Accepted Abstracts -- 2021

The Ethnic Dynamics of Transylvania between 1920 and 2020 (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
According to census data, Transylvania’s population in 1910 was 53.8% Romanian and 31.6% Hungarian. According to the last census, the proportion of Romanians was 70.62% while the proportion of Hungarians was 17.92% in Transylvania. The official statistics used in my analysis indicate that the historical and cultural centers of the Transylvanian Hungarian community –– Kolozsvár (in Romanian: Cluj-Napoca), Nagyvárad (in Romanian: Oradea), Szatmárnémeti (in Romanian: Satu Mare), Nagybánya (in Romanian: Baia Mare), Nagyenyed (in Romanian: Aiud), Torda (in Romanian: Turda), Zilah (in Romanian: Zalau) –– once were majority Hungarian population centers. But during recent decades, they became majority Romanian settlements. For instance, Transylvania’s unofficial capital, Kolozsvár, had a Hungarian population of 81.6% in 1910; currently, the proportion of Hungarians is 15.9%. In 2001, the law on public administration extended the social acceptance and scope of activity for minority language practices in Romania. But this law is only permissible where the proportion of any minority population reaches 20% of the total population. Among Transylvanian cities, there are currently five (i.e., Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc, Marosásárhely/Targu Mures,Nagyvárad/Oradea, Szatmárnémeti/Satu Mare, and Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfantu Gheorghe) where the proportion of Hungarians exceeded 20% at the 2011 census. As such,only these five cities qualify for minority mother tongue usage in administration and justice offices.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
János Antal is the officer in charge of international and interfaith dialogue at the central office of the Reformed Church in Romania, Királyhágómellék District, since 2001. He has been teaching English as a Second Language at the Partium Christian University since 2006. He has been researching particular East-Central European religious and ethnic conflicts in the context of church/state relations at the doctoral school of the Selye János University of Slovakia since 2017.

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Before Wallenberg: Dr. Géza Soos and the Halting of the Deportations (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
After the famous Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on July 9th, 1944, one of the first persons he arranged to meet for orientation was Dr. Géza Soos. This is not surprising if we consider that, according to recently available documents, both men had been in close contact with American officials in Sweden (including the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA). Efforts to recruit and support both Soos and Wallenberg had to do with the lack of information about Hungary after its invasion by the Germans on March 19th, 1944.
Much research has been available about the rescue work of Wallenberg, but very little about Soos, a leading member of the secret MFM (the Hungarian Independence Movement), involved in efforts to help Jews. Soos acquired, first of all, a copy of the Auschwitz Report of Vrba and Wetzler, which he then smuggled into the hands of influential Hungarian leaders, including Regent Horthy. Documents suggest that Soos and his network were instrumental in uncovering a plot to carry out the deportation of the Budapest Jews, thereby defying Regent Horthy. This discovery provided the basis for the decisive action by Ferenc Koszorus, who entered the city with his tank division and halted the planned deportation. It is noteworthy that this occurred only a few days before Wallenberg’s arrival in the capital. In fact, the initiatives of Soos were necessary preconditions for the success of Wallenberg’s rescue efforts.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Born in Budapest, Hungary, Frank Baron emigrated to the United States in 1947. After studies at the University of Illinois (B.A), universities of Marburg and Göttingen in Germany, Indiana University (M.A.), and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D.). He began teaching at the University of Kansas in 1970, and while continuing his work as professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, he served as director of the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies for about fifteen years. Baron has published books and articles on various aspects of the European Faust tradition. His most comprehensive work on that topic appeared last year: Der Mythos des faustischen Teufelspakts. Together with the Hungarian journalist Sándor Szenes, he published Von Ungarn nach Auschwitz. Die verschwiegene Warnung.

