Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives
Press Room - 2018
Posted: 18/July/2018
Blinken OSA celebrates the 100th birthday of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), the most prominent South African anti-apartheid activist and fighter, human rights defender, and head of state.
Posted: 17/July/2018
On this day twenty years ago, the Rome Statute was adopted, giving way to the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002. As of today, 123 countries have ratified the Rome Statute and thus became members of the ICC. Complementing national judicial systems, the ICC launched investigations in cases of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.
Posted: 11/July/2018
July 11 marks the 1995 genocide in the UN Safe Area Srebrenica, when over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians, mostly men and boys were killed and their bodies dumped in primary, secondary and tertiary mass graves by units of the Bosnian Serb Army. To create a solid documentary evidence and illustrate the organization and military architecture of the genocide, as well as to preserve the memory of the victims, raise awareness and fight oblivion, Blinken OSA, which has substantial and unique collections on the 1992-1995 Yugoslav Wars, organized a public exhibition entitled Srebrenica–Exhumation in 2010.
Posted: 28/June/2018
Researchers, scholars, journalists and artists are invited to apply for the Visegrad Scholarships at OSA in the 2018/19 academic year. The submission dates are: July 25 and November 15, 2018. We offer 15 awards each year for applicants from the fields of history, the arts, philosophy and sociology to reflect on the conditions of knowledge production during and after the Cold War. More information about the grant scheme.
Posted: 27/June/2018
Claude Lanzmann (November 27, 1925 – July 5, 2018) was the director of the Holocaust documentary film Shoah (1985).
Posted: 27/June/2018
Many of Blinken OSA's documents, photos, films deal with poverty and with socially excluded groups. This time we chose to share a film about homeless people because this poroblem is still as painfully around as it was in the 1990s when the film was made by the Fekete Doboz (Black Box) Foundation.
Posted: 17/June/2018
World Refugee Day (June 20)
On World Refugee Day, Blinken OSA evokes two cases from the not so distant past, in which members of ethnic minorities, a Turk from Kardzhali, Bulgaria (1989) and a Bosniak from Zvornik, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992), had to forcibly flee their homes. Their stories are recorded and preserved in the records of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.
Posted: 14/June/2018
Protestation
Blinken OSA Archives, one of the leading archives in the world, holding human rights documents and materials from the time of the Cold War, the organizer of the Yellow Star Houses project in 2014, wishes to express its deep outrage over the appalling act by some members of the Hungarian Christian Democratic People's Party.
Posted: 07/June/2018
A guided tour is organized (in Hungarian) of the exhibition currently hosted by Blinken OSA, on June 10, 2018 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
More details about the event (in Hungarian).
Click here for more information (in English) about the exhibition.
Posted: 01/June/2018
Traditionally this time every year Blinken OSA hosts a small group of students from Columbia University and West Point Military Academy, headed by their academic tutor and professor Victoria Phillips. This year the visit takes place vetween 28 May –1 June. Students then write their papers, and present their findings at the Cold War conference at Corvinus University.
During their research week at Blinken OSA, students have wrap-up sessions each day in the Meeting Room to discuss their progress, express their doubts and to address other issues. This year Blinken OSA's staff take a more active part in supporting the students research work. Students make use of one of Blinkne OSA’s largest collections: HU OSA 300 Records of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute. Other collections are also consulted. Blinken OSA is happy to encourage research into its Cold War collections and hopes that the project will prove to be productive and successful for all participating students.
This cooperation began in 2016 when a group of seven students from Columbia University and two from West Point Military Academy, led by Professor Victoria Phillips, visited Blinken OSA for a whole week. They conducted research and devoted themselves to writing their papers and presentations for the 9th Annual International Student Conference of the Cold War History Research Center at Corvinus University, which was co-organized by CEU’s History Department and the European Institute at Columbia University.
Posted: 28/May/2018
81 new short films – recording recent events organized by Blinken OSA – are available now on our renewed YouTube channel.
Posted: 20/May/2018
Therapy is the main exhibition of Küszöb Festival, which reflects on the situation of the youngest generation of artists. The project used group therapy (“self-awareness group” would be the proper term in psychological parlance) as a tool to be able to show how the young artists of today see their present and future in Hungary. Two psychologists led the self-awareness group of ten young artists, who were chosen by the curator. At the group events the artists started to discuss the personal difficulties that they encountered at the outset of their careers and tried to define the failings of the current institutional system.
Posted: 19/May/2018
The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives – Night of the Museums, June 23, 2018
Exhibition in Galeria Centralis
Farewell to the Spring - 1968 behind the Iron Curtain
1968 began in a very promising way for a few Eastern-European countries as political pragmatism seemed to replace rigid ideology. The effect of protest movements in the West had reached the region, and counter culture had begun to affect Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary. The exhibition presents this tumultuous time of student protests, happenings and hippy events that all came to an abrupt end with the intervention in Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries.
5:00 p.m. –7:00 p.m. Guided tour of the exhibition by the curator
4:00 p.m. – 12:00 p.m. Symbols and Slogans from 1968 – Interactive program until midnight
Protest and type! Visitors can type flyers on Cold War era type-writers and print symbols of ’68 with the help of Blinken OSA staff.
4:00 p.m. – 12:00 p.m. Tours of the building: Exhibition hall and archive in a historic building. The Goldberger House, an industrial monument, is open to the public once a year. Its basement holds records of the fieldwork that underpinned Radio Free Europe's broadcasts during the Cold War, as well as collections of human rights documents.
The tours start every two hours; in English on demand
11:00 p.m. Film screening.
