“TTT” (“Proscribed, Pardoned, and Promoted”) Cultural Organizations in a Socialist Country: The Case of Hungary

Although the Cold War period is not so far behind in time from the contemporary, its legacy still has an impact on the internal structure of today’s post-socialist societies. Arguably, one of the notable effects lies in interest by the political technologists of governments in the methods of promoting and approaching cultural products with the aim of reinforcing or re-creating preexisting ideologies in society and to facilitate the adoption of a certain political environment. From 1957 to 1982, TTT (“Proscribed, Pardoned, Promoted,” as in “Tiltott, Tűrt, Támogatott” in Hungarian) was a unique and controversial approach in cultural policy, announced by the Minister of Culture of the Kádár regime in Hungary, György Aczél, aiming to reinforce acceptance of the ruling ideology by limiting exposure to subversive messages and nonconformist voices within the culture of the public. Although international cultural transfer was, accordingly, under heavily centralized management, various individuals and cultural communities managed to form bridges between East and West and facilitate interactions within their respective circles with some autonomy. The chapter examines the most important characteristics of the TTT-promoted culture and, against this backdrop, the role of non-state actors in cultural transfer, arguing that the latter influenced not just the cultural but the international political relations between the West and the Eastern bloc.