Press Room

Slavic Archival Collection internship program presentation at CEU.
Posted: 30/June/2022
As a result of the Slavic Archival Collection internship program at the Blinken OSA (started in December 2021), metadata was significantly enhanced for several archival series in the subfonds HU OSA 300-80 Soviet Red Archives (SRA) and HU OSA 300-85 Samizdat Archives (SA). Both SRA and SA were separate units within Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and operated between 1953/1956 and 1994.
 
Connected Europe Map - Council of Europe
Posted: 27/June/2022
Digital Archivist wanted at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives Starting date: October 01, 2022 Application deadline: Open until filled Full- Or Part-Time: Full-Time Location: Budapest The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) at Central European University (CEU) based primarily in Budapest but with teaching tasks in Vienna, Austria invites applications for the Digital Archivist position.
 
HU OSA 462 Photographs of the Dialogue Peace Group
Posted: 26/June/2022
Providing insight into the post-dissolution period of the Dialogue Peace Group, a unique actor in the 1980s political scene of Hungary, the photo series digitized and processed by Blinken OSA capture the street happening titled Funeral of the Known Soldier.
 
Photo: Csaba Szilágyi
Posted: 20/June/2022
Blinken OSA’s Chief Archivist and Head of Human Rights Program Csaba Szilágyi gave a talk at the Divided Societies XXIII: Myths and Media course for international MA and Ph.D. students at the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik (May 9-15, 2022).
 
Illustration of the Visegrad presentation
Posted: 19/June/2022
“Visegrad Scholarship at OSA” presentations at 10.00 a.m. on Friday, July 1, 2022, held in-person and online. Environing the Dam debate in ECE: the role of RFE in the 1980s and 1990s by Jiri Janac AND Defying the Iron Curtain: Émigré journals and their attempts to confront the post-war reality by Jan Farfal The presentations will be held in person at CEU’s Room 302 in N13 and online. The Zoom link of the meeting is: https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/98049219179?pwd=Y0VsazNjUkx4Nk9jdDFXazBsSlVHdz09. Meeting ID: 980 4921 9179.
 
 HU OSA 300-5-90 Records of Kevin Devlin and the Communist Area Analysis Departm
Posted: 16/June/2022
As a result of the Rival Communist Parties internship program first advertised in 2020, the archival series HU OSA 300-5-90 Records of Kevin Devlin and the Communist Area Analysis Department on Non-Ruling Communist Parties has been processed, with its detailed description and finding aids now available in the online catalog.
 
Logo of the conference
Posted: 14/June/2022
Iván Székely, Senior Research Fellow at Blinken OSA, a founding member of the annual conference Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection (CPDP), organized and moderated a panel discussion on “Data Protection Authorities and the Covid-19 Pandemic” in Brussels on May 23. This was the 10th-panel discussion in a row on some aspects of the activities of the DPA,  a frequently underestimated actor in the protection of personal data, which Szekely, together with Professor Charles Raab of the University of Edinburgh – both members of the Scientific Committee of CPDP –, have conceptualized, organized and moderated live from the very beginning. This year’s discussion involved Hielke Hijmans of the Belgian Data Protection Authority, Orsolya Reich from the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, and Sjaak Nouwt representing the Royal Dutch Medical Association.
 
CWAR Fellows at Blinken OSA
Posted: 14/June/2022
Overseas B.A., M.A and Ph.D. students in history, international relations, government, sociology, public policy, area, and regional studies awarded the Cold War Archives Research (CWAR) Institute Fellowships by the Wilson Center conduct on-site research at the archives and present their research and findings at the Cold War-themed conference at Corvinus University, Budapest.
 
Official design
Posted: 14/June/2022
The Blinken OSA Archives - a Unit of the Central European University - has been participating in the Night of Museums since 2009, but this will be the first time that visitors will be invited not to the Archives themselves but to the CEU Nádor Street complex. The focus of this year's program is on the exiled university and its fascinating and troubled fate in Budapest. Programs: The programs start on June 25, 2002. at 4:00 p.m. Venue: 1051 Budapest Nádor u. 15.   Guided tours: CEU Campus Tour every hour from 4 pm to 9 pm; English language guided tours on demand! Film screening: A longer version of the film "Free University" will be screened in the CEU Auditorium with English and Hungarian subtitles; the film is 55 minutes long. The first screening starts at 4 p.m. and the film will be shown every hour until 9 p.m. The tours start at the Nádor u. 15 building, which opened in 2016. Chamber exhibition about the history of the building complex and the University.
 
