A lyukas zászló hung on Leonardo da Vinci Street in central Budapest. (Nov. 1956) Credit: Fortepan.hu / Colorization: Patrick C. Leech On October 23, 1956, university students in Budapest, Hungary organized a march in solidarity with the anti-Soviet events in Poland. The students were joined by workers and other residents of Budapest and eventually over 20,000 people …
After an unexpectedly long hiatus, I can finally return to the semi-scheduled programing, but first a brief update. In August, I finally graduated with my doctorate. All of my creative energies had been directed toward writing a dissertation which is why this languished. Additionally, I began moved to South Carolina to start teaching as an …
Leech, Patrick C. "The Unhappiest Barrack in the Soviet Bloc: Suicide, Well-Being, and Church-State Relations in Socialist Hungary" In Freedom of Conscience in (Post)Soviet Space: Legacies of Michael Bourdeaux and the Keston Archive edited by Julie K. deGraffenried, Michael Long, Xenia Dennen and Rowan Williams, 203-222. Cornell University Press, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501782749-014
As my time in Budapest comes to an end, I find myself returning to some the places with special meaning, one of which is the “Shoes of the Danube Bank” Memorial. I find this simple memorial quite moving, and despite the inhumanity of its historical antecedents there is something deeply human about the place. Along …
Continue reading Jane Haining, Stolpersteines, and Bearing Witness
Late this week I had to privilege to attend a conference celebrating the work of the historians C.A. Macartney and László Péter. The conference was jointly hosted by Károli Gáspár Református Egyetem (KRE) in Budapest and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London (UCL) and held in the beautiful …
Continue reading Conference in Memoriam: C.A. Macartney & László Péter
It has been nearly a month since the last post. There are several developments related to my work that I plan to describe in future posts. But for now a few highlights from the last month seems a good way to wrap up 2023. Scenes from Budapest & the Christmas Tram A White Christmas Eve …
Continue reading December Recap: Snapshots from the Holiday Season
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
Patrick C. Leech 