One of my favorite moments when teaching history is when a student realizes the way a specific event in the past directly affects them. The American Historical Association is fond of the phrase “Everything has a History.” Yet this disconnect between past and present is rather foreign to Hungarian culture, a notable example of this …
Continue reading The Treaty of Trianon (1920) & the Memorial of National Unity (2020)
Another aspect of my work is the attempt to answer historical questions with computers, a concept known as digital history or digital humanities.[1] Before starting my doctorate program, I worked fulltime in Information Technology for twelve years. During that time, I worked in several sectors and verticals and across various subspecialties within the IT domain. So, …
If Rome is the city of seven hills, Budapest is the city of seven bridges. In fact, Budapest did not come in existence until 1873, prior to that it was two cities, Buda and Pest, divided by the Danube River. The process that would merge the two cities began in 1840 with the commencement of …
On September 1, the New York Times carried an article about the new Russian history textbook and its descriptions of Ukraine and the ongoing “special military operation.” The next week, The Hill, a US political news site ran a similar piece. Both panned the new textbooks as inaccurate and propaganda. Unless you closely follow US politics or Eastern Europe, it …
Continue reading Hungary, Russia, and the History Textbook Feud
This past week I attended orientation with the Hungarian-American Fulbright Commission which allowed me to meet the other students and scholars visiting Hungary from the US. In addition to crash courses in language, culture, music, politics, economics, higher education, and living abroad, we also had a couple of guided tours. So, it seems an appropriate …
Continue reading Travelogue: Visegrád & Mátyás Királyi Palota
As I continue this series of introductory posts, it seemed time to answer one of my most frequent questions: Why Hungary? Prior to 2013 I had no known connection to Hungary or Hungarians. Yet that year, my wife and I visited Saint George, Romania (RO: Sfântu Gheorghe, HU: Sepsiszentgyörgy) as she was invited to provide …
was recently asked the perennial graduate school question: "What do you do?" While my answer was much shorter, this overview of my current work seems like a good place to kickoff a short series to introduce myself. -PCL On 23 October 1956, a Hungarian student-led march in support of their Polish confreres swiftly turned into a demonstration, then a protest, to a mob, and finally to a revolt...
I'm Patrick and over the next nine months I will be living, researching, and traveling in Hungary. This is where I will record some of my experiences and reflect on Hungarian history and culture. I'll also highlight the intersection of technology with historical research and teaching. Perhaps you are wondering about the title. Gulyás*, aka …
Patrick C. Leech 