ICARUS logo
Posted: 07/June/2022
Blinken OSA Archivist Mark László-Herbert attended the 28th ICARUS Convention in Aubervilliers, France (May 23-25, 2022), where he gave a presentation on “The Guiding Principles for Safe Havens for Archives at Risk (2018) Put into Practice in a Hungarian Private Archive: Rescuing Public Collections and Collections of Wide Public Relevance at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives.”
 
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn and Heinrich Böll in Germany, February 1974.
Posted: 06/June/2022
The next presentations of the Visegrad Scholarship at OSA lecture series at 3.30 pm on Friday, June 10, 2022, in CEU Room 302 at 13 Nádor u. Budapest The link to the Zoom meeting is: https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/91664418322?pwd=bkxkVzh5SVE0REpLdE40Q080RkM4UT09 The Hidden Lives of Data: Social Research During the Cold War by Alexander Langstaff, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, New York University and Between East and West. The entangled reception of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn in the Cold War 1970s by José Luis Aguilar López-Barajas, Postdoctoral researcher, Masaryk University      
 
Photo taken at the event
Posted: 02/June/2022
Public talk on May 12, 2022, by former editors Michael Kovrig, Pablo Gorondi, and Tom Popper moderated by Esther Holbrook is now available online for those who could not participate in the event. Former editors of Budapest Week gathered to discuss what starting an English-language newspaper in Budapest was like in 1991, the challenges and the rewards, and to consider whether such a publication would even be possible to launch today.
 
The CEU library
Posted: 25/May/2022
In the Arany János Street building of Blinken OSA, an organizational unit of CEU, reconstruction works are taking place. During the reconstruction, the Archives’s staff and researchers will continue working in various offices in the Nádor Street campus buildings and in a designated area of the CEU Library. Working in common spaces will further enrich the professional and personal connections between colleagues working and studying in the Archives and the university. Those working on the CEU Budapest campus now will have the opportunity to get an insight into the activities of Blinken OSA’s researchers. Those colleagues who would like to do research in the collections of the Archives, can do this on the third floor of the Library. For further information, please visit the webpage of Blinken OSA.
 
Blinken OSA visit at QWIEN
Posted: 18/May/2022
Csaba Szilágyi Chief Archivist visited Vienna with CEU PhD student and co-curator of the exhibition Perica Jovchevski, invited to QWIEN and a panel discussion at the University of Vienna.
 
CEU Library, Budapest
Posted: 11/May/2022
Research Room temporarily relocated from May 16, 2022. Due to construction works in the building of Blinken OSA, all staff and the Research Room will relocate to CEU's main campus as of May 16. The Reading Room will operate within CEU's beautiful new library, while archival materials will be transferred regularly from the stacks of Blinken OSA. We will do everything we can to continue to offer the usual quality services under the changed circumstances. The following apply until September 30, 2022:
 
The Budapest Week
Posted: 05/May/2022
PUBLIC TALK at Blinken OSA    May 12, 2022, at 6:00 p.m.    Blinken OSA, Budapest, 1051 Arany János u. 32.        The Budapest Week then and now    Public talk by the former editors Michael Kovrig, Pablo Gorondi, and Tom Popper moderated by Esther Holbrook.  
 
We stand with Ukraine
Posted: 04/May/2022
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Blinken OSA has been determined to help and find new ways to host scholars threatened by the war. Also, as archives, we preserve sources documenting the development of the events. Besides its own initiatives, the Archives also joined CEU’s Invisible University for Ukraine.
 
Blinken OSA repository by Edit Blaumann
Posted: 27/April/2022
The CEU Budapest – OSUN Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships provide an opportunity for individual research grant support for doctoral students and junior scholars to spend between 4 and 12 months in Budapest at the CEU Democracy Institute (DI) or the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives. The Blinken OSA welcomed its first two PostDoc fellows and first Ph.D. fellow in April 2022.
 
Fearless exhibition
Posted: 22/April/2022
Important notice regarding the opening hours of the Fearless Exhibition The exhibition will be closed  on april 27th , from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and on april 29th from 4:00 p.m.
 
