The Hungarian-American Fulbright Commission (Fulbright Alapítvány) celebrated the 30th Anniversary of its establishment on October 7, 2022 at a Gala held in the Solti Concert Hall at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. If the pre-Commission period is included, the history of the Fulbright Scholarship Program in Hungary goes back another 14 years to 1978.

Our Gala program recognized all Fulbrighters, Hungarians and Americans alike, through the presentation of culture. One important leg of the global Fulbright program, cultural exchange, means experiencing the different, sharing the familiar, and integrating this synthesis into a life of learning and curiosity. Fulbright scholars and students in all fields, such as the natural and social sciences, engineering, law, the arts and humanities are destined to absorb the culture and heritage of the US and Hungary respectively.

The Commission and its staff are eternally grateful to our alumni in the US and Hungary, who volunteer to act as peer reviewers, references, hosts, mentors, board members and interview panel members. Our work would not be possible without the support of the alumni community, thank you.

We are also grateful to our two founders, the governments of the United States and of Hungary, for their financial, technical and logistical support over the past three decades. Read Ambassador David Pressman’s remarks.

The Commission would like to thank our Hungarian host universities, many of whom are here with us today, for offering not only academic homes for our American students and scholars, but also for their ever-increasing financial contributions. In this sense too, Hungarian universities are rapidly converging with their US peers.

Our Board, upon suggestions from staff, has approved up to 5 Fulbright alumni travel awards per year, on a first-come-first-served basis, to help defray the cost of Hungarian Fulbright alumni attending academic conferences in the United States in order to serve on a panel or better yet, to present a paper. Details forthcoming.

The Fulbright Commission has decided to present an award, the Fulbright Hungary Medal, to five members of our alumni community who have served the cause over the past three decades.

Their service includes negotiating the initial bilateral agreement between Hungary and the United States, serving on and/or chairing the board, organizing alumni association activity, peer reviewing, interviewing, hosting, recommending and mentoring generations of students and scholars. Their time spent in the US as grantees, or in the case of Professor Donald Morse, as a US grantee in Hungary, contributed to US-Hungarian cultural, educational and scientific exchange in more ways that we can possibly list.

The awardees are: Professor Donald Morse; Professor Zoltán Abádi-Nagy; Professor Katalin Nagy; Professor Zita Zoltay Paprika.

There is a fifth awardee, who unfortunately has passed away a few weeks before this event. Our immediate past Board chairman, Professor Tibor Frank.
He will be sorely missed by all of us. We honored Professor Tibor Frank’s memory with a minute of silence and reflection.

More pictures of our event in the gallery below. Video material soon!

A bejegyzés megtekintése az Instagramon

Fulbright Hungary (@fulbrighthungary) által megosztott bejegyzés

It is with great sadness that the Fulbright Commission and global Fulbright alumni community heard of the passing of Professor Tibor Frank, a multiple Fulbright grantee and chair of our Board several times over the past 30 years. His wisdom, humor, dedication, steadfast mentoring and adherence to academic integrity will be sorely missed and remembered by all who knew him.

Tibor Frank Professor Emeritus of History at the Department of American Studies, former Director of the School of English and American Studies (ELTE). He has lectured in over 40 U.S., Canadian, British and European universities and contributed to over 80 conferences in both Europe and the United States. His books, articles, chapters were published in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States.

He served as member and Chairman of the Hungarian-American Fulbright Board. Professor Frank received the C. E. Eckersley Prize (1970), Felsőoktatási Tanulmányi Érdemérem (Hungarian Higher Education Award 1972), Országh László Prize (2000), Pro Universitate and Pro Neophilologia in Hungaria awards (2002). In recognition of his achievement in higher education he was awarded the Szent-Györgyi Albert Prize in 2005.

May he rest in peace!

Higher Education Questionnaire
by Tempus Public Foundation for higher education students who studied in Ukraine, and want to continue their program in Hungary, as well as for higher education academics who want to participate in a Hungarian academic scholarship program.

