ABSTRACT
N arratives and narrative language are targets of social psychological inquiry for at least two related reasons. First, because they are means of constructing both personal and group identity, they can reveal actual or more permanent states and characteristics of identity (László, 2003, 2008; László & Fülöp, 2010; Liu & László, 2007; Chapter 12, this volume). Second, because they are means of communicating and thereby transmitting representations of the past through generations, they render possible studying the elaboration of individual and historical traumas in their natural context (Bar-Tal, Halperin & de Rivera; László, 2008, 2011; Pennebaker & Harber, 1993; Vincze & László, 2010; Chapter 13, this volume). Narrative social psychology claims that states and characteristics of group identity that govern people's behavior when they act as group members, as well as elaboration of traumatic experiences that affect the group as a whole, can be traced objectively–that is, empirically in the narrative composition and narrative language of different forms of group histories (see Chapter 12, this volume). In this chapter, we deal with the emotional basis of the Hungarian national identity as it is expressed in different forms of historical narratives and with the collective elaboration of a major historical trauma in narratives.