Writing With Fire -film still
Posted: 21/April/2022
March, 23, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. Hey! Teachers! Russia, 2020, 90min, Russian with English and Hungarian subtitles. The film screening is followed by a discussion in Hungarian. More information: https://felelemnelkul.org/programok/beiskolazva FILM SCREENING March 30, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. Courage Germany, 2021, 90 min. Belarusian, Russian Director: Aliaksei Paluyan ** Curatorial guided tour in Hungarian April 1, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. ** TALK Friday, April 8, 2022, 6:00 p.m. Borderless Knowledge: fearless speech - The limits and reality of free speech Registration: https://bit.ly/3r2GI0p Venue: 1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 15. Auditorium Online: https://youtu.be/i5MFJ8JUkK4 ** fearless poems -  Day of Hungarian Poetry - Fearless Event Series campaign April 11, 2022, all-day ** Film Screening Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 6:00 p.m. Registration is required: https://forms.office.com/r/M7tHfZ3e2W Uppercase Print (2020) documentary excerpt, Romanian with English and Hungarian subtitles directed by Radu Jude HI Film Productions
 
Photo: Fortepan / Sándor Bauer
Posted: 14/April/2022
The next presentation of the Visegrad Scholarship at OSA lecture series is Managing Young Adulthood Under State Socialism by Orel Beilinson, Ph.D. Candidate, Yale University on April 20, 2022, at 1:30 p.m.
 
Blinken OSA Decorations at CEU Vienna Campus
Posted: 14/April/2022
Blinken OSA contributed to the temporary building of the new Vienna Campus of Central European University in the form of wall decorations or mini exhibitions. The purpose of the project is twofold; to improve the aesthetics of university spaces by providing intellectual and visual stimuli, and to enhance the Archives’s visibility in Vienna, with photos and informative descriptions related to our holdings. The mini exhibitions comprising more than 200 images now enrich areas of the CEU Library and Media Hub, the Department of Medieval Studies, the Department of History, the Records Management offices, and the Department of Legal Studies.
 
Csaba Szilágyi in Potocari
Posted: 21/March/2022
We are happy to announce that a longtime colleague Csaba Szilágyi—who was Acting Chief Archivist for some formative years—has been appointed as Chief Archivist at Blinken OSA. The Chief Archivist is responsible for the professional archival program, along with this new responsibility Csaba is the Head of the Human Rights Program. Csaba Szilágyi started working at Blinken OSA soon after its establishment in 1996.
 
networks
Posted: 21/March/2022
While the forced relocation of CEU teaching activities to Vienna and the Covid-related restrictions have made research hard in the past two years, Blinken OSA is happy to be able to offer special tools to overcome difficulties.
 
Screenshot -Black Box recording
Posted: 18/March/2022
“Visegrad Scholarship at OSA” presentations at 2.00 pm on Monday, March 21, 2022 Székelykapu, Turul Madár and Kopjafa: Reinvention of Turanism at the beginning of 1990s in Hungary by Tatyana Szafonova AND Across the Nylon Curtain: Transnational Cultural Exchanges between Italy and USSR. The role of Italian Cultural Actors in the diffusion of samizdat and tamizdat by Ilaria Sicari entitled
 
FEARLESS
Posted: 07/March/2022
Exhibition opening and Litera award ceremony: March 16, 2022. Arany János u. 32, 1051 Budapest, Hungary Litera Award Ceremony: 5:00 pm Followed by the official exhibition opening The Litera portal and Blinken OSA issued a joint open call and a joint literary call by invitation in November 2021, titled My story of cowardice. At the Award Ceremony, the two winning short stories will be presented along with the awards and the juries’ comments. Exhibition Opening: 6:00 pm Curator: István Rév Opening messages by: Elena Zhemkova, Executive Director of International Memorial (the organization was liquidated in the Russian Federation on 28.02.2022), and Miklós Gáspár Tamás, philosopher
 
We Stand with Ukraine
Posted: 01/March/2022
The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University welcomes the decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation into the situation in Ukraine.
 
The final presentation session of HIPS
Posted: 25/February/2022
The five-week project, an archival internship for 13 Erasmus Mundus students enrolled in the interuniversity program History in the Public Sphere, came to an end. It took place in the Archives and lasted from January 10 to February 11, 2022. The program was titled Fearless Speech and Its Fate in the Archives.
 
Re:Verzió
Posted: 21/February/2022
Twelve of the films screened at the 18th Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will be available to watch online, on the festival website, from February 14 until March 27, thanks to Re:Verzió. The films can also be viewed at live screenings at the Apolló Cinema in Pécs, and at the Megálló Community Center in Szeged.