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The Public Image of Austria-Hungary in Britain and British Foreign Policy Decision-Making in the Last Years of the Great Eastern Crisis, 1876-1878. (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper aims to discover the image of Austria-Hungary in the British press and its links to the formulation of foreign policy in the preceding years of the Congress of Berlin. British and other international experts in the field have conducted similar research to support their claims of linking public attitude and alliance systems of the time before the Great War. The sources of these studies consist mainly of newspapers and other periodicals of the time, as well as archive materials of diplomatic history. Although these works heavily favour the German allegiance to the Monarchy in retrospect, in this study the emphasis lies on the alternative option to the German alliance: the British-Austrian rapprochement. The existing literature briefly mentions that decision-makers saw such an alliance as an option. The engagement of the public – whether it supported or neglected the unlikely cordial relations – has been yet unstudied. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to examine what extent the public had a voice in foreign policy decision-making in the exemplary democracy of the continent at a moment of international crisis.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Bertalan Bordás is a Ph.D. student of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School of the University of Pécs. He has obtained his MA degree in International History in 2015 at the University of Pécs, and an MA in International Relations at the Corvinus University of Budapest in 2018. In his doctoral thesis, he investigates the international history of Austria-Hungary and Britain

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Why is the Rosika Schwimmer Collection in New York Worth for Research? (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Why would it be essential to carry out a systematic research on the estate of the world-wide known feminist and peace activist, Rosika Schwimmer (1877, Budapest–1948, New York)? Why has her figure been neglected by the Hungarian historiography and what kind of sources are there in the collection? In the presentation, I will seek answers to these questions relying on the latest researches on the Rosika Schwimmer Papers (592 boxes, 160 linear feet, almost 50 linear meter), preserved in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library. Apart from discussing the genesis, importance, and complex structure of the collection – on which Hungarian historians have not implemented a systematic investigation prior to my work – I will also delineate the possibilities of writing a scientific biography on Schwimmer. Furthermore, I aim to address the challenges, which historians, who intend to study the life and career of Schwimmer, have to face while conducting a research in this field.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dóra Czeferner: During my university years, I majored in history with a bachelor degree in English language. For a decade now, I have been dealing with bourgeois feminist movements in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which provided the topic for my PhD dissertation. I had conducted researches on certain aspects of the phenomenon for a longer period in Vienna, Leipzig and New York. Since 2019, I have been a junior research fellow at the (former) Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

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The Esztergár Cult in Pécs in the Context of Hungarian and U.S. Memory Politics (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Lajos Esztergár (1897 – 1978) is memorialized in Pécs in a number of ways. A street bears his name, as do an old age home, an annual prize for social work, a plaque at city hall, and the house where he lived. All these (except the street) are marked to remind us of Esztergár's contribution to the development of social welfare in Hungary. As a professor at the University of Pécs in the 1930s and as member of the city's administration, including being its mayor, Esztergár was the prime mover for the development of a system of poor relief, known as the Pécsi Norma (The Pécs System) during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. What is usually not mentioned on the prizes or plaques commemorating his career is that Esztergár was mayor of Pécs during the months in which the Jewish residents of the city and its surroundings were deported in 1944. Esztergár and the administration that he appointed played a major role in the ghettoization, deportation and material expropriation of the Jews of Pécs. This paper would explore Esztergár's role in both of these areas, try to understand the forces behind his current memorialization, place these into a national and internation context, and explore the question of whether his memory should be publicly preserved, and if so, how.
I should note that my mother and seven year old brother were deported to Auschwitz under Esztergár's administration. Only my mother returned.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
George Deák was born in Pécs, Hungary and emigrated to the U.S. in 1957. He earned his PhD in History from Columbia University in 1980. Having worked in the field of IT for thirty years, he returned to the history as an independent scholar in 2011. Most recently, he has translated and edited Ervin Sinkó's The Novel of a Novel, Abridged Diary Entries from Moscow, 1935-1937, Lexington Books, 2018. He taught at UMASS, Lowell, and is an Associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard.

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Nixon’s Encounter and Experience with Hungarians During his Trips to Austria, Camp Kilmer, and Budapest (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Vice President Richard Nixon paid a flying visit to Austria after the first major – 15,000 – quota increase for Hungarian refugees in December 1956, with a mission, which was also called Operation Mercy just like the action to resettle refugees in the United States, to find facts about the refugee crisis and make suggestions for an immigration reform. During his trip to Austria Nixon not only met with Austrian politicians and officials of relief organizations, not only visited refugee camps, but he went on a rather unnecessary night escapade near the border to pick up recent refugees. After Christmas, yet before he finalized his report to President Eisenhower, he made a one-day visit to Camp Kilmer, NJ to meet the President’s Committee and the newly arrived refugees in the Joyce Kilmer Reception Center. His suggestions for a new Immigration Law – unfortunately – were not accepted, yet temporary quotas were added several times by the President.
After two unsuccessful campaigns, Nixon with his family and friends took a Summer vacation in Europe and Egypt, including the only country in the Soviet block: Hungary, in 1963. What were his impressions of the refugees in 1956, and the Hungarian capital in general while walking on the streets of, or visiting a mid-week market in Budapest? I’ll also discuss his contacts with emigré politicians and organizations, and how they might have influenced his attitude towards Hungarians.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nóra Deák is a PhD student in American Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Her research topic is the reception, registration, and resettlement of the 1956 Hungarian refugees in the United States. She majored in English and Russian languages and literatures, graduated in 1990 in Debrecen, then received an LIS MA degree 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. Her research was supported by a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholarship at the American Hungarian Foundation, and by Rutgers University Libraries as a Visiting Research Student during 2014 and 2015 in New Brunswick, NJ. She participated in the Mikes Kelemen Program in 2017/18.

