The development of East European historical studies in Hungary prior to 1945

Abstract

This study is the first attempt in any language to summarize the development and achievements of East European Studies in Hungary up to the rise
of Marxist historiography in 1945. The author points out that, despite Hungary’s position as an East Central European state, not until the interwar period did the Hungarians undertake a serious study of the history and culture
of their immediate neighbors. This phenomenon — which may have been due
to a number of factors, including an over-emphasis on Oriental Studies and
to a high degree of Hungarocentrism — changed altogether with the Treaty
of Trianon (1920) and the consequent partitioning of historic Hungary. This
national catastrophe shook up the Hungarians and made them realize the deficiency of their knowledge about the region in which they lived. The result
was the rapid expansion of Hungarian scholarship in the area of East European studies. This expansion manifested itself 1) in the more intensive study
of East European languages, 2) in the establishment of several chairs of East
European history at a number of universities, 3) in the initiation of source publication ventures with special attention to the national minority question, 4)
in the foundation of a number of university "minority institutes”, followed
by the establishment of the famed Teleki Institute in 1941, which soon became
Hungary’s major center of historical research, 5) and finally in the rise of
a new generation of trained East Europeanists, who produced a flood of excellent basic studies on East European history, culture, language and linguistics, and established a solid foundation for future East European scholarship in Hungary.