„Nem börtön, hanem (…) menedék”: Módszertani kérdésfelvetések és közelítések az 1950-es, 1960-as években egyházi gimnáziumokban végzett öregdiákok visszaemlékezéseihez

In my paper I investigate the general memory, identity and spatial theoretical aspects of the written and post-regime-published reminiscences of alumni graduated from the High School of the Reformed Church in Debrecen (Debreceni Református Kollégium Gimnáziuma) and from the Benedictine Secondary School of Pannonhalma (Pannonhalmi Bencés Gimnázium) in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. Considering the theoretical and methodological approaches of oral history I examined the potential factors which can determine the reminiscences, then I analysed the schools as narrative constructions and their role in the community’s identity. The narrative of those whose families have been declassed can be considered dominant in the discussed texts and volumes: these alumni characterize their former secondary school as a ’shelter’ or an ’island’ which embraced them and which was able to defend them against the offence and oppression of the Socialist-Communist regime. Nevertheless, boarding schools – as crisis heterotopias (Michel Foucault) – can easily be interpreted as the institutions of discipline, seclusion and punishment, similarly to prisons.In my paper I investigate the general memory, identity and spatial theoretical aspects of the written and post-regime-published reminiscences of alumni graduated from the High School of the Reformed Church in Debrecen (Debreceni Református Kollégium Gimnáziuma) and from the Benedictine Secondary School of Pannonhalma (Pannonhalmi Bencés Gimnázium) in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. Considering the theoretical and methodological approaches of oral history I examined the potential factors which can determine the reminiscences, then I analysed the schools as narrative constructions and their role in the community’s identity. The narrative of those whose families have been declassed can be considered dominant in the discussed texts and volumes: these alumni characterize their former secondary school as a ’shelter’ or an ’island’ which embraced them and which was able to defend them against the offence and oppression of the Socialist-Communist regime. Nevertheless, boarding schools – as crisis heterotopias (Michel Foucault) – can easily be interpreted as the institutions of discipline, seclusion and punishment, similarly to prisons