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Hungary’s Diaspora Engagement Practices (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the first half of my presentation I will analyze the development of the expanded diaspora politics of Hungary on four levels: 1) at the level of legislation; 2) at the level of decisions-making bodies and consultative forums; 3) at the level of financial support, and 4) at the level of specific programs. In reference to the latter, I will examine the Kőrösi Csoma Sándor Program (KCSP), which was initiated in 2013. Every year with this program the government sends 50–150 grantees to different parts of the world, to assist diaspora organizations. For a deeper understanding of this program, I carried out a survey research about the activities of the KCSP grantees of two successive years (2016–2017 and 2017–2018). From their responses it has been possible to conclude which activities provided more and which ones provide less importance in the diaspora communities dispersed all around the world.
In the second half of my presentation I will present the results of another research project focused on the Hungarian diaspora’s organizational life. The target group of the research consisted of the leaders of those diaspora organizations, which are members of the Hungarian Diaspora Council. The questionnaire dealt with three issues: 1) the organization’s characteristics, local conditions and opportunities; 2) regional networks and contacts; and 3) relationship with the kin-state. The latter issue is related to how Hungary’s diaspora engagement practices—analyzed in the first half of my presentation—are received by the affected diaspora communities.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dániel Gazsó was born in 1984 in Budapest, Hungary. He completed his studies in social and cultural anthropology at the University of Granada in Spain. Since 2015 he is a research fellow at the Research Institute for Hungarian Communities Abroad (NPKI), and since 2018 he is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Public Governance and International Studies of the National University of Public Service in Budapest. He is co-editor of the social science journals Kisebbségi Szemle and Hungarian Journal of Minority Studies. His research topics are concerned with national minorities, interethnic relations, nationalism, kin-state policies, migration and diaspora studies.

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Panel proposal: The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Crisis. III. Worker, Writer, Student, Spy: Hungarian Refugees in the UK, 1956-1959 (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
After the Soviet army suppressed the Hungarian revolution in November 1956, approx. 200,000 Hungarians left the country. More than 20,000 of them travelled to Britain between November 1956 and May 1957 as the British government offered to accept all refugees without limit. The Hungarian refugees had different social backgrounds. Most of them were workers who found jobs in Britain relatively easily. 5,000 Hungarians were recruited and trained to be coalminers, although, given the resistance of British miners, only few of them found jobs in the pits. There were some “intellectuals” among the refugees, university professors, writers, artists, many of whom made successful careers in the UK. Hundreds of Hungarian students could continue their studies at British universities and polytechnics. The overwhelming majority of Hungarian refugees successfully integrated into British society in the following decades. The British society welcomed the Hungarians with enthusiasm and sympathy. The refugees were given accommodation, clothes, and food. Free language courses, information booklets and even a Hungarian-language weekly newspaper were offered to them in the refugee camps. Although there were some occasional conflicts between the refugees and the locals, most Brits accepted the Hungarians. The paper will show how the British government, together with various charity organizations, helped the Hungarian refugees and how the refugees of different social background were integrated into the British society.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Gyula Hegedüs is a chair of department and associate professor at Budapest Business School. He graduated in History and English from Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (ELTE) in 1995 and received his PhD summa cum laude in 2012 after completing the 19th and 20th century Hungarian History program of the Doctoral School of History of ELTE. His main field of research is British-Hungarian relations in the Cold War era with a special focus on diplomatic and economic relations in the post-war years and the reception of Hungarian refugees after the 1956 revolution.

