Kádár Jánosné

Az első titkár felesége és a hatalom

Abstract

Mrs János Kádár. The First Secretary’s Wife and the Power. By ‘grey eminence’ we mean a person who remains in the background of the world of politics and power, but who nevertheless has a great influence on decision-making. The term usually refers to historical figures who are little known to the public because they have exerted their influence in ways that are invisible to the public. Dictatorships are particularly characterised by the fact that important decisions are taken behind the scenes, completely concealed from the public. These may be the result not only of the often invisible efforts of hard-working bureaucrats in the power apparatus of the time, but also of the informal influence of even family members. In Hungarian history, the Kádár era was characterised by the fact that the power of the country’s leader - the first secretary - was hardly limited by the intentions and ambitions of his immediate colleagues. However, there was undoubtedly one little-known, important figure, a ‘grey eminence’, who is relatively seldom mentioned in works on the events of political life, but who may have had a direct influence on the eponym of the regime: the wife of the party’s first secretary, Mária Tamáska. In this study, the author presents the figure of Mrs János Kádár : based on the available, often brief, primary sources, newspaper articles and memoirs. The revealing moments of her life also show that women, although their role often remains hidden in the pages of history books, often had a significant or decisive influence on history in an informal way.