A long essay entitled Three Historical Regions of Europe, appearing first in a samizdat volume in Budapest in 1980, instantly put its author into the forefront of the transnational debate on Central Europe, alongside such intellectual luminaries as Milan Kundera and Czeslaw Milosz. The present volume offers English-language readers a rich selection of the depth and breadth of the legacy of Jeno Szucs (1928-1988).

The selection documents Szucs's seminal contribution to many contemporary debates in historical anthropology, nationalism studies, and conceptual history. It contains his key texts on the history of national consciousness and patterns of collective identity, as well as medieval and early modern political thought. The works published here, most of them previously unavailable in English, provide a sophisticated analysis of a wide range of subjects from the myths of origins of Hungarians before Christianization to the political and religious ideology of the Dozsa peasant uprising in 1514, the medieval roots of civil society, or the revival of ethnic nationalism during the communist era. The volume, with an introduction by the editors locating Szucs in a transnational context, offers a unique insight into the complex and sensitive debate on national identity in post-1945 East Central Europe.

About the Author
Jeno Szucs (1928-1988) was a Hungarian historian. Gabor Klaniczay is University Professor of Medieval Studies at the Central European University. Balazs Trencsenyi is a Professor at the History Department of Central European University. Gabor Gyani is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Reviews
"Not only have the three editors assembled a collection of essays previously unavailable as a set but have also produced an accessible and rigorous translation of the texts. Last but not least, they have finally provided (at least for non-Hungarian readers) what was always missing in the excessively cursory discussions of Szucs's work: context. This is no minor achievement. Szucs's oeuvre deserves a much wider audience and a much wider discussion. It is up to non-Hungarian historians to take up the challenge." https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://ojs.elte.hu/hsce/article/download/5433/5300&hl=hu&sa=X&d=9641245107997327584&ei=t1fLZOzQOcizywTom4uICg&scisig=AFWwaebCxyeyKgmWXoli6khHgc0k&oi=scholaralrt&html=&pos=0&folt=kw -- Guido Franzinetti * Historical Studies on Central Europe *
"This fine volume makes available seven classic studies with an excellent editorial introduction and further helpful apparatus to contextualize the emblematic Hungarian historian's oeuvre. Most of the studies address the 'historical construction of national consciousness'. Besides, the volume also includes a new translation of Szucs's seminal contribution to the 'Central Europe' debate of the 1980s by way of a grandiose outline of the longue duree development of 'structures' in the three historical regions of Europe. The issues these writings address are as 'hot' in the Hungary of the 2020s, and perhaps more widely, as they were in the 1960s-1980s." https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://ojs.elte.hu/hsce/article/download/5417/5299&hl=hu&sa=X&d=13169601168701465614&ei=t1fLZOzQOcizywTom4uICg&scisig=AFWwaeZ0GUpiqKYd-7TbU4etHeQy&oi=scholaralrt&html=&pos=2&folt=kw -- Laszlo Kontler * Historical Studies on Central Europe *
"A consensus prevails that Szucs was a veritable historian. He was quick to dismiss Marxism and used an empirical, rather than an ideological, historical approach. But in fact, he became famous for what is highly ideological in his work: his analysis of the historical roots of a tripartite Europe as opposed to the dual model of Cold War Europe, which was a hot-partly ideological-topic in the 1980s." https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://ojs.elte.hu/hsce/article/download/5415/5298&hl=hu&sa=X&d=5735065785168522251&ei=t1fLZOzQOcizywTom4uICg&scisig=AFWwaeYOPU1tep_yzSJXRUdFSZgO&oi=scholaralrt&html=&pos=3&folt=kw -- Gabriella Erdelyi * Historical Studies on Central Europe *



Book Information
ISBN 9786155225277
Author Jeno Szucs
Format Hardback
Page Count 360
Imprint Central European University Press
Publisher Central European University Press
Weight(grams) 653g