Curriculum vitae
Personal data:
Mailing address: 11 Mária u. Budapest, H-1085
E-mail address: barthaeszter@hotmail.com
Place and date of birth:
Nationality: Hungarian
Employment:
2015-present: Associate Professor at the Department of
Eastern European Studies of Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Budapest,
Hungary
Address of the institution: ELTE Bölcsészettudományi
Kar, Múzeum körút 6-8.
H- 1088
2016-2017 Visiting Professor at the Central European
University (history)
2014-2016 Senior Research Fellow at the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences (Institute of Sociology)
2003-2015: Assistant Professor at the Department of Eastern
European Studies of Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
2007-2008:
Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute (history)
Education:
2013:
Habilitation at Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences
(history)
2012:
PhD. In Sociology,
Title of the dissertation: Lonely fighters: Workers in postsocialist
2007: PhD. in
Comparative History of Central, South-eastern and Eastern Europe, History
Department, Central European University, Budapest
Title of dissertation: Alienating Labor: Workers on the Road from Socialism to Capitalism in
2001-2002:
M. Phil. in Modern Society and Global Transformations,
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of
1999-2000: M. A. in History, History Department,
1994-2001: M. A. in English Language and Literature, Department
for English Literature,
1994-1999
: M. A. in History, Department of History,
Languages:
Research grants and fellowships:
2014-2017:
János Bolyai Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
2012: Magyar Állami Eötvös Ösztöndíj (Hungarian State
Eötvös Fellowship) to Germany, Halle (4 months)
2010-2013:
János Bolyai Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
2011:
Endeavour Fellowship of the University of Chicago
2009:
Magyar Állami Eötvös Ösztöndíj (Hungarian State Eötvös Fellowship) to Vienna,
Austria (3 months)
2009:
Magyary Zoltán Postdoctoral Fellowship (one year)
2007: Research grant of the Foundation of Political History,
Budapest for the project “1968 and the Eastern European workers”
2005:
Marie-Curie Fellowship
“Building on the Past: European Doctorate in Social History of Europe and the
Mediterranen to the University of Bielefeld (4 months)
2002-2004: 2-year doctoral scholarship of the ZEIT-Stiftung (Hamburg) “Deutschland und
seine östlichen Nachbarn – Beiträge zur europäischen Geschichte”
2002-2003: DAAD-Scholarship to the Department of Comparative
History of the Freie Universität Berlin (10 months)
1998: TEMPUS scholarship to the University of
Stirling, Scotland
(1 semester)
1997: Scholarship of the British Council to the
Norwich School of Arts (3 months)
Scholarly honours and prizes:
2013:
János Bolyai Prize of Excellence
2010:
Outstanding Scholar (Magyary Zoltán Fellowship)
2010:
Rector’s commendation
2009:
Rector’s commendation
2002:
Degree with distinction at the
Main research field:
Social
history of the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis
on labor history
Membership
in editorial committees:
Departmental
positions:
Erasmus coordinator of the Department
Courses
taught:
Publications:
Book
(in English):
Books
(in Hungarian):
Edited
books (in Hungarian):
Articles
in international journals:
Book chapters (in English):
·
„Something
went wrong with this capitalism”: Illusion and doubt in a Hungarian
(post)industrial community, in: Mathijs Pelkmans (ed): Ethnographies of Doubt. London, I.B. Tauris, 2012, 191-225.
·
“It
Can't Make Me Happy that Audi is Prospering": Working-Class Nationalism in
Hungary after 1989". In: Don Kalb-Gábor Halmai (eds): Headlines of Nation,
Subtexts of Class: Working-Class Populism and the Return of the Repressed in
Neoliberal Europe. Berghahn, New York and Oxford, 2011, 92-112.
Articles (in Hungarian):
·
A társadalmi osztályok
pszichológiája:
Kollektív tudat, szükségletek és az osztályfogalom Maurice Halbwachs munkájában
(The
Psychology of Social Classes: Collective
Consciousness, Needs and the Concept of Class in the Work of Maurice
Halbwachs).
