Csaba Fazekas is István Deák Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of History (Spring 2026). He 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 Religio in 2022.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in studying political thinking, ideologies, and political parties in the 19th and 20th centuries?
I belong to that special generation that was of university age at the time of the regime change in 1989. I consider myself fortunate because I graduated with a degree in history from the University of Budapest in 1992 — the year the ideological expectations overshadowing historical research ceased to exist. For me and my contemporaries it was perhaps a little “fashionable” to deal with topics that had previously been impossible (or very difficult) to study. Thanks to my excellent professors, my attention turned to the history of churches in the 19th and 20th centuries, which I later expanded to include the history of political thought and, more broadly, party systems. Two types of interaction interested me then and still interest me today: What impact does an idea or ideology (whether religious or philosophical) have on society? And what ideas and ideologies arise from the needs of society or its individual groups? These two phenomena occurred in parallel, and I find it particularly exciting to understand everything that happened in Central and Eastern Europe. Our shared history is turbulent and complex, with empires, nation states, dictatorships, autocracies, and democratic experiments alternating over the course of a few generations. In the 1930s, Hungarian poet Attila József wrote that “the past must be confessed.” I would like to contribute my own research to this “confession.”
How has the evolving political climate in Hungary affected your academic work?
I am a lecturer at the University of Miskolc, which is in the countryside of Northern Hungary. Although academic institutions in Hungary have undergone certain changes in recent years, I have not experienced any significant changes in the freedom of my research and publication activity.
What courses will you be teaching at the Harriman Institute? Can you briefly describe some of the ideas you will be discussing in each course?
My course “Faiths, Feelings, Communities – Nations, Churches and Religions in Central and East Europe,” will introduce students to the history of religions and churches in Central Europe. I want to focus on the Hapsburg Empire during the “long 19th century,” roughly between 1790 and 1918, providing a comprehensive overview of the historical background and looking ahead to the consequences transpiring in the 20th century. In my experience, even in my native country, most people are not aware of the important differences between various sects of Christianity. But personal religion, which gives rise to religious communities and churches, has significantly shaped national identities across the globe. All this is very exciting in the age of modernization, when attitudes toward religion have changed significantly both in everyday life and at the level of “big” politics. My other course, “Memory and History in Central Europe,” will explore how attitudes toward the past have changed in general and specifically in Central Europe.
What do you hope students will walk away with after taking your courses?
Perhaps I can say something new and interesting to those students who are already familiar with the history and culture of the Central European region. Those who are less knowledgeable may be inspired to learn more about its unique history, and perhaps even seek out more detailed information. But I also want to learn: I am very interested in the role that Europe, and Central Europe in particular, plays in the minds of students.