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Panel proposal: The History of Hungarian Christian Democratic Movements 1930-1970. III. Hungarian Christian Democrats in Exile (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Christian Democratic movements as a political force emerged in Hungary the 1930’s. Prior to WWII, there were three distinct factions, two of which had strong ties to the Vatican and the Horthyist Hungarian government, the third were those whose leadership consisted primarily of journalists and young intellectuals and remained free of ties to the Hungarian government but also to the Catholic political elements. In the complex post-war period these various factions jockeyed for influence and attempted to consolidate their power base. Although by 1947, the communists having driven both the elected Prime Minister and the Head of Parliament from the country along with over seventy other elected officials, the Christian Democrats found themselves in a losing battle with the dominant pro-USSR forces. From 1945-1949 all major Christian Democratic leaders fled the country and regrouped in exile, where they operated independently and then consolidated their resources and efforts. This paper today will explore the activities and influence of the Christian Democratic Party and its leadership in exile from the 1940’s – to approximately 1970 as well as some of ways they set the stage for their return to Hungary post-1989.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Katalin Kádár Lynn is a historian based in Budapest and California whose principal area of scholarship is World War II and the Cold War with an emphasis on Central and East European émigré political activities and organizations.
She is the founder and Editor in Chief of Helena History Press, LLC a publishing house specializing in scholarship about and from Central and East Europe in English.  She most recently edited and contributed to The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare: Cold War Organizations sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe/ Free Europe Committee (Helena History Press, 2013).
She is currently researching and writing an expanded biography of Tibor Eckhardt, which will encompass his Hungarian years and his wartime and Cold War intelligence activities. An extract from that volume has been published in the e-journal Intelligence and National Security.

She earned a BA from the University of Colorado, Denver; a Master’s degree at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo and a PhD at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.
In 2011 she was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. She is an outside member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

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Panel proposal: The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Crisis. IV. Global UN Press Campaign for the Hungarian Refugees (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The great wave of Hungarian migration which followed the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution by the Soviets, and the international rescue movement organised for its reception, is an outstanding chapter in the history of migrations in Hungary and the world alike. The provision of the some 200 thousand people was a conspicuous success of the international organisation of migrant assistance service, in which the institutions of the UN family played a decisive role. This paper examines the role that the UN played in providing the financial means on which this miraculous series of events was based. According to the author’s conclusions, through the coordination of money-raising efforts, sanctioned by international law (that is, the decisions of the UN General Assembly), the professional and trustworthy documentation of humanitarian needs and activities, as well as the equally professionally organised and coordinated media campaign in order to support the money-raising efforts, the institutional network of the UN contributed considerably to the formation of a unity of opinion on the part of the Western governments and to its practical implementation. The present paper is based on documents from the archives of the UN itself (New York, Geneva) and the UNHCR Archives (Geneva).


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Gusztáv D. Kecskés is a senior research fellow of the Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History (Budapest). He received his PhD (history of the international relations) from the University of Paris III, Sorbonne and University of Pécs in 2003. He conducted extensive research in the archives of European great powers and international organizations. He published books about French-Hungarian relations and French foreign policy towards East Central Europe in the 20th century, Hungary and the United Nations and the international reception of the 1956 Hungarian refugees.

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The Role of Violence in the American (1776) and the Hungarian (1849) Declarations of Independence (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Former analyzers of the American and the Hungarian Declarations of Independence rarely observed the role violence and the description of violent actions played in the rhetorical argumentation of the two declarations. In the American document great emphasis had been laid on the violent actions of the “foreign mercenaries”, the “merciless Indian savages”, and the slaves who revolted against their American masters. According to the argumentation of the American declaration all these violent groups were in the service of the tyrannical king of Britain to deprive the Americans from their well-deserved freedom. One can find very similar reasoning in the Hungarian declaration as well. According to it, the Habsburg rulers of Hungary were trying to deprive the Hungarians from their ancient liberties by the help of a foreign army, and the national minority groups of Hungary, the members of which committed violent and inhuman actions very similar to the brutal deeds of the above mentioned enemies of American liberty. The authors of the original drafts of the two declarations (Thomas Jefferson and Lajos Kossuth) used very similar language to describe the violent actions of their adversaries. I think that this topic fits into the theme of this year’s conference, since it deals with the interaction of Hungarians and others on two different levels. On the one hand it studies the interaction of Hungarians and the national minority groups during the War of Independence in 1848-1849, and on the other, it also deals with the impact of the American Declaration of Independence on its Hungarian counterpart.
Type of presentation: paper



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Csaba Lévai teaches 18th- and 19th-century history at the University of Debrecen. His research interests are the history of the British colonies in North America, the history of the American Revolution, the history of slavery in British North America and the United States of America, and the history of early Hungarian-American contacts. He was a two-times Fulbright scholar at the University of Virginia, and he was also a research fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies (Charlottesville, Virginia), and at the Fred W. Smith Library for the Study of George Washington (Mount Vernon, Virginia).

