Where were the heroes of films and series from the socialist era born? In factories and in the farmer’s markets, beside workbenches and shop counters. In the world of working men and women. In places of production, familiar to everyone. This is where the filmmakers of Gyula vitéz télen-nyáron (Knight of the TV-screen), a 1970 satirical film by István Bácskai Lauró parodying the immensely successful TV series of the mid-1960s, Captain Tenkes (A Tenkes kapitánya), searched for the everyday protagonist of a new Hungarian historical TV series – the true Hungarian hero. Similarly, the first episode of Kántor, one of the emblematic Hungarian crime series of the 1970s, opens in a bustling Budapest marketplace. During the same decade, Czechoslovak television made the heroine of Women Behind the Counter a clerk in an exclusive Prague grocery store.

Stories unfolding in the everyday world and rooted in the here-and-now demanded familiar characters – people who were just slightly different from the ordinary. They were individuals one could either admire a little or laugh at just a bit. Themes like work, vocation, individuality, community, and personal growth were central to the fictional series of the socialist era, serving as recurring touchstones throughout this period.

The socialist realist films of the 1950s were deeply entrenched in the worlds of factory halls, Stakhanovite brigades, and cooperative communities. By the 1960s and 1970s, television series had adopted a more flexible view of community and the world, though much of the foundational storytelling of the socialist realist period persisted. The two central themes of socialist realist mythology were the search for enemies and the transformation of the individual, the personal development or reformation of the heroes. The logic of socialist realism divided the world into „us” and „them”, aligning with the Cold War logic of two opposing camps. The latter showcased how individuals could contribute to the community and collective progress through shared values and transformative experiences.

Stories set in the present often explored sabotage that disrupted production or espionage that threatened political order, alongside tales of individuals and communities thriving on the „front lines” of labor. From the 1960s onward, during periods of détente and eventual stagnation, these rigid narratives softened considerably. Alongside sabotage and spy plots, more conventional crime stories emerged to define the boundaries of social order and norms. Meanwhile, the myths of personal growth and self-transformation dissolved into chronicles of everyday blunders and minor mishaps.

As the frameworks of grand narratives shifted, so too did the characters and heroes populating them – whether they were chasing criminals or representing the quiet triumphs of ordinary life.