• Mobilizing the nation : from war propaganda to peacetime cultural diplomacy and beyond
• Defining the nation
• Educating international public opinion : cultural institutions and scholarly publications
• Showcasing the nation : the role of tourism
• Becoming audible and visible : radio broadcasting and cinematic production in the service of cultural diplomacy.

The monograph examines the development of interwar Hungarian cultural diplomacy in three areas: academia, the tourist industry, and motion picture and radio production. It is a story of how Hungarian elites perceived--and misperceived--themselves, their surroundings, and their own ability to affect the country's fate amid high hopes and deepseated anxieties about the country's place in a Europe newly reconstructed after World War I. Though the study is rooted in Hungary, it explores the dynamic and contingent relationship between identity construction and transnational cultural and political currents in small EastCentral European nations in the interwar period.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: The Stalinist leader cult : origins, interpretations, and functions
• Part I. The construction of the cult
• The chronology of cult construction (1925-1953)
• The institutions and agents of cult construction
• "The biography is a very serious issue" : the role of biographies in constructing the Rákosi cult
• "He was created by a thousand years" : nationalism and the leader cult
• "Comrade Rákosi lives with us" : the visual and the spatial aspects of the Rákosi cult
• Part II. Responses to the cult's expansion
• "Love for Comrade Rákosi has become deeper" : the communicative influence of the cult
• "Death to Uncle Rákosi!" : negative perceptions of the cult
• Ignorance is bliss : popular indifference and the shortcomings of communist propaganda
• Part III. The dismantling of the cult
• The "new course" and the decay of the Rákosi cult, 1953-1956
• The collapse of the Rákosi cult.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the construction, reception and eventual decline of the cult of the Hungarian Communist Party Secretary, Mtys Rkosi, one of the most striking examples of orchestrated adulation in the Soviet bloc.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Il volume raccoglie i testi delle relazioni tenute al congresso internazionale «La Rivoluzione ungherese del 1956 e l'Italia», organizzato dall'Accademia d'Ungheria in Roma. In apertura figurano due saggi incentrati su due aspetti dell'incontro della società italiana con il 1956 ungherese. La seconda sezione del volume indaga le discussioni che si accesero all'interno del Partito comunista italiano e nell'ambiente degli intellettuali di sinistra in seguito alla rivolta d'Ungheria. Nella terza sezione degli atti hanno trovato collocazione due analisi dell'influsso esercitato dalla rivoluzione del 1956 sulle strategie di politica estera del governo italiano e della Santa Sede. I due saggi che chiudono il volume analizzano il posto occupato dalla rivoluzione nella memoria storica e culturale. [Testo dell'editore]

• A rural world, before 1918
• Cultural contact, post 1918
• Minority making, 1920s
• A unique identity, 1930s
• The volk triumphant, Second World War
• Return to minority, 1945-1993.

Tangible Belonging presents a compelling historical and ethnographic study of the German speakers in Hungary, from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Through this tumultuous period in European history, the Hungarian-German leadership tried to organize German-speaking villagers, Hungary tried to integrate (and later expel) them, and Germany courted them. The German speakers themselves, however, kept negotiating and renegotiating their own idiosyncratic sense of what it meant to be German. John C. Swanson's work looks deeply into the enduring sense of tangible belonging that characterized Germanness from the perspective of rural dwellers, as well as the broader phenomenon of "minority making" in twentieth-century Europe. The chapters reveal the experiences of Hungarian Germans through the First World War and the subsequent dissolution of Austria-Hungary; the treatment of the German minority in the newly independent Hungarian Kingdom; the rise of the racial Volksdeutsche movement and Nazi influence before and during the Second World War; the immediate aftermath of the war and the expulsions; the suppression of German identity in Hungary during the Cold War; and the fall of Communism and reinstatement of minority rights in 1993. Throughout, Swanson offers colorful oral histories from residents of the rural Swabian villages to supplement his extensive archival research. As he shows, the definition of being a German in Hungary varies over time and according to individual interpretation, and does not delineate a single national identity. What it meant to be German was continually in flux. In Swanson's broader perspective, defining German identity is ultimately a complex act of cognition reinforced by the tangible environment of objects, activities, and beings. As such, it endures in individual and collective mentalities despite the vicissitudes of time, history, language, and politics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Internationalist socialism and ethnic nationalism are usually thought of as polar opposites. But for the millions of men and women who made Social Democracy into twentieth-century Europe's most potent political force, they were often mutually reinforcing. Workers and Nationalism explains this apparent paradox by looking at the history of the Social Democratic workers' movement in Habsburg Austria, which was built on the mobilization of German and Czech workers in the Empire's rapidly industrializing regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Lower Austria. Jakub Benes takes the history of socialism out of the realm of theoretical and parliamentary debates and into the streets, city squares, pubs, and clubs of a vibrant but precarious multi-ethnic society. He reveals how ordinary workers became increasingly nationalist as they came to believe that they were the genuine representatives of their ethnic national communities. Their successful campaign to democratize parliamentary elections in 1905-1907 accelerated such thinking rapidly. It also split Social Democracy apart by 1911. Then, during the First World War, many Czech and German workers embraced revolutionary radicalism, alienating them from the regime-friendly socialist leadership. Benes's study is the first to show the profound connection between major political events and the rich culture of the Austrian workers' movement, revealing this culture's utopian and quasi-religious tendencies as well as its left populist nationalism. Based on research in eight archives and numerous libraries in Prague, Vienna, and Brno, Workers and Nationalism fundamentally rethinks the relationship between socialism, nationalism, and democracy in modern Europe.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe introduction describes the genesis of the book, establishes the historical questions it addresses, points to the answers to come, and situates this work in the historiography of Central and Eastern Europe. Most importantly, it makes the case for collective biography, which is the most innovative feature of this book. The introduction also defines the main features of northeastern Hungary and stresses what is gained by viewing nineteenth-century history from the vantage point of this poor, remote region. Drawing on Benedict Anderson and Edward Said, it closes with reflections on the "imagined geography" as an analytical framework that captures the mixture of acute observations and bold visions of change offered by the eight men and women examined here.
