Registration REQUIRED by 12pm on March 6, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the East Central European Center and the Harriman Institute for a lecture by István Deák Visiting Associate Professor of History Csaba Fazekas. Moderated by Christopher Caes.
Hungary emerged from World War I on the losing side, and after two turbulent years, a new autocratic political system characterized by the name of Governor Miklós Horthy was established. (1920–1944) From the outset, the ideology that defined the system was the so-called ‘Christian-National’ thought. The lecture presents the motivations and characteristics of this ideology and how it shaped political life and political thinking. The linking of Christianity and nationalism not only placed the relationship between the state and the church on a new footing, but also provided an important mobilizing force for political power in shaping the thinking of society. The lecture analyzes the manifestations of this ideology, introduces its most important representatives, and draws parallels with other countries in Central Europe at the time.
Csaba Fazekas is a historian and an Associate Professor at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Miskolc, Hungary. He earned his Ph.D. in history at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest (1999). His main interest is the history of political thinking, ideologies, and political parties in 19th and 20th centuries, especially in the East Central European region. He has published books and articles in Hungarian and English on the political history of religious ideas, Church-State relations, the ecclesiastical political parties, and questions of the transition in East Central Europe. His most relevant papers: “Collaborating with Horthy: Political Catholicism and Christian Political Organisations in Hungary, 1918-1944” (Routledge, 2004), “The Genesis of “Hungarism”: Bishop Ottokár Prohászka and the Extremist Right in 1920s Hungary”, published in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe in 2015, and the “Impact of the Waco Branch Davidian Case and the Anticult Movement in Post-Communist Hungary”, published in Nova Religioin 2022.
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