The Price of Illusion and the Power of Meaning: Helsinki, Hungary, and the Holy Crown

Reynolds, David (2020) The Price of Illusion and the Power of Meaning: Helsinki, Hungary, and the Holy Crown. POLGÁRI SZEMLE: GAZDASÁGI ÉS TÁRSADALMI FOLYÓIRAT, 16 (Spec.). pp. 235-246. ISSN 1786-6553

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Abstract

Whereas the Helsinki Final Act’s impact in the Soviet bloc is usually defined by the resistance and pressure inspired by ‘basket three’ human rights clauses, the part of the accord that the Soviet Union desired was at least as significant, especially for Hungary. The Soviets presumed that formal Western acknowledgement of the post-war settlement – a long-term foreign policy – would ensure its permanence. But the acceptance of post-war borders actually imperilled Soviet control in Central and Eastern Europe because it accentuated the contradiction between the de facto subjugation of independent states in the region and their de jure independence, while enshrining the latter, thereby strengthening the hands of those within these states who wished to extend and expand their independence from Moscow, economically and culturally. A key example and test case of this process was the fate of Hungary’s Holy Crown, which had been in American custody. Employing both primary sources and secondary texts, this new analysis contends that it was precisely what the Soviets had hoped for in a European Security Conference that proved most damaging to control of its sphere of influence, and that, in Hungary, the return of the Holy Crown represented exactly the goal of restored sovereignty that Helsinki endorsed, despite Soviet intentions to the contrary.

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