Fordulat, 2009/5, 128-156.
·
Férfiak
tükrében: Nőalakok Kosztolányi és Móricz regényeiben. (In
the Mirror of Men: Female Characters in the Novels of Kosztolányi and Móricz). Múltunk, 2008/2, 58-90.
·
A
„látható” közvélemény és a hálózatok: Adalékok a „hallgatás spirálja”
elméletéhez („Visible” Public Opinion and Networks. On the
Spiral-of-Silence Theory). Jel-Kép, Kommunikáció,
Közvélemény, Média, 2007/4-2008/1, 3-11.
·
„Mi
hasznunk van a szocializmusból?”: A munkások és az új gazdasági rendszer
Kelet-Németországban. (What do We Have from
Socialism? Workers and the New Economic System in the GDR). Múltunk, 2007/2, 4-30.
·
A
tranzitológiától a transzformációig (From Transition to Transformation). Eszmélet, 2001/52.
·
Rigler
András – Bartha Eszter: Véleményfertőződés: Egy szimulációs modell tanulságai.
(Lessons from a Simulation Model). Szociológiai
Szemle, 2006/1, 77-92.
Book
chapters (in Hungarian):
·
Munkásság, államszocializmus, önigazgatás: volt-e alternatíva?. In:
Böcskei Balász (szerk.): A forradalom végtelensége: Lukács György politika-és
társadalomelmélete. Budapest, L'Harmattan, 2016, pp. 138-158.
·
A munkások és a hatalom 1956 után. In: Rainer M. János- Valuch
Tibor (szerk.), Munkások '56. Az 1956-os Intézet 2016-2017-es évkönyve.
Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár 1956-os Intézet Alapítvány, 2017, pp.
157-179.
·
Egy kollektivista "munkásállam": Az NDK az 1970-es
években. In: Lakner Lajos (szerk.). Tar
Sándor: Tájékoztató. Debrecen: Déri Múzeum, 2017, 203-238.
·
A
jóléti diktatúrák felemelkedése és bukása: Társadalomtörténeti szempontok a
Kádár-korszak kutatásához. In: Manhercz Orsolya (szerk.): Historia critica: tanulmányok az Eötvös
Loránd Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Karának Történeti Intézetéből.
Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, 2014. pp. 395-407.
Citations concerning my
work:
“In
general local historical research on the last decades of socialism and into postsocialism
is just reaching the publishing phase, see for example the insightful CEU
dissertation of Eszter Bartha, Alienating Labor: Workers on the Road from
Socialism to Capitalism in East Germany and Hungary."
Quoted by: Don Kalb: Conversations with a Polish Populist: Globalization,
Class, and „Transition”. Paper presented at the conference entitled
Globalization and Inequalities: Reflections on the Development of a Divided
World, European University Institute, Florence, 11-13 June 2008.
"Yet until now almost no-one has sought to examine events within Hungary
in the light of broader trends. Eszter Bartha in her contribution demonstrates
that patterns of working-class protest comparable to those seen in other states
of the region, and to those in western Europe, were visible within Hungarian
factories. What is more these went beyond patterns of mere complaint and posed
a challenge to the dominant socialist economic and political model. This
challenge was beaten back much more easily, and speedily than west of the iron
curtain, but in many ways the events of the period between 1968 and 1972 were
an important indicator of the future; and not only in Hungary. As both Bartha
and György Földes in his contribution show the response was to subordinate
programmes of broader democratization to ones of the marketization of the
socialist model, through preserving much of the New Economic Mechanism in the
economic sphere, while neutering it where it implied further democratization.
This promoted the cultural advance of market models in intellectual and
political debate, even though Hungary was far from being even a “socialist
mixed economy” until the late 1980s in reality. Yet 1968 and its story was an
important part of a longer process through which the market achieved a cultural
hegemony in debates surrounding economic models that underpinned the
transformation of 1989-90, and has cast a long shadow over debates surrounding
economic alternatives in Hungary since."
Quoted by: Mark Pittaway: „Azok a hatvanas évek”. Mítosz és történelem 1968.
