Professor Béla Bodó

October 2013 - September 2014
Mail: bbodo(at)uni-bonn(dot)de

Béla Bodó is a fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg from October 2013 until October 2014. He completed his undergraduate education at the University Debrecen, Hungary and the University of Toronto, Canada in 1990. He received his Ph. D. from York University in Toronto, Canada in 1998. He is a tenured Associate Professor at the Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri, United States America.

Research project at the Imre Kertész Kolleg

As a fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg, Dr. Bodó seeks to complete the German leg of the research on his new monograph project, tentatively entitled "The Culture of Defeat": Chaos, Political Paranoia and the Birth of Fascism in Central Europe, 1918-1921. The study deals with popular reactions to military defeat and revolutions in three Central European countries (Hungary, Germany and Austria) and the transformation of national cultures after the First World War. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book project covers not just history, but also political science, sociology, mass psychology, linguistics and art history. The project's goal is to increase public awareness of the international nature of modern right-wing movements as manifested, after the First World War, in the language, art, and the propaganda and organizational structure of militias, patriotic associations and political parties, as well as in the strong political ties that existed among groups located across national borders.

Main areas of research

Political Violence in Central and Eastern Europe after the First World War
Crime and Domestic Violence in the first half of the twentieth century
Military history
Anti-Semitism

Positions and Memberships

American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS)
American Association for the Study of Hungarian History (AASHH) - served in various functions since 1997
H-German; H-Habsburg

Monographs

Red Terror/White Terror: Paramilitary and Mob Violence in Hungary, 1916 (final stages of preparation; considered for publication by University of Rogester Press, 2016).
Pál Prónay: Paramilitary Violence and Anti-Semitism in Hungary, 1919-1921, (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press/Car Beck Papers, 2010).
Tiszazug: the Social History of a Murder Epidemic (New York: Columbia University Press/Eastern European Monographs, 2003).
"The Function of Selection in Nazi Policy towards University Students," Ph.D. Dissertation, York University, Canada, 1998. Supervisor: Prof. Michael H. Kater.

Articles

"Nazi Foreign Policy towards South Eastern Europe, 1933-1945," in Charles Ingrao and Franz Szabo eds., The Germans and the East, Purdue University Press, 2007, pp. 304-323.
"The Role of Anti-Semitism in Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1941-1944," accepted for publication, Hungarian Studies Review, 2014.
"The White Terror in Hungary, 1919-1921: The Social World of Paramilitary Groups," Austrian History Yearbook, Vol. XLII (2011).
"Hungarian Aristocracy and the White Terror," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 45/4 (October, 2010).
"Ivan Hejjas: The Life of a Counterrevolutionary," East Central Europe/L' Europe du Cenre-Est, Vol. 37 (2010).
"The Tószegi Affair: Rumors, 'the People's Verdicts' and Provincial Antisemitism in Hungary, 1919-1921, " Yad Vashem Studies XXXVI/II (Winter 2008).
"The Catholic Church and the White Terror in Hungary, 1919-1922," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 2007, Vol. 8, Nr. 2.
"Militia Violence and State Power," Hungarian Studies Review, (Spring-Fall 2006).
"Father Zadravecz and the Failure of Catholic Fascism in Hungary, 1919-1923," East European Quarterly (September 2006).
"White Terror, Newspapers and the Evolution of Hungarian Anti-Semitism after WWI," Yad Vashem Studies, XXXIV (Spring 2006).
"The Rise and Fall of Paramilitary Violence in Hungary, 1919-1922," East European Quarterly, (September 2004).
"Foreign Students in Nazi Germany," East European Quarterly (March 2003).
"Medical Examination and Biological Selection of University Student in Nazi Germany," Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Winter 2002).
"Non-Aryan Students in Nazi Germany," Yad Vashem Studies XXX (2002).
"The Murdering Women of Tiszazug," Journal of Family History, Volume 27, Number 1/January 2002.
"Progress or Racial Suicide: The Egyke in Hungarian Political Thought, 1840-1945," Hungarian Studies Review, Number XXVIII (Spring-Fall 2001), Vol.1-2.

The full list of publications can be found on the website of the University of Bonn