Papers by Ágnes Kelemen
Hurban, 2024
The published version of a conference talk of mine at the following conference of the Holocaust ... more The published version of a conference talk of mine at the following conference of the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest on October 27, 2022: “Visszatérés – hazatérés? Magyar zsidók kivándorlási dilemmái [Return - coming home? Emigration dilemmas of Hungarian Jews]”
Abstract:
Látszólag ellentmondás, hogy a Soá után a magyar „maradék zsidóságnak” éppen egy olyan csoportjára volt jellemző a Magyarországon maradás, akik nagy emigrációs potenciállal (nyelvtudás, külföldön is gyakorolható szaktudás, külföldi kapcsolatok) bírtak: a Soá előtt emigrációban élő értelmiségiekre. Ebben szerepet játszott a szocializmus építésében hívők politikailag motivált hazatérése, ám a csoport nagyobb része kényszerből tért haza a II. világháború során és itthon élte túl a vészkorszakot. 1945 után tehát nem hazatért, hanem itthon maradt, mégpedig a szakmai érvényesülés új távlatainak megnyílása miatt. Ők korábban a Horthy-kori antiszemita törvényi és társadalmi kirekesztés elől menekültek el, amely tény egy szűk időablakban (1945-49) új típusú tőkével, a politikai megbízhatósággal ruházta fel őket. Az ennek köszönhető szakmai kibontakozás ellensúlyozni tudta az ismételt kivándorlás mellett szóló érveket.
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Hungarian Studies Review , 2022
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Az asszimilált zsidó értelmiség számára a 19. századtól meghatározó és válaszkísérletek sokfélesé... more Az asszimilált zsidó értelmiség számára a 19. századtól meghatározó és válaszkísérletek sokféleségét kiváltó kérdés az önazonosság és vele szoros összefüggésben az, hogy kiknek tartoznak ők szolidaritással. A cikk egy identitáselméleti bevezető után e kérdések két világháború közötti erdélyi kiéleződésével foglalkozik, egymással párbeszédbe állítva önéletrajzi és szépirodalmi válaszkísérleteket a korszak erdélyi zsidó publicisztikájával.
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Agnes Katalin Kelemen. "Migration and Exile: Hungarian Medical Students in Vienna and Prague, 192... more Agnes Katalin Kelemen. "Migration and Exile: Hungarian Medical Students in Vienna and Prague, 1920-1938", Az emberi sors és a történelem kereszteződésében -Tanulmánykötet Frank Tibor 70. születésnapjára/At the crossroads of human fate and history -Studies in honour of Tibor Frank on his 70th birthday. Edited by János Kenyeres, Miklós Lojkó, Tamás Magyarics, Éva Eszter Szabó. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University, School of English and American Studies, 2018: 222-241.
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Peer reviewed journal article in the Hungarian "Múltunk" journal for political history. English t... more Peer reviewed journal article in the Hungarian "Múltunk" journal for political history. English title: "Assimilation was a great school of life" - Questions of Jewish identity and solidarity in Transylvania after the First World War.
Kelemen, Ágnes Katalin. „<Az asszimiláció az élet nagy iskolája volt.> A zsidó önazonosság és szolidaritás kérdései Erdélyben az első világháború után.” Múltunk Vol. LXII. (2017) Nr. 4. pp. 137-159.
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Kelemen Ágnes Katalin. "<Az asszimiláció az élet nagy iskolája volt.> A zsidó önazonosság és szo... more Kelemen Ágnes Katalin. "<Az asszimiláció az élet nagy iskolája volt.> A zsidó önazonosság és szolidaritás kérdései Erdélyben az első világháború után." Múltunk Vol. LXII. (2017) Nr. 4. pp. 137-159.
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The history of humankind is a story of continuous innovation and rejection of innovation), from p... more The history of humankind is a story of continuous innovation and rejection of innovation), from prehistory to the present. New technologies were introduced in agricultural production, new materials, processes and implements came into use in handicrafts and industry, new forms of physical and intellectual communication were invented and new networks of interaction between communities were put into practice. At the same time, communities of varying size increasingly relied on passing these now established methods and beliefs from one generation to the next, using these traditions and heritage as a resource for survival and for creating a variety of identities. The description and explanation for all these processes and their dynamic interplay has long been a task of historical studies, and has remained on the agenda of historians, art historians, archaeologists, and cultural heritage professionals down to the present. Significantly, modern historiography has been particularly concerned with the ambiguities of the very concepts of tradition and innovation, pointing especially to the processes of construction (e.g. " invented traditions ") and transmission (" networks, " " transfers " and " entanglements ") that shaped them.
