History/Political Science papers

Bodó, Béla

University of Bonn

Panel Proposal: Trianon Issues. II. Action and Reaction: the Shared Roots and the Divergent Causes of the Red and White Terrors (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
My presentation will examine the rise of left and right-wing paramilitary violence in Hungary after the First World War. The presentation will address the controversial question of whether, and if so, then to what extent, the White Terror was a reaction to the Red Terror. The presentation will touch on the long-term causes of the Red and White Terrors, such as labor militancy and police brutality and the rise of anarchism, proto-fascism and antisemitism and the birth of the student militias before 1914. The presentation will discuss the war-time experiences of officers and peasant and working- lass recruits, as well as the brutalizing impact of the long military conflict on soldiers, their family members and society at large. It will pay special attention to the place of the militias in the political and military hierarchies of the Communist and counterrevolutionary regimes (and their proximity to selected leaders), the unique structure of paramilitary groups, and the role of charismatic leadership and youth culture as the shared causes of the Red and White terrors. At the same time, it will also draw attention to the different social composition of the Red and White paramilitary groups and the diverging social aspirations of their leaders and rank-and-file. Finally, the paper will discuss political paranoia, ideology and political culture, particularly the role of antisemitism, as sources of violence against class and ethnic enemies during this controversial period in Hungarian history.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Béla Bodó, PhD, is professor of East European History at the University of Bonn. He is the author of numerous articles published in academic journals on the White Terror. His monographs are the following: The White Terror: Political and Antisemitic Violence in Hungary, 1919-1923 (London: Routledge, June, 2019). Pál Prónay: Paramilitary Violence and Anti-Semitism in Hungary, 1919-1922 (Pittsburg University Press: Beck Papers, 2010). Tiszazug: the Social History of a Murder Epidemic (New York: Columbia University Press: Eastern European Monographs, 2002).




Csunderlik, Péter

Eötvös Loránd University; Institute of Political History

“The Red Sea of Judeo-Bolshevism” – The Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Theory of “Judeo-Bolshevik Conspiracy” during the Horthy Era (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The idea of the „Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy” was not as firmly attached to any event in Hungarian history as it was to the Hungarian Soviet Republic proclaimed on 21 March 1919. In spite of the fact that the members of the Revolutionary Governing Council that led the dictatorship of proletariat – which lasted only 133 days – were atheist-internationalist politicians without no „Jewish” identity, according to the tradition of (right-wing) discourse consolidated after 1919, the dictatorship of proletariat was „Jewish dictatorship”. During the Horthy era, the topos of “Jewish dictatorship”, which was typically interpreted within the narrative of “Judeo-Bolshevism”, provided strong arguments for enacting anti-Semitic laws after 1919, in particular the so-called numerus clausus aimed at suppressing “Jewish intellectuals”. This lecture will provide an overview of the Anti-Semitic interpretations of the Hungarian Soviet Republic linked to the idea of “Judeo-Bolshevism” via analyzing pamphlets and memoirs, including the famous and infamous book of Cécile Tormay (Bujdosó könyv - An Outlaw’s Diary, 1920- 1921) and the brief memoir of Gyula Gömbös (Egy magyar vezérkari tiszt bíráló feljegyzései a forradalomról és ellenforradalomról - Critical Notes of a Hungarian Military Officer on Revolution and Counter-Revolution, 1920).


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Péter Csunderlik, PhD, is the assistant professor at the Eötvös Loránd University and research fellow at the Institute of Political History in Budapest. He is interested in the history of left-wing radical movements, in the remembrance of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and in the theory of history. His academic monographs are the following: Radikálisok, szabadgondolkodók, ateisták – A Galilei Kör (1908–1919) története (Budapest, Napvilág, 2017); A „vörös farsangtól” a „vörös tatárjárásig” – A Tanácsköztársaság a korai Horthy-korszak pamflet- és visszaemlékezés-irodalmában (Budapest, Napvilág, 2019).