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American-Hungarian Immigrants in the Aftermath of 1956 - Portraits and Life Stories

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Those forced to resettle, war orphans, so-called „enemies of the people”, students turned freedom fighters… and many others, lives, often heartbreaking at the outset, in 1956 resulted in a veritable flood of people leaving Hungary. The 1956 uprising and freedom fight is a pivotal point not only in the history of Hungary but in the history of American-Hungarian immigration as well. In 2016 on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the 1956 uprising the Hungarian House of New York conducted an oral history research followed by an exhibit depicting the stories of the participating freedom fighters and immigrants, displaying their portraits and personal artifacts from 1956. Our goal was to contribute in this way to deepening the awareness of the stories of Hungarians living as immigrants. The facts from the past only read about in history books, certain historical events, among them the events of 1956, were brought to life through the sixteen life stories presented. By means of the interviews we got a detail-rich depiction of the middle of the twentieth century, whereby we became familiar with the lives of the subjects and their families, their habits, their daily lives, their value systems, and mentality. One of the most interesting outcomes of the interviews came about not as a result of conscious planning. The interviewees were selected at random, but they ended up showing us entirely distinct segments of society. Like a hand fan with the individual parts representing distinct sections of society, where the end of the fan, that is where the individual parts overlap, was their emigration in 1956. Before they set off each individual belonged to a separate, distinct social group, after they left the country, they all became refugees of 1956. We gained insight, inter alia, into the life of a well-to-do peasant family resettled to the Hortobágy region, the family of a factory-owner resettled to the countryside, a Jewish family which had survived the Holocaust, a middle-class family from the Upland region (Felvidék), the family of a factory worker from Csepel, several families of the intelligentsia from Budapest and an aristocratic family from Transylvania.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nagy, Ildiko was born in and grew up in Győr, Hungary. She completed her graduate
studies in Budapest at Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Sociology, after which she received a PhD grant from the Department of Social Sciences and started to work as a researcher at the Institute for Political Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her special field of interest was the economic and social transformation of the
Hungarian countryside. Simultaneously with her academic work she was involved in the
operation of various nonprofit organizations in Hungary, as the music program organizer
of the Mediawave Festival and as the operations manager of the Ordasok Foundation.In addition, she was the editor and host of a monthly radio show on the Bartók Station of
Hungarian National Radio and a member of the board of directors of the European Jazz
Network. She moved to the United States in 2009. In 2014 she accepted a position as
the director of the Hungarian House of New York, a non-profit corporation and
community venue. Currently she is enrolled in the master’s program in Nonprofit
Management at Columbia University.

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Panel proposal: The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Crisis. II. Austria 1956: Catholics and Jews Together and Apart (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian refugee crisis was a decisive stage in the emergence of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and his agency as international coordinator of refugee relief. Far less known is the role of refugee affairs in the evolution of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews from the Holocaust to the renunciation of anti-Semitism in the declaration Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Some Austrian and Hungarian Catholics acted against the persecution of the Jews, but a greater number took an ambiguous or complicit stance. The role of the Holy See was complex and remains controversial. The postwar leaders of Catholic refugee relief in Germany and Austria, Alois Eckert and Leopold Ungar, belonged to the small group of Catholic leaders who engaged in the Catholic-Jewish dialog in their countries. Ungar’s newly appointed archbishop in Vienna who became prominent in Vatican II, Franz König, facilitated the interconfessional collaboration of the relief agencies during the 1956 crisis and measures to reduce tensions that included separate emergency housing and Kosher food services. These men were attentive to Christian-Jewish tensions in the camps and expressed concern about incidents publicized by the JDC and the press.
Documentation for this paper includes the records of the Deutscher Caritasverband (Freiburg), the Caritaszentrale Wien (Vienna), and the Joint Distribution Committee (New York).