• 1The Aristocrat chapter abstractThe subject of the first
• chapter is Count Jozsef Gvadanyi, an aristocrat of Italian origins who spent forty years as a cavalry officer before becoming a prolific author in his sixties. Largely forgotten today, Gvadanyi was one of the most popular authors of the 1790s. He churned out biographies, military studies, and long, narrative poems. An analysis of the poetry reveals Gvadanyi to be a careful observer of northeastern Hungary. The count was supportive of upward mobility through education and largely sympathetic to the diverse peoples who lived in the region (although Jews have no place in his literary landscapes). In this way, Gvadanyi's writings begin to construct the "myth of the provinces": namely, the belief that Hungary had great untapped economic potential and that its different peoples lived in relative harmony. Later chapters take apart and add to this myth.
• 2The Merchant chapter abstractThe second chapter drops from the top of the social pyramid to near the bottom, to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant from Poland. Rafael Kastenbaum came to Hungary as a young man and worked as a merchant and moneylender in northeastern Hungary. Kastenbaum left behind few biographical documents. But when he died, his will showed him to be much wealthier and much more generous than anyone had suspected. A reconstruction of Kastenbaum's life shows the precarious position of Jews in provincial Hungary, just as his will's surprising bequests reveal the era's faith in education and the importance of local political coalitions (in this case the county nobility and Jewish elites) to achieve change.
• 3The Engineer chapter abstractHopes for the dramatic economic transformation of provincial Hungary defined the life of Pal Vasarhelyi. Born into a poor noble family, Vasarhelyi became a water engineer, an occupation with great responsibility but limited social status and low pay. In this capacity Vasarhelyi spent long years on the Danube and Tisza Rivers. His writings encompass technical reports, pamphlets on water measurement, newspaper articles, and published speeches. In unguarded moments, Vasarhelyi let his imagination fly and dreamed of using river regulation to solve the economic, transportation, and social problems that beset the provinces. Vasarhelyi's plans were not fully realized, but they sketch a very different "imagined geography" of Hungary, which centered on the northeastern counties rather than on Budapest.
• 4The Teacher chapter abstractEconomic issues give way to national questions with Klara Loevei, whose noble family had also fallen on hard times. As a woman, she had fewer options than Vasarhelyi. Undaunted, Loevei explored nearly all the career paths open to women of her era (actress, governess, teacher) before becoming in turn a revolutionary, political prisoner, and journalist. Letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles document her remarkable career. These sources can help us understand the roles played by women in provincial society and the importance of education as a means of individual and collective change. Finally, Loevei's pronounced Hungarian national loyalty illuminates what nationalism meant in an ethnically mixed border region.
• 5The Journalist chapter abstractThis chapter also looks at nationalism, but this time from a Romanian point of view. Iosif Vulcan was descended from one of the most prestigious Romanian families in Austria-Hungary. He wrote plays, novels, and poetry-- he championed Romanian-language theater-- and he edited the journal The Family for nearly forty years. Scholars often view him as a Romanian national activist-- this chapter asks what is gained if we see him as a provincial one. An examination of Vulcan's career shows the development of the public sphere (newspapers, books, associations) in the provinces. It also expands the argument (begun in previous chapters) about how nationalism worked on the ground in ethnically and religiously diverse regions.
• 6The Rabbi chapter abstractWhat role did religion play in public life? What about antisemitism? How did Jews respond to pressures to adopt the language and customs of the majority Christian society? Answers to these questions emerge from the life of Rabbi Armin Schnitzer, who grew up in northeastern Hungary but later settled in a small town in western Hungary. Schnitzer published a memoir, as well as speeches, sermons, and newspaper articles. In them we can see how Schnitzer tried to define a Jewish identity that fused Hungarian patriotism, imperial loyalty, and a measure of Zionism. They also show how Schnitzer used the local press, the town council, and networks of friends to respond to statewide crises, including the Tiszaeszlar ritual murder case in the 1880s and the battle over civil marriage in the 1890s. From this perspective, local political institutions appear much more vibrant and viable than is often assumed.
• 7The Tobacconist chapter abstractThis chapter moves into the Hungarian countryside and looks at agriculture, the engine of the economy, albeit one that sometimes raced and sometimes sputtered and stalled. It focuses on Vilmos Daroczi, a Jew who grew up in a small village and eventually made his way to Budapest. Daroczi worked as a tobacco grower, tobacco buyer, and for the last quarter-century of his life, editor of a newspaper devoted to tobacco cultivation. The northeastern counties figured prominently in Daroczi's thinking, as he dreamed of remaking the rural society from which he had emerged. Daroczi's work can help us think about Hungary's place in the global economy, about economic forces remaking the countryside, and about the connections between patriotism and consumption.
