The unpublished 1947 yearbook of the Hungarian Institute of History in Vienna

Abstract

“… the question is whether a people's democracy moving towards socialism should publish any idealistic historical studies based on conscientious archival research at public expense”

The Hungarian government renewed the system of cultural relations abroad in the period following the First World War and the Trianon Dictate. As a result, it established several institutions abroad and restructured those already in operation. In the early 1920s, Hungarian scientific activities (archival publications, scholarship research, cultural and scientific dissemination) were launched in Vienna, the capital of independent Austria, by two Hungarian institutes. During the years of the Second World War, the publication of the yearbooks ceased. It was not until 1948 that they could be republished, and the Institute began editing them and preparing for the publication of the studies. In the meantime, however, the political atmosphere in Hungary had changed: the Communist Party had taken power and began to redefine history from a distorted point of view, and also to fight against the religious. All this did not favour the publication of this yearbook. Publication and printing were halted for political and professional reasons, regardless of the considerable up-front financial costs. In the end, the studies written were filed in the Ministry's archives and have remained mostly unpublished to this day.