Panel Proposal: The Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project: A multidisciplinary overview (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Turley, Briane, Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies, Corvinus University, Budapest. bturley@mail.wvu.edu

Fenyvesi, Anna, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged. fenyvesi@lit.u-szeged.hu

Török, Péter, Karoli Gáspár Reformed University, Budapest. Torokp@gmail.com

Panel proposal:

The Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project: A multidisciplinary overview

The proposed panel discussion introduces a team of American and Hungarian scholars who recently organized Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project (AHHP). The group explores the role of Hungarian immigrants in the coalfields of West Virginia, southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky and several counties in Ohio and the historical, social, and linguistic aspects of these communities in a comprehensive and multidisciplinary fashion. As recent findings show, the earliest immigrant coal miners in the southern Appalachian coal mines were Hungarians, and Hungarian laborers dominated some of America’s largest coal mines, including the massive US Steel facility in Gary, West Virginia.

Comprehensive works on immigration (e.g. Puskás 1982) mention that Hungarians worked in the Appalachian Mountains but indicate that those who went there lived in boarding houses and eventually left the region to return home or to find better jobs in the US North and Midwest (while it is equally true that Hungarian migrants tended to live in boarding houses in other regions of the US where they were similarly transient). We demonstrate that many Appalachian Hungarians settled in this uniquely southern region of the US, reared families, and played a vital role in community development.

We propose three talks on the historical, social, and linguistic aspects of the Appalachian Hungarian communities.

Presenters include Dr. Briane Turley (Corvinus University and West Virginia University), Dr. Anna Fenyvesi (University of Szeged), and Dr. Péter Török (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary).



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A native Appalachian, Briane Turley is a Research Fellow at the Corvinus Institute of Advanced Studies, in Budapest. He also serves as a member of the Department of History’s Graduate Faculty at West Virginia University. He received a PhD in Modern European and American Religious History from the University of Virginia. Turley’s current research interests include Hungarian-Appalachian Labor History and the History of American Incarceration. He is the recipient of four Fulbright awards, each of which he served in Hungary. In 2011, the University of Szeged awarded Turley the Pro Facultate Philosophiae Medal in recognition of his work done for the Szeged community including organization of the mobility program between West Virginia University and the University of Szeged.

Anna Fenyvesi is Associate Professor of English Linguistics and Director of the English and American Studies Institute at the University of Szeged. She received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1998 and habilitation from Debrecen University in 2013. Her specialization is in sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, and bilingualism, with her primary research focus being the bilingualism of American Hungarians, Hungarian minorities outside Hungary, language attitudes, and, of late, the digital language use of bilinguals. She participated in the European FP6 project LINEE (“Languages in a Network of European Excellence”), in 2006–2010, as head of the Hungarian team of researchers, work package leader, and researcher. She is coauthor of the Routledge Descriptive Grammar of Hungarian (1998) and editor of Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary (Benjamins, 2005).


Péter Török is a Professor of Sociology at Karoli Gaspar Reformed University in Budapest. He received a PhD in sociology from the University of Toronto in 2000. He has served as Deputy Director of Research in the National Institute of Family- and Social Policy and was an Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Szeged. From 2006 until 2016, Török served as a Professor and Chair at the Institute of Mental Health, Semmelweis. Török has published three books on church-state relationships and new religious movements and authored numerous articles. Recently his research has focused on Roma/Gypsy studies and Appalachian Hungarian studies.