Central European countries, including Hungary, must codify cultural heritage following the expectations of the European Community. The introduction of a term, or even its codification does not necessarily mean the social practice it would suppose.  With the fall of communism, national or ethnic belonging became a key element of political identity formation in Central Europe. In the Hungarian case, the introduction of the concept of national cultural heritage lead to an all inclusive treatment of diverse cultural realities within the borders from the ethnic point of view, i.e. a Serb or a Roma being a citizen of Hungary can claim his or her heritage?s approval on the national level any time; whereas the introduction of national cultural heritage did not reach a political consensus of the techniques of national heritage building.

The application of the term of national cultural heritage in the law of 2003 to express the unity of all the Hungarians living in and around Hungary is a fuzzy solution to a so far unsolved problem of Hungarian nation-building since the treaty of Trianon, i.e. the lack of overlapping of the territory of the State of Hungary and that of the Hungarian nation: ország, the country and haza, the patria (Fatherland, Vaterland, Heimat, patrie)[6]. Country and patria - could be interpreted as the tangible and intangible aspects of nationhood.

At the moment it is hard to tell whether the most recent political linking of the patria to cultural heritage - which already has highly problematic intangible aspects - would bridge the long existing painful gap between country and patria, or whether it only offers a temporary solution for the desired integration of the fragments of the nation. The nationalization of cultural heritage raises the question whether it is worthwhile re-examining the relationship between patria and patrimonium, which seems to be evident from the etymological point of view.

To put the spread of cultural heritage to a larger framework, as I promised in the beginning of this paper, it would be worth considering how this term is taking over the traditional semantic field of ?culture,? which itself was defined mainly in national contexts in the early 19^th century.  Obviously, a much longer consideration is necessary to analyze to shift from culture to cultural heritage.  The appearance of the term ?heritage? linked to ?culture,? its direct allusion to the past we lost, and its mushrooming from the 1970s makes us think of the Freud?s Trauerprozess,[7] the mourning over the past worlds we were so eager to surpass from the 18^th century till the mid-20^th century.

[6]This distinction I owe to András Zempléni. András ZEMPLÉNI, Terre, Land, Patria comme espace rituel de la nation: la "Terre Magyar" des réenterrements hongrois (1870-2001), lecture at the International Workshop entitled Structure et structuration de l'espace en Europe, du Moyen Age ? nos jours, Collegium Budapest, Budapest, 15-18 May 2002.

[7]Freud, Sigmund: Trauer und Melancholie, 1917, Studienausgabe, III: 193-194.