ABSTRACT
In Hungary, over the past 150 years, there has evolved a set of symbols and rituals regarded as identifying codes of national representation in its complex and not utterly coherent integrity. Although justly regarded as traditional, it has often been coined as 'millenary'. In a perpetually polarized ideological framework, hallmarked by bitter disputes and social conflicts, some key elements and the very essential concepts always played a dynamic role in various forms of civil religion. The conceptual elements of the national self-representation are often linked to the images of the survival of an ever suffering nation in heroic victories and falls among great powers and adjoining nations, more often than not watched as potential adversaries – with Poland as the only real exception in the neighbourhood. The main characteristics of an enduring and highly sophisticated tradition of civil religion are embedded in a specific self-understanding of a society, primarily reflected upon in a historical perspective.
