Unnatural Fornication Cases under State Socialism: A Hungarian – Slovenian Comparative Social-Historical Approach

One of the main aims of the proposed paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the social history of homosexuality related social phenomena in Hungary and Slovenia: especially regarding the practices as well as the consequences of state surveillance focusing on same-sex attraction. The paper will examine the different versions of state-socialist body politics manifested in Hungary and Slovenia mainly during the 1950s by using archive material of “unnatural fornication” court cases. Our focus is on signs of the differences in the political systems of Hungary and Yugoslavia in the ways the authorities persecuted these offences. By analysing the available Hungarian “természet elleni fajtalanság” and Slovenian “nenaravno občevanje” court cases we can shed light on how (and in which typical venues) the defendants were caught, how they were treated by the police and the judges; and what kind of language was used to describe the sexual contacts on the basis of which the defendants were arrested. The paper will explore the functioning of social control mechanisms of state-socialist oppression directed at non-normative sexualities that had long lasting consequences on the social representation of homosexuality in both countries.