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In this article I present the main migratory trends of Hungarian medical students and its connect... more In this article I present the main migratory trends of Hungarian medical students and its connection to the antisemitic numerus clausus law of interwar Hungary.
Bibliographical data:
Kelemen, Ágnes Katalin. A numerus clausus száműzöttjei. Magyar orvostanhallgatók külföldön.In Szombat Vol. XXIX. Nr. 1. (January 2017), pp. 9-12.
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Resilience, Restoration, Revival: The Endurance of Structures from Early Modern Times to the Pres... more Resilience, Restoration, Revival: The Endurance of Structures from Early Modern Times to the Present
The 10th Annual Graduate Conference in European History (GRACEH), Central European University (CEU, Budapest) 21-23 April 2016
About GRACEH:
Central European University, the European University Institute and the University of Vienna have been organizing the GRACEH conferences since ten years. This joint venture takes a shape by rotating the conference venue from one city to another. The central aim of GRACEH is to create a network of scholars in early stages from various aspects of European history; therefore, we do not limit a range of time framework from the early modern period to contemporary history. We hope the conference brings graduate students together for discussing particular approaches of historical issues as well as theoretical/methodological problems that historian deal with. Participants are encouraged to present the themes related to their on-going thesis/dissertation projects.
Apart from people enrolled at our partner universities, we equally encourage scholars from other institutions to apply to the conference.
Organizing committee:
Ádám Mézes
Adela Hincu
Agnes Kelemen
Andriy Posunko
Anna Sugiyama
Dejan Lukić
Imogen Bayley
Mladen Medved
Yuriy Koshulap
Academic Advisory Board:
Laszlo Kontler
Nadia Al-Bagdadi
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Bálint Ármin fiához írt naplójegyzeteit, a "Feljegyzések Gyuri fiam részére. Napló 1944-ből" című... more Bálint Ármin fiához írt naplójegyzeteit, a "Feljegyzések Gyuri fiam részére. Napló 1944-ből" című kötetben a Múlt és Jövő Kiadó adta ki 2014-ben, Dorogi Katalin szerkesztésében, Kelemen Ágnes Katalin előszavával és jegyzeteivel.
Bálint Ármin fia Bálint György volt, újságíró, irodalomkritikus, költő, író és műfordító, A Nyugat, a Gondolat és a Pesti Napló munkatársa, angol és amerikai lapok tudósítója. Amikor apja feljegyzéseit írta számára, Bálint György már másfél éve nem élt. Miután bevonult utolsó munkaszolgálatára – büntetőszázadba –, 1943 januárjában, harminchat évesen odaveszett a keleti fronton. Halálhírét megvitték a családnak, de az édesapja nem akarta tudomásul venni, tévedésnek tartotta.
A napló részletesen beszámol a budapesti védett házban átélt eseményekről, a nyilas terrorról és Budapest ostromáról, rádió- és újsághírek alapján a háború világpolitikai történéseiről is. Megrázó kordokumentum.
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A book chapter in “Zsidó” identitásképek a huszadik századi magyar irodalomban (“Jewish” Identiti... more A book chapter in “Zsidó” identitásképek a huszadik századi magyar irodalomban (“Jewish” Identities in Twentieth Century Hungarian Literature).Edited by Gábor Schein and Teri Szűcs.
My chapter reframed the question whether György Bálint, a famous Hungarian Marxist intellectual of the interwar period, was really alienated from his bourgeoise Jewish family as it is held in Hungarian scholarship. I argued that Bálint was deliberately silent about "Jewish" topics due to his personal involvement, as his universalist wordview did not allow him to discuss the "Jewish question" because he was a Jew, thus, his silence about the "Jewish question" in antisemitic interwar Hungary was not the result of his distancing from his Jewish identity. As I revealed on the basis of family documents, Bálint did have a Jewish identity. Furthermore, I argued that Bálint was not a dogmatic Communist, with which he is accused in Hungarian public discourse, but an independent thinker.
