2019 Kristina Poznan, La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA
My scholarship tackles thorny questions about transnational migration that are central to American and European debates about migration in the past through the present. In my book manuscript-inprogress, Migrant Nation-Builders, I chart the ways in which Hungarian, German, Jewish, and Slavic peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire crafted new identities in America, complicating their relationships with their home and host states. Transatlantic migration andmigrants’ nationalism were, I argue, primary factors in the dismantling of the Habsburg Empire into ethnically-based states in the late stages of World War I, informed by American conceptions of which peoples constituted nations worthy of nation-states. A truly transatlantic study, my work integrates American history and Eastern European history, immigration history and foreignrelations history. I trace the long arm of the Hungarian government in trying to manage migrant loyalty in America, and follow return migrants from the United States back home to track their influence on homeland politics.
When migrants from the Austro-Hungarian came to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their national identities frequently sharpened, dissolved, and coalesced again. Countless migrants partook in extensive ethnic fashioning and refashioning, weighing affiliations also of home region and faith. At churches, social clubs, bars, butcher shops, and newsstands from Connecticut to Minnesota, immigrant nationalists persuaded those they deemed co-nationals to join them in building up a local ethnic community. Initially many individuals prioritized Austrian imperial loyalty or their home regional or religious identity over an ethno-linguistic one, and thousands were multilingual. While scholars have already argued that the experience of migration was significant in inaugurating or augmenting the ethnic consciousness and nationalist political activism of some European migrants, they have yet to fully explain the significance of nation-building abroad for a multiethnic state like Austria- Hungary, where nationalizing projects were often contested, as opposed to coalescing states like Italy.
My current project concludes with an examination of the dual effects of new European borders after 1918 and American restrictions on immigration from the successor states of the Austro- Hungarian Empire to the United States. Post-World War I borders, accompanied by the staunching of the flow of new immigrants by the war and restrictive quotas in the United States in the 1920s, together recast the relationship between many immigrants and their homelands. Among my most exciting findings are accounts in the Congressional Record of how the Census Bureau attempted to set migration quotas for post-war European states using migration statistics for the empire; they openly admit that using prewar migration statistics from Austria and Hungary for the new states was a matter of complete “guesswork.” Thus, I account for the incredibly low quota for Hungarian migrants after 1924, and trace the ways that some Hungarians were able to come on the quotas of neighboring states instead.
My archival approach is innovative in that I pair governmental sources from Hungary, Austria, and the United States with local-level sources of immigrant communities that I collected in Cleveland, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, New York City, and New Brunswick, NJ. The bulk of my sources come for the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office files in the MNL OL, sources that have been rarely used since Julianna Puskas’s studies in the 1970s. With this, I also integrate EllisIsland oral history interviews and extensive press sources.
2020 Mari Réthelyi, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Narrative Essay of Research
My research focuses on Modern Hungarian Jewish history. Though isolated linguistically due to the Hungarian language, the Hungarian Jewish community was substantial, not just in numbers but also initsscholarlycontributiontothediversefieldsofthehumanitiesandsocialsciences. Ispecifically examine at the turn of the 20th century history of Neolog Jewish race theories, a group that is akin to the North American Conservative Jewish movements. I analyze how Neolog Jews were influenced by the race theories of Hungarian nationalism and drew up alternative racial definitions of Jewishness. I point out how their discourses were multidimensional and even self-contradictory about who is a Hungarian. I document the diversity as well as introduce the framework of Hungarian Jewish discourses of self-understanding with relation to Hungarian nationalism, anti-Semitism, and Oriental Studies. By focusing on the idea of national unity and common origin I am able to go into the subtext of the relationship between Hungarians and Jews. My goal is to draw a portrait of a group and explain their importance. I approach their discourse through an intellectual historiography.
