Hungarian Women’s Activism in the Wake of the First World War : From Rights to Revanche

Using a wide range of previously unpublished archival, written, and visual sources, Hungarian Women’s Activism in the Wake of the First World War offers the first gendered history of the aftermath of the First World War in Hungary. The book examines women’s activism during the post-war revolutions and counter-revolution. It describes the dynamic of the period’s competing, liberal, Christian-conservative, socialist, radical socialist, and right-wing nationalistic women’s movements and pays special attention to women activists of the Right. In this original study, Judith Szapor goes on to convincingly argue that illiberal ideas on family and gender roles, tied to the nation’s regeneration and tightly woven into the fabric of the interwar period’s right-wing, extreme nationalistic ideology, greatly contributed to the success of Miklós Horthy’s regime. Furthermore the book looks at the long shadow that anti-liberal, nationalist notions of gender and family cast on Hungarian society and provides an explanation for their persistent appeal in the post-Communist era. This is an important text for anyone interested in women’s history, gender history and Hungary in the 20th century.