Democracy Institute