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James P. (Jim) Niessen earned his Ph.D at Indiana University with a dissertation on religion and politics in nineteenth century Transylvania. He has published several studies on the Romanian and Hungarian national movements. After supervising the digitization ten years ago of a portion of the records of the President’s Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief, he shifted the focus of his research to the reception of the 56ers and has published various studies on this topic in Hungary and the US. Since 2001 he is World History Librarian at Rutgers University. He served two terms as President of AHEA in 2014-18.

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The Redefinition of the Hungarian Nation Concept (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian kinstate has institutionalized relations to ethnic Hungarians who live outside its territory by granting them dual citizenship and non-resident voting rights. At the heart of the policy is the redefinition of the nation on an ethno-cultural basis to encompass all ethnic Hungarians in a united nation that stretches across state borders. The kinstate took up the representation of the interests of its ethnic kin by asserting that its responsibilities transcend territory and citizenship. It sought to monitor the situation of ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries and felt obliged to help them reach their basic aspirations, collective rights and a form of autonomy in the region where they live. Ethnic Hungarians worldwide greeted dual citizenship as a badge of identity that makes it clear that they belong to the Hungarian nation. In Hungary, a long-standing controversy over the ethno-cultural and political concept of the nation revolves around the question whether ethnic Hungarians are an integral part of Hungarian nation or belong to the political nation of their home states whose major responsibility it is to guarantee their rights. Many Western observers greeted the use of dual citizenship and voting rights to integrate migrants into Western societies but criticized its use to strengthen the ethnic identity of national minorities. I examine Hungarian kinstate policy in the framework of nationalism and analyze the reactions to it in Hungary, among Hungarian minorities and the countries where they live as well as in the EU.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Edith Oltay is a political scientist who finished her undergraduate studies in the USA and received her M.A. in political science with sociology and philosophy as minor subjects, from the University of Bonn. Since 1990, the development of the Hungarian party system has been the focus of her research. In this context, she came to concentrate on the topic of Hungarian kinstate policy, competing nation concepts, the situation and aspirations of Hungarian minorities. She is currently PhD student at the National University of Public Service Budapest, her thesis: “From Status Law to Citizenship: The Redefinition of the Hungarian Nation Concept” focuses on the key aspects of Hungarian kinstate policy.

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The Life of Töhötöm Nagy, a Hungarian Jesuit, Freemason and Collaborator of the Hungarian State Security (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Töhötöm Nagy was a Hungarian Jesuit (1908-1979), who lived an extraordinary life that included several stages first in the Jesuit order, later as an emigrant freemason in South America, and finally in Hungary again as a secret agent of the communist political police. The paper would focus on each stages of his life, thus contributing to understand his decisions and motifs.
After intensive Jesuit studies, which included theology, philosophy and sociology, Nagy started his clerical career as one of the leaders of the most successful Catholic youth movement in interwar Hungary, KALOT (Catholic Society for Agrarian Youth). As he dealt with social problems, he was involved in the struggles for an agrarian reform policy. In 1945-1946 Nagy travelled six times between Budapest and Rome and became a chief negotiator between the Vatican, the Hungarian Catholic church and the Soviets. Since he could not agree with Cardinal Mindszenty and his policy, Mindszenty saw to it that Nagy should leave Hungary: he was “sentenced” to exile in South America. Because of his disappointments, however, Nagy left the Jesuit order in 1948. Later he became a member of the Hungarian freemason community in Argentina, but after the Hungarian political police offered him a chance to return to Hungary, in 1968 he moved to Budapest. Until his death he was used by the state security as a secret agent.



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.

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The View of the Other: Hungarians as Jews and Jews as Hungarians in Racial Discourses at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
My paper examines at the turn of the 20th century history of Neolog Jewish race theories. I analyze how Neolog Jews were influenced by the race theories of Hungarian nationalism and drew up alternative racial definitions of Jewishness and Hungarianness. I point out how their discourses were multidimensional and even self-contradictory about who is a Hungarian. I document the diversity as well as introduce the framework of Hungarian Jewish discourses of self-understanding with relation to Hungarian nationalism, anti-Semitism, and Oriental Studies. By focusing on the idea of national unity and common origin I am able to go into the subtext of the relationship between Hungarians and Jews. My goal is to draw a portrait of a group and explain their importance. I approach their discourse through an intellectual historiography. In promoting the idea of a race-based identity these scholars imitated European theories of culture and civilization, and also offered their own personal interpretations of the relationship between race and nation, an interpretation, which reflected the particular ethnic condition of Hungary. The examination of their ideas gives us a perspective that is significant for understanding modern Hungary at large and specifically is essential to the understanding of the self-imaginings of a Hungarian minority community.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I received my PhD from Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. I teach at Louisiana State University in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. My research interest includes Modern Hungarian History and literature, with special emphasis on Hungarian Jewish intellectual history.