Students at Risk Subprogramme of the Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship Programme for Ukrainian students fleeing the war in Ukraine

Semmelweis Medical University helping refugees from Ukraine

The University of Pécs opens its doors to refugees from Ukraine

Budapest University of Technology and Economics Helps Transborder Students and Ukrainian Partner Universities

Corvinus University of Budapest is offering help by recruiting interpreters and hosting refugee students

The University of Szeged helps refugees from Ukraine with accommodation, food supply and medical care

Széchenyi István University welcomes Indian students fleeing from Ukraine

How to donate? Budapest Helps

Statement on Ukraine by Fulbright Commissions in Europe

The Fulbright community in Hungary celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Global Fulbright Program and the 30th Anniversary of the Hungarian Fulbright Alumni Association on October 7-8, 2021.

2021 is the 75th Anniversary of the launch of the Fulbright Program. In 1946, President Harry S. Truman signed legislation into law to establish the Fulbright Program, an international academic exchange program with an ambitious goal to increase mutual understanding, and support friendly and peaceful relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright Program now operates in 160 countries and has provided over 400,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals of all backgrounds and in all fields the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to complex global challenges.

Chargé d’Affaires Marc Dillard of the US Embassy in his keynote address at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences highlighted that “the Fulbright program has continued to exchange some of the best and brightest minds, building a cultural bridge which links our two nations. The continuing collaboration between Fulbright participating institutions is a great example of how to get the most out of a Fulbright grant, how Fulbrighters can make a long-term impact, and how beneficial it can be for a larger community.”

Deputy State Secretary Balázs Nagy of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology emphasized in his keynote address that the Government of Hungary is to quadruple its annual contribution to the Fulbright Commission in three steps, reaching HUF 200 million (USD 700,000) in 2022.

See here the detailed program of the conference.

For more pictures of the festivities (by photographer Péter Szalmás), see here:

 

Visit to the Parliament

 

Prior to the conference, on October 7, 2021 MP Zsolt Németh, Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee hosted 24 US Fulbright grantees of AY 2021-2022 at the Hungarian Parliament for a talk and a tour of the building.

 

Reception at the Royal Guard Café

 

In the evening the Fulbright Commission organized a reception to honor US Fulbright grantees, their Hosts and Institutional Partners at the Royal Guard Café, Buda Castle.

by Jeffrey Griffitts

Thanks to Fulbright Hungary and my time there in 2019, I have been offered a long-term position with the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) in Gödöllő. My Hungarian colleagues and I began discussion on a few research projects in 2019 that have shown promise in preliminary work. We will begin a new collaboration that will focus on trying to better understand the effects of microplastics on the inflammatory process in a transgenic Zebrafish model. In addition to the ongoing research project, I will be teaching several courses for the international graduate college at MATE. All of this was made possible through the Fulbright program. I am so thankful for that time and experience in 2019 that has helped foster these new relationships with my Hungarian colleagues and has helped further my career. My family and I are excited to be living, long-term, in such a welcoming and beautiful country!

In late January, 7 newly arrived U.S. Fulbright students and scholars participated in a unique orientation session in Budapest. U.S. Embassy Counselor for Public Affairs James Land greeted the group virtually, stressing the value of exchange, and encouraged them to develop and strengthen personal and professional ties between Hungary and the United States. ED Karoly Jokay noted that the grantees joined the ranks of the many notable Fulbright alumni who have participated in the global program since its inception 75 years ago. The Fulbright grantees will, for example, teach English, do peer advising, read Ottoman documents, study high-level math, offer courses in Native American studies, collaborate with medical researchers, and observe MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) investigators.

