Adrienn Kovacs1; 1 National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland
Discussion
By September 1919, Budapest accommodated two displaced Hungarian universities, University of Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia) and University of Kolozsvar (Cluj Napoca, Romania) with their fragmented educational staff and students besides its own university, University of Budapest. These newly arrived institutions and their communities were part of a bigger wave of refugees, who left their homes due to changes in political regimes and borders. A lingering social and humanitarian crisis was born, and people tried to adapt to the new circumstances and learnt new expressions such as 'wagon residents' and' hyperinflation'.
This paper heavily draws on unpublished archival sources of the three universities' archives and on the correspondence of the delegate of the European Student Relief (ESR) and the current Dean of the Arts Faculty, Budapest University, contemporary newspaper articles and current literature on humanitarian aids in the aftermath of the World War I. It highlights the vital work of the ERS and its representative, Ray H. Legate and his cooperation with the Hungarian educational authorities and student associations. It also answers whether only the universities in Budapest benefitted from this work or other higher educational institutions as well. Moreover, the paper gives an account of other strategic partners of the higher education institutions that helped them to survive these transitional years.
This paper's achievement complements the latest research on the challenges of humanitarian aid actions in Central Europe and gives a more in-depth insight into a former Central Power nation's educational and social condition in the early 1920s.
