Abstracts of Submitted Papers 2013

Building a National Diaspora: the Kádár Regime and Hungarian Communities in North America

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
National governments often see their respective diasporas as strategic political assets. The successive Hungarian regimes—including the country’s World War II authoritarian leadership and postwar communist dictatorship—were no exceptions. In many instances, the more underdeveloped and poverty-stricken the home country, and the more dramatic a recent regime change has been, the more likely it is that the government will place a heavy emphasis on exerting political influence over its diaspora. Countries with sizeable diaspora populations and the need to improve their fledgling regime’s image abroad make political use of their diaspora populations.

This paper explores Hungary's relationship with its diaspora population in North America during the Kádár regime, and examines how Budapest attempted to build what political scientists frequently refer to as "governmentality" within Hungarian communities in Canada and the United States.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Christopher Adam earned his B.A. (Honours) in History from Concordia University, an M.A. degree in East/Central European and Russian Area Studies, and a PhD in History from the University of Ottawa. He teaches history at Carleton University.

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The Enduring Legacies of Kossuth's American Visit--with quotations about Kossuth from Presidents Abraham Lincoln & Theodore Roosevelt

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper succinctly traces Lajos Kossuth's life story from the 1848 freedom fight, his vision for a federal democracy in Hungary, his American visit & legacy, to his death at age 91 in 1894. It also blends some key events in Hungarian history from the entrance of Chief Arpad into central Europe in 896, the creation of Austria-Hungary in 1867, WW I & the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, the Communist period, to EU membership in 2004.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Arthur Allan Bartfay graduated from Central High School in Flint, Michigan; earned a BA and MA from Michigan State University in East Lansing. He served on the faculties of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant. Arthur earned ABD credits at The Ohio State University in Columbus and, after 25 years, retired from the staff of The Ohio State University.

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“Doctor's Families”: Social History of Hungarian Jewish Health Professionals

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
It is an interesting question, what constitutes dynasties devoting themselves to certain professions. The author examines many reasons, among them seeking financial and existential stability, but others, such as accumulating knowledge and a strong commitment to science also comes to consideration. The history of three generation of doctors is consulted and also interviews prepared to investigate the question.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Julia Bock completed her dual master’s degrees in History and Library Science, and her post graduate training at the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest, with a Ph.D. in History. The subject of her dissertation was the Minority Problem in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. She worked as a research librarian at the Library of Parliament in Budapest.

After immigrating to the United States, she held various positions, first at the International Law section of NYU’s Law Library, later at the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University as an Assistant Archivist. She studied for her MLS degree at Columbia University’s School of Library Service graduation she worked as a Technical Service librarian for a major law firm in New York. In 1994 she became the Head Librarian of the Leo Baeck Institute library, a German Jewish research collection. In 1998 she was invited for a position to create and to be the Head of the Library at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Presently, she is the Acquisition Librarian at Long Island University Brooklyn Campus in an Associate Professor rank.

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1956 and its ’lieux de mémoire’ in Hungary and the USA as evidence of Hungarian cultural heritage

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Lieux de mémoire/Places of memory for the 1956 revolution and war of independence in Hungary and globally still keep the message of the freedom fight very much alive. I’m going to examine the types of memory places such as monuments, statutes, plaques, memorial sites in Hungary and the United States in particular; in terms of both physical and virtual spaces that symbolize the events and/or the essence of the revolution; and how they tie in with recent cultural heritage projects such as Köztérkép (Publicmap), launched and developed by volunteers, and the Julianus-project, which was announced by the Deputy State Secretary for Hungarian Communities Abroad.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nóra Deák is currently a PhD student in American Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Her research topic is the reception of the 1956 Hungarian refugees in the United States.
She graduated in English and Russian languages and literatures in 1990 in Debrecen, then received a LIS MA in 1997 in Budapest. She has been working as Head of the Library at the School of English and American Studies Library, ELTE, in Budapest, since 1995. She was a Fulbright scholar at the American Hungarian Foundation in the AY 2007/08.

