On Peace Square – The Peace Group for Dialogue

“You live on Peace Square. What does peace mean to you?” asked a leaflet distributed by the Peace Group for Dialogue. In the 1980s, the question was topical once again; a renewed arms race and regional conflicts replaced the détente of the previous decade. While the fight for peace was a central component of state propaganda in the Socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc, and Western peace movements experienced a new wave of popularity, Hungarian university students sought new forms for demanding peace, and launched, in 1982, the Dialogue. They organized debates in private homes and at universities, brought their messages into the public sphere, joined state marches, and carried out independent actions. They aimed to maintain conversations across the Iron Curtain with both Western and Eastern peace movements, participated in peace gatherings abroad, and hosted foreign peace activists. Meanwhile, they strived to establish a new, autonomous position: to find their place independent both from the state monopolizing the struggle for peace and from the democratic opposition opposing the regime. 

The exhibition On Peace Square presents the history of the Peace Group for Dialogue in international and domestic contexts. Through the spheres in which the group pursued its activities—including the private domain, official collaborations, and the public—we the room for maneuver available to a grassroots peace movement in 1980s Hungary. The show combines documents preserved at the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security and at the Blinken OSA Archivum, initiating conversations between state security reports and Western information resources, state propaganda and the documents of the Peace Group for Dialogue. At the same time, just as the group sought to break free from the constraints of its era, the exhibition goes beyond presenting archival sources: it leaves room for the imagination, when visualizing actions known only from textual documents, as well as actions that were never realized. 

Can peace be an honest, unifying aspiration, or does it inevitably become a tool serving political ends? Did Dialogue members genuinely believe in the struggle for peace, or were they primarily driven by the possibility of independent political action? Inspired by their example, On Peace Square is conceived as an open exhibition; a space for conversation, distinct answers and memories. “We would love to talk and correspond with you as well!” 

The exhibition was organized in collaboration between the Historical Archives of the State Security Services and the Blinken OSA Archivum.  

Academic partner: Department of Political Science, Central European University (CEU)