For a brief English overview of György Bálint's oeuvre see my article on Hungarian Literature Online: http://www.hlo.hu/news/gyorgy_balint_i_am_scandalized_therefore_i_am_a_central_european_publicist
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The thesis contributes to the research on the consequences of the Hungarian antisemitic numerus
... more The thesis contributes to the research on the consequences of the Hungarian antisemitic numerus
clausus law of 1920 by investigating the following peregrination of Hungarian Jewish students to
fascist Italy. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that Italy as a target country of such
peregrination has not been previously researched. The paradox of fascist Italy’s receptivity
towards the students haunted by the antisemitic politics of Italy’s ally, Hungary, is discussed in
addition to the Hungarian and Italian historical contexts. A wide range of primary sources,
archival documents, statistics and journal articles are investigated enabling the analysis of the
numerus clausus peregrination from multiple perspectives, including that of the students, of a
Hungarian diplomat, of Hungarian and Italian public administrators, and correspondence of
individuals with Mussolini’s office. As a principal focus, a sample of Hungarian Jewish students
of the University of Bologna (where they were present in the highest number) in the fascist
period is investigated. On the basis of their admission documents, it is evident that they were not
the best students but their lower graded Hungarian maturity exams were sufficient for enrolling in
Italian universities. In addition, it is concluded that Italy provided more opportunities for
assimilation even for foreign Jews, than their home country did for its own citizens. Furthermore,
during the war numerus clausus refugees in German-occupied Northern Italy had a higher chance
of surviving the Shoah than Jews in Hungary, even though both countries were allied to Nazi
Germany.
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Talks by Ágnes Kelemen
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Call for Papers by Ágnes Kelemen
POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS FOR THE PROJECT "OVERCOMING THE AGGRESSOR. SELF-PERCEPTION AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION OF AN ACTOR BETWEEN NATIONS", 2023
We invite applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow position within the project "Overcoming the Aggr... more We invite applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow position within the project "Overcoming the Aggressor. Self-Perception and External Perception of an Actor Between Nations." Directed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen (History Department, Heidelberg University) and supported by a generous grant from the Daimler and Benz Foundation, this three-year international interdisciplinary project investigates the identity-forming construction of national images of the enemy, which are shaped by aggressors from neighboring countries throughout Europe. The project focuses on key historical figures and their contested historiographical interpretations, but is also open to less conventional approaches to "clusters" of aggressors, and different media of representation, including artistic, audiovisual, or digital. A detailed description of the project and the researchers involved can be found here.
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Humanitarianism has become one of the defining features of our contemporary world, as governments... more Humanitarianism has become one of the defining features of our contemporary world, as governments, private associations, and international organizations are increasingly responding to human suffering across the borders of nation states. The twentieth century saw an increased institutionalization, professionalization, and direct intervention on behalf of those in need. Yet this expansion of aid also multiplied the dilemmas of humanitarian engagements.
This workshop tackles humanitarianism in Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century, probing the tensions stemming from engagements in nationalist and/or state socialist environments and the dilemmas or misunderstandings that arose from encounters with Western forms of providing aid. Central and Eastern Europe experienced the creation of new nation states and an escalation of nationalism. This region was moreover a site of violence and genocide during the two world wars as well as during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Centralization, political control, and persecution under state socialism also shaped but also often limited humanitarian activism through individual and social engagements. Narratives of Western humanitarianism have often treated this region as one of backwardness and of a passive reception of benevolent mobilization for those in need. However, the region was a space of amplified local action to relieve suffering at the same time as humanitarian initiatives from abroad grew in presence and capacity. Studying humanitarianism from below, against a backdrop of complex political and social contexts, is essential to understanding how solidarity was constructed and how aid was provided in this region during the twentieth century.
