Position: Senior Research Fellow

Department: Contemporary History

Address: 1097 Budapest, 4 Tóth Kálmán Street

Room: B.5.40.

Phone: +36 1 224-6700/4670

Email:

QUALIFICATIONS

Habilitation in Literary Studies, Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), Faculty of Humanities, 2020

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), Faculty of Humanities, 2012

M. A. in History, Central European University (CEU), 2006

M. A. in Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), Faculty of Humanities, 2003

RESEARCH EXPERTISE

19-20^th century, cultural history, intellectual history, migration history, Central and Eastern Europe

PROJECTS

The Post-1956 Refugee Crisis and Hungarian Émigré Communities during the Cold War (2020-2024)

This project aims to provide a systematic and comprehensive examination of one of the most significant refugee crises in Europe recently, the migration and subsequent fate of some two hundred thousand people who left Hungary in 1956/57 because of the Soviet invasion.

ÉMIGRÉ EUROPE - Civil Engagement Transfers between Eastern Europe and the Low Countries, 1933-1989 (2021-2023)

This project investigates how Eastern European émigrés affected the local communities they joined and what influence they had on social and religious movements, civil society and community values, reversing the traditional historiographical research concerns that primarily focus on migrant adaptation to their host societies. The project also focuses on the interactions between immigrant circles of diverse linguistic and national backgrounds. By bringing these aspects into focus, the project aims to reach a more subtle understanding of the emergence of a European culture of inclusivity and civil activism during the postwar period.

NEP4DISSENT - New Exploratory Phase in Research on Eastern European Cultures of Dissent (2017-2021)

This project’s Working Group 4: Cultural Memory of Dissent focused on exploring the cultures of remembrance of pre-1989 East European dissent across Europe. It examined the construction of the oppositional legacy through both official and alternative narratives; the attempts at integrating this legacy in the broader European culture of remembrance; and the contemporary uses of the dissident past within the EU and among its neighbors. Special attention was devoted to the guiding principles behind the preservation and digitization of the dissident heritage, the varied public functions of remembering dissent, and the role of transnational actors and networks in those activities.

COURAGE - Cultural Opposition: Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries (2016-2019)

This Horizon 2020 project explored the genesis and trajectories of private and public collections on cultural opposition movements in former socialist countries in Europe, with particular consideration given to how their transition from opposition to mainstream and private to public occurred; the political and social roles and uses of the collections before 1989 and since, and the efforts that have been made by national governments to preserve, maintain or add to them; the role of exiles in supporting, preserving and disseminating these collections beyond the Iron Curtain and back home, and the uses of collections that were created by the exile community; material culture represented by these documents, objects and audio-visual footage; the organization and the order of the collections as they are represented, particularly in the dataset and reference systems; the social background and life trajectories of the working staff of the collections; the sociology of institutions, stakeholders, their legal frameworks, financial backgrounds, ownership and management, the social and cultural composition of their audiences and the uses to which the collections are put in historical studies and culture; the networking and cooperative capacity of different types of collections.

COMPACT - Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories in Europe (2016-2020)

The aim of this COST Action has been to develop a comparative and multidisciplinary approach to the research of conspiracy theories. This has involved comparing research on conspiracy theories in a range of cultures and regions, as well as different historical periods. The network has combined research from qualitative and quantitative approaches, including history, literary and cultural studies, sociology, politics, communication studies, anthropology, philosophy and psychology.

PUBLICATIONS

A complete list of publications: mtmt.hu

List of selected publications:

• Egy világraszóló történet: Az 1956-os magyar menekültválság kézikönyve [The Handbook of the 1956 Hungarian Refugees]. Budapest: BTK TTI, 2022. (Co-editor: Gusztáv D. Kecskés)
• “Beyond Anti-Fascist Heroism: Representations of Buchenwald in Hungarian Literature. ” In Buchenwald: Zur europäischen Textgeschichte eines Konzentrationslagers, edited by Stephan Pabst, 111-136. (Co-author: Ferenc Laczó). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022.
• Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe: Tropes and Trends. London: Routledge, 2021. (Co-editors: Anastasiya Astapova, Onoriu Colăcel, and Corneliu Pintilescu). Paperback edition: 2022.
• “The Myth of a Judeo-Bolshevik Conspiracy in Hungary, Within and Beyond the Far Right.” In Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe: Tropes and Trends, edited by Anastasiya Astapova, Onoriu Colăcel, Corneliu Pintilescu, and Tamás Scheibner, 89-109. (Co-author: Péter Csunderlik). London: Routledge, 2021. Paperback edition: 2022.
• “Cultural Opposition: Concepts and Approaches.” In The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and Its Heritage in Eastern Europe, edited by Balázs Apor, Péter Apor and Sándor Horváth, 9—26. (Co-authors: Balázs Apor, Péter Apor and Sándor Horváth). Budapest: HAS, 2018.
• “Archiving the Literature and Theater of Dissent: Beyond the Canon.” In The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and Its Heritage in Eastern Europe, edited by Balázs Apor, Péter Apor and Sándor Horváth, 307—28. Budapest: HAS, 2018. (co-author: Kathleen Cioffi)
• "Introducing Socialist Realism in Hungary, 1945–1951: How Politics Made Aesthetics." In Socialist Realism in Central and Eastern European Literatures under Stalin: Institutions, Dynamics, Discourses, edited by Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol, 237-59. London: Anthem, 2018.
• "From the Jewish Renaissance to Socialist Realism: Imre Keszi in the Thrall of Utopia." In Catastrophe and Utopia: Jewish Intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joachim von Puttkamer, 223-261. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2017.
• "Building Empire through Self-Colonization: Literary Canons and Budapest as Sovietized Metropolis." In Postcolonial Europe?: Essays on Post-Communist Literatures and Cultures, edited by Dobrota Pucherová and Robert Gáfrik, 215-41. Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2015.