Economic and Social History Doctoral Programme

The Ph.D. program has been affiliated with the Department of Economic and Social History since 1993. ELTE is the only faculty of humanities in Hungary today, which has an independent department focusing on Economic and Social History. Since its foundation, it has been able to own the intellectual and networking energies mobilized by the István Hajnal Circle - Social History Association. The aim of the original founding document was "to replace the chronological approach to the history of events with a problem-centered approach." Another aim was to counterbalance the disadvantages of confining oneself to narrow periods by examining processes over long periods. Even today, it is acknowledged that in the age of the "rebirth of event history", a different kind of history is being written by someone who has been educated in a social history workshop.

The program was initially characterized primarily by specializations: in urban history and a comparative international approach. While maintaining the current orientation, the program will seek to expand the range of social and economic history by introducing new themes and trends and related disciplines such as micro-history and historical anthropology, Alltagsgeschichte (History of everyday life), Business History, New Cultural History, and Oral History.

Several of our doctoral students have gotten scholarship at the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester.

Head of the Program: István Szijártó DSc, professor