Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 460

Title

Eva S. Balogh Personal Papers

Date(s)

1936 - 2021

Description Level

Fonds

Extent and medium (processed)

6 Archival boxes, 0.75 linear meters
2 Oversized box (40 cm), 0.8 linear meters
1 Archival photo box, 0.33 linear meters

Context

Administrative / Biographical history

Eva S. Balogh (other forms of her name are: Balogh Éva, Balogh Éva Zsuzsánna) was born in Pécs, Hungary, on March 18, 1936. She attended high school at the local Klára Leöwey Girls' General High School (Leöwey Klára Általános Leánygimnázium), and after her baccalaureate (qualification: „Excellent”, 1954), she enrolled to the program in Literature and Library Science at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest (1954-1956).



In the spring of 1956, Eva S. Balogh was elected Secretary (Titkár) of the Zrínyi Ilona Girls' Student Residence (Zrínyi Ilona Leánykollégium) at No. 5 Rákóczi út, in Budapest. In the autumn of 1956, she was an active member of the Revolutionary Student Committee and participated in the street protests that started on October 23, 1956.

During the nights of November and early December, 1956, it was Eva S. Balogh who typed-up the manuscripts of articles to be printed the next morning in the clandestine newspaper Október huszonharmadika (October Twenty-Third)–presumably the only clandestine newspaper left standing after Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest on November 4, 1956. She did so using her own typewriter, in her dormitory room. For fear of being caught (and most likely jailed) for her active role in the revolution, on December 12, 1956, she illegally crossed the Austrian border at Répcevis, in the vicinity of Kőszeg, Hungary.

On February 12, 1957, Eva S. Balogh was issued a Canadian immigrant visa in Vienna, and on February 21, 1957 she was granted immigrant landing status as a political refugee in Canada.

Upon arrival in Canada, Eva S. Balogh enrolled part-time at Ottawa Carleton University, while also working in a bookstore and in an office in order to support herself. In her first months in Canada, she also tried her hand at washing dishes–a common job for recent arrivals to the New World.


By 1962, her English was good enough to enroll full-time at Carleton, where she graduated with an Honors Bachelor of Arts degree in History in 1965.

During her last year at Carleton, Eva S. Balogh also worked as a researcher for the Government of Canada in connection with the restoration of the Fortress of Louisbourg in the Province of Nova Scotia.

In 1966, Eva S. Balogh moved to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in Russian and East European studies at Yale University (MA degree awarded in 1968). In 1974, she earned a PhD in History from the same university, with a doctoral thesis on the 1919 Hungarian Republic of Councils.

Starting in 1970, Eva S. Balogh taught Russian and East European history in the History Department at Yale, where she also served as Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Russian and East European Studies program. Between 1973 and 1978, she was History Professor and Dean at Morse College, Yale University.

It was during these years that she published several papers–mostly on Hungarian history–in scholarly journals. She was a member of, among others, the American History Association, the Canadian Association of Slavists, and the American Association of Hungarian Historians.

Following a visit to her native Hungary in 1993, Eva S. Balogh became interested in Hungary's post-Soviet transition to democracy and capitalism. Soon she joined several online discussion groups on Hungary, eventually creating and moderating one herself.


In 2007, she started Hungarian Spectrum, a daily blog dedicated to “reflections on politics, economics, and culture” in Hungary. Throughout its 15 years of existence, the blog was a highly important, erudite, and critical voice among the few daily sources of information about Hungary in English. As of November 2021, Hungarian Spectrum had over 7,000 subscribers, with numerous journalists, politicians, diplomats, and scholars among them.

Eva S. Balogh passed away on November 30, 2021, in her home in Bethany, Connecticut.

Archival history

The documents in this fonds were transferred directly to Blinken OSA by Eva S. Balogh's executor, in April 2022.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

The fonds documents the life and work of Hungarian dissident historian and blogger Eva S. Balogh.

Scope and Content (Narrative)

The fonds covers and richly illustrates the life of Eva S. Balogh in four countries on two continents, with a number of dramatic turns including her precipitous defection from Hungary in December 1956 and the abrupt ending of her academic career in the United States.


The fonds consists of three series. The first series (7 archival boxes) contains personal documents, correspondence, and study records, from elementary school to the doctoral level. The Master's and Ph.D.  theses defended at Yale University, and a number of chapters and book reviews published in edited volumes and scholarly journals during her graduate studies and tenure at Yale University are, too part of this series. The second series (2 boxes) contains two photo albums and over 130 additional photographs, many of which depict Eva S. Balogh and her circle of close friends and relatives. The third series consists of born-digital documents, including a full copy (backup) of Eva S. Balogh's blog, Hungarian Spectrum, published between 2007 and 2021 at hungarianspectrum.org.

Accruals

Not Expected

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

Partially Restricted

Languages

English, Hungarian

Description Control

Archivist's note

Processed by Mark László-Herbert, May 31, 2023.