Issue 2023/4 of Betekintő looks back on the year 1953. It was in March of that year that Stalin, the party and state leader of the Soviet Union, died, which, along with Khrushchev’s victory, sparked political and social upheavals in all countries of the Socialist Bloc, and influenced the development of world politics.

In Hungary, following the surprising replacement of the Stalinist party General Secretary and Prime Minister Mátyás Rákosi in July, Imre Nagy, appointed Prime Minister, announced a reform programme that had a far-reaching impact, and paved the way for the 1956 revolution. Almost simultaneously, regarding the countries under Soviet leadership, the first anti-regime uprising broke out in East Berlin. In Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito took office as President that year, giving a new impetus to the country’s outlier communist politics after the death of Stalin. In addition to the above, several other significant events took place which may be the subject of this issue.

The issue mainly aims at providing a point of reference, or perhaps locating connections, to better understand the changes that the political turn and crisis in the Soviet Union generated in the countries of the Soviet Bloc. New developments in historiography that have emerged from the deadlock of the totalitarian paradigm suggest that, in order to better understand the region’s past, it is worthwhile to examine the political, state security, social and cultural conditions that followed Stalin’s death.

With this call for papers, Betekintő wishes to contribute to the further development of this wideranging exchange of views. To include in this year’s thematic issue, we are looking for studies and reviews of related publications that also take state security into consideration and add new perspectives to the scientific discourse on the topic.

The abstracts of up to 300 words should be sent by the deadline below. The maximum length of papers is 50,000 characters (including spaces). Please note that only manuscripts prepared in accordance with our citation guidelines (Chicago Manuel of Style) will be accepted. For more information, please click here.

Abstract submission deadline: 11 June 2023.
Manuscript submission deadline: 1 November 2023.

Please send abstracts and manuscripts to the official email address of the editorial office: betekinto@abtl.hu