The workshop aims to engage with diverse facets of providing aid in Central and Eastern Europe, as this area opens up broader questions of local, national, and international scales of humanitarianism. The workshop will focus on domestic forms of humanitarianism and investigate key local actors (e.g. state institutions and their officials, formal associations, activists, and charity workers), their agendas, and practices of providing aid. It will further explore their entanglements and relationships with Western as well as non-Western actors and their relief practices in Central and Eastern Europe. It will investigate how important political, ethnic, or confessional identities were in shaping discourses and practices of solidarity. It will furthermore reflect on the ways in which humanitarians positioned and negotiated the provision of aid within local nationalist and/or state socialist frameworks. Some of the questions we aim to address are: How did local actors interpret the motivations and methods of international humanitarian organizations?How did humanitarian work operate in contexts in which aid was perceived as a tool for reconstructing nations, building a socialist society, or transitioning to democracy?
This event is organized within the ERC Consolidator Grant project “Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th Century” at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. This forms part of a series of workshops that aim to explore this project’s thematic approaches in relation to and beyond the central theme of providing assistance and protection to refugees.
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COPING WITH CRISIS: Undergraduate Conference in History
BUDAPEST - AUGUST 10-13, 2018
The Depart... more COPING WITH CRISIS: Undergraduate Conference in History
BUDAPEST - AUGUST 10-13, 2018
The Department of History and the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University in Budapest invite undergraduate students to rethink the causes and manifestations of social, political, and cultural crises in history and the various ways communities and individuals coped with them. The departments invite proposals for papers from undergraduates around the world who analyze through particular case studies or broader overviews the perceptions and explanations for fall and rise, as well as responses and coping strategies to these challenges. Proposals from all thematic areas (social history, economic history, military history, political history, cultural history, history of material culture, gender history, religious history, intellectual history, cultural heritage studies, art history, archaeology, and more) and all historical periods from Antiquity to the present will be considered, without geographic restriction. Preference, however, will be given to proposals with interesting approaches and well-defined research questions, objectives, and results.
PROPOSALS:
the language of the conference and the papers is English
proposals should not exceed 250 words
all applications must be submitted through the conference website: history.ceu.edu/conference
deadline: Monday, May 7, 2018. Late applications will be considered on a case by case basis
PAPER REQUIREMENTS:
papers should be 2000 to max. 3000 words long
deadline: Monday, July 30, 2018
at the conference participants will present a 10-12 minute summary of their papers in thematic panels.
REGISTRATION:
A fee of 75 Euro applies to all accepted participants. It includes:
Three nights’ accommodation in single rooms in the CEU Residence Center
Breakfast
Coffee breaks and receptions
Guided tours
72 hour public transport pass
Free Wi-Fi
Organizers:
Departments of History and Medieval Studies
Supporting CEU units:
· Center for Religious Studies
· Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies
· Cultural Heritage Studies Program
· Specialization in Political Thought
For inquiries, please e-mail us at undergraduateconference2018@ceu.edu
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Uploads
Papers by Ágnes Kelemen
Abstract:
Látszólag ellentmondás, hogy a Soá után a magyar „maradék zsidóságnak” éppen egy olyan csoportjára volt jellemző a Magyarországon maradás, akik nagy emigrációs potenciállal (nyelvtudás, külföldön is gyakorolható szaktudás, külföldi kapcsolatok) bírtak: a Soá előtt emigrációban élő értelmiségiekre. Ebben szerepet játszott a szocializmus építésében hívők politikailag motivált hazatérése, ám a csoport nagyobb része kényszerből tért haza a II. világháború során és itthon élte túl a vészkorszakot. 1945 után tehát nem hazatért, hanem itthon maradt, mégpedig a szakmai érvényesülés új távlatainak megnyílása miatt. Ők korábban a Horthy-kori antiszemita törvényi és társadalmi kirekesztés elől menekültek el, amely tény egy szűk időablakban (1945-49) új típusú tőkével, a politikai megbízhatósággal ruházta fel őket. Az ennek köszönhető szakmai kibontakozás ellensúlyozni tudta az ismételt kivándorlás mellett szóló érveket.
Kelemen, Ágnes Katalin. „<Az asszimiláció az élet nagy iskolája volt.> A zsidó önazonosság és szolidaritás kérdései Erdélyben az első világháború után.” Múltunk Vol. LXII. (2017) Nr. 4. pp. 137-159.
Bibliographical data:
Kelemen, Ágnes Katalin. A numerus clausus száműzöttjei. Magyar orvostanhallgatók külföldön.In Szombat Vol. XXIX. Nr. 1. (January 2017), pp. 9-12.
