Setting the Rules for "Business as Usual": Establishing Bilateral US-Hungarian Relations, 1919–1925

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Between December 1919, when Ulysses Grant-Smith assumed ad interim consular duties in Budapest, and June 1925, when the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights was signed, the US and Hungary went from technically being at war to setting up functioning bilateral relations for the first time ever in the history of the two countries. This five and a half-year period was a time of transition, with three US presidents and four Hungarian prime ministers serving in office, while the US mission in Budapest was headed by three different people. In this paper I explain and evaluate the various key issues that had to be resolved on the highest level, ranging from terminating hostilities, making peace, handling the legacy of the Austro-Hungarian empire, setting up economic and cultural ties, and managing transatlantic migration. While the period between 1919 and 1921 has been addressed by historians Tibor Frank and Peter Pastor (as well as the present author), the developments in bilateral relations between August 1921 and June 1925 (the signing of the two treaties between the US and Hungary) have received only tangential attention (John Swanson, Peter Buckingham, Frank Costigliola).


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tibor Glant is associate professor at the North American Department, University of Debrecen and research professor at the John Lukacs Institute of the Ludovika University of Public Service, Budapest. He has a combined BA and MA in history and English from KLTE, Debrecen (1991), and an MA (1993) and PhD (1996) in history from the University of Warwick, UK. He has published 8 books and dozens of scholarly articles on US-Hungarian relations and US foreign policy as well as on film travel writing. https://ieas.unideb.hu/en/dr-tibor-glant & glant.tibor@uni-nke.hu