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Sister of Social Service, Sara Salkahazi, Beatified Martyr of the Hungarian Holocaust

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation will celebrate the life, death and beatification of Sr. Sara Salkahazi. On September 17, 2006, the Catholic Church beatified Sr. Sara, a Hungarian nun who saved Jews during World War II. The beatification took place at St. Stephen Basilica in Budapest. Sr. Sara’s beatification was the first in Hungary since 1083 when Hungary’s first king, St. Stephen was beatified along with his son, St. Imre. Sr. Sara was the first Hungarian to be beatified who was not royalty or a member of the country’s aristocracy. In 1969 Sr. Sara was recognized by Yad Vashem as a righteous gentile for her courageous deeds. Yad Vashem believes the righteous are a diverse group whose common denominator is the humanity and courage they displayed by standing up for their moral principles during a period of total moral collapse. Salkaházi was born on May 11, 1899 in Kassa, Hungary (now Kosice, Slovakia). A member of the Sisters of Social Service, a charity organization helping the poor, Salkaházi was a journalist, a writer and a cultural activist. She helped to shelter hundreds of Jews in a convent in 1944. Sr. Sára was denounced and the ruling Arrow Cross Party discovered the Jews in hiding. On December 27, 1944, she was murdered along with the people she sheltered on the banks of the Danube River in Budapest. The Sisters of Social Service remain in existence today operating in nine countries including Hungary and the United States.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kathy DeRose, Ed. D. has worked at Duquesne University for the past 25 years and is currently Director of Faculty Development and Professional Education Programs in the School of Pharmacy. In addition she is the Assistant Director of the Post baccalaureate Weekend PharmD. Program. Dr. DeRose holds both Administrative and Instructor positions in the School of Pharmacy.

In her current position in the School of Pharmacy, she has developed an education methods rotation, a 12-credit academic concentration and currently works with Pharmacy Residents and Fellows in the teaching methods component of their residencies and fellowships.

Dr. DeRose earned two certificates from the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel. Her research focuses on Hungarian women leaders of the Holocaust. Her presentations relating to women leaders of the Hungarian Holocaust have been in Hungary, Israel, Poland, Italy, and the United States.

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Bishop Ottokár Prohászka and the Formation of the Horthy Regime in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Ottokár Prohászka (1858-1927, bishop of Székesfehérvár, was an important politician in the public life of Hungary after World War I, the revolutions and the Trianon Treaty. This presentation will show his activities in the first half of the 1920s. He was one of the founders of the official ‘Christian national’ ideology of the Horthy Regime. He became a member of Parliament and for a few months he was the president of the unified governing party. Prohászka was the ‘spiritual father’ of the closed number (‘numerus clausus’) Act of 1920. He was very popular, large crowds followed his public speeches, e.g. in assemblies of different ‘Christian national’ organizations and parties. He wrote many interesting articles in right-wing newspapers, to spread widely his political and religious ideas.
In Hungary there are many debates about Prohászka’s political ideas, mainly his connection to Anti-Semitism. This presentation aimes to point out Prohászka’s place in Hungarian political history, to show his public activity in political life. In a separate chapter I will speak about Prohászka’s connections to Hungarian Catholics in the United States, with special regard to his correspondence with Rev. Francis Grosz, parish priest of Hungarian Catholics in New Jersey.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Csaba Fazekas, a historian, received his MA and PhD degrees in Modern Hungarian history, from the Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest. He started to teach at the University of Miskolc, Faculty of Arts, in 1992. He lectures and gives seminars for history and political science students. Currently he is an Associate Professor and director of the Institute for Political Sciences at the University of Miskolc. Between 2005 and 2009 he was the dean of the faculty. His research focuses on the history of political ideologies in the 19th and 20th centuries in Hungary, especially history of the Church and Church-State relations in the past. He has published, both in Hungarian and in English, on the debates of Church policy in the first half of the 19th century (‘Reform Era’ and the 1848 Revolution), Church-State relations of the Horthy Regime, and Church policy of the Communist period.

