Spectacle, Fear, and the Anatomy of Authoritarianism: Fascist Dynamics in Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance

Abstract

Drawing on a conceptual apparatus of fascist studies based on Umberto Eco (1995), Paxton (2004), Griffins (1993), and Arendt’s (1962, 1963) critiques, this research paper analyses how László Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance (1998) delineates the classic sociopolitical matrix of fascist authoritarianism, which tends to originate in an eruption of violent irrational forces among masses. Several principal characters of the novel embody various facets of this fascist playbook. The novel reveals how spectacle, rumor, mob violence, and collective fear create emotional, cultural, and institutional conditions for a fascist political ascendancy. The novel’s political dimensions gain sharper focus when we trace how ideological control, demagoguery, and complicity play out among its characters. This research’s significance lies in the fact that it situates a work of fiction in dialogue with the study of fascism/totalitarianism, thereby enriching our understanding of both. This article further argues that Krasznahorkai depicts the genesis of an authoritarian regime through its apocalyptic narrative: his characters, The Prince, Mrs. Eszter, Colonel Harrer, and others, enact a fascist schema of power, and the plot shows how communal fear and collapse enable them. The Melancholy of Resistance (1998) dramatizes the process by which a civilization collapses into a fascist authoritarian regime and charts the road to tyranny as one paved with fear, illusion, and false promises of a restored order.