The Hungarian World, 1938-1940
Contents
Zoltán Babucs: Security operations of the 2nd Infantry Brigade of Budapest in Szilágyság between 11 and 18 September 1940
József Botlik: Territorial changes of Carpathian Ruthenia: 1919-1945
László Gulyás: The First Vienna Award, the endgame: what happened on 2 November 1938
Péter Illik: Evaluation of the Horthy era in Hungarian secondary school history textbooks (1945-2005)
Csaba Kása: The role of Mesterfilm Kft. in creating nationalist film production
Artúr Köő: Are living witnesses from the revision period still telling their stories, and if so, about what?
Zsombor Szabolcs Pál: The impacts of Portuguese Salazarism on Hungary between the two World Wars
Ferenc Szávai: Economic challenges and accomplishments in post-Trianon Hungary
Nóra Szekér: German pressure and secret societies based on the example of the activities of the Hungarian Fraternal Community and the Hungarian Independence Movement
Éva Teiszler: Lasting works of the St. Stephen Memorial Year
László Tamás Vizi: Government efforts to suppress the far-right in Hungary's 1939 national elections
The authors of the volume
Foreword
The temporary exhibition entitled "The Hungarian World 1938-1940" was hosted by the Hungarian National Museum between December 2019 and March 2020. The organisers defined the goal of the exhibition as follows: "to present the political and social life and art scene of Hungary at the end of the 1930s with interactive tools and via 20 thematic sections and a café in the way how the people of the age saw and experienced it; in other words, to create a snapshot".
We are delighted to state that the exhibition escaped the fate of temporary exhibits, cessation, as on the one hand, it was transferred to the Dezső Laczkó Museum in Veszprém and numerous recordings, a "Virtual Tour" and a related online quiz are also available on the Internet. On the other hand, the present volume of studies - that will soon be available also in English - contains the edited presentations delivered at a related conference held with the involvement of several researchers of the Institute for Hungarian Studies.
István Széchenyi's book "Világ vagy is felvilágosító töredékek némi hiba 's előitélet eligazitására" (in English: Light or Illuminating Fragments to Correct Some Errors and Prejudices) was published by the Landerer Printing House in Pest in 1831. Széchenyi's book can be read as a significant parallel to our age as the Horthy era is still at the heart of serious historical and public debates and there are numerous errors, mistakes, misunderstandings and prejudices around the topic. It is not the intention of either the exhibition or the volume to contradict them, they rather follow a consistent approach by providing an unbiased perspective with a focus on hitherto undeservedly ignored details of lifestyle history instead of dealing with overemphasized political topics and event history. The book presents lifestyle historical topics within a short time period with a diversified approach and from a multidisciplinary and microhistorical point of view.
The present volume of nearly 300 pages contains eleven studies; more than half of the authors are researchers of the Institute for Hungarian Studies. Although the studies are arranged in alphabetical order according to the authors' names, the topics align a thematic-methodological structure.
...
The studies discuss inflammatory, so far neglected or still relevant topics with great skill. The authors - strictly applying the methodology of historiography and based on sources and extensive literature - form their opinion and do not hide behind the disguise of objectivity and value neutrality, as a result of which the volume provides a detailed and nuanced picture of the Horthy era that is scientifically sound in every sense, both regarding the topics and the value judgement.
Budapest, the month of November 2021
The editors