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World War II War Crime Trials in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
War Crimes Trials began in Hungary in January 1945, before the end of the war in the West. These trials tried to distance the nation from the deeds of its fascist leadership. Small fry trials delved deeper into the stench of wartime behavior, and spread its tentacles into the parishes, threatening politicians, priests/pastors, schoolteachers, as well as the local thugs of communities. At the time, the trials were understood and feared by the Hungarian majority population as Jewish revenge. Yet, death or severe sentences were comparatively small.

War Crimes Trials are being roundly criticized as setting the stage for the Purge Trials just a few years later. This paper will argue, the trials also served to water down, systematize and distance the public from guilt. The trials reassured Hungarian Jews of the possibility of re-assimilation. Surviving Hungarian Jews were more likely to decide not to emigrate. Increasingly, Jewish survivors came forward as defense witnesses in rather dubious circumstances. The trials defined the new social ethos; the narrative of the trial transcripts developed defenses of the “hard working.” A quick switch of party, especially Communist party membership, washed away the past. The trials also seem to have served as a social palliative, establishing the accepted social narratives (and silences) regarding World War II for the coming 50 years.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Alice Freifeld received her PhD (1992), M.A. and B.A. from University of California, Berkeley. She joined the University of Florida in 1994 after teaching at Wheaton College, University of New Hampshire-Durham, University of Connecticut-Storrs, University of Nebraska, and Transylvania University, Lexington, KY. Professor Freifeld has published Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848-1914 (2000), which won the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize in 2001. She also coedited East Europe Reads Nietzsche with Peter Bergmann and Bernice Rosenthal (1998). She has published numerous articles and is currently working on a manuscript entitled Displaced Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48.

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Witch Trials in Transylvania in the Early Modern Period

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Transylvania was known as Fairyland (Tündérország), a name that is today evoked in praise of the region’s natural beauty. However, it was not Transylvania’s natural splendor that had earned it this moniker, or even a belief in the eponymous mythical beings, but rather the principality’s reputation for political inconstancy and internal feuding. It is against this backdrop of mercurial politics owing to the Habsburg dynasty’s expansionist aspirations and Turkish dominion in parts of Hungary and its neighbors in the Balkans that the first witch trials and executions took place in Transylvania. The witch persecutions began in the Kingdom of Hungary in the mid-16th century, a good century later than in Western Europe, and began to reach their peak toward the end of the 17th century, although never taking on the horrifically formidable dimensions they did in the French and German regions. What prompted the wheels of the judicial system to spring into action against accused witches? What led people to make such allegations in the first place? How did the accused fare once formally charged and convicted? I aim to address these questions and more by examining individual cases as well the social and cultural context in which these trials took place, with a special focus on the rich system of magical beliefs and rituals in a world in which witchcraft was a fundamental reality and permeated every aspect of daily life.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Angela K. Gazda (City University of New York) is an anthropologist specializing in East-Central Europe and the Balkans. Her broad research interests include ethnicity and minority cultures, citizenship and transnationality, immigration and globalization, cities and modernity, sexuality and gender.

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Emil Kiss, a Hungarian Success Story

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
According to the Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, in fiscal year 1899, 13,777 Hungarian speakers immigrated
to the USA, of whom 17.6% settled in New York State. One of the immigrants was Emil Kiss, who like most of the immigrants, arrived penniless. This paper will look at his start as a ticket agent to his founding of a private bank in 1903. Both businesses prospered. The accomplishments of his travel agency will be shown by the advertising placed in various English and Hungarian language newspapers, while the bank’s success will be evaluated on the quarterly balance sheets that were submitted to the Superintendent of Banking in New York. His bank through various mergers still exists.

Though he never married, he was not all work. Emil Kiss was an active member in several Hungarian social and fraternal organizations. Post WWI he was one of the founders of the American Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and in this capacity in 1923 he wrote an article for the American Academy of Political and Social Science advocating that “debtor countries present and future capacities to pay” should determine the size of war reparations. Kiss died in 1930, and in his will he left a Munkacsy painting to the New York Public Library and funds to several New York institutions.