(Bartha Eszter - Krausz Tamás, szerk: 1968: Kelet-Európa és a világ. Budapest,
L'Harmattan, 2008), Századok, 2010/1, 243-245.
"A very talented representative of a new generation of historians is
Eszter Bartha, who is not only committed to empirical research but she is ready
to analyze historical processes theoretically. She is willing to go beyond
"positivist" descriptions and grasp her topic both theoreatically and
empirically. This is a rare ability. And if we add that she is trying to find
her position in the Hungarian social sciences as a woman, which is still not
easy in the contemporary field, then we can be very proud that her book was
published by the Department of East European Studies of ELTE, the Center of
Russian Studies and L'Harmattan Publishing House."
Quoted by: Krausz Tamás: Előszó. In: Bartha Eszter: A munkások útja a
szocializmusból a kapitalizmusba Kelet-Európában, 1968-1989. Budapest,
L’Harmattan Publishers - ELTE BTK Kelet-Európa Története Tanszék, 2009.
“Bartha’s book is a splendid achievement. Despite the disparate nature of the
East German and Hungarian sources, which makes comparison difficult, her
analysis is fully comparative. She manages to weave events at the local,
regional, and national level into a seamless narrative.Her insights are so
perceptive that, even if they do not always persuade, they will certainly
enrich the ongoing discussion about the demise of Communism in East-Central
Europe.” · English Historical Review
“This is an important and path-breaking book… it is thoroughly comparative, and
is very well balanced… The research and indeed the text as such are well
designed and rest on a methodology, which is sophisticated,
theoretically-informed and well-sustained. The balance between the rich detail
of the enterprise-based case studies and the overall contexts in which they
were situated is very well done indeed.” · Mark Pittaway, The Open University,
UK
“[A] well researched comparative study of the relationship between the
Hungarian and East German Communist parties, on the one hand, and workers in
Hungary and the GDR, on the other. The decision to focus on party/state
relations with workers in a major factory in each country is convincingly
motivated. [The] archival research is extremely thorough.” · Donna Harsch,
Carnegie Mellon University
Selected presentations
in my field at international and Hungarian conferences:
„This Workers’ Hostel
Lost Almost Every Bit of Added Value It Had”: Workers’ Hostels, Social Rights
and Legitimization in Welfare Dictatorships. Conference: Global Labour and the
Crises of High Capitalism: Rethinking the 1970s. Berlin, Humboldt Universitӓt,
28-29 June, 2015.
From production lines
to office desks: The structural transformation of the Hungarian labor market
after 1989. Conference: Inequalities: Transformations to the urban labor
markets. Warsaw 8 October 2015
Contrasting the memory
of the Kádár and the Honecker regimes. Conference: Historical Memory of Central
European Communism, Prague, November 14-15, 2015.
Lonely Fighters:
Workers in the postsocialist East Germany and Hungary. Conference: How Class
Works. Stony Brook, 5-7 June 2014.
Transforming
Working-Class Identities: Class and Ethnicity in Postsocialist Hungary.
European Social Science History Conference 2012. Glasgow, 2012, április 11-14.
„Összetartóbb
közösségeket lehetett akkor egy-egy munkahelyen összehozni”: Az emberi
kapcsolatok változása a posztszocialista „átmenet” idején. Határokon túl: Nemzetközi konferencia szervezése Mark
David Pittaway (1971-2010) angol munkástörténész emlékére
Magányos harcosok: Munkások a
rendszerváltás utáni Kelet-Németországban és Magyarországon. Magyary-OTKA
találkozó, Miskolci Egyetem, 2010. november 18-19.
Rethinking
labour history in Eastern Europe: Legitimacy, consumption and socialism. European Social Science History Conference,
Ghent, Belgium, 13-16 April 2010.
Munkástudat a rendszerváltás után. 20 év után. Nemzetközi tudományos
konferencia az ELTE Kelet-Európa Története Tanszék és a Politikatörténeti
Intézet szervezésében. 2010. január 15-16, Budapest.