Books by Hungarian Fulbright Alumni

Miklós Vassányi ’16: From Alaska to Yucatan: An American travel diary (in Hungarian)

Balázs Lázár ’00 (ed.): In Refuge – American Diplomats at U.S. Embassy Budapest on Cardinal Mindszenty 1957-1970

Katalin Parti ’13 (ed.): Juvenile Justice and Schools: Policing, Processing, and Programming

Tamás Scheibner ’18: Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe: Tropes and Trends

Ágnes Hódi ’19: Editing Measurement Tasks and Questionnaire Items (in Hungarian)

Mónika Fodor ’17: Ethnic Subjectivity in Intergenerational Memory Narratives – Politics of the Untold

Csaba Lévai ’17: Transatlantic slave-trade and the emergence of the slave systems in colonial English-British America (in Hungarian)

Ákos Máthé ’86 (ed.): Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of North America

Géza Jeszenszky ’84: Lost Prestige – Hungary’s Changing Image in Britain 1894-1918

Gábor Turi ’13: American Jazz Diary (in Hungarian)

Veronika Kusz ’05: A Wayfaring Stranger – Ernst von Dohnányi’s American Years, 1949-1960

Péter Galbács ’18: The Friedman-Lucas Transition in Macroeconomics – A Structuralist Approach

Péter J. Sós ’90: #megértjükegymást: Conversations on PR (in Hungarian)

Katalin Sulyok ’15: Science and Judicial Reasoning: The Legitimacy of International Environmental Adjudication

 

Books by U.S. Fulbright Alumni

Frank Baron ’84: Stopping the Trains to Auschwitz, Budapest, 1944

Ronald Johnson ’04: Magic Happens! My Journey with the Northern Iowa Wind Symphony

Thomas Tobin ’17: Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers

Leslie Waters ’09: Borders on the Move, Territorial Change and Ethnic Cleansing in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938-1948

Mary Henold ’19: The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era

Erika Sólyom ’03: Senegalodream of Mine (in Hungarian)

R. Chris Davis ’06: Hungarian Religion, Romanian Blood, A Minority’s Struggle for National Belonging, 1920–1945

Karla Kelsey ’10: Blood Feather

Jacob Lucas ’04: The Seed Vault (poetry collection)

Jan Marie Fritz ’16 (ed.): Clinical Sociology for Southern Africa

Bill Issel ’08: Coit Tower, a Novel of San Francisco

This book is a culmination of seven months of work with the Eger Roma Residential College of Eszterházy Károly University, during which Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Chandler Fritz ’19 interacted and collected paintings, recipes, and essays from students.

“I write this note far from the artists, scholars, cooks, and friends who have created this book. It is a testament to the dedication of our supporters and the spirit of this group that such a project prevailed despite the distance. It is, in fact, entirely due to the proven commitment and resilience of the Roma students I met in Eger that I was able to pick myself up from the pandemic and play my small role in their great cause. If you’re anything like me, you could use a bit of that same inspiration these days. I’m proud to tell you, from the bottom of my heart, that you can find it in grand abundance in the work of these students.”

Fulbright Hungary is proud of its Roma English Teaching Assistant projects:

• Together We Dream: Roma in Eastern Hungary
• Cookbook Roma Style!
• Roma Folk Tales
• Think Roma Style!
• Speak Lovari Style!

and continue to expand collaboration with the Roma Residential Colleges and other foundations throughout Hungary in upcoming academic years.

To view the booklet, see issuu.com/fulbrighthungary/docs/roma_eger

To download the booklet, see www.fulbright.hu/doc/Roma_Eger.pdf

Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, University of Puerto Rico

It’s March 2019. My family and I live at 64 Visegrádi utca, around the corner from Nyugati Railway Station. I’m a bit late for class. My son Santiago (5) and I hurry out the door to meet my wife Joanna and other son Alejandro (5 months), who were out for a stroll along the Danube.

My lecture in “Budapest in American Literature” that day is about Mark Twain’s visit to Hungary, the farthest east he would go in Europe. I’m thinking about my slides. It was 120 years to the day of Twain’s visit. He arrived on the train from Vienna to a gala reception at Nyugati.