• 8The Writer chapter abstractMargit Kaffka grew up just a dozen miles from where Daroczi was born. Yet she did not share his optimism about the countryside. The daughter of yet another poor Hungarian nobleman, Kaffka eked out a living as a teacher and writer, first in a small town and then in Budapest. From there she looked back in anger on the Hungarian provinces. Her great novel Colors and Years (1912) examined the disintegration of the provincial nobility and documented its effects on women. To Kaffka, the provinces' social order was feudal, its Hungarian nationalism hollow, and its local politics corrupt. And yet, her work does offer a path forward that led through - rather than away from - the provinces. In this way, Kaffka retained something of the "myth of the provinces, " even as she insightfully diagnosed its woes.
• Conclusion chapter abstractThe conclusion highlights the common themes that join the lives of these men and women: their mobility, education, political engagement, professional achievements, social networks, and local loyalties. It documents how differently these men and women have been remembered, from the house museum of "the journalist" to the vanished grave of "the merchant." Most importantly, the conclusion answers the questions laid out in the introduction and pursued in the eight body chapters, emphasizing the innovative responses of some men and women to larger historical changes, the complex role played by ideologies in the countryside, and the shifting relationship between center and periphery. It closes with a brief reflection on what is gained by looking at history through a collective biography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Another Hungary tells the stories of eight remarkable individuals: an aristocrat, merchant, engineer, teacher, journalist, rabbi, tobacconist, and writer. All eight came from the same woebegone corner of prewar Hungary. Their biographies illuminate how the region's residents made sense of economic underdevelopment, ethnic diversity, and relations between Christians and Jews. Taken together, their stories create a unique picture of the troubled history of Eastern Europe, viewed not from the capital cities, but from the small towns and villages. Through these eight lives, Another Hungary investigates the wider processes that remade Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. It asks: How did people make sense of the dramatic changes, from the advent of the railroad to the outbreak of the First World War? How did they respond to the army of political ideologies that marched through this region: liberalism, socialism, nationalism, antisemitism, and Zionism? To what extent did people in the provinces not just react to, but influence what was happening in the centers of political power? This collective biography confirms that nineteenth-century Hungary was no earthly paradise. But it also shows that the provinces produced men and women with bold ideas on how to change their world.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe introduction describes the genesis of the book, establishes the historical questions it addresses, points to the answers to come, and situates this work in the historiography of Central and Eastern Europe. Most importantly, it makes the case for collective biography, which is the most innovative feature of this book. The introduction also defines the main features of northeastern Hungary and stresses what is gained by viewing nineteenth-century history from the vantage point of this poor, remote region. Drawing on Benedict Anderson and Edward Said, it closes with reflections on the "imagined geography" as an analytical framework that captures the mixture of acute observations and bold visions of change offered by the eight men and women examined here.
• 1The Aristocrat chapter abstractThe subject of the first
• chapter is Count Jozsef Gvadanyi, an aristocrat of Italian origins who spent forty years as a cavalry officer before becoming a prolific author in his sixties. Largely forgotten today, Gvadanyi was one of the most popular authors of the 1790s. He churned out biographies, military studies, and long, narrative poems. An analysis of the poetry reveals Gvadanyi to be a careful observer of northeastern Hungary. The count was supportive of upward mobility through education and largely sympathetic to the diverse peoples who lived in the region (although Jews have no place in his literary landscapes). In this way, Gvadanyi's writings begin to construct the "myth of the provinces": namely, the belief that Hungary had great untapped economic potential and that its different peoples lived in relative harmony. Later chapters take apart and add to this myth.
• 2The Merchant chapter abstractThe second chapter drops from the top of the social pyramid to near the bottom, to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant from Poland. Rafael Kastenbaum came to Hungary as a young man and worked as a merchant and moneylender in northeastern Hungary. Kastenbaum left behind few biographical documents. But when he died, his will showed him to be much wealthier and much more generous than anyone had suspected. A reconstruction of Kastenbaum's life shows the precarious position of Jews in provincial Hungary, just as his will's surprising bequests reveal the era's faith in education and the importance of local political coalitions (in this case the county nobility and Jewish elites) to achieve change.
• 3The Engineer chapter abstractHopes for the dramatic economic transformation of provincial Hungary defined the life of Pal Vasarhelyi. Born into a poor noble family, Vasarhelyi became a water engineer, an occupation with great responsibility but limited social status and low pay. In this capacity Vasarhelyi spent long years on the Danube and Tisza Rivers. His writings encompass technical reports, pamphlets on water measurement, newspaper articles, and published speeches. In unguarded moments, Vasarhelyi let his imagination fly and dreamed of using river regulation to solve the economic, transportation, and social problems that beset the provinces. Vasarhelyi's plans were not fully realized, but they sketch a very different "imagined geography" of Hungary, which centered on the northeastern counties rather than on Budapest.
• 4The Teacher chapter abstractEconomic issues give way to national questions with Klara Loevei, whose noble family had also fallen on hard times. As a woman, she had fewer options than Vasarhelyi. Undaunted, Loevei explored nearly all the career paths open to women of her era (actress, governess, teacher) before becoming in turn a revolutionary, political prisoner, and journalist. Letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles document her remarkable career. These sources can help us understand the roles played by women in provincial society and the importance of education as a means of individual and collective change. Finally, Loevei's pronounced Hungarian national loyalty illuminates what nationalism meant in an ethnically mixed border region.
• 5The Journalist chapter abstractThis chapter also looks at nationalism, but this time from a Romanian point of view. Iosif Vulcan was descended from one of the most prestigious Romanian families in Austria-Hungary. He wrote plays, novels, and poetry-- he championed Romanian-language theater-- and he edited the journal The Family for nearly forty years. Scholars often view him as a Romanian national activist-- this chapter asks what is gained if we see him as a provincial one. An examination of Vulcan's career shows the development of the public sphere (newspapers, books, associations) in the provinces. It also expands the argument (begun in previous chapters) about how nationalism worked on the ground in ethnically and religiously diverse regions.
