Culture and Religious History: Peoples, Regions, and Cultures in Central Europe
Open Framework
Our doctoral sub-program “Peoples, Regions, and Cultures in Central Europe” aims to join the traditions of previous research by transforming them into a structured educational and training program. The PhD training has already provided an excellent opportunity to deepen knowledge of Hungarian and neighboring peoples’ cultures beyond the requirements of standard university education, ensuring that doctoral graduates are well-informed about the ethnic, religious, and cultural roots of the region’s problems. Furthermore, completed dissertations have contributed at a scientific level to the fuller exploration of these cultural foundations.
The courses offered are primarily taught by scholars specializing in the centuries-old interconnections among the peoples and cultures of the region. They focus on shared cultural assets, points of contact, and ethnic specificities across all branches of folk culture. The wide range of available subjects has generated strong interest in our doctoral school.
The program’s primary aim is to provide doctoral candidates with extensive and profound knowledge of the ethnic and ethnocultural relations of the Carpathian Basin and its surrounding regions, as well as the diversity of their religious cultures. Given current historical, economic, technological, and mobility-driven processes, and the interaction between global and local cultural patterns, these issues are more relevant than ever. Naturally, Hungarians are also included among the peoples studied. However, Hungarian folk culture receives less emphasis within the core courses, being mainly represented among elective subjects and dissertation topics, as it already holds significant weight in undergraduate training. Within our doctoral program, special emphasis is placed on studying changing identity patterns, as well as the relationship between regions, ethnic groups, communities, and their cultural, social, and natural environments.
Alongside theoretical foundations, the doctoral program also provides practice-oriented and empirically focused training. This includes fieldwork, conducted under the supervision of the doctoral supervisor or another faculty member, at sites chosen according to the dissertation topic. The program also encourages participation in international scholarships and study-abroad opportunities, which often facilitate dissertation-related fieldwork, provide methodological training in ethnographic research, and enable comparative international analysis. Additionally, our program supports doctoral candidates in building the publication record required for obtaining habilitation, offering opportunities to publish both in Hungarian and in foreign languages through our institute.
Thematic Areas of the Sub-Program: Peoples, Regions, and Cultures in Central Europe
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Early Hungarian–Slavic Contacts in the Carpathian Basin
Cultural assets, linguistic exchange, and the historical development of interethnic relations; the formation of the Slovak people; Hungarian elements in Slovak material culture (e.g., agriculture, nutrition). Folklore as a site of interethnic contact; transmission and exchange in historical perspective. -
Exchange and Trade as Primary Forms of Interethnic Relations
Migration and exchange of goods; itinerant traders, trade routes, and cultural contacts. Greek and Bosnian merchants, Bulgarian gardeners, Slovak potters, tinkers, glassmakers, wax traders. The folklore of fairs; the significance of commercial centers. -
Ethnography as the Study of Past and Present
The final stages of traditional peasant culture, tradition and industrial society, the restructuring of traditions. The revival of traditional forms of agriculture in post-socialist Central Europe; folklore and mass communication. -
Ethics and Folk Society
Fundamental issues of folk morality, work ethics, and ethnic specificities in attitudes toward material goods. Economic and social structures of multiethnic settlements; crises in coexistence; church policy, nationality policy, and folk society. Deviance as an ethnic specificity; occupations as ethnic markers; ethnic and religious factors in social stratification. -
Religion and Ethnicity
Ethnic differences and the integrative role of religion; ethnic religions and national religions. The frontier of Eastern and Western Christianity. Church organization and local society. Ethnic and religious intermarriage; relations between endogamy, religion, and demography. -
Historical and Ethnographic Studies of Ancient Occupations
Ethnic and settlement ethnography of the Carpathian Basin; traditional economic branches in Eastern Europe and the Balkans; typologies and distribution of tools. -
Folk Art and Ethnicity
Artistic traditions and national symbols; migration of motifs; folk art centers; decorative art and “national” costumes. Folk art, cottage industry, and tourism. -
Gastronomic Culture
Traditional culinary forms in the Carpathian Basin; encounters of dietary and ethnic regions; temporal layers of traditional nutrition; foods and raw materials; traditional foods as national symbols. -
Trends in European Ethnology and Anthropology since the Mid-20th Century
Ethnography, European ethnology, cultural anthropology, cultural ecology, social anthropology. The study of European peoples in the 20th century. Ethnic and cultural roots of peoples, groups, nations, and nationalities. -
Forms of Contact Between Traditional Cultures
Transmission and reception, migration, diffusion, colonization, ethnic assimilation. -
History and Theories of Ethnicity
Historical issues of ethnicity; ethnicity and state; ethnicity and nationalism; ethnicity and geopolitics; competition theory; ethnic conflicts. Ethnicity in contemporary ethnography and cultural anthropology. Essentialist vs. constructivist approaches to ethnicity. The “measurability” of ethnicity. -
Terminological Issues in Ethnicity Research
Concepts of ethnos, ethnic group, local group. Nation and national minorities. Cultural areas and the areal distribution of folk culture. Micro-regional, regional, cultural, and local identities. -
Hungarians in Neighboring Countries
Hungarians in Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and beyond the Carpathian Basin. -
Nationalities in Historical and Contemporary Hungary
Germans, Slovaks, Romanians, Rusyns, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Roma, and Jews; ethnographic characterization of national minorities and their cultural groups. Criteria and features of ethnic minorities. Hungarian diasporas (Greeks, Russians, Poles, Arabs, Chinese). Migration, immigration, and refugee issues in ethnographic and anthropological perspective. Ethnography of refugee camps. -
Migration and Diaspora
Since the 19th century, millions have emigrated from Central Europe to the United States and South America. Emigration and the survival of Hungarian traditions abroad. Assimilation and acculturation. -
The Balkan Peoples
Ethnographic analysis of Balkan societies. -
The Slavs
Particular emphasis on cultural and ethnic subgroups within the Slavic world; questions of Slavic ethnogenesis. -
Music and Dance Culture
Study of folk music and dance traditions. Folk dance movements and the research of traditional peasant dance culture.