Market Towns and the Surrounding Areas

List of authors: János Lázor (Mayor of the town Hódmezővásár), Bálint Csatári (director, Great Plain Research Institute of the Centre for Regional Studies of HAS, György Gémesi (President of the Alliance of Municipalities in Hungary), László Domokos (President of the General Assembly of the County Békés), Mihály Babák (Mayor of the town Szarvas), Imre Nagy (museumsdirec of the town Hódmezővásárhely), László Váradi (director of the Research Institute for Fishery and Irrigation in Hódmezővásárhely), József Váradi (director of the Central Directorate for Water and Environmental Protection), Miklós Varga (Member of the Presidency of the Hungarian Rural Network), Tibor Müller (director of Szarvas-Fish Ltd.)

The Achievements of the Institute of History – Applying European Measures

At the semi-annual meeting of the Institute of History of HAS, Director Ferenc Glatz spoke about the work and achievements of the previous years. He evaluated ongoing research from the perspective of current methodological approaches and the thematic quests prevailing in European and world history writing. In his view it would be desirable to put Hungarian history writing in general and research undertaken in the institute in particular into a more comprehensive European historical context and to develop a more exigent awareness of latest methodological trends. At the same time he defined it as the task of every single nation’s history writing in Europe to provide due access to basic data on its national history, both in the national and in a foreign language. The lately launched digital database Történelmi Tár (Historical Collection) is intended to serve exactly this purpose. The data collection has been compiled jointly by História Foundation, the European History Research Group at HAS and the Europe Institute Budapest. Referring to the role of the Institute of History in Hungarian history writing he declared the following: “It is important to continue the event series Central European Dialogue – having been initiated earlier by the Institute – on the ethnic and social conflicts of the region by inviting Austrian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Romanian, Serbian and Croatian historians and colleagues from the USA, France, Germany and Russia to participate at the round table talks. These round table talks and events – including the annual international conferences, as well as the academic lectures and the forum for young researchers – have in the past eight years become pivotal events of the academic panel discussions among historians in Hungary.”

Digital Data Collection on Hungarian History

Based on the conceptual framework having been worked out by Ferenc Glatz the data collection Történelmi Tár was started and made available via internet. Történelmi Tár (Historical Collection) is a collection of the basic data connected to the history of Hungary. The collection is understood as an attempt to make use of the potentials of digital publication and editing – said Ferenc Glatz in his introduction, in which he defined the programme on the guidelines of editing entitled “Building a Data Base without Boundaries, Self-Correction in Historical Science”. The board of editors set as their task to continuously expand and revise the data base and also to urge “professionals”, readers and users to participate. With the help of the data collection a mutual (interactive) connection between researchers, as well as the researcher-editors and visitors of the website shall be established. (It is also regarded as a primary goal to urge our teacher colleagues and students to join in.”)

Hungarian National Council in the Vojvodina

The upcoming lectures at the conference were held by Hungary´s State-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Zsolt Németh, by István Pásztor, President of the Alliance of Hungarians in the Vojvodina, and Tamás Korhecz, President of the Hungarian National Council in the Vojvodina.

World View Change, Agricultural and Rural Policy

Ferenc Glatz is the editor of the lately published volume entitled Az európai és a magyarországi agrárpolitika jövője (The Future of Agricultural Policy in Europe and in Hungary). The book includes a collection of studies on the future shifting of the guiding principles of the common agricultural policy (CAP) for the period 2014-2020 and on Hungarian interests in the field. Ferenc Glatz investigates in his introductory study (Világszemlélet-váltás, agrár- és vidékpolitika Európában, Magyarországon – World View Change, Agricultural and Rural Policy in Europe and in Hungary) and in his concluding chapter (Európai és magyarországi versenyképesség az agráriumban, 2014-2010 - Competitiveness in European and Hungarian Agriculture, 2014-2020) the impact of recent changes in our natural surrounding and of global economic factors on European food production and environmental management. He also draws attention to the consequences of global warming, the predicted scarcity of water supplies and global migration towards those regions which are traditionally known as good food producing areas – such as Europe. It is the vital concern of Hungary, but also of Europe to keep its food producing areas and its rural areas inhabited and to pave the way for sustainable development. He also suggests to extend Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to rural areas, thus making it a Common Agricultural and Rural Policy (CARP).

