Ágnes Tóth's German-language book Deutsche in Ungarn 1950-1970. Die deutsche Minderheit zwischen Stalinismus und Kádár-Regime was published by De Gruyter Brill.

Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg waren die im Land verbliebenen Ungarndeutschen zahlreichen Repressionen unterworfen. Ab 1950 konsolidierte sich deren Lage allmählich. Ágnes Tóth analysiert anhand zahlreicher Archivbestände die von vielen Widersprüchen gekennzeichnete Politik der ungarischen Staats- und Parteiführung gegenüber den Ungarndeutschen sowie die Bemühungen der deutschen Minderheit, als Teil der ungarischen Gesellschaft anerkannt zu werden. Dabei mussten sich die Ungarndeutschen nicht nur gegen die Assimilierungspolitik der Staatsmacht behaupten, sondern auch an unterschiedlichste Ausprägungen der kommunistischen Diktatur anpassen. Diese Monografie bietet einen detaillierten Überblick über alle zentralen Aspekte der Lage der deutschen Minderheit in Ungarn, z. B. der Verbandsstrukturen oder des Bildungs- und Pressewesens, wodurch die Autorin die erste Gesamtdarstellung zur Geschichte der Ungarndeutschen während der ersten Hälfte der kommunistischen Herrschaft vorlegt.

On Thursday, 8 May 2025 at 17:00, the Volkskundemuseum Wien and the Institute for European Ethnology of the University of Vienna will host a discussion with Margit Feischmidt and Kristóf Szombati entitled Authoritarianism from below? Popular Support and Resistance in Hungary.

The full issue is available on the journal's website.

From the contents

Rural transitions

    Vegetable growers in the Aranyosszék

    Resources and communities in the mountains

German-Swabian heritage

    German-German dictionary of Hungary

    Language autobiographies

    German literature in Hungary after 1945

    German nationality kindergarten teacher, teacher and teacher training

Workshop  

    The situation of the Ladin community in South Tyrol

    Settlement census in Óbuda in the 1970s

On 23 April 2025, from 17:00, the book A bia-torbágyi zsidóság emlékezete [The Memory of Bia-Torbágy Jewry] will be presented at the Tom Lantos Institute. Our colleague Viktória Bányai, who is the book's professional reviewer, will also take part in the discussion.

The new open access article 'The question of recognising new minorities in Hungary' by Balázs Dobos is published online in the Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies and is available at HERE.

Abstract: Relatively little is known about what is probably one of the most frequent, yet often dubious attempts in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe to expand the official list of minorities that have been made by non-recognised groups in Hungary since the early 2000s. Moreover, there had also been several unsuccessful attempts even before the adoption of the country's 1993 Minority Act. Therefore, the major aim of the research is, after outlining the main features of the historical and political background, to present and analyse the attempts which aimed at achieving minority recognition, especially those made after the adoption of the minority law. In doing so, it examines the conceptualisation tendencies, the notions and conditions that applicants must meet, and the operationalisation practices that prevailed. Overall, the Hungarian case illustrates well that not all minorities considered as existing socially - based on self-identifications and objective criteria - meet the substantive and procedural legal requirements of the law. In other cases, both the declared individual affiliations and the existence of a group and of separate objective elements of identity are still challenged and the subject of professional and political debates.

The HUN-REN CSS Institute for Minority Studies organises a manuscript debate: Ferenc Sz. Horváth: Communist - Jew - Hungarian, Ernő Gáll, the stateless philosopher (1917-2000). Discussants: András F. Balogh, György Földes, Levente Salat, Imre Zrínyi Ungvári. For more information visit the event page.

Balázs Dobos attended the workshop "Current challenges and perspectives in minority protection, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe" organized by the Inštitut za narodnostna vprašanja (Insitute for Ethnic Studies) in Ljubljana on 27 and 28 March. The full program of the workshop is available at HERE.

On 28 March, the Lutheran Central Collection, together with the Otto Habsburg Foundation, organised a conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gusztáv Gratz. At the conference, our colleague Ferenc Eiler gave a lecture entitled Gusztáv Gratz's dilemmas in connection with the Hungarian German Folk Culture Association after the death of Jakob Bleyer.

Our colleague Réka Marchut will give a lecture in German in Erdweg on 19 March 2025, at the workshop entitled Resettlements from a Comparative Perspective. Suotheastern Europe between 1938/1940 and 1945, organised by the Institut für Deutsche Kultur und Geschichte Südosteuropas. Her presentation will be entitled: Minority Policy in Southeastern Europe in the Interwar Period

Our colleague Nándor Bárdi will give a lecture on the recent history of the Hungarians in Romania after 1989 on 18 March 2025 at 18:00 at the Miguel Serveto Cultural Centre in Budapest.