• 6The Rabbi chapter abstractWhat role did religion play in public life? What about antisemitism? How did Jews respond to pressures to adopt the language and customs of the majority Christian society? Answers to these questions emerge from the life of Rabbi Armin Schnitzer, who grew up in northeastern Hungary but later settled in a small town in western Hungary. Schnitzer published a memoir, as well as speeches, sermons, and newspaper articles. In them we can see how Schnitzer tried to define a Jewish identity that fused Hungarian patriotism, imperial loyalty, and a measure of Zionism. They also show how Schnitzer used the local press, the town council, and networks of friends to respond to statewide crises, including the Tiszaeszlar ritual murder case in the 1880s and the battle over civil marriage in the 1890s. From this perspective, local political institutions appear much more vibrant and viable than is often assumed.
• 7The Tobacconist chapter abstractThis chapter moves into the Hungarian countryside and looks at agriculture, the engine of the economy, albeit one that sometimes raced and sometimes sputtered and stalled. It focuses on Vilmos Daroczi, a Jew who grew up in a small village and eventually made his way to Budapest. Daroczi worked as a tobacco grower, tobacco buyer, and for the last quarter-century of his life, editor of a newspaper devoted to tobacco cultivation. The northeastern counties figured prominently in Daroczi's thinking, as he dreamed of remaking the rural society from which he had emerged. Daroczi's work can help us think about Hungary's place in the global economy, about economic forces remaking the countryside, and about the connections between patriotism and consumption.
• 8The Writer chapter abstractMargit Kaffka grew up just a dozen miles from where Daroczi was born. Yet she did not share his optimism about the countryside. The daughter of yet another poor Hungarian nobleman, Kaffka eked out a living as a teacher and writer, first in a small town and then in Budapest. From there she looked back in anger on the Hungarian provinces. Her great novel Colors and Years (1912) examined the disintegration of the provincial nobility and documented its effects on women. To Kaffka, the provinces' social order was feudal, its Hungarian nationalism hollow, and its local politics corrupt. And yet, her work does offer a path forward that led through - rather than away from - the provinces. In this way, Kaffka retained something of the "myth of the provinces, " even as she insightfully diagnosed its woes.
• Conclusion chapter abstractThe conclusion highlights the common themes that join the lives of these men and women: their mobility, education, political engagement, professional achievements, social networks, and local loyalties. It documents how differently these men and women have been remembered, from the house museum of "the journalist" to the vanished grave of "the merchant." Most importantly, the conclusion answers the questions laid out in the introduction and pursued in the eight body chapters, emphasizing the innovative responses of some men and women to larger historical changes, the complex role played by ideologies in the countryside, and the shifting relationship between center and periphery. It closes with a brief reflection on what is gained by looking at history through a collective biography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Another Hungary tells the stories of eight remarkable individuals: an aristocrat, merchant, engineer, teacher, journalist, rabbi, tobacconist, and writer. All eight came from the same woebegone corner of prewar Hungary. Their biographies illuminate how the region's residents made sense of economic underdevelopment, ethnic diversity, and relations between Christians and Jews. Taken together, their stories create a unique picture of the troubled history of Eastern Europe, viewed not from the capital cities, but from the small towns and villages. Through these eight lives, Another Hungary investigates the wider processes that remade Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. It asks: How did people make sense of the dramatic changes, from the advent of the railroad to the outbreak of the First World War? How did they respond to the army of political ideologies that marched through this region: liberalism, socialism, nationalism, antisemitism, and Zionism? To what extent did people in the provinces not just react to, but influence what was happening in the centers of political power? This collective biography confirms that nineteenth-century Hungary was no earthly paradise. But it also shows that the provinces produced men and women with bold ideas on how to change their world.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Einleitung : Frauen sichtbar machen : das Projekt biografiA : Biografische Datenbank und Lexikon österreichischer Frauen
• Band 1
• Biograf̕en A-H
• Band 2
• Biograf̕en I-O
• Band 3
• Biograf̕en P-Z
• Band 4
• Register
• Personen
• Berufsliste
• Abkürzungen
• Sekundärliteratur
• Nachweise
• Autorinnen.

• Introduction
• 1. Czechs, Germans, and the borderlands before 1945
• 2. Cleansing the borderlands
• 3. Expellees and health in postwar Germany
• 4. The new frontier : resettlement in Czechoslovakia
• 5. Most, the town that moved
• 6. Unsettled landscapes
• Afterword. "A shared longing."