This paper is not only a testimony of an immigrant's success story but also of his trials and tribulations in achieving his goals.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Susan Glanz is a professor of Administration & Economics at St. John's University, Queens, NY.

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Second Generation American Hungarian Soldiers in the US Army During World War II 1942-1945

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The analysis of the lecture based on a collection of letters, which were written by young second generation American Hungarians who were drafted into the Army of the United States of America during World War II. The soldiers were the sons of Hungarian immigrants of New Brunswick, NJ and the letters were sent to Andrew Kosa the minister of the Magyar Reformed Church in the city who also served as the president of the Hungarian Defense Council. Following WW II he donated the letters to the Special Collection and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, New Brunswick, NJ. The letters give an insight of the world of the immigrant Hungarians in 1940s. It is a unique opportunity to find such a group of historical sources representing the same generation from the same period. The letters have their importance because of both their content and their language conserving and presenting the past for the next generations either for researchers or for the general public. In the collection there are 350 letters in English and 36 in Hungarian giving an idea of their language skill in both languages. The letters also give information about their Hungarian identity, their loyalty toward America, their value system. They show the cohesion of the Hungarian community and the process of their adjustment to American society and their assimilation. During the war they faced new perspectives which generated a new mobility that contributed later to the breaking up and change in the immigrant Hungarian community life.
The letters edited by Ilona Kovács were published by the Ethnographic Museum, Budapest in 2012.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ilona Kovács librarian, retired department head of the National Széchényi Library, Budapest.
She gained her diplomas at the Budapest University (ELTE, 1961) and at Kent State University, Ohio (MLS, 1975), and her doctoral degree at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA 1993). Her research area is Hungarians abroad focusing on American Hungarians. As head of the Hungarica Documentation she was director of grants for collecting information and documentation and build up Hungarica databases and also conducting surveys to publish a series of publications on Hungarica material of libraries in Europe, Australia and Canada. She attended several international conferences in Europe, USA, Canada and Hungary and published over 100 articles, studies and books.

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Jews on the Borders – Some Fragments of the Activities of KEOKH

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Between 1930 and 1945, KEOKH (National Central Authority for Controlling Aliens) was an important branch of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior. The head of the Authority was directly subordinated to the Minister of the Interior. The Authority included a central office (in Budapest) and a few local offices (in the countryside, near the state borders). For as much the clerks worked for the Ministry of the Interior, the clerks were, at the same time, police officers as well.
KEOKH started focusing on the Jews, especially of “unclear citizenship”, particularly after 1938. Usually, they were refugees escaping from neighboring countries to Hungary. The vast majority of these refugees had some kind of family lineage in or from Hungary. KEOKH treated these Jews as enemies. KEOKH organized raids both in Budapest and near the borders. We know KEOKH was tasked to organize the “cross-border transfer of Jews”. One of the most known and important stories is the massacre at Kamenets-Podolsk. In addition, we know of other cases when the Hungarian organizations did the same as at Kamenets-Podolsk.
On the other hand, when the military or political situation started to change, KEOKH’s policy also changed. They protected the Jewish refugees like the Western European prisoners of war. The German occupation changed the political situation. From this date, German organizations (RSHA, SD, Gestapo) took over control. The Hungarian Ministry of the Interior became both a collaborationist and an executor.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tamás Kovács earned a MA (in history) from University of Pecs, in 2003. He is a Ph. D. candidate; he is expected to defend his doctoral dissertation in 2013. He worked for Holocaust Memorial Center (2003-2008), currently work for National Archives of Hungary. In addition, he teaches at the University of Pannonia. His special field the Hungarian police, military and civil secret service during Horthy era and the holocaust in Hungary.

