Megéléstörténet

Megéléstörténet is a narrative form used in Hungarian-language scholarship and literature that centers on a person’s or group’s lived experiences. The term literally translates to “narrative of lived experience” and is used to describe accounts that foreground perception, embodiment, and meaning-making rather than only external events.

Typical features include a first-person or closely observed perspective, attention to sensory impressions, temporality, and the process of interpretation. Narratives are often nonlinear or fragmentary, and may combine memory, reflection, and analysis. Ethical considerations such as consent and privacy are common in its use in research and publication.

Applications of megéléstörténet appear in social sciences and humanities, including ethnography, memory studies, disability studies, gender studies, and trauma studies, where it provides a way to document subjective experience. In medicine and psychology, it informs narrative medicine and narrative therapy by giving voice to patients and clients and highlighting how illness or life events are experienced. In literature, it can show up as memoirs or autoethnographic pieces that emphasize personal perception over strict factual chronology.

Relation to other terms: megéléstörténet overlaps with or relates to élettörténet (life history), életrajz (biography), autoethnography, and life writing. Unlike traditional biography, megéléstörténet emphasizes interior experience and interpretation rather than external facts alone. Limitations include subjectivity, memory bias, and potential ethical issues when recounting traumatic events.