In this innovative study of the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, Eagle Glassheim examines the transformation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland from the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War, and into the twenty-first century. Prior to their expulsion in 1945, ethnic Germans had inhabited the Sudeten borderlands for hundreds of years, with deeply rooted local cultures and close, if sometimes tense, ties with Bohemia's Czech majority. Cynically, if largely willingly, harnessed by Hitler in 1938 to his pursuit of a Greater Germany, the Sudetenland's three million Germans became the focus of Czech authorities in their retributive efforts to remove an alien ethnic element from the body politic-and claim the spoils of this coal-rich, industrialized area. Yet, as Glassheim reveals, socialist efforts to create a modern utopia in the newly resettled "frontier" territories proved exceedingly difficult. Many borderland regions remained sparsely populated, peppered with dilapidated and abandoned houses, and hobbled by decaying infrastructure. In the more densely populated northern districts, coalmines, chemical works, and power plants scarred the land and spewed toxic gases into the air. What once was a diverse religious, cultural, economic, and linguistic "contact zone, " became, according to many observers, a scarred wasteland, both physically and psychologically. Glassheim offers new perspectives on the struggles of reclaiming ethnically cleansed lands in light of utopian dreams and dystopian realities-brought on by the uprooting of cultures, the loss of communities, and the industrial degradation of a oncethriving region. To Glassheim, the lessons drawn from the Sudetenland speak to the deep social traumas and environmental pathologies wrought by both ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored modernization processes that accelerated across Europe as a result of the great wars of the twentieth century.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction / M. Mark Stolarik
• Part I: The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
• The "Velvet Split" of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) / Jan Rychlík
• Czechoslovakia's Dissolution Twenty Years After / Michael Kraus
• The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia : the Slovak Perspective / Jozef Žatkuliak and Adam Hudek
• The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia : The Slovak Perspective / Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
• The Slovak Republic After Twenty Years / Jozef Moravcík
• The Czech Republic After Twenty Years : Gains and Losses / Petr Pithart
• Part II: Political Developments After 1993
• Of People, Mice and Gorillas : Slovak Politics Twenty Years After / Juraj Hocman
• Thinking Big About a Small Country : On Juraj Hocman's "Of People, Mice and Gorillas" / Kevin Deegan-Krause
• Letting Czechoslovakia Go : Czech Political Developments Since 1993 / Adéla Gjuricová
• Czech Political Developments Since 1993 : Some Comments / Carol Skalnik Leff
• Part III: Economic Developments After 1993
• Economic Developments in Slovakia Since 1993 / Ludovít Hallon, Miroslav Londák, and Adam Hudek
• To Neoliberalism and Back? : Twenty Years of Economic Policy in Slovakia / John A. Gould
• Economic Developments in the Czech Republic, 1993-2013 / Martin Pospíšil
• The Czech Economic Transition : From Leader to Laggard / Sharon Fisher
• Part IV: Social Developments After 1993
• Reflections on Social Developments in Slovakia, 1993-2013 / Martin Bútora and Zora Bútorová
• Social Developments in Slovakia after Twenty Years : The Impact of Politics / Sharon L. Wolchik
• Social Developments in the Czech Republic Since 1993 / Oldrich Tuma
• Some Comments on "Social Developments in the Czech Republic" / James W. Peterson.

The essays in the book compare the Czech Republic and Slovakia since the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The papers deal with the causes of the divorce and discuss the political, economic and social developments in the new countries. This is the only English-language volume that presents the synoptic findings of leading Czech, Slovak, and North American scholars in the field. The authors include two former Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eight leading scholars (four Czechs and four Slovaks), and eight knowledgeable commentators from North America. The most significant new insight is that in spite of predictions by various pundits in the Western World that Czechia would flourish after the breakup and Slovakia would languish, the opposite has happened. While the Czech Republic did well in its early years, it is now languishing while Slovakia, which had a rough start, is now doing very well. Anyone interested in the history of the Czech and Slovak Republics over the last twenty years will find gratification in reading this book.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• 1. Peace Overtures, the Allies, and the Holocaust, 1942-1945
• 2. Cuius Regio, Eius Religio: The United States and the Soviet Seizure of Power
• 3. Rollback
• 4.
• 1956: Self-Liberation
• 5. Reprisals and Bridge-Building
• 6. The Dilemmas of External Transformation
• 7. "The Status Quo is Not So Bad": Detente
• 8. Nixon, Carter, and the Kadar Regime
• 9. "Love Towards Kadar": Reagan and the Myth of Liberation
• 10.
• 1989: "Together We Liberated Eastern Europe" Conclusion Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Dealing with Dictators explores America's efforts to make the dictatorships of Eastern Europe less tyrannical and more responsive to the country's international interests during the Cold War era. US policies included a mix of economic and psychological warfare, subversion, cultural and economic penetration, and coercive diplomacy. Through careful examination of American and Hungarian sources, Laszlo Borhi assesses why some policies toward Hungary achieved their goals while others did not. When George H. W. Bush exclaimed to Mikhail Gorbachev on the day the Soviet Union collapsed, "Together we liberated Eastern Europe and unified Germany, " he was hardly doing justice to the complicated history of the era. The story of Hungary's transition from Soviet satellite to independent state sheds light on the dynamics of systemic change in international politics at the end of the Cold War.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• The accidental empire
• Servants and citizens, empire and fatherland, 1780-1815
• An empire of contradictions, 1815-1848
• Whose empire? : the revolutions of 1848-1849
• Mid-century modern : the emergence of a liberal empire
• Culture wars and wars for culture
• Everyday empire, our empire, 1880-1914
• War and radical state building, 1914-1925
• Epilogue: The new empires.