Farkas, Ádám

Eötvös Loránd University

Albert Szent-Györgyi and the Soviet Union (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper examines the relationship between Nobel laureate scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi and the Soviet Union, and therefore with micro-historical approaches the Hungarian-Soviet relations after 1945.
Szent-Györgyi was a popular public figure and he was expected to become the President of Hungary after the WWII. In 1945 he spent two months in the Soviet Union and in the same year he became the honorary President of the Hungarian-Soviet Cultural Association in Hungary. For the revival of Hungarian cultural life, he cooperated with the Soviets and Communists. As he became dissatisfied with the political changes, he emigrated to the United States in 1947. In the United States for sympathizing with the Soviets he was considered as a suspicious scientist until 1954.
Since the mid-1960s he turned to the politics again, he spoke out against the Vietnam War. He criticized the US government and urged to cooperate with the Soviet Union for peace. By the 1970s his view about communism and the Soviet Union changed once again, mostly for the better. His research was cut and therefore he considered moving back to Hungary where his image was rehabilitated.
Through the scientist, the paper investigates the Hungarian-Soviet cultural relations, the mechanism of propaganda and public diplomacy during the Cold War. By using a micro-historical approach, the study illuminates the sometimes forgotten methodological utility of biographical approaches and examining turning points to reflect on ideology, political belief, and personal reinvention that individuals living through these events grappled with.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ádám Farkas is a PhD candidate at the Department of Eastern and Central European History and Historical Russistics at Eötvös Loránd University. His dissertation focuses on the Hungarian-Soviet cultural relations after 1945 and the Soviet propaganda in Hungary.
At ELTE he taught history of the Soviet Union and history of socialist Hungary. He attended many international conferences (ASEEES in 2018 and 2019, BASEES in 2019, International Student Conference of Cold War, International Conference of Russian Studies). The subjects of his publications include the Hungarian-Soviet Cultural Association, playwright Gyula Háy and Nikita Khrushchev.




Glant, Tibor

University of Debrecen

Americans in Paris, 1919 (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper evaluates the actual contribution of the United States and the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. This is especially important in a Hungarian context as Hungarian history writing has largely ignored this subject. Wilson predetermined the language and key goals the Conference with his rhetoric of the League of Nations, the “war to end all wars”, an American-made “scientific peace”, and national self-determination. He and Hoover redefined the concept of humanitarian aid by placing postwar reconstruction in the hands of a US federal agency, the American Relief Administration, and convinced their allies at home and abroad to allow the Americans to run the whole project, from London to Yekaterinburg. American delegates played a moderating role on excessive territorial claims against Hungary and oversaw the drafting of the League covenant, the International Labor Organization charter, and the reparations chapters of the five treaties signed at Paris. Americans in the field (mostly in post-Habsburg Central Europe) acted as arbitrators of conflicts, prevented excessive looting by Rumanians in Hungary, and provided food and medical aid to hundreds of thousands of former enemy nationals as well. The paper argues that the Paris Peace Conference would have been very different without US participation on the highest level.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tibor Glant is associate professor at the North American Department of the University of Debrecen. His main interests lie in American culture and history and US–Hungarian relations. He is the author of seven books, two in English, on related subjects ranging from travel writing though wartime diplomacy to 1956 and the American adventures and return of Hungary’s Holy Crown. He lives in Debrecen with his wife and daughter.




Hornyák, Árpád

University of Pécs

Panel Proposal: Trianon Issues. I. The Hungarian-Serbian Baranya Republic. Antecedences and Consequences of a Desperate Political Attempt (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
After World War I following the Padua armistice in November 1918, a considerable part of the former Kingdom of Hungary came under Serbian occupation. Among others almost the whole county of Baranya and some parts of northern Bácska. The Serb military rule had a serious impact on the multi-ethnic population of the area that had least three major nationalities: Hungarians, South Slavs (Serbs, Croats, Bunjevtsi) and ethnic Germans. While the
Hungarian population together with the Hungarian state administration wanted to preserve the
Hungarian civil administration in the concerned area, the Serbian military authorities together with the local South Slav population wanted to replace the Hungarian with a Serbian administration and thus promote the annexation of these territories by the newly established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. My paper aims to introduce those international and local events and trends that led to proclamation of the Hungarian-Serbian Baranya Republic on August 14, 1921. I also want to shed light on the consequences of this futile political attempt by the local South Slav leaders, Serbian civilian and military authorities that kept the Baranya Republic alive for only eight days as the victorious Great Powers refused to recognize the blatant Yugoslav land grab.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Árpád Hornyák, PhD, is associate professor of history at the University of Pécs (Hungary) and senior research fellow at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His specialty is the history of the Balkans during the nineteenth and twentieth century, and twentieth-century Hungarian foreign policy. He has numerous essay publications that appeared in scholarly journals. He has a monograph publication that also appeared in English under the title Hungarian-Yugoslav Relations, 1918-1927 (2013) distributed by Columbia University Press. He recently edited a collection of articles written by Hungarian scholars and edited a volume of documents on Hungarian-Yugoslav relations.