The future of far-away farmstead settlements

The latest volume of the book series edited by Ferenc Glatz Párbeszéd a vidékért (Dialogue for the Country Side) was released. The volume bears the title A magyar tanyás vidékek (The Hungarian Country Side of Far-Away Farmsteads). Ferenc Glatz in his introduction to the book (Tanyás települések, térségek a magyar és európai vidékpolitikában – Far-Away Farmstead Settlements, Regions in Hungarian and European Rural Policy) and in his concluding article (Hogyan tovább? Tanya, víz, Homokhátság - Looking for New Directions – Far-Away Farmsteads, Water, the Homokhátság Loess Plateau) presents an overview of the social and economic aspects that lead to the formation of far-away farmstead settlements in the 16-20th centuries. He provides the reader with insights on the history-based conditions relevant for the future of this “type of micro-settlements” and drafts a programme of recommendation initiating cooperation between science, politics and civil society. As to the latter, the reason for joining hands with civil society is that “it would be pointless to enforce programmes which local inhabitants regard as far-fetched”.

International Development Cooperation – New Aspects

The Advisory Council of the International Development Cooperation presided by Ferenc Glatz held a meeting at which President Glatz introduced the new state-secretary, János Hóvári, to the members of the Council. The state-secretary in his function is supervising the work of the board on behalf of the government. Ferenc Glatz emphasized that he regards it as an important goal that in the era of globalization, of growing world-wide competition the administration of a small nation attributes primary attention to professional know-how and experience. János Hóvári was in the beginning of his career known as one of the best experts on the Near East in the institute directed by Ferenc Glatz. Then, following 1992 Hóvári became in diplomatic circles a top-expert of the region. This can be regarded as a good sign, something to be recommended as a positive example for the parties’ policy-making in general.

Volcano Eruptions Shape History

The leading article of the latest issue of the journal História (2010/4) written by Ferenc Glatz bears the title A vulkánok szerepe a Föld történelmében (The role of the volcanoes in Earth History).

The Versailles Peace Settlement – past and present

Ferenc Glatz opened with his speech The Versailles Peace Settlement – past and present the international scientific conference on the 90th anniversary of the Peace Treaty of Trianon entitled The Versailles Peace Settlement, 1919-1938.
Glatz was among the first who wrote about the concept of the Trianon-shock – his initial works on the subject having been published abroad. In his postdoctoral dissertation presented in 1976 he analysed the surfacing of the national trauma triggered by the Peace Treaty of Trianon in the works of contemporary historians – with special regards to Gyula Szekfű. In the following years he devoted several of his works (1979, 1983, 1988) to presenting the underlying reasons of the national and social conflicts evoked by the Treaty of Trianon. In his inaugural speech entitled The Trianon-Hungary, 1920-1994 held at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1994), he referred to the following: As regards the dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire the principles guiding the Peace Talks of Paris followed wrong lines, thus the breaking out of the Second World War (1939), the bursting out of the series of conflicts in the Near East (1960s) were the direct consequence of the actions of the “peacemakers” of Paris. Herein he also analysed why the political endeavours of the years 1938-1992 directed at dissolving the conflict of Trianon continued to fail. He is convinced (see his articles in the journal História from 1990, 1995, 2000, 2004) that the idiosyncratic factors of contemporary times – territorial-administrative integration, cross-border natural processes, migration of workforce, management and human rights, as well as social incentives – enforce the re-thinking of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and the Treaty of Trianon.
The scientific discussion of historians was organized jointly by the Institute of History of HAS, the Europe Institute Budapest and the periodical História

Renaissance of Civilian Society

The Association for the Protection of the Town of Budapest released a volume celebrating the 25th anniversary of the organisation. The book begins with the “birthday greetings” by Ferenc Glatz. Here, he refers to what he regards as the major political deficit of the years following the fall of dictatorships in Europe - thus also to the decades of the Hungarian system transformation –, namely that parallel to the reestablishment of the multi-party parliamentary democracy in Hungary there occurred no reorganisation of the civilian society, “which in the years preceding the dictatorships served as the terrain of social life for the proud 'European Bürger'”.