The Contested Country: A History of Hungary, 1790-1990 (HIST0667)

This module begins with the birth of modern Hungarian nationalism at the end of the eighteenth century when a rift first emerged between the Hungarian political elite and their Habsburg ruler. It then proceeds to examine how these tensions played out through the long nineteenth century, explores the contested efforts to modernize Hungary in the twentieth century and concludes with the fall of communism in 1989/1990, when new rifts emerged between competing visions for a post-communist future. The course is structured chronologically, thus each weekly topic will examine a particular period in Hungary’s history, beginning with the status of Hungary within the Habsburg Empire at the end of the eighteenth century and concluding with the fall of communism in Hungary in 1989 and the first free elections in 1990.

EUROPEAN THOUGHT|MODERN HISTORY|EUROPEAN HISTORY|LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY|MODERNITY

The course explores concepts of crisis and future in European thought during the long nineteenth century. The age of revolution started as an era widely...

Crisis and Future in 19th Century European Thought A (HIST0627)

The course explores concepts of crisis and future in European thought during the long nineteenth century. The age of revolution started as an era widely associated with the liberation and emancipation of humankind, with technological progress, national aspirations and constitutional promises. How then do we explain that since the second half of the nineteenth century, and in particular during the Fin-de-siècle, concepts such as ‘alienation’, ‘degeneration’ and ‘decay’ started dominating European thought? We might find an answer to this question in the ways people related their pasts to future expectations. Throughout Europe, the experience of modernity led to changes in the semantics of historical time. The past had lost its power to explain the present and as a consequence, it became difficult to predict the future. A profound consciousness of crisis marked the new concepts of historical time, permeating the philosophical, political and scientific discourse of nineteenth-century Europe.