History in My Life
A Memoir of Three Eras
Ivan T. Berend, is Distinguished
Professor at the University of California Los Angeles,
Director of the European Studies Program. He was one
of the masterminds of regime change in Hungary. He made
a career in Hungary as a university professor, Rector
of the University of Economics (1973–79), and
President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1985–90).
He was President of the International Committee of Historical
Sciences (1995–2000), and Vice-President of the
International Economic History Association (1986–1994).
His research interests are the complex economic, social,
ideological, and cultural history of Central and Eastern
Europe in the 19th–20th century; economic modernization;
problems of European backwardness; transition from state
socialism to capitalism. He published and 26 books and
more than 120 studies.
Before he became a professor at UCLA,
Ivan Berend had survived five regime changes and two
revolutions in Hungary, had been in prison and German
concentration camp in 1944–45.
His memoir offers an interesting case study, a subjective
addition to the “objective” historical works
on Central and Eastern European state socialism. It
describes the hard choices of intellectuals in a dictatorial
state: 1. remain in isolation, concentrate on scholarly
works, and exclude politics in your personal life; 2.
be in opposition, criticize and unveil the regime, accept
discrimination and exclusion; 3. remain within the establishment
and work for reforming the country using legal possibilities
to criticize the regime and to achieve changes from
within.
Berend’s book raises basic historical questions
and debates, compares East European and American higher
education systems, and presents an eyewitness’
insights on life in the United States.
Contents
Introduction and Acknowledgement;
My Family in Budapest in the 1930s; The End of Childhood;
Dachau—and the Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft’s
Conference in Munich; The Gebirgsjägerschule in
Mittenwald; Where is my Home?; The 1956 Revolution in
My Life; My Universities; A Widening World, Learning
by Traveling; In the International Community of Historians:
Friends All Over the World; Experiencing and Writing
History: a Special Friend, Books and Debates; Teaching
in Two Different University Systems; My Globalized Family;
In the Establishment; In the Storm of the Regime Change;
Leaving Hungary for Los Angeles; America; References;
List of photos
"Berend is correct in the description of the system
and his own role in it when he writes: 'It was possible
to work for reform and even criticize the system, with
the exception of certain taboos.... Of course this meant
that reformers had to make severe compromises. I made
mine too'. People like Berend helped erode the communist
order.
The three eras in the title of Berend’s autobiography
refer to interwar and wartime Hungary, communist Hungary,
and post-1989 United States. They represent the three
main political and social systems experienced in the
Western world after World War I: fascism/Nazism, communism,
and democracy.
Berend’s story is colored by the fact that he made
not only a Hungarian academic career but also an international
one, both before and after 1989. He describes how he
had a central position in establishing the discipline
of economic history and research on East Central European
economic history under the conditions of Marxist hegemony
in Hungary. He goes on to tell how he gained recognition
from scholars in the West, not the least in the United
States." - H-Net
/ HABSBURG
"Berend stresses how much the inseparability of
the historical and the personal defined his experience:
'History was not a subject but life itself, penetrating
into the private and everyday life of Central and Eastern
Europe'" - Austrian History Yearbook
"Berends Autobiographie ist eine ausschlussreiche
Lektüre über einen tragischen Teil der jüngeren
ungarischen Geschichte, aber auch über Begegnungen
mit namhaften Persönlichkeiten aus Wissenschaft
und Politik und über Erfahrungen im bewunderten
amerikanischen Universitätsssystem." - Südosteuropa
Mitteilungen
2009
284 pages, includes 32 black-and-white photos
ISBN 978-963-9776-48-7 cloth $45.00 / €39.95 /
£ 35.00
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