Kiss, Márton

University of Pécs

The Changing Image of Francis II. Rákóczi in America and Hungary (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In hope of foreign support, Francis II. Rákóczi left the country in 1711, but his remembrance has stayed in the Carpathian basin. After another fallen revolution of 1849, his role became famous again, mostly in History and Arts. His fame has reached its peak with his reburial in 1906. The figure of Rákóczi was also important in Hungarian history both in the interwar period and in the communist era as well. Studies of his remembrance opens the question of his reputation in foreign (mostly emigrant) Hungarian communities around the world, especially in the USA. Hungarian freedom fighters – like Rákóczi, Kossuth and the participants of the 1956 uprising – have become heroes for national identity abroad.
In my presentation, I would like to show the changing role of Francis II Rákóczi (II. Rákóczi Ferenc in Hungarian) through moments, stamps and other cultural products. In different political times Rákóczi and his remembrance have become vital to the Hungarian national identity both in Hungary and in different parts of the world.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Márton Kiss is a PhD Student at the University of Pécs Faculty of Sciences Doctoral School of Earth Sciences. He acquired his MA degree in History in 2015 at the University of Pécs. His research areas are military history of Europe and China, national identity of Hungary and the history of the Rákóczi’s War of Independence. He has publications appeared in historical journals in topic for example military history and Hungarian history.




Lilla Nora Kiss

George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School

The legal anomalies of the “digital public sphere” on both sides of the Atlantic (not accepted for 2022)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Freedom of speech is a fundamental value in our democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. However, its limits and restrictability are different in the USA and Europe. Those who engage in US public discourse will understand that free speech is the Alpha and the Omega of the system. On December 15, 1791, First Amendment was adopted, declaring that “Congress shall make no law respecting […], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; […].” The European Convention on Human Rights narrowly defines the freedom of expression as follows: “1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive & impart information & ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, [...], may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, [...] national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority & impartiality of the judiciary.” The concept of free speech is manifested in an entirely controversial manner. This opposite approach creates a grey zone for globally operating Big Tech corps.
Today, citizens have multiple platforms to express their opinion. They can reach the masses immediately. Even if our ways of free speech became wider than before, our vulnerability to unfair bans and abusive restrictions increased. However, free speech infringements could be executed only against state actors in the USA. Thus, all bans introduced by Big Tech are in a legal gap due to their privateness. Interestingly, in a country of continuous modernization, legal solutions' fundaments and main frames were petrified in the 18th century. While the European system tends to overregulate, apply narrow room for maneuvering, it later takes the burden on interpretators.
Summum ius, summa iniuria. Means: rigorous law is often rigorous injustice. A principle of Roman Law that provides much-needed flexibility for legislators and practitioners. To add one more twist, social media platforms advertise themselves as "digital public spheres," which raises the question of their legal evaluation. The presentation addresses the legal anomalies of the digital public sphere. One thing is sure: we should not wait until the freedom of speech turns into freedom from speech…



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lilla Nóra Kiss is a Post-Graduate Visiting Research Fellow at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University. Lilla completed her JD in 2015 at the University of Miskolc, Hungary. During her doctoral studies, she undertook the General and Juridical Mediator course and immersed herself in several international law programs (the Regional Academy on the United Nations (RAUN); the Academy of European Law (AEL) summer schools at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Lilla completed her doctorate in 2018 and defended her thesis on the legal issues of Brexit in 2019. In 2020, she completed her third degree in European and International Business Law LLM at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. In addition to her academic studies, Lilla conducted lectures and seminars on European law, in both English and Hungarian.

She also served as a senior counselor specializing in EU law at the Ministry of Justice, State Secretariat for European Union Affairs in Budapest. As such, she has provided legal advice on institutional matters between the EU and the Member States, on the Future of Europe Conference, and some special topics including social media, which inspired her to apply to the Hungary Foundation’s Liberty Bridge Program. During her one-year post-doctoral research she will undertake a comparative analysis on how the US and the EU approach regulating social media.




