Hungary's Cold War

Hungary's Cold War
Author: Csaba Békés
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2022-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469667495

In this magisterial and pathbreaking work, Csaba Bekes shares decades of his research to provide a sweeping examination of Hungary's international relations with both the Soviet Bloc and the West from the end of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Unlike many studies of the global Cold War that focus on East-West relationships—often from the vantage point of the West—Bekes grounds his work in the East, drawing on little-used, non-English sources. As such, he offers a new and sweeping Cold War narrative using Hungary as a case study, demonstrating that the East-Central European states have played a much more important role in shaping both the Soviet bloc's overall policy and the East-West relationship than previously assumed. Similarly, he shows how the relationship between Moscow and its allies, as well as among the bloc countries, was much more complex than it appeared to most observers in the East and the West alike.

Area Handbook for Hungary

Area Handbook for Hungary
Author: Eugene K. Keefe
Publisher:
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1973
Genre: Hungary
ISBN:

General study of Hungary - covers historical and geographical aspects, demographic aspects and social structures, living conditions, religion, education, cultural factors, the political system, political behaviour and attitudes, international relations, communication, the economic structure, economic planning, income, agriculture, industry, financial aspects, trade, defence, the armed forces, etc. Bibliography pp. 313 to 328, maps and statistical tables.

The Radiant Past

The Radiant Past
Author: Michael Burawoy
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1992-03-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780226080413

Communism, once heralded as the "radiant future" of all humanity, has now become part of Eastern Europe's past. What does the record say about the legacy of communism as an organizational system? Michael Burawoy and Janos Lukacs consider this question from the standpoint of the Hungarian working class. Between 1983 and 1990 the authors carried out intensive studies in two core Hungarian industries, machine building and steel production, to produce the first extended participant-observation study of work and politics in state socialism. "A fascinating and engagingly written eyewitness report on proletarian life in the waning years of goulash communism. . . . A richly rewarding book, one that should interest political scientists in a variety of subfields, from area specialists and comparativists to political economists, as well as those interested in Marxist and post-Marxist theory."—Elizabeth Kiss, American Political Science Review "A very rich book. . . . It does not merely offer another theory of transition, but also presents a clear interpretive scheme, combined with sociological theory and vivid ethnographic description."—Ireneusz Bialecki, Contemporary Sociology "Its informed skepticism of post-Communist liberal euphoria, its concern for workers, and its fine ethnographic details make this work valuable."—"àkos Róna-Tas, American Journal of Sociology

Great Expectations and Interwar Realities

Great Expectations and Interwar Realities
Author: Zsolt Nagy
Publisher: Central European University Press
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2017-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9633861942

After the shock of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which Hungarians perceived as an unfair dictate, the leaders of the country found it imperative to change Hungary?s international image in a way that would help the revision of the post-World War I settlement. The monograph examines the development of interwar Hungarian cultural diplomacy in three areas: universities, the tourist industry, and the media?primarily motion pictures and radio production. It is a story of the Hungarian elites? high hopes and deep-seated anxieties about the country?s place in a Europe newly reconstructed after World War I, and how these elites perceived and misperceived themselves, their surroundings, and their own ability to affect the country?s fate. The defeat in the Great War was crushing, but it was also stimulating, as Nagy documents in his examination of foreignlanguage journals, tourism, radio, and other tools of cultural diplomacy. The mobilization of diverse cultural and intellectual resources, the author argues, helped establish Hungary?s legitimacy in the international arena, contributed to the modernization of the country, and established a set of enduring national images. Though the study is rooted in Hungary, it explores the dynamic and contingent relationship between identity construction and transnational cultural and political currents in East-Central European nations in the interwar period.

Post-Communist Mafia State

Post-Communist Mafia State
Author: B lint Magyar
Publisher: Central European University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2016-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 6155513546

Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed 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. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. 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. ÿ