Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Institute of Ethnography and Folklore
- Code
- BA-ERA-IE-L-01
- Title
- Everyday life and socialism
- Usual semester
- Autumn
- ECTS
- 6
- Language
- Learning outcomes
- During the semester, students will learn about the political, economic, social, and cultural characteristics of everyday life in Hungary under socialism. The effects of ideology on everyday life, individual and social life, and the way of life will be discussed. The course will focus on the Hungarian context, but throughout the semester we will also explore the phenomenon of socialism from a wide geographical perspective.
- Course content
- 1. Introduction, discussion about the course of the semester. Hungary in the period of socialism. Research problems 2–3. Political, social and cultural changes between 1945 and 1989 in Hungary 4. Economic changes between 1945 and 1989 in Hungary 5. Transformation of urban and rural areas 6–7. Changes in consumption and lifestyle (housing, Kádár cube, fashion) 8–9. Changes in consumption and daily life (food, health) 10. Women and children in socialism 11. Museums and the representation of socialism
- Assessment method
- At the end of the semester, a 10–12-minute presentation on a pre-determined topic will be given, supported by the recommended literature.
- Bibliography
- 1. Introduction, discussion about the course of the semester. Hungary in the period of socialism. Research problems Hoffmann, David L. (2003) Introduction: Interpretations of Stalinism. Ed. David L. Hoffmann: Stalinism. The Essential Readings. Blackwell, 1–7. Malia, Martin (2003) The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia. Ed. David L. Hoffmann: Stalinism. The Essential Readings. Blackwell, 65–79. Apor, Balázs – Apor Péter and E. A. Rees eds. (2008) The Sovietization of Eastern Europe. New Perspective on the Postwar Period. New Academia Publishing. 2–3. Political, social and cultural changes between 1945 and 1989 in Hungary Valuch, Tibor (2021) Everyday Life under Communism and After. Lifestyle and Consumption in Hungary, 1945–2000. CEU Press. 7–32. (Chapter One: The Study of Hungarian Everyday Life: Historiography, Methods, and Concepts) https://ceupress.com/sites/ceupress.ceu.edu/files/everyday_life_under_communism.pdf Volkov, Vadim (2000) The concept of kul’turnost’. Notes on the Stalinist civilizing process. Ed. Fitzpatrick, Sheila: Stalinism. New Direction. Routledge, 210–230. 4. Economic changes between 1945 and 1989 in Hungary Horváth, Gergely Krisztián (2019) Communist Agricultural Policy and the First Wave of Collectivisation in Hungary. Hungarian Review https://hungarianreview.com/article/20191122_communist_agricultural_policy_and_the_first_wave_of_collectivisation_in_hungary/ Varga, Zsuzsanna (2017) Agricultural Economics and the Agrarian Lobby in Hungary under State Socialism. East Central Europe 44. 234–308. 5. Transformation of urban and rural areas Horváth Sándor (2017) Stalinism Reloaded. Everyday Life in Stalin-City, Hungary. Indiana University Press. Ispán, Ágota Lídia (2022) Venues of Recreation in a Former Socialist Town. Ethnographica et Folkloristica Carpathica 24. 49–70. https://ojs.lib.unideb.hu/ethnographica/article/view/11389/10132 Ispán Ágota Lídia (2020) Modern Houses in a Folk Architectural Environment. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 65. (2) 379–397. 6–7. Changes in consumption and lifestyle (housing, Kádár cube, fashion) Keller, Márkus (2020) Professionalization in Socialism. Architects and Architecture after 1945 in Hungary. Socio.hu 18. 95–107. https://socio.hu/index.php/so/article/view/866/840 Tamáska, Máté (2020) Contrast as Aesthetic Value in the Townscape. Modernity and Preservation in the 1960s and 1970s in Hungary. Socio.hu 18. 75–94. https://socio.hu/index.php/so/article/view/865/841 Fülemile, Ágnes (2020) Social Change, Dress and Identity Observation on the Disintegration of Peasant Culture as Exemplified by Rural Women’s Clothing in Hungary from the First World War to the End of the Kádár Era Socialism. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 65. https://akjournals.com/view/journals/022/65/1/article-p107.xml 8–9. Changes in consumption and daily life (food, health) Valuch, Tibor (2021) Everyday Life under Communism and After. Lifestyle and Consumption in Hungary, 1945–2000. CEU Press. 415–468. (Chapter Six: “We Ate, We Drank, We Filled Our Stomachs”: Nutrition, Eating, and Dietary Habits) https://ceupress.com/sites/ceupress.ceu.edu/files/everyday_life_under_communism.pdf Vargha Dora (2018) Socialist Utopia in Practice: Everyday Life and Medical Authority in a Hungarian Polio Hospital. Social History of Medicine 31. 373–391. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6018929/ 10. Women and children in socialism Bodnár, Alexandra – Varga, Zsuzsanna (2022) Entering their first workplace: women in socialist agriculture. Soviet and Hungarian collective farms compared. Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 3. 1–18. Horváth, Sándor (2022) Children of Communism: Politicizing Youth Revolt in Communist Budapest in the 1960s (Studies in Hungarian History). Indiana University Press. 11. Museums and the representation of socialism Iordachi, Constantin and Apor, Péter (eds) (2021) Occupation and Communism in Eastern European Museums. Bloomsbury Academic. Stephen M. Norris (ed). (2020) Museums of Communism. New Memory Sites in Central and Eastern Europe. Indiana University Press.