It's been a busy year
Although the pandemic and the restrictions it brought with it have greatly reduced the scope for researchers, we have tried to take every opportunity to draw attention to the current state of professional research in Hungary and to new approaches to present the history of professions.
Although we were forced to hold most of our meetings in virtual space, we managed to create a common conceptual framework during the meetings, which has led to several publications related to the work of the research group. We have made our voices heard internationally in the prestigious journals Espacio Tiempo y Educación and Journal für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa, but we have also published articles in the Hungarian Economic History Yearbook Network & Hierarchy and the 1956 Institute Yearbook, as well as in the pages of the Korall Journal of Social History, and the Sociological Review this year.
Linked to the epidemic and its aftermath was the birth of the Replika e-book (http://replika.hu/koronavirus), which was edited by our colleague Zsuzsi Kiss, alongside Nikosz Fokasz and Júlia Vajda. The co-editor spoke about the book in detail in the Civil Radio podcast (the conversation is available in the Radio's online archive: https://kronika.civilradio.hu/archivum/ - under the "odd Thursday" tab in the 16.00-16.30 time slot, click on 117 minutes, from 7.45). Our team leader also reported on his specific experiences of the year 2020, and the conversation with Markus Keller can be read here: http://elteonline.hu/.../a-pandemia-pozitiv-hozadeka.../...
A prominent event last year was the Gergő Magos PhD thesis debate, which we organized online, involving many interested parties and commentators in the exchange of ideas. (We hope that our colleague's doctoral debate, due early next year, can already take place in the physical space!) But an important episode was also the launch of the Compass Social History Studies book series, courtesy of our group leader Márkus Keller and Kijárat Kiadó. The first-born volume was of course none other than our colleague Zsuzsi Kiss's monograph The Only Space. Social Life and Public Life in Zala County in the Age of Neo-Absolutism.
While our group leader, Márkus Keller, and the Department of Comparative Historical Sociology he leads have been receiving awards from the Faculty of Social Sciences of ELTE (Award for Research in Social Sciences, winner of the 1st category of the Faculty of Social Sciences Excellence Competition), our colleague Zsuzsi Kiss became the first person to introduce herself in the “Sociologist of the Month” series launched by the FSZEK Sociology Collection. In the interview with her, those interested can learn a lot about the interesting facts and inner motivations of the profession of historian and social scientist – of course, we all know: profession.
We have tried to shape the scientific discourse ourselves on several occasions. Without claiming to be exhaustive, for example, we were present at the meeting of the Department of Ethnography at ELTE (Priests in Local Communities – October 1-2, 2020), at the online event entitled Workers' Journeys from Planned Economy to Wild Capitalism (December 3-4, 2020), but with the presentations of our 3-person doctoral student group, we also presented the domestic characteristics of professionalization at this year's annual conference of the Hajnal István Social History Association held in Pécs, while Zsuzsi Kiss enhanced the reputation of the Department, the research group, and elite research at the author's workshop for issue 61 of the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte.
So it was an eventful year for us, and in 2021 we want to increase our impact even more: in the first half of next year, we are preparing for you with a multi-part workshop discussion, a journal section, and an issue presentation! In the meantime, we wish all our followers a Happy New Year full of success and health!