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This book is a result of decades-long research into declassified files, offering a unique perspective for writing post-World War Two cultural history through the lens of the political police.
List of contents
- Intro
1.1. Preface
1.2. Historical Background
1.3. The Goals, Methods and Means of the Secret Services
1.4. The Institutional System of Popular Music
2. Fear and Fighting in the 1940s and 1950s
2.1. The Sovietisation of Sounds
2.2. Singers Seeking Refuge in Exile
3. Troubles with the Old and the Young in the 1960s
3.1. Sorrowful Songsmiths under Surveillance
3.2. The Lure of the West
3.3. Beat Bands, Youth Gangs and the Long Arm of Law
4. Daydreams to Nightmares: 1968 and After
4.1. Lefties, Hippies and Religious Rockers in the Crosshairs
4.2. Attempts at Disrupting Three Top Bands
5. Dangerous Dances in the 1970s
5.1. The Consequences of March Riots and Careless Words
5.2. Fear of the Folk Dance Houses
5.3. Fear of the Disco
6. Tough Times in the 1980s
6.1. Policing the Crowd and Hunting for the Black Sheep of Hard Rock
6.2. New Waves of Dissent
6.3. Punks and Skinheads on Trial
6.4. Foreign Guests are Welcome and Watched
7. Outro
7.1. Survival and Surveillance in the Socialist Bloc
7.2. Concluding Remarks
8. Appendix
8.1. Archival Sources
8.2. Abbreviations
8.3. Index of Names
8.4. Acknowledgements
About the author
Tamás Sz¿nyei (1957) is a journalist and archivist, recently retired from the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security. He is the author of monographs on new wave music (1989, 1992) and, based on research into declassified documents, on the interaction of state security with rock music and literature, respectively (2005, 2012). He published an illustrated catalogue of his Hungarian new wave poster collection, along with that of a fellow collector, featuring studies by multiple authors (2017). He lives in Budapest, Hungary.
