About Us
The Department of the Medieval Studies focuses on late antique and medieval civilization in Europe (c. 300-1550 AD) including the medieval Hungarian Kingdom and Byzantine world, dealing with narrative and archival manuscripts. Research principle and priorities of the departement based on the collecting, edition and interpretation of the primary source materials applying the Latin and Greek philological methodologies. The present research projects of the department aim the digital database of charters, latin dictionary-making, ecclesiastical history, Hungarian sources of the Vatican Secret Archives, genealogy, history of settlements.
The research-profile of the Institute of Modern History is usually connected to the methodologies of the history of ideas and cultural history. Studying the history of modern nation states, the manifold confessional structure of Europe and the identities they formed are in the center of the interests of the institute. More precisely, we research the cultural models and forms of social behaviors that were central factors of the development of cultural and educational life that evolved parallel to the ascent of religious institutes of the early modern period, as well as we are eager to highlight the role of the Catholic Church and Convents in the cultural and spiritual aspects of Central European politics. This way our researches are tightly attached to the studies of globalization and national identities.
Researches on the Modern History Department of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University
The Modern History Department as a part of the Institute of History is working on the "borderline consciousness" research. In the earlier centuries Hungary became a part of border of the Western civilization. The framework of the society was modified by the permanent war against the intruders, which was thought this war must go on forever. The psychosis of the upcoming war made an excellent circumstances for them to force the society to turn to the Communist model. The forced building of an extremely huge army, or the reorganization of the economy in the country aimed to maintain this psychosis and – at same time – the psychosis was showed up as a reason of the changing. The goals of the research bare the elements of this consciousness, and the influences in the Hungarian political life during the Communist period. The Modern History Department research aims at the research of the connections of the nationalism and the globalization. The nationalism proved the most successful political theory in the last two hundred years. The nationalist theory could adopt many different political thinking and undoubtedly became the fundamental element of the consciousness of the societies in the modern world. The research would try to find how the nationalism can coexist the theory and practice of the globalization? As a history department our researchers would find the impacts of the nationalism in the historical events. On the other hand we would follow how the nationalism took effect to the political leaders, the political life and the political practise. In the last centuries the nationalism had eminent function in organizing the modern state. The goal of the research made clear how the nationalism can (or not) survive the new challenges in the globalized world.
