Over the past decades, scholars in the social sciences and the humanities have faced many challenges, having to respond both to the pressures of the global capitalist knowledge industry, with its reliance on scientometrics, and to the homogenising and centralising tendencies of the populist regime in Hungary. Large-scale surveys conducted in recent years revealed that these difficulties were most acutely felt by early-career researchers. For them, entry into the historical profession has become increasingly uncertain, while holding multiple jobs, leaving the field, and deteriorating mental well-being became the norm. This study draws on semi-structured interviews to analyse the current situation of early-career social historians. Identifying the problems perceived as most significant, it examines how these relate to funding shortages, structural inequalities, and societal perceptions of historiography in Hungary. In addition, it provides an overview of early-career researchers’ perspectives on their profession, both in terms of broader trends in social history and strategies navigating the Hungarian institutional system.

Nincs absztrakt.

Nincs absztrakt.

Nincs absztrakt.

Nincs absztrakt.

The study examines the influence of cultural policy and ideological directives on the everyday practice of filmmaking in Hungary in the 1960s. The period between 1956 and 1962 was a transition phase in the history of Hungarian film. As part of the consolidation process after the 1956 Revolution, the establishment mollified some of the pressure on people shaping the cultural sphere. At the same time the cultural policy makers of the Kádár era retained their power to interfere with film production. One of the government-controlled bodies that discussed and evaluated the scripts of prospective films was the Scriptwriters’ Council (Dramaturgiai Tanács, DT). Mravik’s study analyses the minutes of DT debates to examine the individuals and their methods to manipulate proposed scripts to make them compatible with official cultural policy directives, and compares the arguments voiced at these debates with the final product, the film itself. As Mravik points out, scriptwriters and directors had greater room to manoeuvre than in the 1950s: they were allowed to propose their ideas and cinematographic methods, which they could then pitch for the DT. Notably, whether the conflicting ideological directives or the scriptwriter’s arguments prevailed in the debate was often determined which film studio was chosen as the venue for the meeting, the participants in the discussion, and serendipity–undoubtedly a major factor in the transitional, chaotic and unmanageable world of Hungarian film industry at the time.