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Hungarian Autonomy in Vojvodina: Hungarian-Serbian relations – Past, Present, and Future

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Serbia’s northern province of Vojvodina is important to Central and Eastern Europe for several reasons: The Hungarian community living there, the history of the province, and the issue of autonomy for that community. This autonomy issue plays a vital role in the political atmosphere of the region. Lately however, this has become less important than other issues, such as Serbia’s accession to the European Union, Kosovo, and pipeline politics; as a result, has faded into the background. Research undertaken for this Master’s thesis examined academic texts and journals, government websites, and newspapers from the region. Some archival research has been conducted as well. Information found in the above materials has shown that the issue of Vojvodina autonomy is a delicate one, though while government leaders have maintained their commitment to it, simultaneous obligations have required them to carefully select which to pursue and in what order. Despite this, the province of Vojvodina will continue to play a significant role in the region in the years to come. UI: Szakdolgozatom a vajdasági autonomiáról és az ottani magyarok a magyar-szerb kapcsolatokra tett hatásáról szól.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tara lotstein’s academic focus is Hungary, including the language; ethnic Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, and the indigenous (Finno-Ugric) peoples of the Soviet-Russian and Scandinavian Arctic. She has an International Masters in Russian, Central, and East European Studies from the Department of Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, and an MA in Political Science (Politikatudomány MA) from the Institute of Political Science at the Corvinus University of Budapest. Her Master’s thesis focused on the extent to which the Hungarians in Serbia affected Hungarian-Serbian relations, and she is proficient in Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian.

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Why the Counter-Reformation Failed in Seventeenth-Century Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper examines the concerted efforts of Hungarian magnates, Catholic hierarchs, and the Habsburg court to convert a predominantly Protestant society to the Catholic faith. The focus will be on the conversion campaigns of the 1660s and 1670s that culminated in the systematic confiscation of churches, the closure of congregational schools, and the mass expulsion of the Protestant clergy. I will argue that these campaigns failed for four principal reasons: the resilience of the county nobility, the resistance of peasants and townsmen, the mass defection of Protestant soldiers, and the proximity of the Ottoman border. This unique combination of resistance and border location distinguishes the Hungarian case from other Habsburg territories (such as Austria, Bohemia, and Silesia) and neighboring Poland. In the final analysis, Hungarian Protestantism would probably not have survived without the Ottomans who provided refuge and protection to persecuted communities. What England was for Dutch Protestants during the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire became for Hungarian Lutherans and Calvinists during the seventeenth century: a safe-haven from which military invasions were launched to overthrow Habsburg power and restore the Protestant faith.
My paper takes issue with the current state of research on the Hungarian Counter-Reformation, particularly with recent contributions by Antal Molnar and Istvan G. Toth. Most importantly, I think that historians have insufficiently addressed the violent overtones of the Hungarian Counter-Reformation and its traumatic impact on local society. While undoubtedly achieving great successes on the surface--large territories without Protestant clergy, the establishment of Catholic parishes, and mass conversions—these achievements were only temporary. They quickly evaporated in the face of local resistance and rebel incursions from Ottoman territory. Rather than relying on the reports and letters of Catholic missionaries—the mainstay of recent interpretations—or Protestant martyrologies and polemics—the basis of Protestant historiography--I draw on previously unstudied documentary records from the Austrian State and Hungarian National Archives. These records reveal the Hungarian Counter-Reformation as an unmitigated failure that deeply alienated society and crucially contributed to large-scale popular revolts well into the eighteenth century.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Georg B. Michels is Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside and currently working on a book about the impact of the Habsburg Counter-Reformation on late seventeenth-century Hungarian society. His recent articles include “The 1672 Kuruc Uprising: A National or Religious Revolt?” Hungarian Studies Review, Vol. XXXIX, Nos. 1-2 (2012): 1-20; “Ready to Secede to the Ottoman Empire: Habsburg Hungary after the Vasvar Treaty (1664-1674),” E-Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association, Vol. 4 (Fall 2012), pp. 1-11; and
a forthcoming study in Történelmi Szemle (published by the Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) critically reexamining the expulsion of the Protestant clergy from Hungary during the early 1670s. Michels’ interest in Hungary and the early modern Habsburg Empire emerged from his studies on religion, society, and revolt in early modern Russia and the discovery of significant similarities between Russian and Hungarian popular resistance against a centralizing imperial power. Trained as a Russian historian and Slavic linguist at the University of Göttingen (Germany), UCLA, and Harvard (Ph.D. 1991) he has written At War with the Church: Religion and Dissent in Seventeenth Century Russia (Stanford, 1999) and co-edited Russia’s Dissident Old Believers (1650-1950) (Minneapolis, 2009).

