Savremena mađarska istoriografija o Jugoslaviji
Contemporary Hungarian Historiography about Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: After 1989, Hungarian Historiography turned with renewed interest to the history of the neighbouring countries and nations. Yugoslavia especially received great attention because of its international significance, the speciality of its socialist system and the tragic wars of the 1990s. Every synthesis or academic course book published after 1989 that dealt with the 20th century history of Central and South- Eastern Europe discusses the history of the former joint South Slav state in more or less detail, and there are monographs on the history of Yugoslavia as well. The latter are either general summaries or studies discussing a narrower issue. There were in particular four topics that got the attention of contemporary Hungarian historiography: Tito’s personality and activities, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wartime that ensued, the situation of the Hungarian minority in the Voivodina and the Yugoslavian relation to the revolution of 1956. The intellectuality and professional quality of the relatively numerous Hungarian publications on the subject are varying and the difficulty of accessing primary sources clearly shows on the list of works they cite. The observations they make are generally objective albeit debatable – some volumes argue with each other on certain issues. It is definitely a debt that a comprehensive and mo- dern study about the Hungarian-Yugoslavian relations and a presentation of the Hungarian view thereof is yet to be published. Nevertheless, the current literature does fulfil its function in reducing political preconceptions and in bringing closer the modern history of a neighbouring region to the Hungarian readers.

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