Department of Modern Hungarian History

Abstract

The roots of our department go back to the beginning of The Department of History of Hungary at The University of Kolozsvár in 1872. Its founder professor was Károly Szabó. In 1892, the Department of Hungarian Cultural History became the second institution in the country to teach history in Hungarian. Its founding professor was László Erdélyi. The University was forced into exile in 1919 and it continued to operate in Szeged from 1921 with, among others, the two unaltered departments of Hungarian history. Lajos Szádeczky-Kardoss became the first head of the relocated Department of History of Hungary. The two departments were merged and became part of the new university in Szeged under the leadership of Egyed Hermann in 1940. The University of Szeged was founded in 1945 along with the new Department of Hungarian History lead by its former head. The headship of Gyula Mérei (1951–1981) marks the beginning of the structural and educational changes in order to be better aligned with the new Soviet model. The finalization of our predecessor department’s name in 1962 also mirrors this new direction, (Department of New and Modern Hungarian History) which was in use until 2017. Ever since, due to another shift, our department’s name has been Department of Modern Hungarian History. In the past 60 years, it operated with 3–6 full time lecturers, most of them holding an academic rank and who researched and lectured on the history of Hungary of the period between 18th and 20th century.