The 10th Annual Graduate Conference in European History (GRACEH), Central European University (CEU, Budapest) 21-23 April 2016
About GRACEH:
Central European University, the European University Institute and the University of Vienna have been organizing the GRACEH conferences since ten years. This joint venture takes a shape by rotating the conference venue from one city to another. The central aim of GRACEH is to create a network of scholars in early stages from various aspects of European history; therefore, we do not limit a range of time framework from the early modern period to contemporary history. We hope the conference brings graduate students together for discussing particular approaches of historical issues as well as theoretical/methodological problems that historian deal with. Participants are encouraged to present the themes related to their on-going thesis/dissertation projects.
Apart from people enrolled at our partner universities, we equally encourage scholars from other institutions to apply to the conference.
Organizing committee:
Ádám Mézes
Adela Hincu
Agnes Kelemen
Andriy Posunko
Anna Sugiyama
Dejan Lukić
Imogen Bayley
Mladen Medved
Yuriy Koshulap
Academic Advisory Board:
Laszlo Kontler
Nadia Al-Bagdadi
Bálint Ármin fia Bálint György volt, újságíró, irodalomkritikus, költő, író és műfordító, A Nyugat, a Gondolat és a Pesti Napló munkatársa, angol és amerikai lapok tudósítója. Amikor apja feljegyzéseit írta számára, Bálint György már másfél éve nem élt. Miután bevonult utolsó munkaszolgálatára – büntetőszázadba –, 1943 januárjában, harminchat évesen odaveszett a keleti fronton. Halálhírét megvitték a családnak, de az édesapja nem akarta tudomásul venni, tévedésnek tartotta.
A napló részletesen beszámol a budapesti védett házban átélt eseményekről, a nyilas terrorról és Budapest ostromáról, rádió- és újsághírek alapján a háború világpolitikai történéseiről is. Megrázó kordokumentum.
My chapter reframed the question whether György Bálint, a famous Hungarian Marxist intellectual of the interwar period, was really alienated from his bourgeoise Jewish family as it is held in Hungarian scholarship. I argued that Bálint was deliberately silent about "Jewish" topics due to his personal involvement, as his universalist wordview did not allow him to discuss the "Jewish question" because he was a Jew, thus, his silence about the "Jewish question" in antisemitic interwar Hungary was not the result of his distancing from his Jewish identity. As I revealed on the basis of family documents, Bálint did have a Jewish identity. Furthermore, I argued that Bálint was not a dogmatic Communist, with which he is accused in Hungarian public discourse, but an independent thinker.
For a brief English overview of György Bálint's oeuvre see my article on Hungarian Literature Online: http://www.hlo.hu/news/gyorgy_balint_i_am_scandalized_therefore_i_am_a_central_european_publicist
clausus law of 1920 by investigating the following peregrination of Hungarian Jewish students to
fascist Italy. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that Italy as a target country of such
peregrination has not been previously researched. The paradox of fascist Italy’s receptivity
towards the students haunted by the antisemitic politics of Italy’s ally, Hungary, is discussed in
addition to the Hungarian and Italian historical contexts. A wide range of primary sources,
archival documents, statistics and journal articles are investigated enabling the analysis of the
numerus clausus peregrination from multiple perspectives, including that of the students, of a
Hungarian diplomat, of Hungarian and Italian public administrators, and correspondence of
individuals with Mussolini’s office. As a principal focus, a sample of Hungarian Jewish students
of the University of Bologna (where they were present in the highest number) in the fascist
period is investigated. On the basis of their admission documents, it is evident that they were not
the best students but their lower graded Hungarian maturity exams were sufficient for enrolling in
Italian universities. In addition, it is concluded that Italy provided more opportunities for
assimilation even for foreign Jews, than their home country did for its own citizens. Furthermore,
during the war numerus clausus refugees in German-occupied Northern Italy had a higher chance
of surviving the Shoah than Jews in Hungary, even though both countries were allied to Nazi
Germany.
