Book Review: Hedvig Turai: Anna Margit
Turai, H., & Anna, M. (2002). Anna Margit. Budapest: Szemimpex
Book Review: Bögre Zsuzsanna: Vallásosság és identitás. Élettörténetek a diktatúrában (1948-1964)
Bögre Zsuzsanna: Vallásosság és identitás. Élettörténetek a diktatúrában (1948–1964). Studia Sociologica, Dialóg Campus Kiadó, Budapest–Pécs, 2005. 200 p.
Book Review: A zsidó kommunista funkcionáriusnő felemelkedése és bukása: Ana Pauker élete
Robert Levy: Ana Pauker. The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist. Berkeley, London, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2001. 407 old.
The Future of Women's History: Writing Women's History in Eastern Europe: Towards a "Terra Cognita"?
Presents the author's personal reflection as an East European historian and educator. Overview of writing women's history and history of gender in Eastern Europe; Process of the institution building of women's history; History of Croatia. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Women and 'the alternative public sphere': toward a new definition of women's activism and the separate spheres in East-Central Europe
In the years following the end of the cold war in 1989, Western feminist scholars and activists expressed disappointment in the failure of the newly democratic Eastern and Central European countries to sustain mainstream women's rights movements and achieve a marked increase in women's participation within the new political parties and political life in general. The authors, historians of Hungarian women's movements with a broad East-West perspective, offer a novel explanation for this phenomenon. Following an outline of the main stages of Hungarian women's movements and women's political participation, they focus on two instances in twentieth-century Hungarian history that resulted in a rapid transition from anti-democratic regimes to liberal, parliamentary systems: the 1918 bourgeois democratic revolution and the 1990 re-introduction of free parliamentary elections. Examining these two turning points in recent Hungarian history, separated by 70 years, as case studies of women's activism, the authors propose a new, critical re-evaluation of the notion of separate spheres, offering a timely if co-incidental comment on the recent debate in the Journal of Women's History . 2 Research for this article had been completed by the time of the publication of the Spring 2003 issue of the Journal of Women's History, 15 (1), devoted to 'Rethinking Public and Private'. (Author) (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Introduction / Feminism And Economic Inquiry In Communist And Post-Communist Poland / A Comparative Study Of Women In Hungarian And European Academic And Research Institutions / Feminisms And Social Sciences In European Countries With A Statist Feminist H
This Explorations investigates the current status of the research done on women's economic position in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), focusing on the current treatment of feminism in these countries. Agnieszka Majcher discusses feminist economic inquiry and the position of women in higher education in Poland. Krisztina Majoros focuses on the progress and problems of women in higher education and research institutions in Hungary and compares these to other EU countries. Finally, Andrea Pető reports on the legacy of what has been termed “statist feminism” and explores various strategies to strengthen feminist economic research in CEE countries.
Women in Hungarian politics, 1945-1951
Based on extensive primary source material and oral history interviews, this book is the first comprehensive study of women´s political involvement in post-World War II Hungary. It addresses the impact of the spread of communism and describes how some key organizations, such as the Feminist Association, various Jewish women´s societies, and the women´s section of the Social Democratic and Smallholders´ Party gradually ceased to exist and were replaced by a single communist-dominated women´s organization. The book includes a case study of women who entered the police force, a profession previously closed to them. A chapter is devoted to the life stories of communist women activists appointed to key positions after 1945.
Feminizmus és történelem
Large numbers of women in Europe undertake Women's Studies training, but we have no systematic data on the impact of that training on their subsequent employment and quality of life.The project as an EC 5th Framework Project therefore seeks to analyse how Women’s Studies training affects women’s opportunities and interventions in the labour market.Since Women’s Studies training differs greatly between countries, a further objective is to examine how these differences relate to individual women's subsequent employment achievements, including changes in the balance between family and work, and changing and managing relationshipswithin the family.As women's employment opportunities vary greatly betweenpartner countries we need to understand what women, once trained in Women’s Studies, do given the structuring of their employment opportunities.F inally,we intend to analyse the impactWomen’s Studies training has on the changes women seek to generate in the workplace, and how it impacts on women's professional and other duties are undertaken in the workplace.
Book Review: Daphne Berdahl; et al.: Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union by Daphne Berdahl; Matti Bunzl; Martha Lampland; Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Book Review: Asher Cohen, A haluc ellenállás Magyarországon 1942-1945
A Haluc ellenállás Magyarországon 1942-1944, Balassi Kiadó, 2002, ISBN: 9635064716
Cultures of Populism and the Political Right in Central Europe
In their paper, "Cultures of Populism and the Political Right in Central Europe," Patricia Chiantera-Stutte and Andrea Petö analyze the common points and differences in which imagined and mythologized histories are serving as a mobilizing force for extreme-right movements in three Central European countries, in Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The authors discuss how populist and right-wing political parties in these countries construct their conceptions of an alternative identity for the European Union. Further, the authors analyze the politico-territorial myths constructed by the three populist right-wing parties, the Freedom Party in Austria, the Northern League in Italy, and the Party of Hungarian Life and Truth. The programs of the three parties assert the equasion of the German concept of Volk with territory: the Freedom Party propagates a particular concept of Central Europe (Mitteleuropa), the Northern League of Padania assumes to be the true "nation" of the reagion, and the Party of Hungarian Life and Truth builds on imagined and mythologized concepts of an ancient Hungary with a homogeneous society and culture. The authors analyze the construction of essentialist identities based on imagined historical communities and on the exclusion of the Other where anti-Semitism is a driving factor represent a sceptical ideology evident in the discourse of the said parties.