In a panoramic and pioneering reappraisal, Pieter Judson shows why the Habsburg Empire mattered so much, for so long, to millions of Central Europeans. Across divides of language, religion, region, and history, ordinary women and men felt a common attachment to "their empire, " while bureaucrats, soldiers, politicians, and academics devised inventive solutions to the challenges of governing Europe's second largest state. In the decades before and after its dissolution, some observers belittled the Habsburg Empire as a dysfunctional patchwork of hostile ethnic groups and an anachronistic imperial relic. Judson examines their motives and explains just how wrong these rearguard critics were. Rejecting fragmented histories of nations in the making, this bold revision surveys the shared institutions that bridged difference and distance to bring stability and meaning to the far-flung empire. By supporting new schools, law courts, and railroads, along with scientific and artistic advances, the Habsburg monarchs sought to anchor their authority in the cultures and economies of Central Europe. A rising standard of living throughout the empire deepened the legitimacy of Habsburg rule, as citizens learned to use the empire's administrative machinery to their local advantage. Nationalists developed distinctive ideas about cultural difference in the context of imperial institutions, yet all of them claimed the Habsburg state as their empire. The empire's creative solutions to governing its many lands and peoples--as well as the intractable problems it could not solve--left an enduring imprint on its successor states in Central Europe. Its lessons remain no less important today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The nationalization of democracy in the Weimar and First Austrian republics
• The search for symbols
• Representative democracy : commemorating the republics
• Staging a greater German republic : cross-border republican rallies
• Composing the Volk : cultural commemorations with political implications
• Anschluss before Hitler : the politics of the Österreichisch-Deutscher Volksbund.

In Imagining a Greater Germany, Erin R. Hochman offers a fresh approach to the questions of state- and nation-building in interwar Central Europe. Ever since Hitler annexed his native Austria to Germany in 1938, the term "Anschluss" has been linked to Nazi expansionism. The legacy of Nazism has cast a long shadow not only over the idea of the union of German-speaking lands but also over German nationalism in general. Due to the horrors unleashed by the Third Reich, German nationalism has seemed virulently exclusionary, and Anschluss inherently antidemocratic.However, as Hochman makes clear, nationalism and the desire to redraw Germany's boundaries were not solely the prerogatives of the political right. Focusing on the supporters of the embattled Weimar and First Austrian Republics, she argues that support for an Anschluss and belief in the grossdeutsch idea (the historical notion that Germany should include Austria) were central to republicans' persistent attempts to legitimize democracy. With appeals to a grossdeutsch tradition, republicans fiercely contested their opponents' claims that democracy and Germany, socialism and nationalism, Jew and German, were mutually exclusive categories. They aimed at nothing less than creating their own form of nationalism, one that stood in direct opposition to the destructive visions of the political right. By challenging the oft-cited distinction between "good" civic and "bad" ethnic nationalisms and drawing attention to the energetic efforts of republicans to create a cross-border partnership to defend democracy, Hochman emphasizes that the triumph of Nazi ideas about nationalism and politics was far from inevitable.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover; Contents; Preface; Physical and personality traits of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia
• A medical-anthropological investigation; Demographic data ; Hereditary signs on the skeleton; The appearance of Charles IV; Blood group serology tests; Embalming of the body of Charles IV; Information provided by the skeletal remains of Charles IV; The skull ; Reconstruction of the emperor's appearance; The build of Charles IV; State of health of Charles IV; First serious disease of Charles IV in 1350; second serious disease of Charles IV in€1371.

• Chronic gout of emperor Charles IVEye disease ; Injuries to the skeleton of Charles IV; Fractures of the maxillofacial skeleton; Spinal injuries ; Incised wounds on the face ; Blunt injuries to the skull and facial skeleton ; Injuries to long bones of limbs; The cause of death of Charles IV; Conclusion;
• Appendix 1 / Research update;
• Appendix 2 / Composition of expert panel; Emanuel Vlček
• the Emperor's anthropologist; Acknowledgements.

• 1. The system we live under 1.2. Evolutionary forms of corruption
• 2. The disintegration of the Third Hungarian Republic in 2010 2.1. The value system of the Hungarian society 2.2. The political right and left: Two competing anachronisms 2.3. Spaces of rational public discourse in demise 2.4. The actors and the instability of the new ownership structure 2.5. The responsibility borne by the coalition government of the socialists and liberals 2.5.1. Lack in symbolic, community-building politics 2.5.2. Distributive politics and its exhaustion 2.5.3. The shoddiness of freedom and hopelessness of the dispossessed 2.5.4. Inefficacy in government, the incompatible attitudes of the two coalition parties 2.6. Frailty of the institutions guaranteeing the system of checks and balances 2.7. Fidesz as political apex predator 2.7.1. From the close college fraternity to the adopted political family, an alternative rebel turned godfather 2.7.2. Socialist erosion, liberal vaporization and Fidesz's accomplishment of social embeddedness 2.8. Pre-2010 political cold war, and the erosion of the institutional, two-thirds constraint 2.8.1. Political cold war 2.8.2. Economic trench truce: 70/30 2.8.3. Alternating corrupt regimes
• 3. Approaches of interpretation: from the functional disorders of democracy to a critique of the system 3.1. Trapped in an interpretation along the democracy-dictatorship axis 3.2. Moving on to substantive concepts of description 3.3. The limited validity of historical analogies 3.4. Proclamation of the Hungarian "illiberal state"
• 4. Definition of the post-communist mafia state 4.1. Post-communist 4.2. Mafia state 4.3. The expansion of the entitlements of the patriarchal head of the family: mafia, mafia state