Talks by Ágnes Kelemen
Call for Papers by Ágnes Kelemen
This workshop tackles humanitarianism in Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century, probing the tensions stemming from engagements in nationalist and/or state socialist environments and the dilemmas or misunderstandings that arose from encounters with Western forms of providing aid. Central and Eastern Europe experienced the creation of new nation states and an escalation of nationalism. This region was moreover a site of violence and genocide during the two world wars as well as during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Centralization, political control, and persecution under state socialism also shaped but also often limited humanitarian activism through individual and social engagements. Narratives of Western humanitarianism have often treated this region as one of backwardness and of a passive reception of benevolent mobilization for those in need. However, the region was a space of amplified local action to relieve suffering at the same time as humanitarian initiatives from abroad grew in presence and capacity. Studying humanitarianism from below, against a backdrop of complex political and social contexts, is essential to understanding how solidarity was constructed and how aid was provided in this region during the twentieth century.
The workshop aims to engage with diverse facets of providing aid in Central and Eastern Europe, as this area opens up broader questions of local, national, and international scales of humanitarianism. The workshop will focus on domestic forms of humanitarianism and investigate key local actors (e.g. state institutions and their officials, formal associations, activists, and charity workers), their agendas, and practices of providing aid. It will further explore their entanglements and relationships with Western as well as non-Western actors and their relief practices in Central and Eastern Europe. It will investigate how important political, ethnic, or confessional identities were in shaping discourses and practices of solidarity. It will furthermore reflect on the ways in which humanitarians positioned and negotiated the provision of aid within local nationalist and/or state socialist frameworks. Some of the questions we aim to address are: How did local actors interpret the motivations and methods of international humanitarian organizations?How did humanitarian work operate in contexts in which aid was perceived as a tool for reconstructing nations, building a socialist society, or transitioning to democracy?
This event is organized within the ERC Consolidator Grant project “Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th Century” at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. This forms part of a series of workshops that aim to explore this project’s thematic approaches in relation to and beyond the central theme of providing assistance and protection to refugees.
BUDAPEST - AUGUST 10-13, 2018
The Department of History and the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University in Budapest invite undergraduate students to rethink the causes and manifestations of social, political, and cultural crises in history and the various ways communities and individuals coped with them. The departments invite proposals for papers from undergraduates around the world who analyze through particular case studies or broader overviews the perceptions and explanations for fall and rise, as well as responses and coping strategies to these challenges. Proposals from all thematic areas (social history, economic history, military history, political history, cultural history, history of material culture, gender history, religious history, intellectual history, cultural heritage studies, art history, archaeology, and more) and all historical periods from Antiquity to the present will be considered, without geographic restriction. Preference, however, will be given to proposals with interesting approaches and well-defined research questions, objectives, and results.
PROPOSALS:
the language of the conference and the papers is English
proposals should not exceed 250 words
all applications must be submitted through the conference website: history.ceu.edu/conference
deadline: Monday, May 7, 2018. Late applications will be considered on a case by case basis
PAPER REQUIREMENTS:
papers should be 2000 to max. 3000 words long
deadline: Monday, July 30, 2018
at the conference participants will present a 10-12 minute summary of their papers in thematic panels.
REGISTRATION:
A fee of 75 Euro applies to all accepted participants. It includes:
Three nights’ accommodation in single rooms in the CEU Residence Center
Breakfast
Coffee breaks and receptions
Guided tours
72 hour public transport pass
Free Wi-Fi
Organizers:
Departments of History and Medieval Studies
Supporting CEU units:
· Center for Religious Studies
· Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies
· Cultural Heritage Studies Program
· Specialization in Political Thought
For inquiries, please e-mail us at undergraduateconference2018@ceu.edu
Abstract:
Látszólag ellentmondás, hogy a Soá után a magyar „maradék zsidóságnak” éppen egy olyan csoportjára volt jellemző a Magyarországon maradás, akik nagy emigrációs potenciállal (nyelvtudás, külföldön is gyakorolható szaktudás, külföldi kapcsolatok) bírtak: a Soá előtt emigrációban élő értelmiségiekre. Ebben szerepet játszott a szocializmus építésében hívők politikailag motivált hazatérése, ám a csoport nagyobb része kényszerből tért haza a II. világháború során és itthon élte túl a vészkorszakot. 1945 után tehát nem hazatért, hanem itthon maradt, mégpedig a szakmai érvényesülés új távlatainak megnyílása miatt. Ők korábban a Horthy-kori antiszemita törvényi és társadalmi kirekesztés elől menekültek el, amely tény egy szűk időablakban (1945-49) új típusú tőkével, a politikai megbízhatósággal ruházta fel őket. Az ennek köszönhető szakmai kibontakozás ellensúlyozni tudta az ismételt kivándorlás mellett szóló érveket.
