Szijarto_Zsolt_Budapest_Nyugat_Berlin

The present study is the first (pilot) chapter of a planned larger work, analysing  different generation groups of the Hungarian diaspora in Berlin. The „subject” and protagonist of the study is the artist Tibor Soskuti (Soso), an important participant and observer of the Budapest underground scene of the 1980s. Soskuti ” dissented ” in 1986, leaving the country and settling down in West-Berlin, where he has lived ever since. An analysis of his life history and his artistic activities gives us an insight into a particular, relatively early period of urban migration, immediately before the regime transformation . It makes visible a specific generational-artistic group of the Hungarian diaspora in Berlin, and offers a micro-level answer to the questions of migration research in general: what did it mean to arrive in a West European city in the mid-1980s, relatively young, from behind the Berlin Wall and start a new life there? How can we reconstruct a diasporic life situation and experience of a specific period using photographic documents?