Our neighbors pass us in the hallway. I nod and say, “Szia! Jó napot.”

As we get in the elevator, Santiago shakes his head and says firmly: “Daddy, nem. It’s sziasztok.”

“Sziasztok?” I was sure “szia” was “hello” in English. I had been saying it since we arrived.

My son’s formal training with Hungarian to that point involved soccer in the park, watching Richard Scarry’s Busytown Mysteries in Hungarian, and post-it memos around our apartment that we recite each day. At campus I reviewed my notes from our language course during the Fulbright orientation. Yes, according to Annamaria Sas, “hello” is indeed “szia.”

But I asked my students anyway, out of curiosity: “Is ‘hello’ ‘szia’ or ‘sziasztok’?”

This was met with some polite laughter. “Well,” said Gergő Teglasi, “it’s actually both. ‘Szia’ is used to address one person. ‘Sziasztok’ is plural.”

“Ah, thanks,” I replied.

Hungarian is a superpower that my son has developed faster than me.

During my stint as Országh László Chair in the Department of American Studies at ELTE, I gave lectures at several Hungarian universities (University of Debrecen, University of Pannonia, and Károli Gáspár University) and was invited to speak at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies and at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford. But that misty morning with my son, a bit late for class, is one of my fondest memories.

I applied for a Fulbright in Budapest for the opportunity to learn about American Studies in a non-US setting, to develop a course (and eventually a book) on Budapest in American Literature and Film, and to learn more about the cross-cultural ties between Hungary and the US through critical studies of literature, film and the arts.

My Fulbright application was submitted just a few weeks before Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico. After those months of hardship, when the award notification arrived a February day in 2018, my wife cried—she always had a dream to live to Europe: before we knew it, we were packing for an unforgettable time in one of the continent’s most beautiful and exciting countries.

Aside the magnificence of the city and its rich history, something I love about Budapest is the importance given to literary and intellectual culture. Hungarians revere writers. While the US has a monument to an unknown soldier, the Hungarian capital has a statue dedicated to an unknown writer. (They also have a Mark Twain postage stamp!)

Learning about a city through its literature brings travel and scholarship and new friendships together. Fulbright provided many wonderful experiences and opportunities to do just that—and among the most fulfilling was collaborating with my students, whose insights and partnership have extended long after the grant term. In November 2020, two doctoral students from ELTE—Rabéb Touìhrí and Endah Sapturi—will give a guest lecture to my class in Puerto Rico.

I feel very fortunate to have been affiliated with ELTE, as some of the faculty scholarship—like Vera Benczik’s deft perspectives of space, place, and identity in post-9/11 films, and Orsolya Putz’s innovative book, Metaphor and National Identity: Alternative conceptualization of the Treaty of Trianon—have exciting intersections with language, sovereignty, migration, empire, war, and intercultural spaces, concepts that are seminal to my research. Working there pushed me to think about my scholarship in new contexts and to consider the role that literature and creativity have across many social and political axes.

“Last week I was going down with the family to Budapest to lecture,” wrote Mark Twain in 1899. “Had a great time. At the banquet I heard their chief orator make a most graceful and easy and beautiful and delicious speech—I never heard one that enchanted me more—although I did not understand a word of it, since it was in Hungarian. But the art of it! it was superlative. They are wonderful scholars.”

I have to agree.

***

Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera is a professor of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico.

As a Professor of Mathematics of the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, he came to Hungary on a Fulbright grant in January 2008 to collaborate with mathematicians of Eötvös Loránd University.

Ever since that time, he returned to Hungary twice a year – each time with a fun story, and with lots of energy to continue his research with his Hungarian colleagues. The last time he visited our office, he was pale and tired, but ready to fight his illness. We are sorry he did not succeed. He is part of Fulbright Hungary history. We remember him fondly.