Madarász, Fanni

University of Pécs, Department of Medieval and Early Modern History

16th and 17th Century Hungarian Historians and Protestant Theologians in the Thomason Collection – International Relations, Tracts, and Translations (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
One of the most famous assemblage of documents from the English Civil War Era is the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts, which was gathered between 1640–1661 by the book dealer and renowned collector, George Thomason. It includes more than 22000 documents, mostly pamphlets, treatises, illustrations, engravings, and manuscripts. The collection is located in the British Library, UK, and is available for research in the forms of microfilms and digitalized copies. As a researcher of the collection and the era, I have encountered a few Hungarian entries, among which I could identify the works of Izsák Fegyverneki (d. 1589) and János Nádányi (1643–1707), both Calvinist pastors and historians. Nádányi’s major work, the Florus Hungaricus, sive rerum Hungaricarum was translated to English by James Howell, a royalist pamphleteer and historian of the Civil War. Among the estate of Howell, a short entry signifies that he had completed the work on an assignment, however, the patron behind the commission is unknown. Izsák Fegyverneki’s tract, the Enchiridii Locorum communium Theologicorum, completed in 1586, was dedicated to Stephen Báthory, the voivode of Transylvania. It was translated to English by Dudley Diggs, Jr. a royalist peer and contemporary of Howell. We can also suspect a commission behind the endeavour, but further investigation is needed to clarify this issue.
In the presentation, I attempt to outline the way in which the works reached and captivated the attention of the English royalists, and address the ideological significance of them in the pamphlet literature and political climate of the 17th century England. The translational methods and techniques are also to be discussed, applying an interdisciplinary approach. A comprehensive analysis has never been completed on the political and diplomatic history of these works; therefore, the topic provides several new research aspects and hold out the promise of fascinating results both in regards of English and Hungarian historiography.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Currently, Fanni Madarász is completing her PhD studies at the University of Pécs, Department of Medieval and Early Modern History. She obtained a bachelor degree in History and English language and a master’s degree in teaching History and English language. Her research activity has a wide scope, but concentrates mostly on 16th and 17th century political thought, theories of state and the political pamphlet literature of the English Civil War era. From 2017, she participates in the educational activities of the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History. As of January 2020, she joined the Department of English Literatures and Cultures as an external lecturer.




Mátyás, Máté

Corvinus University of Budapest

Democratic Politics, Democratic Media? A Political Economic History of Post-Transition Hungary (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Three decades after the transition from communist one-party state to democracy, the question still arises whether Hungarians have come to terms with the workings of free electoral politics. This study makes the case that the relationship between parties and mass media outlets explains electoral dynamics on Hungary in the 1990s — but also, far beyond that. The relationship is demonstrated on the political economy of mass media in Hungary 1989–2002. The ownership and decisionmaking structures of social networks among media outlets and parties are scrutinized. Their structural changes are compared to electoral support of political parties to explain electoral outcomes in Hungary in the 1990s. This study finds a strong correlation between political parties’ electoral support and their media networks’ relative social cohesion. “Media balance” did not ensue after constituting the right to freedom of expression and a free press in 1989. Rather, free media had been converted to partisan media — a powerful tool for parties to sway public opinion in their favor. However, this is not solely a Hungarian phenomenon; in fact, parallel developments can be found on globally from the United States to Europe, Russia, all the way to China. Concentrating media and controlling them have become an ever-stronger intention of influential interest groups, political parties, and leaders. This underscores the need for transparently monitoring and democratically regulating media ownership and concentration in order to preserve free and fair elections and the rule of law.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Máté Mátyás is a junior research fellow and PhD student at the Corvinus University of Budapest. He is part of the EU Horizon 2020 research project “FATIGUE” focusing on eastern European populism and has presented his work at various international workshops and conferences such as the American Political Science Association's Annual Meeting and Exhibition 2019 Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Washington DC. His teaching also involves the theories of international economics and United States foreign economic policy.




Niessen, James P.

Rutgers University

The World Council of Churches and the Hungarian Crisis of 1956 (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a federation of churches that maintain their structural and doctrinal independence while striving for closer cooperation in areas where they can agree. The WCC’s periodic assemblies elect a Central Committee that meets annually in different countries. In 1954 a Hungarian Protestant delegate extended an invitation for the committee to hold its annual meeting for 1956 in Communist Hungary, and this invitation was accepted in 1955. The meeting took place during a nine day period in July 1956 in the mountain resort of Galyatető on Hungary’s northern border with Slovakia, with an estimated 400 participants. A statement was presented for debate entitled “The Churches and the Building of a Responsible International Society” that ended, in the version that received final approval, with an endorsement of freedom of conscience and freedom to travel— on which 200,000 Hungarians would act by fleeing Hungary after the defeat of the Revolution. What did the WCC hope to achieve by meeting in Hungary, and the Hungarian authorities in inviting and hosting it in 1956? Did the meeting have an impact on the epochal events that followed it? I will propose answers to these questions in the light of the WCC Archives in Geneva and the Hungarian archives in Budapest.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Jim Niessen earned his Ph.D from Indiana University in 1989. After three years of college history teaching he shifted to the library profession, earning an MLIS and then working as a librarian since 1994, first at Texas Tech University and then since 2001 at Rutgers University. His research and publications have ranged from religion and politics in nineteenth century Transylvania (his dissertation topic) to Romanian nationalism, church history, libraries and archives, to the refugees from Hungary during the Cold War. Many of his publications are freely available at https://soar.libraries.rutgers.edu/bib/James_P._Niessen .




