Interview with Laszlo Karsai - January 10, 2016

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Interview with Laszlo Karsai—January 10, 2016
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Author
Karsai, Laszlo
Abstract

Interview with László Karsai, Professor of History at Szeged University in Hungary. The interview was conducted in Budapest, Hungary on January 10, 2016. László Karsai specializes in the history of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in Hungary. He has also written on the nationality question in France and on the Gypsy Holocaust in Hungary. His publications include: A cigánykérdés Magyarországon 1919-1945. Út a cigány Holocausthoz [The Gypsy Question in Hungary 1919-1945. Toward the Gypsy Holocaust] (1992), as well as with many works, including a book on the nationalities question in Belgium (Flamandok és vallonok, 1986), and a biography of the Hungarian Arrow Cross leader, Ferenc Szálasi (Szálasi Ferenc - Politikai életrajz, 2016). He also compiled and edited two extensive volumes of primary sources: one of anti-Semitic writings and another of writings against anti-Semitism in Hungary. Special thanks to Máté Rigó, Cornell University Ph.D. student, for preparing an inventory of the interview.

Description
Interview Themes: 0:41 Family origins, Elek Karsai (b. 1922), Holocaust, survival of father in Buda in 1944; 2:00 Holocaust in family history; 3:20 1983 – Starts research on Hungarian Gypsy Holocaust; 5:00 Elek Karsai’s Holocaust stories, his work on Szálasi’s trial; 7:00 Ph.D. dissertation on the nationality question and Marxism, criticizes Marx and Engels; 8:00 1978-79: his paper published in Magyar Filozófiai Szemle, identifies as a right-wing dissident at Szeged University; 10:00 Publications on the Holocaust; 11:00 Elek Karsai’s political trajectory, 1940s, finished rabbinical seminary, then became social democrat, then communist; starts his career as sociology professor around Sándor Szalai; After Szalai’s conviction he works as an archivist at the National Archives; 15:00 Father rejoins the communist party in the early 1960s; 16:00 Karsai’s articles in Beszélő in 1980s, in which he criticized Tamás Krausz and László Béládi; 20:00 Parallels between the leftist and liberal generations of intellectuals that came of age in 1945 and 1989: missed opportunities and the experience of having “screwed up”; 22:00 Elek Karsai's documentary book on 1944/1945 Sorsforduló, protest by Czechoslovak embassy, book triggered political scandal, Soviet communist party initiates censorship of L. K.; 24:00 Elek Karsai nominated as director of Trade Union Archive; 28:00 Sociology as a discipline in late 1940s, József Szigeti, István Király; 34:00 Fear as a defining experience of his father; 35:00 László Karsai’s mother and grandmother, Emma Lederer; 40:00 Grandmother and politics, Mihály Babits, Antonio Widmar, László Hárs; 44:00 Political convictions of the women in his family; Mother worked at the Hungarian Television, travel to Cannes; 49:00 Reading complete works of Marx and Engels; 51:00 1956 Revolution as taboo, disillusionment with communism in late 1950s; 56:00 Elek Karsai’s radio show; 58:00 Protest of Hungarian writers at the UN; 1:00:00 Exposure to anti-Communist literature in Paris in early 1980s, 1956 literature; 1:03:00 1956 Revolution, Tibor Méray – Tamás Aczél, Tisztító vihar; 1:07:00 Expulsion from Szeged University; 1:12:00 History and historiography of the Holocaust; 1:16:00 Historian as public intellectual in Hungary; 1:17:00 Mistakes of the generation of 1989, Viktor Orbán, similar to Franz Joseph and János Kádár as “father figure” for Hungarians, corruption; 1:22:00 The crisis of liberal democracy; 1:28:00 Hungarian Jews and the migrant crisis, György Konrád, Hungarian Jews and politics after 1989; 1:33:00 Migrant crisis, Muslim minorities from North Africa and the Middle East
Date Issued
2016
Keywords
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Type
interview
sound