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Finding the Future in the Past: Péter Pázmány’s Felelet

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper examines the historical perspective articulated by Péter Pázmány, the future primate of Hungary, in the Felelet, his first major vernacular work, produced in answer to what he saw as the calumniation of Hungarian Catholicism by the preacher István Magyari. In this text, Pázmány offered an alternative providential explanation for the disaster of the Turkish conquest in sixteenth century Hungary. In his published work, Magyari had ascribed the Turkish invasion to divine chastisement of the Hungarian nation for the sins of its Catholics, particularly because of the idolatrous nature of Catholic worship. Drawing heavily on the Old Testament, Magyari had argued that Chosen People had been heavily punished for Idolatry on several occasions and suggested that only the pure religion of Hungary’s Lutherans had preserved a remnant of the old kingdom from the Turks. Pázmány’s text offered an alternative reading which linked the fall of the Hungarian kingdom to the advent of Lutheranism so that a realm which had stood for hundreds of years while the Catholic faith had been preserved was swiftly overthrown when heresy began to sap it from within. Not only does the text offer an alternative historical narrative but Pázmány engaged also with Magyari’s biblical examples. While accepting that idolatry was a feature of God’s anger with the chosen people (and of course denying any idolatrous component in Catholic worship), his discussion concentrated on the punishment of the Jews for the crime of innovation in religion, in effect for heresy. The implications of Pázmány’s argument was that by preserving the critical element of the Hungarian past, its Catholic identity, the nation could once find a future as God would assist in the turning back of the Turkish conquest.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tadhg Pól Ó hAnnracháin is Senior Lecturer in the School of History and Archives, University College Dublin. He studied at the National Univerity of Ireland and received his PhD in 1995 from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Dr. Ó hAnnracháin's major research interest concerns the Catholic Reformation in Early Modern Europe, with a particular emphasis on peripheral areas of the continent, especially, Ireland, Britain and Hungary.

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The Pervasiveness of a Libel: Count Mihály Károlyi as the Traitor Responsible for the Peace Treaty of Trianon

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
On January 1, 2012, Hungary’s basic laws replaced the previous constitution. The text of the new
constitution was published by the government in a souvenir edition which includes facsimiles of commissioned contemporary paintings depicting scenes from Hungary’s thousand-year history. The painting entitled “Trianon” was done by Tibor Kiss an associate professor of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. His painting depicts in the forefront one of the Allied leaders, the French Premier Georges Clemenceau, and Count Albert Apponyi, who was the head of the delegation that received the preliminary terms of the harsh treaty from the victors. From the mirror behind them are reflections of the three ghost responsible for Trianon. These, as the painter described it in an interview published in early February 2012, are “Charles IV, who appointed the practically half-idiot aristocrat, Mihály Károlyi as prime minister….[In turn] On March 20,1919, when the Vix Ultimatum arrived which drew the border of our country at the Tisza River, Károlyi’s first act was to name Béla Kun as his successor….” Kun on the painting holds a hand grenade between his fingers and the painter identifies Kun as the man “responsible for the collapse.” The description of the artist is falsified history where only the date of the Vix ultimatum is correct. The painting itself is not art, but crass propaganda which is now included in the fancy volume containing the basic laws of Hungary.