Familienpolitische Maßnahmen in Österreich, Bulgarien und Ungarn
Family policies in Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary – when viewed against the background of their different socioeconomic framework conditions – are based on concepts that are primarily geared to the family as a unity and not to the individual person. These concepts assign individual family members to different societal positions, contribute to a conservative restoration of the roles of women and men, and stabilize traditional gender hierarchies. Social spending cuts and the privatisation of services are even more precarious in the transformation countries, which are additionally burdened with the economic and social costs of system change, than in Austria. In none of the three countries, though, the social and family policy prerequisites for reconciling job and family obligations are satisfactorily fulfilled. An insufficient supply of public child care facilities is an important structural obstacle in this regard. A familialisation of women, in association with an idealisation of the mother role and private child care, tends to be one of the consequences. It should be noted that experiences from various countries show that it is not the amount of transfer benefits, but the opportunity for women to earn their own income in combination with a qualified public child care scheme and partnership-based family models that account for higher birth rates. Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria are still far away from any such solutions as formulated in Scandinavian family and social policy concepts.
A Missing Piece? How Hungarian Women in the Communist Nomenklatura are not Remembering
Focuses on Hungarian communist women's political self-consciousness. Historical culture of the communist movement; Women's political activities; Democratization process. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Book Review: Daphne Berdahl: Altering states : ethnographies of transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
Berdahl, D., Bunzl, M., & Lampland, M. (2000). Altering states: Ethnographies of transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Book Review: No fruit salad ... but golems and guerillas: Giovanna Covi:Critical studies on the feminist subject
Covi, G. (1997). Critical studies on the feminist subject. Trento: Dipartimento di scienze filologiche e storiche.
Book Review: Time out to Breathe: Ute Gerhard: Atempause : Feminismus als demokratisches Projekt
Gerhard, U. (1999). Atempause: Feminismus als demokratisches Projekt. Frau in der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.
Book Review: Rosalind Marsh: Women in Russia and Ukraine /Mary Buckley: Post-Soviet Women: from the Baltic to Central Asia
Rosalind Marsh (ed.), Women in Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1998), pp. xvi + 350, £55 and £19.95. ISBN 0 521 49522 9 (hb)and 0 521 49872 4 (pb).Mary Buckley (ed.), Post-Soviet Women: from the Baltic to Central Asia (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1997), pp. xiv + 316, £50 and £16.95. ISBN0 521 56320 8 (hb) and 521 56330 8 (pb).
Book Review: David Cesarani: Genocide and rescue : the Holocaust in Hungary 1944
Cesarani, D. (1997). Genocide and rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944. Oxford: Berg.
Book Review: Stephen Kotkin: Magnetic mountain : Stalinism as a civilization
Kotkin, S. (1995). Magnetic mountain: Stalinism as a civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hanák Péter – a város polgára
A válogatás egy Hanák Péterrel készített interjúval kezdődik, amelyben kutatási témairól is vall a rá olyan jellemző szenvedélyes, személyes stílusban. A két fejezeten belül a szövegek időrendben szerepelnek, kivéve, ha egyes korábbi tanulmányok részeit évekkel később bővebben is kifejtette, ahogy például a polgári lakáskultúráról írott tanulmányát négy évvel később követi az Erzsébet körúti bérházról szóló esettanulmány. Hanák Péter életműve koncentrikus, egymás melletti és egymással átfedésben álló körökből áll. A századforduló kultúrájáról írt tanulmányai csak mesterségesen lennének elválaszthatók mindattól, amit például az identitás problémáiról írt. A válogatásnál az egyes kutatási témák időbeli fejlődésének érzékeltetésén túl szempont volt a műfaji sokszínűség bemutatása is. Hanák Péternek a hetvenes években és a nyolcvanas évek elején az Élet és Irodalom-ban megjelent publicisztikái élvezetes olvasmányok, és eddig együtt még nem jelentek meg. A hagyatékban szereplő eddig kiadatlan kézirat is bekerült a válogatásba. Az egyes fejezetekben szereplő válogatás darabjai között találhatunk a monografikus igénnyel megírt művek mellett kisebb tanulmányokat, esszéket, sőt rádióinterjúk átiratait is.
Book Review: Margit Feischmidt, Enikő Magyari-Vincze, Violetta Zentai (eds.): Women and Men in East European Transition
Feischmidt, M., Magyari-Vincze, E., & Zentai, V. (1997). Women and men in East European transition: Summer School, Cluj, July 23-28, 1996. Cultural analysis series, 3. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Fundaţiei pentru Studii Europene.