On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, OSA Archivum has copied and digitized the transcripts of Hungarian refugee interviews conducted between 1956 and 1958 within the framework of the Columbia Research Project Hungary (CURPH).
CURPH was not the only program that targeted the issue of Hungarian refugees after 1956. Nevertheless, it was the best organized and most elaborate project. More than 600 interviews were conducted by specially trained, native Hungarian field-workers in European refugee camps and in the United States. Most of the interviews lasted two or three days, and the final English transcripts averaged 70 pages each. The interviews were based on a detailed questionnaire, interview guidelines that had been carefully worked out by sociologists and public opinion experts.
This on-line collection contains English language transcripts of the interviews and their "facesheets" with important social data on the respondents' background. The interview texts have been copied from two major sources: the Bakhmeteff Archives of the
Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Columbia University and the Manuscript Archives |
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/butler/| of the
Hungarian National Library |
http://www.oszk.hu|. Social data on respondents can be searched by criteria of the original questionnaire, but interview transcripts and relevant "facesheets" are available only as image files and are not searchable in the form of text files.
Background information on the CURPH project and publications based on the interviews can be found under Related Materials. The introductory study written by Andras Mink, OSA Research Archivist and Historian and the essay written by Istvan Rev, Historian and Director of OSA Archivum provide a useful overview of the political and historical context of CURPH.
The rebirth of the documents in digital format would have not have been possible without the generous help and support of the former US ambassador in Budapest and his wife,
Donald and Vera Blinken, and the US Embassy in Budapest.