Pap, Norbert

University of Pécs

In the Crossroad of History: Ottoman remembrance issues of the Mohács battlefield (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper addresses issues related to Törökdomb, the memorial place built by the Ottomans on the battlefield after the battle of Mohács, which has perished over time. In this battle, the army lead by Hungarian and Czech King Louis II encountered the troops of Sultan Suleiman I. 12-15 thousand people lost their life in the battle on the Christian side, including the king and 5-6 thousand Czech infantrymen. The artificial hill was erected in Roman times next to a military road, but it gained special importance as a legendary site only after the battle in 1526, where Sultan Suleiman prayed for victory and watched the battle. The hill has played an important role as a memorial place for several centuries, which has undergone significant changes over time. Research into the Battle of Mohács and the military landscape raises a complex set of problems; among other things, the scene of the battle is hotly debated. The findings of studies relying on historical sources, old maps, previous archaeological documentations, folk memory and on-site geographical investigations can pave the way not only for a more realistic assessment of the military landscape, but they can reveal much about the social changes of the last 500 years as well as the changing views on the battle and Hungarian identity.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Norbert Pap (Dsc, Phd, Ma, Msc) is Professor of Historical and Political Geography of the University of Pécs. He has been working in Mohács since 2017 co-leading the research team „Mohács 1526-2026 – Reconstruction and remembrance” financed by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Moreover his research activities cover the presence of Islam in East-Central Europe and in Hungary, furthermore the relationships of the Balkans and Hungary. He has written more then 230 scientific papers to date, including 11 books.




Pastor, Peter (Panel Chair)

Montclair State University, New Jersey

Panel Proposal: Trianon Issues. III. The Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 and the Peacemaker American President Woodrow Wilson (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The birth of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on March 21, 1919 was the first serious consequence of the failure of Wilsonianism. It came as a shock to the peacemakers in Paris, among them President Woodrow Wilson. Events in Hungary seemed to indicate the spread of the dreaded “bacilli” of Bolshevism from Russia to the West. In the United States, it gave a new impetus to the “red scare.” Yet in this political atmosphere, the dominant personality, Wilson, and the other American plenipotentiaries at the Paris Peace Conference favored non-intervention and embraced a wait-and-see attitude during the 133 day-long reign of the communist Béla Kun and his regime. Wilson was aware of the fact that Bolshevism in Hungary rose out of national despair in the light of the aggression of the successor states. Wilson even declared that if he were a Hungarian, he would fight against the Romanian invaders. The Peace Conference was unable to make the Romanian forces retreat from the Tisza River line. On July 20, the Red Army embarked on an offensive to liberate the left bank of the Tisza, but it was beaten back. The defeat was the direct cause of the collapse of the Soviet Republic on August 1, 1919.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Panel Chair: Peter Pastor, PhD, is professor emeritus of history at Montclair State University, New Jersey. His publications, one monograph, and seven edited or co-edited books touch on some aspect of Hungarian history, including the diplomatic relations of Hungary with Russia and the USSR. He has published close to fifty articles during his academic career. His last edited book is Essays on World War I, was published in 2012. His latest essay, “Hungarian and Soviet Efforts to Possess Ruthenia, 1938−1945,” was published in the Fall 2019 issue the Historian.




