This paper analyses blogs and Facebook communities of Hungarian migrants, focusing on their traumatic relationship to their home country. Eastern-Europeans in Western Europe are mostly considered economic migrants, as opposed both to expats and refugees. The term ‘economic migrant’ is frequently used in a derogatory way in a political context (see the Brexit terminology). My research sheds light on the fact that the reasons for migrating are much more complex than simply looking for a better job or livelihood in another EU country. Hungary used to be a low mobility country traditionally. The unprecedented increase in migration rates in the 2010s is clearly linked to recent political and societal changes according to the blogs: most Hungarian migrants name the ‘loss of future’ as their reason for relocation. The paper links the lack of perspective of migrants to the impact of illiberal democracy on people’s everyday lives, including the growing level of anxiety connected to the hurting of the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness, as defined by self-determination theory. Furthermore, I argue that even though digitally connected migrants are able to keep ties to their homeland and build transnational networks, these processes do not provide means for coping with a specific pre-migratory trauma which derives from a deep disillusionment with the home country and involves transnational re-negotiations of identities; and I show how digital migrant communities develop coping strategies on social media platforms, including the emergence of new digital genres such as social poetry.

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