• 5. Specific features of the mafia state: a subtype of autocratic regimes 5.1. Concentration of power and accumulation of wealth 5.2. Key players of the mafia state: the ruling elite and its accessories 5.2.1. The poligarch 5.2.2. The oligarch 5.2.3. The stooge 5.2.4. The corruption broker 5.2.5. The family security guard and the secret services 5.3. The political family's expropriation of databases ensuring democratic control 76 5.4. Polipburo, in place of the former communist politburo 5.4.1. Delineation of the mafia state's ruling elite from other historical analogies 5.5. "Law of rule" in place of the "rule of law" 5.5.1. Constitutional coup d'etat-the institutionalization of autocracy 5.5.2. Hostile takeover of the institutions of public authority 5.5.3. Government: not there to take decisions, but to manage decisions taken by the political family 5.5.4. The lexes-custom tailored legislation 5.5.5. Suppressing the control functions of other institutions of public authority 5.6. Administration through confidants and personal governors of the adopted political family instead of a professional bureaucratic administration 5.6.1. Array of devices employed to intimidate the professional administration 5.6.2. Max Weber on the historical path to modern professional bureaucratic administration 5.6.4. Why the mafia state cannot be considered a patrimonial system 5.7. Liquidation of societal autonomies 5.7.1. Liquidation of local autonomies: "caretakers" in place of local governments 5.7.2. Liquidation of the autonomous positions of the intelligentsia in culture and education 5.7.3. Domestication of Non Government Organizations 5.8. Patron-client relations in place of class relations 5.8.1. The changing patterns of existential vulnerability 5.8.2. The variety of the patron-client relations 5.9. The middle strata of the mafia state power hierarchy: service gentry and court purveyors-the "new national middle class" 5.9.1. The service gentry 5.9.2. The court purveyors 5.9.3. Cementing the "new national middle class" 5.9.4. The sin above all sins: disloyalty 5.10. Tributes exacted as economic policy: the system of special taxes 5.10.1. Some forms of special taxes prior to 2010 5.10.2. The systemic escalation of special taxes after 2010 5.10.3. State penalization of critical reactions called forth by special taxes 5.10.4. The inverse of special taxes: strategic agreements and mutual benefits 5.11. Takeover-replacement of the economic elite 5.11.1. The alliance of Fidesz and the "Christian middle-class" 5.11.2. The unique nature of property expropriation by the mafia state 5.11.3. A change of the owner elite and ensuring surrender 5.11.4. The offer that could not be refused 5.11.5. Types of nationalization defined by function 5.12. The rationale of power versus the irrationality of public policies
• 6. The legitimacy deficit faced by the mafia state and the means to overcome it 6.1. Domestication of the media 6.1.1. 2010-2014: Media control in the period of establishing the mafia state 6.1.2. Media control in transformation after 2014, under conditions of the established mafia state ... 148 The Post-Communist Mafia State 6.2. Manipulation of the electoral system 6.2.1. Changes to electoral law after 2010 6.2.2. The Prosecutor's Office as part of the campaign staff 6.2.3. Establishing the institutional means of electoral fraud 6.2.4. The 2014 spring parliamentary elections and autumn municipal elections 6.2.5. Means of curbing election results retrospectively
• 7. Legitimizing the mafia state: the ideological arsenal 7.1. Ideology-driven vs ideology-applying system 7.2. Target-ideological templates: God, homeland, family, work-based society 7.2.1. Nationalism, antisemitism, racism 7.2.2. Ideological pyramid scheme 7.2.3. Religion 7.3. Instrument-ideological templates: the System of National Cooperation and the national freedom fight 7.3.1. The System of National Cooperation (NER) 7.4. The national freedom fight
• 8. The Criminal State 8.1. Hungarian law on criminal organizations 8.2. The Palermo Protocols 8.3. The mafia state as a type of criminal state 8.3.1. One example: criminal organizations expropriating property 8.4. Classifying criminal organization actions
• 9. Pyramid schemes-the limits of the mafia state 9.1. Economic pyramid scheme 9.1.1. Autocracy and autarchy 9.2. Foreign policy pyramid scheme-"peacock dance" and Hungarian-style cunning 9.2.1. Dilemmas faced by the European Union 9.2.2. Opening towards the East 9.2.3. The disparate logic of EU and US sanctions Annexes Annex 1 Annex 2 Annex 3 Annex 4 List of accompanying studies.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In an article in 2001 the author analyzed the way the Hungarian political party Fidesz (the Federation of Young Democrats) was eliminating the institutional system of the rule of law as it was on government for the first time. At that time, many readers doubted the legitimacy of the new approach, in which the author characterized the system as the 'organized over-world', the 'state employing mafia methods' and the 'adopted political family'. Critics considered these categories metaphors rather than elements of a coherent conceptual framework. Ten years later Fidesz won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, removing many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. It is common in many post-communist systems that a segment of the party and secret service became the elite in possession of not only political power but also of wealth. However, Fidesz, as a late-coming new political predator, was able to occupy this position through a change of elite. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. The system we live under 1.2. Evolutionary forms of corruption
• 2. The disintegration of the Third Hungarian Republic in 2010 2.1. The value system of the Hungarian society 2.2. The political right and left: Two competing anachronisms 2.3. Spaces of rational public discourse in demise 2.4. The actors and the instability of the new ownership structure 2.5. The responsibility borne by the coalition government of the socialists and liberals 2.5.1. Lack in symbolic, community-building politics 2.5.2. Distributive politics and its exhaustion 2.5.3. The shoddiness of freedom and hopelessness of the dispossessed 2.5.4. Inefficacy in government, the incompatible attitudes of the two coalition parties 2.6. Frailty of the institutions guaranteeing the system of checks and balances 2.7. Fidesz as political apex predator 2.7.1. From the close college fraternity to the adopted political family, an alternative rebel turned godfather 2.7.2. Socialist erosion, liberal vaporization and Fidesz's accomplishment of social embeddedness 2.8. Pre-2010 political cold war, and the erosion of the institutional, two-thirds constraint 2.8.1. Political cold war 2.8.2. Economic trench truce: 70/30 2.8.3. Alternating corrupt regimes