The painting and Kiss’s words demonstrate the fact that the vicious attacks on Károlyi, which started with the counterrevolutionary Horthy regime in 1920, that also confiscated the property of the “wealthiest Hungarian”—still continue almost one hundred years later. The removal of Károlyi’s statute from Kossuth Square by the Parliament, the renaming of Károlyi Mihály Street, and Kiss’s painting are the latest symbols, reminding the historian that one regime after the other used Károlyi--alive or dead--as a scapegoat to distract the Hungarian population from the real issues. This presentation will provide an overview of the scapegoating of Károlyi since 1920 to the present.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Peter Pastor is professor of history at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ. He received his BA from the City College of CUNY and his PhD from New York University. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of seven books. His most recent co-edited volume is Essays on World War I (2012). He is also the author of more than forty articles focusing on Hungarian-Russian relations, or on twentieth century Hungarian history. He is also the president of the Center for Hungarian Studies and Publications, Inc., a non-profit corporation specializing on publishing the works of Hungarian historians in English. He is a frequent visitor to Hungary and is on the faculty of the Doctoral Program in History of Eszterházy Károly College in Eger, Hungary, as an invited foreign instructor. In 2003 he received the Commander’s Cross of the Hungarian Republic (a Magyar Köztársasági Érdemrend Középkeresztje) for exceptional contributions to the furthering of Hungarian-American cultural ties.

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Joseph Goldmark and How the Ideals of 1848 Transformed the United States

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The defeat of the 1848 revolutions brought many ‘48ers to the United States. These immigrants became integral to the various political and social reform movements occurring throughout the US at this time. This study will look at the impact of one man in particular, Joseph Goldmark. He was one of the most prominent heroes of 1848, a leader of the student rebels in Vienna and a co-author of the liberal constitution of 1849.
The idea of “emancipation” in Europe turned into the fight for emancipation in the US and a passionate support for Abraham Lincoln. For Joseph Goldmark, the ideals of 1848 animated not only his political and professional life, but also that of his children. His son-in-law, Louis Brandeis (wife of his daughter Alice) became one the most important jurists in US history. He worked closely with another daughter, Josephine Goldmark.
The halls of the Supreme Court of 1930 did not seem distant from the heady revolutionary days of the Hapsburg Empire of 1848 to Josephine Goldmark. She published Pilgrims of '48: One man's part in the Austrian revolution of 1848 well after the Great War.
This study will remind us of the influence of the ‘48ers on science, law, religion, and connect Hungarian history to the Progressive movement of the early 20th century.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Raul Rothblatt graduated the University of California, Berkeley with a double major in Music and Political Science, receiving honors in both. He then studied classical composition at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with composer György Orbán, followed by a Masters in Musical Theatre Composition from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. For the last twenty years he has actively supported Hungarian culture through playing bass with Életfa Hungarian Folk. He is also the manager and cellist of Kakande, a West African band lead by traditional musician (a.k.a. djeli or griot) Famoro Dioubate of Guinea. Raul is a co-founder of Jumbie Records.
Raul Rothblatt was the Executive Director of the Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance 2007-2011 and successfully protected an Abolitionist home in Downtown Brooklyn from destruction via eminent domain abuse. In 2010, he co-founded Alliance Guinea, a non-profit made up of Guineans and friends of Guinea working to promote civil society in that country. He is currently the Vice President of Prospect Heights Democrats for Reform.
Raul’s love of Hungarian culture was nurtured by his mother, born and raised in Budapest and his grandmother who wrote Flavors of Hungary.

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Deportations During the Worst Communist Terror in Romania (1948-1964)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
After World War II, the forced abdication of the king, and the complete communist takeover, intensive sovietization started in Romania. This included, just as in other satellite countries, the persecution of the ”class enemies” and of course anybody who did not agree in any way with the regime. The objective of the different deportations and other retaliations was to liquidate these people. The lecture is about the mass deportation of former landowners, the then so-called kulaks in 1949; deportations to the Danube-Delta and Dobrudja starting from 1950; deportations from the Yugoslav border area in 1951; the deportees in forced labor camps at the construction of the Danube Channel. There was a partial amnesty in Romania in 1954, but the release of all deportees came only in 1964. However, the communist dictatorship continued with the horrors of the Ceausescu regime.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kinga Széchenyi, educator, writer, and sculptor graduated from Loránd Eötvös University, Budapest in 1970. Then taught at Toldy Ferenc Secondary Grammer School, and later became a teacher trainer for Loránd Eötvös University. Translates English and American literary works and psychology publications. Researched the deportations of the Rákosi dictatorship and published a book on the topic: Stigmatized (Megbélyegzettek, Kráter Kiadó, Pomáz, 2008.) She studied sculpturing at Dési-Huber Art School, Budapest, makes plaquettes and statuettes. Her János Bolyai and Gyula Farkas plaquettes are awards for mathematicians at international conferences. Her large János Bolyai plaquette is on a memorial tablet in Marosvásárhely, Transylvania. She received the Silver Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic for her achievements in education in 1998.

