Visegrad Scholarship at the Open Society Archives

Acadedmic Year 2012/2013

For a better and deeper understanding of the interdependent recent history of (the center of) Europe, the International Visegrad Fund offers 15 research fellowship grants in the Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest on a competitive basis to support scholars artists and journalists who wish to conduct research in the holdings of OSA, and whose current projects are relevant to the holdings and the given research priorities of the Fund and OSA. The grants of 2.000 euro each are designed to provide access to the archives for scholars, artists, and journalists, and to cover travel to and from Budapest, a modest subsistence, and accommodation for a research period of eight weeks. Stipends for shorter periods are pro-rated.

Applicants, preferably but not exclusively, from a V4 country, may be researchers, students after their second degree carrying out research, or artists, journalists, academics, or others, who have already started their project that is relevant for the holdings at OSA.

The successful candidates of each category will work at the OSA during their term of research and at the end of the research period they will present their individual research findings to the community of the Central European University, within the framework of the Visegrad Fund Fellow Lecture Series. OSA will publish the final research report, either in text or in audio-visual format, on the webpage of OSA/Visegrad Fund.

Fellows are free to work on the project of their choice, however, in the academic year of 2012-2013, applicants with the following topics might enjoy advantage over other applicants:

1. History of science and technology in East and Central Europe between 1945-1989.
2. The socialist welfare state: its financial foundations and social consequences.
3. Statistics, surveys, empirical studies: production of fact and data under communism.
4. Contextual analysis of conspiracy theories and urban legends under communism.
5. The emergence of human rights movements and the fall of communist regimes in East-Central Europe.

Submission deadlines

• October 10, 2012
• January 10, 2013
• April 10, 2013.

Assessment

The Selection Committee will evaluate proposals four times a year, on the basis of the professional quality and novelty of the research proposal, and its relevance to the chosen topic.

Application procedure

Please submit the following to OSA:

1. Application letter in English (should specify expected period of stay and preferred dates).
2. Research description/plan in English (about 800 words; should indicate relationship between the current research topic, the chosen collection in the OSA holdings and your research, the intended use of text based or audio-visual research results, etc.) Artists are expected to submit a portfolio, too.
3. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)
4. Proof of officially recognized advanced level English language exam (if not native speaker)
5. Names of two referees with contact address.

The Application letter, C.V., Research description/plan, copy of language exam certficitaion and Referees’ contact information can be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

October, 2012

The following candidates were awarded full grants:

• Goina, Calin, Romania, for his proposal The role of the urban legends in the Romanian collectivization process: 1946-1962
• Kende Tamás, Hungary, for his proposal Wer aber ist die Partei? Communism as Conspiration and Counter-Conspiration
• Tylecz, Ewelina, Poland, for her proposal Society against the "dictatorship of dunces" - the movements for the defense of cultural rights in Poland

On the Reserve List are

• Bernáth Gábor, Hungary, for his proposal The state controlled public discourse and the official and "semi-official" conceptualization of "gipsy criminality" in the socialist Hungary
• Eremeeva, Anna, Russia, for her proposal History of Stalinist Science in the texts of Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Western Broadcasts (1950s-1980s)
• Kerényi Szabina, Hungary, for her proposal Repertories of Resistance in Central and Eastern Europe