Átmenet,
átalakulás, posztszocializmus: A kelet-európai rendszerváltozás nagy elméletei.
Változás,
válság, váltás. A Magyar Szociológiai Társaság éves konferenciája. 2009.
november 13-14, Debrecen.
Magyary Zoltán és az
OTKA Posztdoktori Ösztöndíjasainak Találkozója. 2009. november 12-13, Eger.
„Deutschland und seine
östlichen Nachbarn” – A ZEIT-ösztöndíjasok találkozója, a program
zárókonferenciája. 2009. június 25-26, Hamburg.
Magyar és keletnémet
munkások az újkapitalizmusban. Fiatal
társadalomtudósok konferenciája Szalai
Erzsébet szervezésében. 2009. június 12-13, Erdőtarcsa.
Theorizing Systemic Change. Max
Weber Fellows Conference, Florence, June 4, 2009.
“Because I am not happy that Audi is prospering”: Reshaping workers’
nationalist sentiments in
postsocialist Hungary. 10th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social
Anthropologists (EASA), Ljubljana, 26-30 August 2008.
“From
consent to discontent: Workers and the Party in Hungary under Late Socialism”.
Symposium Legitimation and State Parties
in Socialist Europe, European University Institute, Florence, 29 May, 2008.
“A failed dialogue: Workers, the Party and the Economic Reform in the
GDR and Hungary (1963-1968)”. Seventh European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC), University of Lisbon, 26 February - 1
March 2008.
Cseléd vagy háztartási
alkalmazott? A fizetett munka és a globalizáció. A perifériától a perifériáig? Az ELTE Ruszisztikai Intézet és a
Kelet-Európa Története Tanszék közös konferenciája Krausz Tamás 60.
születésnapja alkalmából. ELTE, 2008. február 25.
1968 és a munkások. 1968 és a világ, ELTE Kelet-Európa
Története Tanszék, 2008. május 5.
Popular memories of the socialist regimes in
East Germany and Hungary. Memory
from Transdisciplinary Perspectives: Agency, Practices, and Mediations.
University of Tartu, 11-14 January 2007.
Goodbye Lenin?
Formation of new working-class identities in East Germany and Hungary.
Colloquium: New Researchers on Varieties
of Capitalism and Socio-economic Change in Central and Eastern Europe.
London School of Economics, 5-6 October 2007.
Legitimacy and
workers in the late Kádár-regime. Social
History in East-Central Europe. International and interdisciplinary workshop.
Central European University, 28-30 September, 2007.
Workers in the
new capitalist regimes in East Germany and Hungary. Sixth European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC),
Amsterdam, 22-25 March, 2006.
Workers in the
workers’ states: The case of the GDR and Hungary. UCL, School of Slavonic and
East European Studies, London, 25-27 February, 2006.
A
holokauszt és a “totalitarianizmus”. Holokauszt: történelem és emlékezet.
Magyar Ruszisztikai Intézet, 2005. december 2.
Workers
and the Kádár-regime. Conference of the Marie Curie Doctoral Fellows,
University of London, 23-25 June, 2005.
Lectures in foreign
countries
Lonely fighters: Workers in postsocialist Hungary and East
Germany. Presentation at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, 27 September 2012.
The economic
reforms and the workers in the GDR and Hungary. Rutgers University, New Jersey,
8 September, 2008.
„From
Transitology to Transformation - Theorizing Post Socialist Change in Eastern
Europe”. London
School of Economics, 13 May, 2008.
„The Power of
Silence”. Paper presented at the
MWFs Multidisciplinary Research Workshops, 9. April, 2008.
„Transforming
memories: Workers’ recollection of the socialist regimes in East Germany and
Hungary. Friedrich-Schiller Universität, Jena, 26 November 2007.
„Formation of
new working class-identities in postsocialist Hungary”. European University
Institute, 3 October 2007.
Workers in the
workers’ state. Bielefeld University, 15 November 2006.
The change of
regimes in East-Central Europe: a comparative approach. Geisteswissenschaftliche
Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas (GWZO), Universität Leipzig. 6 June 2006.