English
Magyar
Péter Vukman
"There has already been a Jewish question and a Swabian question, and now the Slavic question will follow"
Hungarian–South Slavic coexistence in Gara in state security documents (1945–1956)
The fluctuating Hungarian–Yugoslav relations between 1945 and 1956 had a profound impact not only on party and interstate relations, but also on everyday life, in the world of ordinary people. This is especially true for the villages of the so-called Baja triangle, which were inhabited by Hungarians and South Slavs. This article focuses on one of the triangle's multi-ethnic villages, Gara, and it examines what impacts the frequent changes in bilateral relations (in 1945, after 1948 and after 1953) had on the local Hungarian–South Slavic coexistence, and how it affected the everyday life of people living there, their ideas about the border and Hungarian–South Slavic interethnic relations. Therefore, this article analyses what similarities and differences can be observed after World War II, after the escalation of the Soviet–Yugoslav conflict in 1948, and during the process of Hungarian–Yugoslav normalization after 1953. The article also shows how fear, passivity and the illusion of unrealistic hopes appeared among the local South Slavs after 1948. The conclusions are based on the examination of the facility files (objektum dosszié) related to Gara, which are held in the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security.
László Eörsi
"What I went through would inspire a writer for the rest of his life"
Sarolta Gömbös in the storms of the 20th century
Sarolta Gömbös, a descendant of Gömbös-Táncsics, went through many regime changes and serious upheavals. She lost her first husband in the World War and gave birth to posthumous twins. Together with her second husband, General Béla Király, she was arrested by the ÁVH. She had a third husband, whom she divorced as well. Her recruitment to state security brought a decisive turn in her life. The main task would have been to deliver information about her ex-husband after his emigration to the United States, but this plan failed.
Ferenc Orosz
Biochemist, Academic, "Researcher"
F. Bruno Straub and the State Security Services
It has recently been revealed that biochemist F. Bruno Straub (1914-1996), the vice president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the president of the Presidential Council of the Hungarian People's Republic, was an agent (first an informant, then an undercover agent) of the state security service under the pseudonym "Researcher" between 1959 and 1968. He was recruited by the internal security department (sub-department BM II/5-f), and then, at the end of 1960, he was transferred to intelligence (sub-department BM II/3-F and then BM III/I-4-F - scientific and technical intelligence). Both the B (recruitment) and M (work) files of "Researcher" have been preserved in the Historical Archives of the State Security Services. Primarily, he had to provide opinions and data about foreign scientists, especially during his trips abroad. Before his trips, he was briefed on who and what might be of interest to intelligence. They were particularly interested in emigrant Hungarian researchers. He described them from both a professional and a human point of view, and - if he knew about it - also covered their relatives and relationships at home. He was also asked to provide information about Hungarian researchers travelling abroad. In addition to the brief profiles, he also gave an opinion on whether the persons are suitable for performing operational tasks.
János M. Rainer
A student movement and its suppression in 1969. Reconstruction of a lost file
This study explores the aftermath of the student movement that arose in 1969 at the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. The protagonists of this episode attempted a rebellion within the bureaucratic framework of the Hungarian Young Communist League (KISZ). Their goal was to gain meaningful influence over issues affecting their micro-community and to establish an organizational framework for genuine grassroots political participation. In April 1969, through a regular election, they succeeded in electing their candidates to the leadership of the faculty’s KISZ organization. In the autumn, a so-called faculty rally was held with the participation of some 250 student delegates who urged democratic reforms at the university.
The first part of the article briefly summarises the history of the student movement. The second part deals with the events following the faculty meeting. The communist party had the political police investigate the background of the movement after it had been disbanded. The data was collected in a file (Kgy-69), which is no longer available. The third part of the article attempts to reconstruct the contents of the file on the basis of other files and describes the measures taken. The movement was linked to an earlier ultra-left movement, although there was no evidence for this. One of the students, Miklós Haraszti, who later became a democratic opposition activist, was detained for some days, then released and given a police authority warning along with several others. The state security services would probably not have acted on their own against a movement that was campaigning for particularist reforms within the official youth organisation. But they had to fulfil the requests of the client (the party) by concluding that the spontaneous movement had been organised on political grounds.
János Jákob Horváth
In the service of the Soviet "need for news", or the surveillance of Huba Őry by the state security (1959-1985)
Huba Őry (1927–2015) was a Hungarian-born mechanical engineer who, having studied at the Budapest University of Technology, became an assistant professor at the university's Department of Aircraft Engineering. In 1956, he emigrated to France, and in 1959, he settled in the Federal Republic of Germany, where he built an internationally renowned career as an aircraft and rocket engineer. Through Őry’s former colleagues employed in the agent network established at the Budapest University of Technology, the Hungarian state security used Őry from 1960 to the mid-1980s, first as an agent candidate, and then as a source of information. During the operational work around him, many European and American rocket and aeronautical documents, data, and even structural samples were obtained and forwarded to the appreciative Soviet intelligence. The available sources suggest that Őry was not aware that he was also supporting the development of the Soviet space industry by providing professional assistance to his colleagues and friends who remained in Hungary. The study is based on the research results of the author’s doctoral dissertation on the Hungarian state security’s role in the Soviet-American space race.
Gábor Szilágyi
They Were the Winning Vanguard
A book review on
Papp István: A magyar kommunisták, 1918‒1989. [The Hungarian Communists, 1918‒1989]
Jaffa Kiadó, Budapest 2024. 398 p.
István Papp’s new book represents the first attempt to write a concise history of the Communist movement in Hungary. The author’s approach is mainly a chronological one, however, he does not focus on events but on ideas and dilemmas within the communist party and its intellectual circles (so-called ‘history of problems’). His crucial term is ‘adaptation’ – with a dual meaning. On the one hand, communists in power had to modify their ideology everywhere when facing reality – on the other hand, especially the Hungarian communists had to adapt either pure Marxism or the practice of Stalinism to the conditions given in their home country. Within this framework, in Papp’s view, there were three attempts to implement communist ideology in Hungary: in 1919, in 1944/45 and in 1956. The author claims that the communist movement as such vanished when these dilemmas ceased to exist within Hungarian communist thinking. Afterwards, a communist party formally remained in power until 1989, but without definite aims (besides withholding political power). Despite some mistakes in terminology, Papp’s work can be considered a remarkable contribution to the scholarly discussion on communism in Hungary.
Klára Katona
Compass for young historians
A Book review on
Bevezetés a történettudományba és a történelemkutatás módszereibe
[Introduction to the science of history and research methodology]
Edited by Róbert Kerepeszki and Katalin Schrek
Kronosz Könyvkiadó Kft., Budapest, 2023. 365 p.
In this book, ten professionals of different fields of historical research reveal the working methods of historians. All of the authors are researchers, and most of them are also university lecturers. With this background, the authors are aware of students’ needs and deficiencies in connection with scientific research, so they created a textbook for budding historians and university students. This book is a guide that leads the readers along the entire process of creating a scientific paper, especially a thesis, and a useful collection of practical advice too. The book explains the main activities in an archive, a library or a museum, the types of sources (including maps, ancient inscriptions and oral history interviews), the genres of historiography, and the various methods of research and writing. The general rules and requirements of a scientific publication are clarified too. However, the appearance of AI and the consequences of its use is discussed only briefly.