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Panel proposal: The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Crisis. I. The Post-1956 Refugee Crisis and Hungarian Émigré Communities During the Cold War: A New Project (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A new project will be introduced that (1) maps and processes little explored relevant émigré archival collections, (2) synthetizes existing scholarship and links researchers in the field to enhance scholarly exchange, (3) publishes a handbook of the post-1956 refugee crisis in print and (4) extensive basic datasets on Hungarian refugees in an accessible digital format to provide further aid for researchers. (5) It also sets up an online portal that serves as a gateway to the Hungarian émigré world and invites the Hungarian diaspora to contribute on the life trajectories of former 1956 refugees with a public profile. A georeferenced (GIS) linked database of Hungarian refugees, émigré communities and related infrastructures in the Benelux states from 1956 to 1989 will be set up as a pilot project. This map- and graph-based database will visualize migration paths and general data on migrant communities; record individuals and their life stories based on currently accessible data; and register émigré institutions (organizations, publishing houses, printing presses). Introducing the project in an early stage provides an opportunity for potential users, that is scholars in Hungarian Studies, to give feedback and shape the project according to their needs. The ultimate objective is to achieve a breakthrough in the research of 1956 refugees and their international legacy and redefine the Hungarian revolution in the context of world history.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tamás Scheibner is an Assistant Professor in Literary and Cultural Studies at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (ELTE), and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He deals with 20th century cultural and intellectual history. He has been Registry Manger and Executive Board Member on the project COURAGE: Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries. His latest co-edited book: Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe: Tropes and Trends (Routledge, 2020).

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"Jews," "Hungarians," "Hungarian Jews" (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
I would like to give a short overview about the history of the relationship between the Jews and non-Jews in Hungary. I will tell how Jews were looked upon by non-Jews in the different periods of the twentieth century. I try to make a difference between the official attitude of various political regimes and the attitude of the general public. Through the twentieth century Jews were considered alternately as members of a denomination, as members of a distinct race, as members of an ethnic group, or their group identity was totally ignored.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tamas Stark is senior research fellow at the Research Centre for the Humanities,Institute of History. His specialization is forced population movement in East-Central-Europe in the period of 1938 and 1956, with special regard to the history of the Holocaust, the fate of prisoners of war and civilian internees, and the postwar migrations. He is member of the "World War II. History" subcommittee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 2014 he was visiting professor at Nazareth College in Rochester NY in USA.

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Panel Proposal: The History of Hungarian Christian Democratic Movements 1930-1970. I. The Concept of Vocational Order – A basis of Hungarian Christian Democracy (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian Christian Democracy’s ideological roots can be found in the concept of ”vocational order”, therefore this theory is worth investigation. The various European authoritarian crisis-solving attempts of the 1920s and 1930s – Bolshevik nationalization, Fascist corporatism and the National Socialist economic governance model – aimed at organizing all the employers and employees and forcing them to establish new types of interest-representing organizations. Pius XI’s papal encyclical letter beginning as “Quadragesimo anno” in 1931, however intended to provide an alternative for solving social problems – against the Bolshevik, Socialist and Fascist agenda. Its central concept stated that it is necessary to establish a new social order. The encyclical letter expressed that founding interest reconciling professional communities (vocational orders) as the solution, instead of launching class war and political struggles. This aim was to be reached by reconstructing the economic and social structure on the basis of concept of vocational order. Pius XI expressed his belief that vocational orders must be founded on the ideas of solidarity, subsidiarity.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Peter Strausz, PhD, habil. is a Hungarian historian, associate professor at the Institute of Management of Corvinus University of Budapest. His major field of research is the history of the 20th century in Hungary, the history of advocacy organisations, e.g. chambers, the theoretical background of social partnership and the history of Hungarian and Central European management. In previous years he participated in several Hungarian National Science Research Projects (OTKA). Besides he worked as research coordinator at the Prime Minister’s Office and head of department at Institute for Hungarian Language Strategy. He was the first director of Habsburg Otto Foundation founded by the Hungarian government.

