A transnational Model Transfer: The attempts of Töhötöm Nagy to establish Catholic agrarian youth organizations in South America

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Land reform policies and questions of the social mobility of the peasantry were topical and controversial issues of interwar Hungary. In the 1930s also the churches had their voice heard in the issue: in accordance with the recommendations of the encyclical “Quadragesimo anno” of pope Pius XI, several new organizations were founded, of which KALOT, the Catholic Agrarian Youth Organization became the most successful initiative. KALOT was established by Jesuit theoreticians and social workers, and in a couple of years it counted more than 500,000 members with a nationwide network.
The Hungarian Jesuit Töhötöm Nagy was one of the leaders of KALOT. He assisted KALOT’s activity until its ban by the communist authorities in 1946. When Nagy had to emigrate to South America in 1947, he started social work among the Uruguay peasantry and applied the successful methods of KALOT. Having left the Jesuit order, however, Nagy did not give up his social ideas, and in the 1960s he worked among the poor again, this time in Argentina. As he transferred the Hungarian model of KALOT to South American circumstances, his views also developed on the political potential of the Catholic social teaching: in Argentina he witnessed the birth of liberation theology. In my presentation first I introduce the model of KALOT, then I give an account of Töhötöm Nagy’s experiments to transfer these good practices to South American circumstances.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva Petrás (PhD) studied at Pécs University with double majors in history and English and subsequently received her second M.A. degree in modern history at Central European University in Budapest. Between 1995 and 2000 she was a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, where she obtained her PhD in the department of History and Civilization in 2003. Until 2008 she was a researcher at the European Comparative Minority Research Institute (EÖKIK). Between 2009 and 2020 she worked in the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL) and currently she is a senior research fellow at the Committee of National Remembrance (NEB) in Budapest. In 2023 she received her university habilitation degree at Eötvös Loránd University.