Hungarian emigration history handbook

Thirty years after the fall of communism, there is still no up-to-date overview of Hungarian emigration history literature, nor is there a comprehensive database or a thorough bibliography of the sources and publications of the Hungarian diaspora in Hungary and abroad.

This volume, somewhat unusual in its genre, tries, if not to fill this triple gap, at least to alleviate it by offering a problem-sensitive historiographical guide, a rich bibliography and a bibliography for researchers and enthusiasts alike.

The author intends his handbook to be only a first attempt to summarise, hoping that a data-rich and analytical publication, which will address the problems, will fill more gaps in the subject than the inevitable shortcomings it creates. All the more so since the sources and literature of the history of Hungarian emigration – hidden in the depths of distant libraries and archives – have not yet been sufficiently explored. Not to mention the latest challenge, which is still going on today with the spectacular shift in the era and scale of the Hungarian diaspora in the West.

All this also gives the chroniclers of the present time plenty of food for thought, making it necessary to rethink everything we know - or at least thought we knew - about the relationship between the old and the new homeland, the causes and consequences of the seven waves of Hungarian emigration, the chances of life for diaspora communities, assimilation, language and culture change, based on the examples of previous generations.