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Child and Family Benefits in Hungary to Halt Population Decline: 1965-2020 (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungary faces a significant population loss based on the long-term demographic forecast. Firstly, this paper present the continuing low level of Hungarian fertility, as well as the marked loss of population due to emigration during the period of post-socialist change between 1989 and 2020. Secondly, it discusses the role the government’s family policies play in halting fertility decline before 1989 in the demographic post-transitional period of 1960-1980 and in the past thirty years since 1989. Thirdly, it particularly aims to highlight the impact of the new family policy since 2010, the reverse redistribution of resources from poor to the better-off families, which did not result in the growth of birth rates. The new family benefits possibly further contribute to the existing polarization of Hungarian society without altering the Hungarian demographic data. Briefly, the paper also compares the recent changes in family policies in Poland, Hungary, and Romania since 1990.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ildikó Szántó received her M.A. degree in History from Macquarie University, N.S.W. She has taught interdisciplinary courses focusing on the ideological movements of the twentieth century in East-Central Europe at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the Budapest Business School.

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Immigrant Crossroads: Changes in Hungarian Immigration to North America, 1917-1929 (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper presents a peculiar phase of Hungarian immigration history to North America, examining the period between 1917 and 1929. This was a time of major restrictions in the United States and new opportunities for immigrants in neighboring countries, especially Canada (and to a lesser extent Mexico). The paper introduces changing trends in immigration patterns in an inter-American context, primarily focusing on how the immigration policies of countries in the region were intertwined (especially in the minds of Hungarian immigrants) and how they influenced Hungarian migration patterns. While in the United States East-Central European immigrants faced increasing rejection and closing gates (with the country introducing a literacy test and later national quotas that practically ended the period of New Immigration), immigration policies in Canada (whereby Hungarian immigrants were finally included in the same category as immigrants from Western European countries, thus leaving behind their “non-preferred” status) resulted in major changes in Hungarian migration patterns. Besides an international policy overview and the discussion of the historical background of changes (in the US, Canada as well as Mexico), the paper also looks at other forces influencing decisions of Hungarian emigrants at the time, including the changing images of countries in North America and immigration propaganda.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Balázs Venkovits, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in American Studies, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen. Research interests: migration studies, travel writing studies, writings of travelers and immigrants in North America, US-Hungarian relations, etc. He teaches courses on American civilization, history, travel writing, and translation. His first monograph was published in 2018. His articles have been published in HJEAS, Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing (US), Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny (Poland), IdeAs. Idées d’Amérique (France), etc. He is currently working on his book on Hungarian emigration to Canada in the inter-war period.

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Panel Proposal: The History of Hungarian Christian Democratic Movements 1930-1970. II.The Forming of a Modern Christian Democracy in Hungary: Győr 1943 and Beyond (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
One of the most intense, yet not fully explored periods of modern Hungarian intellectual history can be found between the two world wars. This is largely true of the Catholic, Jesuit-driven economic and political thinking of the Church's social teaching, within which Hungarian sociologists, theologians, and economists joined a very broad European discourse and sought to elaborate a new, traditional conceptualization of the state. From the first minute on, the personalities of Béla Kovrig, Vid Mihelics, Zoltán Magyary, József Freesz, László Varga, Sándor Meggyesi or Jenő Kerkai were among the most influential figures in the scientific debate. Alongside them, a dozen mostly Catholic thinkers expressed their views and ideas on the contemporary socio-economic crisis and how it can be overcome by Catholic solutions. Especially in times of spreading totalitarian ideas, they held on to a new democratic state structure and wanted to reform the whole state through vocational order and a new social economic concept. One of the most important steps towards a new Christian Democracy in Hungary was the secret meeting in Győr in August 1943 and the launching of the Katolikus Szociális Népmozgalom (Catholic Social People's Movement). The study provides an insight into these developments, into the ideas on state and politics of early Christian Democracy and its connections to the ideas of vocational order in Hungary.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Péter Krisztián Zachar, Phd, habil. is a Hungarian historian, associate professor, head of the Department for International Relations and Diplomacy at the National University of Public Service. His major field of research is the history of the 19th and 20th century in Central Europe, the history of advocacy organisations, e.g. chambers, the theoretical background of social partnership, the catholic social thought and the history of international relations. In previous years he participated in several Hungarian National Science Research Projects (OTKA) and was the leader of the OTKA-research group „Economic and social reform-concepts and social models in the interwar period”.

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