Refugees. Fortunately, I’m not one of them but I’m interested and care about their experiences and the challenges they have been facing in the societies that host them throughout human history. I have been a foreigner myself in the past seven years since I left the country where I was born and raised. I chose to go abroad because instead of being “just a tourist”, I wanted to spend more than just a few days or weeks to learn about other people and their cultures. I didn’t have to go, but I wanted to, and I guess as the years went by, I’ve got used to the idea of living abroad and staying ended up being normal. I didn’t flee and never really received hostility during my years-long residence in the countries I opted for. However, I did learn what it feels being different and an outsider even if the discrimination I received was overwhelmingly positive and benefited me. Researching the “expatriate experience” and the relationship between the hosting society and the diaspora communities as well as foreign individuals therefore, originated in my personal experiences.
I was born in the land of former Habsburgia*, in one of the numerous successor states of the Dual Monarchy: the Republic of Hungary (1989-2012). I was raised in Hungarian culture, learned Magyar as my mother tongue and have been always conscious of my family’s mixed Western Slavic and German ethnic origins – a legacy of a diverse empire in Central Europe. I learned modern Hungarian and East-Central European history at Eötvös Lóránd University (ELTE) which later served me with an excellent base for the courses I took on Eastern Europe in the first two years of my doctoral program at New York University (NYU).
I also had the opportunity to live five years in China. The originally planned six-months course in Mandarin and the short-term adventure turned out to be one of the most formative periods of my life as well as a chance to earn my Master’s degree in modern Chinese history at Nankai University. I learned the language good enough to conduct researches and write my thesis on Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in China during World War One. After graduation when I decided to leave Tianjin, the city that became a second home to me, I took the topic with me and crossed Eurasia and the Atlantic two years ago to live and purse my Ph.D. in New York City.
In the fall of 2019, I was able to return to China to start my dissertation research, right were I left off after defending my Master’s thesis. I spent three months conducting archival research, engaging with local scholars and preparing my dissertation proposal. My three months research trip was supported by the ACLS/Luce Foundation’s pre-dissertation travel grant and NYU’s GRI program . I spent my time both in residence as a graduate fellow at NYU Shanghai and visited archival sites across the country.
Since my return to the U.S. and the successful defense of the proposal in November 2019, I post updates to this blog from New York, or wherever my research requires me to go.
*By this invented playful name I refer to the empire of the Austrian Habsburgs (1526-1918) also known in its latest formation as Austria-Hungary (1867-1918).
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