Kelemen, Ágnes Katalin. „<Az asszimiláció az élet nagy iskolája volt.> A zsidó önazonosság és szolidaritás kérdései Erdélyben az első világháború után.” Múltunk Vol. LXII. (2017) Nr. 4. pp. 137-159.
Bibliographical data:
Kelemen, Ágnes Katalin. A numerus clausus száműzöttjei. Magyar orvostanhallgatók külföldön.In Szombat Vol. XXIX. Nr. 1. (January 2017), pp. 9-12.
The 10th Annual Graduate Conference in European History (GRACEH), Central European University (CEU, Budapest) 21-23 April 2016
About GRACEH:
Central European University, the European University Institute and the University of Vienna have been organizing the GRACEH conferences since ten years. This joint venture takes a shape by rotating the conference venue from one city to another. The central aim of GRACEH is to create a network of scholars in early stages from various aspects of European history; therefore, we do not limit a range of time framework from the early modern period to contemporary history. We hope the conference brings graduate students together for discussing particular approaches of historical issues as well as theoretical/methodological problems that historian deal with. Participants are encouraged to present the themes related to their on-going thesis/dissertation projects.
Apart from people enrolled at our partner universities, we equally encourage scholars from other institutions to apply to the conference.
Organizing committee:
Ádám Mézes
Adela Hincu
Agnes Kelemen
Andriy Posunko
Anna Sugiyama
Dejan Lukić
Imogen Bayley
Mladen Medved
Yuriy Koshulap
Academic Advisory Board:
Laszlo Kontler
Nadia Al-Bagdadi
Bálint Ármin fia Bálint György volt, újságíró, irodalomkritikus, költő, író és műfordító, A Nyugat, a Gondolat és a Pesti Napló munkatársa, angol és amerikai lapok tudósítója. Amikor apja feljegyzéseit írta számára, Bálint György már másfél éve nem élt. Miután bevonult utolsó munkaszolgálatára – büntetőszázadba –, 1943 januárjában, harminchat évesen odaveszett a keleti fronton. Halálhírét megvitték a családnak, de az édesapja nem akarta tudomásul venni, tévedésnek tartotta.
A napló részletesen beszámol a budapesti védett házban átélt eseményekről, a nyilas terrorról és Budapest ostromáról, rádió- és újsághírek alapján a háború világpolitikai történéseiről is. Megrázó kordokumentum.
My chapter reframed the question whether György Bálint, a famous Hungarian Marxist intellectual of the interwar period, was really alienated from his bourgeoise Jewish family as it is held in Hungarian scholarship. I argued that Bálint was deliberately silent about "Jewish" topics due to his personal involvement, as his universalist wordview did not allow him to discuss the "Jewish question" because he was a Jew, thus, his silence about the "Jewish question" in antisemitic interwar Hungary was not the result of his distancing from his Jewish identity. As I revealed on the basis of family documents, Bálint did have a Jewish identity. Furthermore, I argued that Bálint was not a dogmatic Communist, with which he is accused in Hungarian public discourse, but an independent thinker.
For a brief English overview of György Bálint's oeuvre see my article on Hungarian Literature Online: http://www.hlo.hu/news/gyorgy_balint_i_am_scandalized_therefore_i_am_a_central_european_publicist
clausus law of 1920 by investigating the following peregrination of Hungarian Jewish students to
fascist Italy. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that Italy as a target country of such
peregrination has not been previously researched. The paradox of fascist Italy’s receptivity
towards the students haunted by the antisemitic politics of Italy’s ally, Hungary, is discussed in
addition to the Hungarian and Italian historical contexts. A wide range of primary sources,
archival documents, statistics and journal articles are investigated enabling the analysis of the
numerus clausus peregrination from multiple perspectives, including that of the students, of a
Hungarian diplomat, of Hungarian and Italian public administrators, and correspondence of
individuals with Mussolini’s office. As a principal focus, a sample of Hungarian Jewish students
of the University of Bologna (where they were present in the highest number) in the fascist
period is investigated. On the basis of their admission documents, it is evident that they were not
the best students but their lower graded Hungarian maturity exams were sufficient for enrolling in
Italian universities. In addition, it is concluded that Italy provided more opportunities for
assimilation even for foreign Jews, than their home country did for its own citizens. Furthermore,
during the war numerus clausus refugees in German-occupied Northern Italy had a higher chance
of surviving the Shoah than Jews in Hungary, even though both countries were allied to Nazi
Germany.