Petrás, Éva

Committee of National Remembrance

Kerekasztal-beszélgetés --- Petrás Éva: Álarcok mögött - Nagy Töhötöm életei című könyvéről (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Nagy Töhötöm jezsuita szerzetes, később szabadkőműves fordulatokban gazdag élete a 20. századi történelem egyik kortanújává tette őt. Nevét leginkább a Katolikus Agrárifjúsági Legényegyletek Országos Testülete, a KALOT története okán említi a történettudomány, amelynek egy időszakban Nagy Töhötöm is egyik irányítója volt. Nagy Töhötöm szerepe azonban nem állt meg a KALOT-nál: 1944 végén átszökött a frontvonalon, hogy a szovjetekkel tárgyalva biztosítsa a mozgalom túlélését; majd 1945–1946-ban többször is határokon átszökve vitt és hozott híreket Róma és Magyarország, a Vatikán és a magyar katolikus egyház számára; XII. Piusz pápa megbízásából pedig titkos, puhatolózó tárgyalásokat folytatott a Szentszék és a szovjetek közötti kapcsolatok esetleges rendezéséről. Egyházi diplomáciai szerepvállalása Mindszenty József esztergomi érseki kinevezése kapcsán is jelentékenynek mondható, azonban éppen a vele való kapcsolat lett számára problémák forrásává. Mindszenty hatására a jezsuita rend vezetése 1946 végén ugyanis már nem engedte Rómából hazatérni, hanem Dél-Amerikába helyezte, ahol folytatta ugyan szociális munkáját, de helyzetét száműzetésnek értékelte. Nehézségei katalizálták hivatásválságát, így 1948-ban elhagyta rendjét, majd Argentínában megnősült; 1952-ben pedig belépett a szabadkőművesek közé. Szélesebb körben is ismertté vált 1963-ban spanyolul, majd 1965-ben magyarul megjelent, visszaemlékezésein alapuló Jezsuiták és szabadkőművesek című művével. Nem volt azonban maradéktalanul elégedett új életformájával, ezért úgy döntött, hogy családjával együtt hazatelepül Magyarországra. Hazatelepülésének lehetőségéért azonban nagy árat fizetett: a magyar állambiztonság 1966-ban beszervezte és 1979-ben bekövetkezett haláláig ügynökként, majd titkos megbízottként foglalkoztatta.

Petrás Éva 2019-ben az ÁBTL és a pécsi Kronosz kiadó gondozásában megjelent életrajzi monográfiájáról a szerzővel Némethy Kesserű Judit és Bánkuti Gábor, a PTE BTK Modernkori Történeti Tanszék tanszékvezető-helyettese beszélget.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva Petrás (PhD) studied at Pécs University with specialization in history and English, and subsequently received her MA degree in modern history at Central European University. She obtained her PhD in history at the European University Institute in Florence in 2003. Between 2009 and January 2020 she worked as a researcher in the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL), Budapest. Since February 2020 she works as a research fellow of the Committee of National Remembrance (NEB). She is also a member of the “10 generáció/10 Generations” – “Lendület” Research Project of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.




Szabó-Kovács, Judit

Central Ring Interuniversity Association

Bűn és bűnözés kontroll mint magyar-amerikai kultúrkereszteződés (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A műhelyvitán való hozzászólásom az amerikai-magyar kultúrkereszteződés szempontjából szemlélteti a bűnözés és bűnözéskontroll ismérveit, megnyilvánulási formáit, megvalósulását. Számot ad esettanulmányok bemutatásával a magyar bűnözők amerikai tevékenységéről mint például a Markó- féle maffia Los Angeles, San Francisco területén való bűnözéséről. Más bűnszervezetek Amerikába történő infiltrációjáról. Bemutatja a bűnüldözési tapasztalatok átadásának folyamatát, intézményi kereteit, különösen az FBI nemzetközi egységének hazai működését, az ILEA oktatási eredményeit. Számot ad az ún. három csapás elméletének és más amerikai jogintézmények magyarországi bevezetésének alakulásáról.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit Szabó-Kovács 1981-ben szerezett jogi diplomát cum laude minősítéssel az ELTE Állam-és Jogtudományi Karán. 1982-ben került belügyi állományba, hat évig végezett rendőrségi-bűnügyi munkát vizsgálótisztként. 1988-tól 17 éven át a Rendőrtiszti főiskola oktatója és kutatója volt. Kriminológiát és kriminalisztikát tanított. 1997-ben Ph.D. fokozatot szerzett. Ezt követően vezető tanárként főiskolai tanár kinevezést nyert. Fő kutatási területe a nemzetközi bűnözés, nemzetközi bűnszervezetek, bűnöző szindikátusok, migráció. A Los-Angeles-i fősheriff valamint a Californiai Gang Nyomozók Szövetség elnöke meghívására kutatóuton volt egy Fulbright ösztöndíj segítségével. Hazatérése után a Határőrség Országos Parancsnokságán, s Nemzetközi Bűnügyi Együttműködési Központban dolgozott.