• 3. Approaches of interpretation: from the functional disorders of democracy to a critique of the system 3.1. Trapped in an interpretation along the democracy-dictatorship axis 3.2. Moving on to substantive concepts of description 3.3. The limited validity of historical analogies 3.4. Proclamation of the Hungarian "illiberal state"
• 4. Definition of the post-communist mafia state 4.1. Post-communist 4.2. Mafia state 4.3. The expansion of the entitlements of the patriarchal head of the family: mafia, mafia state
• 5. Specific features of the mafia state: a subtype of autocratic regimes 5.1. Concentration of power and accumulation of wealth 5.2. Key players of the mafia state: the ruling elite and its accessories 5.2.1. The poligarch 5.2.2. The oligarch 5.2.3. The stooge 5.2.4. The corruption broker 5.2.5. The family security guard and the secret services 5.3. The political family's expropriation of databases ensuring democratic control 76 5.4. Polipburo, in place of the former communist politburo 5.4.1. Delineation of the mafia state's ruling elite from other historical analogies 5.5. "Law of rule" in place of the "rule of law" 5.5.1. Constitutional coup d'etat-the institutionalization of autocracy 5.5.2. Hostile takeover of the institutions of public authority 5.5.3. Government: not there to take decisions, but to manage decisions taken by the political family 5.5.4. The lexes-custom tailored legislation 5.5.5. Suppressing the control functions of other institutions of public authority 5.6. Administration through confidants and personal governors of the adopted political family instead of a professional bureaucratic administration 5.6.1. Array of devices employed to intimidate the professional administration 5.6.2. Max Weber on the historical path to modern professional bureaucratic administration 5.6.4. Why the mafia state cannot be considered a patrimonial system 5.7. Liquidation of societal autonomies 5.7.1. Liquidation of local autonomies: "caretakers" in place of local governments 5.7.2. Liquidation of the autonomous positions of the intelligentsia in culture and education 5.7.3. Domestication of Non Government Organizations 5.8. Patron-client relations in place of class relations 5.8.1. The changing patterns of existential vulnerability 5.8.2. The variety of the patron-client relations 5.9. The middle strata of the mafia state power hierarchy: service gentry and court purveyors-the "new national middle class" 5.9.1. The service gentry 5.9.2. The court purveyors 5.9.3. Cementing the "new national middle class" 5.9.4. The sin above all sins: disloyalty 5.10. Tributes exacted as economic policy: the system of special taxes 5.10.1. Some forms of special taxes prior to 2010 5.10.2. The systemic escalation of special taxes after 2010 5.10.3. State penalization of critical reactions called forth by special taxes 5.10.4. The inverse of special taxes: strategic agreements and mutual benefits 5.11. Takeover-replacement of the economic elite 5.11.1. The alliance of Fidesz and the "Christian middle-class" 5.11.2. The unique nature of property expropriation by the mafia state 5.11.3. A change of the owner elite and ensuring surrender 5.11.4. The offer that could not be refused 5.11.5. Types of nationalization defined by function 5.12. The rationale of power versus the irrationality of public policies
• 6. The legitimacy deficit faced by the mafia state and the means to overcome it 6.1. Domestication of the media 6.1.1. 2010-2014: Media control in the period of establishing the mafia state 6.1.2. Media control in transformation after 2014, under conditions of the established mafia state ... 148 The Post-Communist Mafia State 6.2. Manipulation of the electoral system 6.2.1. Changes to electoral law after 2010 6.2.2. The Prosecutor's Office as part of the campaign staff 6.2.3. Establishing the institutional means of electoral fraud 6.2.4. The 2014 spring parliamentary elections and autumn municipal elections 6.2.5. Means of curbing election results retrospectively
• 7. Legitimizing the mafia state: the ideological arsenal 7.1. Ideology-driven vs ideology-applying system 7.2. Target-ideological templates: God, homeland, family, work-based society 7.2.1. Nationalism, antisemitism, racism 7.2.2. Ideological pyramid scheme 7.2.3. Religion 7.3. Instrument-ideological templates: the System of National Cooperation and the national freedom fight 7.3.1. The System of National Cooperation (NER) 7.4. The national freedom fight
• 8. The Criminal State 8.1. Hungarian law on criminal organizations 8.2. The Palermo Protocols 8.3. The mafia state as a type of criminal state 8.3.1. One example: criminal organizations expropriating property 8.4. Classifying criminal organization actions
• 9. Pyramid schemes-the limits of the mafia state 9.1. Economic pyramid scheme 9.1.1. Autocracy and autarchy 9.2. Foreign policy pyramid scheme-"peacock dance" and Hungarian-style cunning 9.2.1. Dilemmas faced by the European Union 9.2.2. Opening towards the East 9.2.3. The disparate logic of EU and US sanctions Annexes Annex 1 Annex 2 Annex 3 Annex 4 List of accompanying studies.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In an article in 2001 the author analyzed the way the Hungarian political party Fidesz (the Federation of Young Democrats) was eliminating the institutional system of the rule of law as it was on government for the first time. At that time, many readers doubted the legitimacy of the new approach, in which the author characterized the system as the 'organized over-world', the 'state employing mafia methods' and the 'adopted political family'. Critics considered these categories metaphors rather than elements of a coherent conceptual framework. Ten years later Fidesz won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, removing many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. It is common in many post-communist systems that a segment of the party and secret service became the elite in possession of not only political power but also of wealth. However, Fidesz, as a late-coming new political predator, was able to occupy this position through a change of elite. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)