This workshop tackles humanitarianism in Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century, probing the tensions stemming from engagements in nationalist and/or state socialist environments and the dilemmas or misunderstandings that arose from encounters with Western forms of providing aid. Central and Eastern Europe experienced the creation of new nation states and an escalation of nationalism. This region was moreover a site of violence and genocide during the two world wars as well as during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Centralization, political control, and persecution under state socialism also shaped but also often limited humanitarian activism through individual and social engagements. Narratives of Western humanitarianism have often treated this region as one of backwardness and of a passive reception of benevolent mobilization for those in need. However, the region was a space of amplified local action to relieve suffering at the same time as humanitarian initiatives from abroad grew in presence and capacity. Studying humanitarianism from below, against a backdrop of complex political and social contexts, is essential to understanding how solidarity was constructed and how aid was provided in this region during the twentieth century.
The workshop aims to engage with diverse facets of providing aid in Central and Eastern Europe, as this area opens up broader questions of local, national, and international scales of humanitarianism. The workshop will focus on domestic forms of humanitarianism and investigate key local actors (e.g. state institutions and their officials, formal associations, activists, and charity workers), their agendas, and practices of providing aid. It will further explore their entanglements and relationships with Western as well as non-Western actors and their relief practices in Central and Eastern Europe. It will investigate how important political, ethnic, or confessional identities were in shaping discourses and practices of solidarity. It will furthermore reflect on the ways in which humanitarians positioned and negotiated the provision of aid within local nationalist and/or state socialist frameworks. Some of the questions we aim to address are: How did local actors interpret the motivations and methods of international humanitarian organizations?How did humanitarian work operate in contexts in which aid was perceived as a tool for reconstructing nations, building a socialist society, or transitioning to democracy?
This event is organized within the ERC Consolidator Grant project “Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th Century” at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. This forms part of a series of workshops that aim to explore this project’s thematic approaches in relation to and beyond the central theme of providing assistance and protection to refugees.
BUDAPEST - AUGUST 10-13, 2018
The Department of History and the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University in Budapest invite undergraduate students to rethink the causes and manifestations of social, political, and cultural crises in history and the various ways communities and individuals coped with them. The departments invite proposals for papers from undergraduates around the world who analyze through particular case studies or broader overviews the perceptions and explanations for fall and rise, as well as responses and coping strategies to these challenges. Proposals from all thematic areas (social history, economic history, military history, political history, cultural history, history of material culture, gender history, religious history, intellectual history, cultural heritage studies, art history, archaeology, and more) and all historical periods from Antiquity to the present will be considered, without geographic restriction. Preference, however, will be given to proposals with interesting approaches and well-defined research questions, objectives, and results.
PROPOSALS:
the language of the conference and the papers is English
proposals should not exceed 250 words
all applications must be submitted through the conference website: history.ceu.edu/conference
deadline: Monday, May 7, 2018. Late applications will be considered on a case by case basis
PAPER REQUIREMENTS:
papers should be 2000 to max. 3000 words long
deadline: Monday, July 30, 2018
at the conference participants will present a 10-12 minute summary of their papers in thematic panels.
REGISTRATION:
A fee of 75 Euro applies to all accepted participants. It includes:
Three nights’ accommodation in single rooms in the CEU Residence Center
Breakfast
Coffee breaks and receptions
Guided tours
72 hour public transport pass
Free Wi-Fi
Organizers:
Departments of History and Medieval Studies
Supporting CEU units:
· Center for Religious Studies
· Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies
· Cultural Heritage Studies Program
· Specialization in Political Thought
For inquiries, please e-mail us at undergraduateconference2018@ceu.edu
Catastrophe and Utopia: Jewish Intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2018, pp. 355. isbn: 978-3-11-055934. Language: English.