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Displaced Persons among Hungarian Immigrants

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Although the dipis [DP = Displaced Persons] constituted the elites of interwar Hungary’s “neo-Baroque” world, and although as immigrants to the United States they significantly altered the structure of Hungarian-American society, as compared to the other waves of immigrants, they are hardly known. The primary reasons for this is the fact that they represented a social and political system that was not really welcome in America. They were also in the category of “ex-enemies,” which did not endear them to Americans and their Western allies. Equally important is the fact that – for whatever reason -- they left relatively few historical sources – memoirs and archival material – behind them.
In the course of the past 160 years several waves of Hungarian immigrants left their homeland and settled in the United States. Beginning with the so-called “Kossuth Immigration” after the defeated Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849, followed by the massive turn-of-the-century “economic immigration” from Austria-Hungary (1890-1914), then by several waves of political immigrants before and after World War II (1919, 1933-41, 1944-45, 1947-48). This immigration process climaxed in wake of the violent anti-Soviet Revolution of 1956, which resulted in the exodus of nearly 200,000 Hungarians, of whom over 40,000 ended up in the United States. The last major Hungarian immigration took place after the fall of the communism in 1989-90, which brought additional thousands of Hungarians to the USA. They were not really immigrants, but people who hoped to improve their economic wellbeing by working in America. Their position is best described by the German term “Wohlstandsflüchtlinge,” which is best translated into Hungarian as “Jólétmenekültek,” and into English as “Guestworkers in search of a better life”.
Discounting the “Wohlstandsflüchtlinge” still in the process of migrating to the United States, the post-World War II immigrants came in two waves. These were the 45-ers, many of whom represented the elites of the interwar Horthy-regime; and the 47-ers who were of more modest origins and wanted to change the nature of the regime. They hoped to achieve this goal by cooperating with the occupying Soviet forces and the Communist Party. This hope, however, was crushed by the communist take-over of Hungary in the course of 1947-1948.
While all of immigrant waves possess a great deal of scholarly literature, this does not hold true for the 45-ers and 47-ers (the DPs). My goal is to remedy the situation by writing a synthetic work about these “forgotten immigrants.”




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Steven Béla Várdy, Ph.D. (Indiana) is Distinguished McAnulty Professor of European History at Duquesne University and an elected Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of two-dozen books and over 200 scholarly articles and book chapters. – some written jointly with his wife, Dr. Agnes Huszár Várdy. Professor Várdy is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Miskolc, and the Honoree of two Festschrifts written and published by his former students, colleagues, and friends. The recent volume, Hungary Through the Centuries (2012), was dedicated both to him and his wife. In Hungarian Professor Várdy writes under the name “Várdy Béla.”

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Magyars, Serbs, and Slovaks: An Apparent Paradox in Magyar-Slav Relationss

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Pan-Slav agitation centered in those areas of Old Dualist Hungary that were heavily populated by Serbs. Yet, Magyar reaction to Pan-Slavism was largely directed against the Slovaks.

My paper would attempt to explain the reasons for this apparent paradox.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I was born and raised in Budapest Hungary; I left the country in 1956. After working for nearly two years in the United States, I went back to college. to Stanford University, where I had received my graduate degrees, my MA and Ph.D.in history. I had taught at Rutgers Univer-
sity, Newark for 29 years. I published several articles, essays in edited books, and book reviews, as well as 2 books. The first one, Istvan Tisza, the Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist was awarded the Book Prize of the Association of Hungarian-American Historians. The second book was
published in Budapest, in Hungarian translation. Its title in English would be: From Feudalism to Revolution: Hungarian Politics and Culture in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1711-1848.

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