VERITAS Research Institute for History and Archives

The Research Teams' Objectives

The Scholarly and Research Program for the VERITAS Research Institute and Archives

The government of Hungary has created the VERITAS Research Institute for History by passing Government Regulation 373/2013 (X.25.).

The Institute’s most important endeavors for 2014 are establishing its organizational structure and headcount, as well as starting its initial research projects. Additionally, we are placing great emphasis on working together with other research institutes, historical archives, libraries and museums. Among our academic activities, the most important topics to be covered are the Dual Monarchy period (1867-1919), the interwar period, and the post-WWII period from 1944 to 1994, objectively presenting the politics, society and ideas associated with each era. In order to examine these topics thoroughly, we have created three separate teams of researchers:

  1. The Era of the Dual Monarchy research team (1867-1918)
  2. The Miklos Horthy Era research team (1918-1945)
  3. The Post-1945 Era research team (1945-1994).

The establishment of the Institute has created a novel opportunity for a relationship between the historian profession and the media, for the historian’s values can be most effectively shared for public consumption via the tools of the media. It is for this reason that our research fellows must be ready to support and defend their positions with convincing, fact-based articulation. At the same time --- taking into account the principle that where the study of history is concerned, there may be several different, at times even opposing, legitimate viewpoints --- respect must be shown to others’ established, data-supported and fact-based conclusions.

That is why we especially, all-encompassingly, believe that throughout the life of the Institute, the following perspectives shall be followed and maximally abided by:

  1. Our approach to research is such that we shall use objective, factual and primary (archival) sources, in line with established modern theoretical history research practices;
  2. With proper scholarly and elaborate argumentation, attempts to correct distortions found in the Hungarian historical consciousness shall be made, mainly concerning the period from 1867 to 1994;
  3. Utilizing young historians and ensuring on their behalf advantageous research opportunities via the Institute.

We plan to submit for publication the Institute’s findings in a yearbook --- in Hungarian --- and if possible, in foreign history and political journals, as well as in independent volumes.

Every year the VERITAS Research Institute for History will organize two to three large  --- both national and international, as well as several smaller --- workshops. Moreover, from autumn of 2014, the Institute will host a series of debates (with both its own historians and external experts participating), as well as send its own historians to participate in other research institutes’ debate sessions or act as a co-organizer if the case may be.       

The Era of the Dual Monarchy Research Team’s Objectives

The research team shall:

  1. play an active role in addressing the controversies surrounding the 1867 to 1918 period
  2. pay particularly close attention to the life of Count István Tisza
  3. as well as factually present the events leading up to the start of WWI
  4. place emphasis on the heretofore neglected aspects of the second Wekerle Administration’s (1906-1910) endeavors, history and roles. For this administration was made up of politicians whose actions were not only determinate from the perspective of the era but also from the longer view of Hungarian history. The influence of numerous of their decisions can be felt still today. The administration also maintained course at the time, governing with the calmness and tranquility associated with the Belle Époque.

(Please note that all English-language pages on the website are written in American English.)

The Miklos Horthy Era Research Team’s Objectives

The research team would like to consider the much debated---but only partially disclosed---events surrounding the Interwar period, such as:

  1. the symbolism of politics
  2. the interconnectedness among public administration, politics and cultural life
  3. the Numerus Clausus
  4. as well as suffrage laws
  5. additionally, a comparison of the education system to the rest of Europe
  6. the cultural-academic relationships of Hungary and the German-speaking territories
  7. as well as the history of the “Loyalty to the Homeland” Movement’s assembly against the Volksbund
  8. the year 1944, as cultural-spiritual tragedy
  9. and the fundamental changes in both public administration and parliament resulting from German occupation  

(Please note that all English-language pages on the website are written in American English.)

The Post-1945 Era Research Team’s Objectives

The research team’s main topics of research shall be:

  1. the Red Army’s 1944 military campaign in Hungary, and its public perception up to 1994
  2. the implementation, expansion and apex of the “Moscow” type of political arrangement
  3. the history of the resistance against Stalinism
  4. After an individual review of the records of the Budapest People’s Prosecution Office and the Budapest People’s Tribunal (and the later merged jurisdictions of Balassagyarmat, Eger, Esztergom, Kecskemét, Székesfehérvár and Szolnok), which are today stored at the Budapest City Archives, the disclosure of the circumstances surrounding those who had been accused and subsequently found guilty at trail of violating the 1945-codied Statute VII, which dealt with war crimes and anti-populist activity
  5. the extrajudicial Kadar reprisals
  6. political judgments after 1963
  7. in-depth interviews with the leading politicians and members of the József Antall and Péter Boross Administrations, as well as researching the associated archives and disclosing relevant documents.

(Please note that all English-language pages on the website are written in American English.)

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