The article by Zsombor Csata, Márton Péti, Betty Compton, Amy H. Liu and Zsolt Sándor titled The income effects of minority co-ethnic employment: the case of Hungarians in central and Eastern Europe was published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Abstract

What is the effect of minority co-ethnic employment on income? While the business organizations literature argues diversity allows for knowledge accumulation, optimal labour allocation, and efficient interactions, absent is any consideration of language – e.g. language competency or language ideology. We argue when co-ethnic minorities work together, this shared language allows for bounded trust to develop; it also ensures there are preference similarities – factors that can increase firm productivity and individual wages. Using survey data of minority Hungarians in three Central and Eastern European countries (Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia), we find (1) diversity has no positive effect on income; and in fact, (2) co-ethnic employment increases wages in Southern Slovakia and Vojvodina. Additionally, we confirm that co-ethnic employment is not happening simply because of demographics. Instead, with one exception, the proportion of Hungarians in the workplace is significantly higher than in the areas where these jobs are located – suggesting a strategic behaviour by minority Hungarians. The implication is not that we endorse homogeneous workplaces per se, but that we remain cognizant of how asymmetric linguistic competencies and the underlying linguistic ideologies can shape power hierarchies – thereby limiting the benefits of diversity.

Viktória Bányai and Rita Horváth's article "They Drew What Was in Them: The Past, the Present" Testimonial Drawings as Schoolwork in the Immediate Aftermath of the Holocaust was published in the journal 2/2023 issue of the journal Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation (S:I.M.O.N.)

Abstract

A source group consisting of twenty-six drawings that was created by thirteen- and four-teen-year-old survivors in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust is analysed in this article. The youngsters who drew the testimonial drawings as compulsory school assign-ments were pupils of the High School for Girls of the Neolog Jewish Community of Pest. Our aim is to demonstrate that these drawings are crucial historical sources that document both the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath. Until recently, these kinds of documents have been routinely viewed as merely marginal sources of historical information, mainly because they are visual in nature and were created by young teenagers. Certain factors, such as the school environment, age, gender, and the shared historical experiences of the chil-dren turn the drawings into a source group from which additional information can be gleaned by analysing the individual pieces in one another’s contexts. The analyses of the drawings show that the girls consciously took the role of the witness upon themselves. We also examine how the fact that these drawings were created by females influences the source group.

The full issue is available on the journal's website.

From the contents:

Attachment relationships in the light of an online survey
The impact of the Covid epidemic: as seen by Hungarian emigrants
Why do they stay? Hungarian workers' perceptions of success in England
Károly Tóth's unsent letter to László Dobos, 1986
The reception of the Ellenpontok among the Hungarian elite in Romania
Street names in the successor states

Csilla Fedinec's article titled Attempts of self-determination by the Carpathian Rusyns in the 1860s was published in the 2023 English language issue of Forum Social Science Review.

In the 1860s, the Ruthenians also formulated their basic political demands, similar to the other nationalities in Hungary, although in a less visible way as far as “big politics” on international level is concerned. These political demands were much broader than the right to use the language granted in the Act XLIV of 1868 on National Equality. As such, they can be understood as characteristic manifestations of national self-determination. It is useful to organize these elements into a kind of catalog of problems, with the aim of assessing the legal norms that have been implemented on this basis, as opposed to earlier approaches that did not rely on such a comparison.

The article by Csilla Fedinec and István Csernicskó entitled Issues of language policy and language planning in Transcarpathia during the first Czechoslovak Republic was published in Ukranian in ACTA ACADEMIAE BEREGSASIENSIS PHILOLOGICA Volume 2023, Issue 2.

Issues of language policy and language planning in Transcarpathia during the first Czechoslovak Republic The concepts of state language, official language, and minority language do not have a generally accepted definition in international law. In Central and Eastern Europe, the state language is usually the language of the majority of the population of a particular country, in which it also serves as the official language. In interwar Czechoslovakia, the 1920 Language Law allowed the use of the language of the Slavic population, which constituted the absolute majority in the territory of Transcarpathia, as the official language in administration, office work, culture and education, granting the region's Slavs a greater degree of political, cultural and linguistic autonomy than they had ever enjoyed. But this linguistic freedom also brought practical problems to the surface. First of all, during this period there were three standard versions of the language adopted as the official language of the region. This article analyses the attitudes of the state and local intellectuals towards these language variants.

Ukraine's Silicon Valley? The number of Hungarians is falling in Transcarpathia, but the economy has been boosted by the war.

What impact has the Russian invasion of Ukraine had on Transcarpathia, the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, and minority-majority relations in the region?

Csilla Fedinec's article (in Hungarian) can be read on 444.hu.

What does the legislative amendment package mean, with which Ukraine would convince the Hungarian government that it has a place in the EU?

What exactly are the Ukrainian education, minority and language laws? What was passed by the Ukrainian Parliament on Friday this week and how will it affect Hungarian language education in Transcarpathia? Has Ukraine met Hungarian expectations and can it move closer to the EU?

Csilla Fedinec's article (in Hungarian) can be read on 444.hu.

On December 8, 1991 the elected leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed an agreement about the dissolution of the Soviet Union. What was behind the collapse. Who came out of the cataclysm the best and the worst among the member republics? To what extent can the current Russian-Ukrainian war be traced back to the collapse of the Soviet Union? 

Csilla Fedinec was interviewed by Mandiner, which can be read here.

The St. Adalbert Foundation for Research of Central and Eastern Europe prganizes a discussion at the Szekfű Gyula Library of the Institute of History, of the ELTE Faculty of Humanities on 11 December 2023 with the participation of Csilla Fedinec, Gábor Körner, Lajos Pálfalvi and Iván Halász.

In the podcast series Határátlépések (Border Crossings) of the Research Institute for Hungarian Communities Abroad, Csongor Molnár talked with our colleague Nándor Bárdi about the book Nemzetiségi parlamenti képviselet. Nemzetiségi képviselet Magyarországon és az utódállamok parlamentjeiben (1869-1918 /1920-1990)  [Minority Representation in the Parliament. Minority Representation in Hungary and the Parliaments of the Successor States (1869-1918 /1920-1990)].

You can listen to the episode here. (In Hungarian)