Accepted Abstracts -- 2021

The Treaty of Trianon and the Consequences of Dictated Terms

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
On the 100th Anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon (1920) this event will also be remembered and analyzed in Pécs at the 2020 Conference of the American Hungarian Educators Association. In his keynote, Professor András Ludányi will reflect on the historical background of this event and on the demographic, cultural, economic and political consequences for Hungarians and for East-Central Europe as a whole. His analysis will compare the major phases of the consequences during the inter-war nationalist period, the Stalinist and post-Stalinist communist period and the present phase since regime change in 1989-91. While the studies of Teleki Pál, Szász Zsombor and C.A. Macartney provide much of the background, the recent analyses of Bárdi Nándor, Szarka László, Schöpflin György and Kántor Zoltán have much more to say about the consequences. To what extent have these different periods really mattered? In a world of transnational corporate interests can loyalties to the EU change our relations to existing states and nations? The intent of this keynote is not to rehash the past but to provoke a re-thinking about the entire region’s interests and future.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
András Ludányi graduated from Elmhurst College (Illinois) with a History major and a Political Science minor in 1963. He earned his M.A. (1966) and Ph.D.(1971) in Political Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He joined the faculty of Ohio Northern University (Ada) in 1968 as a member of the History and Political Science Department, wherein his specialty sub-fields were Comparative Politics and International Relations. His research has focused on interethnic and inter-nationality relations in East Central Europe and the United States, with particular attention on developments in Transylvania and Voivodina. He has published numerous articles and reviews and edited four books in his research area. He received an IREX/Fulbright grant to continue his research in this area at the Gorky Library in Budapest (1982-83) and was a visiting Fulbright Professor at Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetem from Fall semester, 1992 to the end of Winter semester, 1993. He also was co-organizer and instructor of the Summer Hungarian Studies Program at Portland State University from 1974-1979, and its continuation at ONU from 1980-85. He was conference organizer and guest lecturer at a number of institutions in Ohio including Kent State University, the University of Toledo, Oberlin College, and Bluffton College. He also organized Human Rights Workshops from 1989 to 2000 to influence American policy in East Central Europe. Some selected recent publications include: „The Bolyai University and Minority Elite Recruitment: 1944-1959,”(2007); „American and Hungarian Perspectives on Minority Issues,”(2011); „Absent-Minded, Uncoerced and ’Painless’: Hungarian Assimilation in the United States,”(2017). In recognition of his work at ONU he received the Wilfred E. Binkley Chair of History and Political Science for three years and the Kernan Robson Chair in Politics for ten years. From the Hungarian state he received the „Köztársasági Érdemrend Kiskeresztje” in 1992 and the „Magyar Érdemrend Lovagkeresztje” in 2019 in recognition of both his scholarly and organizational work. He was also co-founder of the Hungarian Communion of Friends (MBK/ITT-OTT) and associate editor of its journal and yearbook from 1967 to the present. He retired from ONU in 2008 but has continued his active scholarship through the Nemzetpolitikai Kutató Intézet in Hungary.

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