A Nation of Rock: The normalization of the far right through music in Hungary

This paper introduces preliminary findings from the ‘From the Radical to the Norm: The Construction of Normalcy Through Aesthetics in Far-Right Culture (Radical-Norm)’ project. The far right is by definition conceived of as being on the periphery of the mainstream: its values, ideas, and culture are understood to be remote from an imagined centre. The Radical-Norm project challenges this notion by studying the far right as engaged in a project of cultural production that actively constructs normalcy, the ideological quality of being understood as normal, respectable, and, by extension, acceptable within a given context. This project of cultural production, which has the ultimate aim of ‘mainstreaming’ the far right, has been ongoing in Europe at some level since the early Twentieth Century (Kallis, 2015), and continues into the present at force (Mondon & Winter, 2020). While it has been established that the far right is becoming more normalized, the crucial role of cultural production is often overlooked. To better understand this phenomenon, this project examines the normalization of far-right ideas in several countries, including Hungary, Germany, Italy, and Norway, looking at several types of cultural production: imagery, fashion, and music. This paper will specifically explore the preliminary results of the Hungarian data, examining how far right ideas in Hungary have been normalized through music, specifically through the ‘National Rock’ scene.