In promoting the idea of a race-based identity these scholars imitated European theories of culture and civilization, and also offered their own personal interpretations of the relationship between race and nation, an interpretation, which reflected the particular ethnic condition of Hungary. The examination of their ideas gives us a perspective that is significant for understanding modern Hungary at large and specifically is essential to the understanding of the self-imaginings of a Hungarian minority community. When we examine the Hungarian conditions and situation we can see that the Hungarian case was different with regard to the integration of the Jews from the Western or Eastern Europe. According to European race theories, Jews were considered an unwelcome race, a view that has been thoroughly studied. With regard to the Jews in Hungary, the scholarly debate has been confined to the ideological dichotomy of either assimilation or dissimilation. However, the Magyarization of Jews in Hungary differed from other countries partially due to the different context and conditions but mainly because of the Hungarian narrative of nationalism. In the Hungarian case, linguistic adaptability varied due to the population’s diverse origins, which made for a polyglot country and capital, Budapest. This influenced the attitude of both the minorities towards Hungarian rulership and that of the Jews. But while the other minorities were antagonistic towards Hungarian dominance the Jews welcomed the unique opportunity to be counted into the nation and responded positively to the possibility. Anti-Semitism was not prevalent at the time and the liberal nationalist created stories of acceptance of Jews into the Hungarian nation. Therefore, it is significant to illustrate this unique history that is specific to Modern Hungary.
MR Feb. 2020
2022 Éva Petrás, Senior Research Fellow, Committee of National Remembrance, Budapest
Éva Petrás, Senior Research Fellow Committee of National Remembrance, Budapest
My research embraces different aspects pertaining to the history of the Hungarian Catholic Church in the 20th century. Following the collapse of Communism, church history grew quickly into a key sub-discipline of Hungarian historiography, owing both to the need for its methodological renewal, as well as the (re)-population of a long-neglected area of our national history with primary research. I have found my scholarship in both areas to be fascinating and rewarding.
Dramatic disruptions and breaks are decisive characteristics of 20th century Hungarian political history, and the related church history necessarily focuses on the institutional history of the Catholic Church. In my research, however, I have attempted to demonstrate the validity of social historical approaches, not least because examining the broader concept of what a church is might explain the phenomena of “longue durée”, when illustrating the social presence of churches. Therefore, separate from their spiritual mission, I advocate for perceiving churches as social actors and their representatives as members of the political elite, possessing multi-faceted and often contradictory views on the changing social and political fabric of the polities of Hungary. Pursuant to this, I have examined the Hungarian Catholic intelligentsia’s comprehension of social modernization in the Horthy era and the beginnings of Hungarian Christian democracy.
After these theoretical investigations, I have shifted my focus to the examination of Catholic social practices, attempting to understand better the emergence of social policy and what contribution Catholic intellectuals made to it. In addition, I have touched upon the history of the Jesuit social organization KALOT (Catholic Youth Movement of Agricultural Workers), and have assessed the political activity of Margit Slachta, Béla Kovrig, and István Barankovics. To trace the fates of these key figures more accurately, I have conducted extensive research amongst Communist state security holdings as well as those of Hungarian emigrant organizations.
Following publication of my monograph, “Behind the Masks – The Lives of Töhötöm Nagy” in Hungarian, I have begun to prepare the book for an English- speaking audience. Apart from providing readers with a historical reconstruction of the life of this legendary Jesuit, this biography has allowed me to discuss certain crucial turning points in Hungarian history.
As one of KALOT’s leaders, Töhötöm Nagy exerted a significant influence upon Catholic social work in Hungary throughout the 1930s. Later, following World War II, he was a major figure in clandestine church diplomacy, shuttling between Budapest and Rome, negotiating with both Vatican and Soviet authorities. Then came two decades in Argentinian emigration, before he made a return to Hungary in the 1960s. Identifying and figuratively pulling off Töhötöm Nagy’s “masks” has allowed me to detail the history of clandestine societies and organizations, ranging from freemasonry to the predecessors of the CIA to Communist state security, the latter of which Töhötöm Nagy was an employee. These unique experiences in the person of a single man endow his life with equal measures of danger, suspense, and adventure. Accordingly, I’m convinced that making his biography accessible for foreign readers is in the interest not only of Hungarian historiography, but also that of European, church, and Cold War historiography as well.