Spring 2009

CEUS-U 520 25666 & HIST-T500 26679

 

Socialism in Hungary – State, Society and Everyday

Life 1945-1990

 

 

Instructor:       Ágnes Fülemile (Ph. D) – Hungarian Chair Professor

Class: Tuesday – Thursday 1:00 – 13:15, Goodbody 238, 855-1102

 

The course is discussing Hungary’s social history after World War II up until the end of 20th century. Topics include: post second world war years, the communist takeover, ideology  in the period of Stalinism,  conflicts, the annihilation of the nobility and middle class, peasant policy of 1950-s, police repression, labor camps for political prisoners, socialist industrialization and urbanization, socialist realism in art, the 1956 revolution, collectivization, women in the workforce, disintegration of folk culture, socialist consumerism, fashion and media in the 1960-s, urban-rural, national-international dichotomies, education, health-care, New Economic Mechanism, minority issues, the “Roma question”, the role of artists and intellectuals,  the rise of market-economy, “gulyas-communism” or life in the “happiest barrack”, youth and alternative cultures, mass-demonstrations, “political rituals”, the Fall of the Iron Curtain.

The fall of Communist regimes has been evoking special attention and increased scholarly studies in the fields of East Central European regional studies. Scholars of political science, history, economics, sociology and anthropology have started to study the transition process and the preceding decades. Up until closed archival stocks have been opened for researchers and for the public and taboo topics have been started to be highlighted and discussed from the beginning of 1990s.

The course would like to help scholarly understanding of what socialism did really mean for the people with an interdisciplinary approach using data, methods and interpretation from history and various social sciences.

 

Assessment:               

5-6 pp paper with a PowerPoint presentation in class                                    15 %

lo‑l2 pp term paper for graduates, 7-8 pp for undergraduates                        40%                

In-class final paper (test, essay)                                                                      30 %

Seminar work: (class activity, reading reports, work with web sources)        15 %.