Posted: 04/May/2018
The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University (OSA) is very proud to announce that in cooperation with the Hoover Institution Library and Archives it has made a new curated collection available online: the Radio Free Europe/Free Europe Committee - Encrypted Telex Communication.
Posted: 30/April/2018
This unique selection of documents from the records of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute focuses on the March 1968 Polish student rebellion and its aftermath, including the political trials that followed it and the anti-Semitic campaign that led to the emigration of roughly 13,000 Polish Jews.
Posted: 29/April/2018
A Budapest100 2011-ben azzal a szándékkal indult az OSA Archívum és a KÉK – Kortárs Építészeti Központ kezdeményezésére, hogy legyen egy olyan hétvége, amikor mindenki megismerheti és megszeretheti a minket körülvevő várost, épületeivel és lakóival együtt. A sétákat, koncertek, beszélgetéseket is magában foglaló rendezvény célja az is, hogy önkéntesként bevonva már a szervezés előkészítő fázisában közelebb hozza egymáshoz a városlakókat, a szomszédokat, a különböző generációkat.
Posted: 16/April/2018
Techniques, Tactics, Topics, and Teams in the Hungarian Samizdat
March 13 – April 29, 2018
On the occasion of the 170th anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) presents the exhibition FIRST DEMAND: PRESS FREEDOM.
Posted: 12/April/2018
A Jom háSoá a nemzetközi holokauszt emléknap, a zsidó naptár szerinti Niszán hónap 27. napja (idén április 12.), egyúttal a varsói gettófelkelés évfordulója. A Blinken OSA 2014-ben Csillagos házak címmel indított programja keretében interaktív térképen ábrázolta azokat az épületeket, melyekbe a zsidótörvények alá eső magyaroknak (akiknek 1944. április 5-től kezdve a ruhájukon hatágú sárga csillagot kellett viselniük), június 21- et követően kijelölt kényszerlakhelyre, az ún. csillagos házakba kellett költözniük.
Posted: 10/April/2018
FILM SCREENING: "OUR SCHOOL"(Şcoala noastră) by Mona Nicoară
DATE: 26/04/2018
Time: 18:00
PLACE: OSA, Arany János u. 32, 1051 Budapest
Please join us for Roma Weeks’s film screening "Our School"(Şcoala noastră), at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA).
The film "Our School", directed by Mona Nicoară, follows three Roma children from a small Transylvanian town in Romania who are among the first participants in an initiative to integrate the ethnically segregated Romanian schools.
In 2006, Alin, Benjamin, and Dana set out from their dead-end segregated school for the city, optimistic for education and new friendships with Romanians. The children’s hopes and innocent optimism quickly soured as they met with low expectations and further isolation.
Shot over four years, this tender vérité portrait fosters an intimacy in the children's profound reality and admiration for their indomitable spirit, which is punctuated by shocking instances of prejudice and ignorance. Their story touches on issues ranging from institutionalized racism, public education, and the intractability of poverty, culminating in an outrageous finale that cements the Roma children's struggle in the annals of egregious human rights violations.
"Our School" is an absorbing, infuriating, and ultimately bittersweet story of tradition and progress.
The film screening will be followed by a roundtable discussion.
The event is hosted by the Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives.
Posted: 21/March/2018
The successful candidate will work together with the Senior Reference Archivist on the processing of digital files from the Free Europe Committee (FEC) collection. Besides being privileged to enhance her/his knowledge of the Cold War history and inter-Atlantic connections, she/he will contribute considerably to the creation of a new digital curated collection that will enrich OSA’s digital archives in general.This position requires an excellent command of English. Knowledge of 20th century East-European history, or related fields, and of processing textual and audiovisual materials including descriptive techniques, archival standards, good practices and metadata standards in general is an asset.Please send your complete application package that includes a short CV and a motivation letter to Ms. Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu until April 10, 2018.
Posted: 20/March/2018
“By hosting the European Press Prize Award Ceremony in Budapest, we want to emphasise the importance of an open, free and well-functioning press to democracy", said Yoeri Albrecht, board member of the European Press Prize, Director of Amsterdam’s cultural debate centre De Balie, and member of the Open Society Foundations’ European Advisory Board. “The setting also serves as a warning on what can happen when press freedom is not protected.”
Posted: 12/March/2018
After the transition of the Southern European countries in the 1970s and of the Central European countries at the end of the 1980s from totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to democratic systems, and the democratic consolidation moving on to the enlargement of the European Union, threatening phenomena have appeared on stage: instead of further consolidation of democracy, illiberal, popular and extreme political tendencies have gained ground. Citizens seem to have forgotten about the morals of the past totalitarian regimes and are indifferent towards political and civil society activities.
This project examines the civic participation and democratic ownership in 5 European countries: Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the last decade of the totalitarian regimes, focusing on specific fields in each
country and making video interviews with senior activists:
1. fight for free speech, samizdat in Hungary,
2. trade unions – Solidarity in Poland,
3. democratic movements helped by the Catholic and Lutheran Church – in Slovakia and Germany,
4. strikes and mass demonstrations at universities – in Greece.
A national and a transnational civil dialogue is aimed to be fostered refering to the past and the fight for democracy
under totalitarian regimes and about the present – threats to democratic achievements, civic rights, counterbalances.
Posted: 08/March/2018
Visegrad Scholarships at Blinken OSA: a scholarship for academics, artists and journalistsFor a better and deeper understanding of the interdependent recent history of (the center of) Europe, the International Visegrad Fund offers research fellowship grants at the Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest, to support scholars, artists and journalists who wish to conduct research in the holdings of OSA. The next submission deadline is March 15, 2018.
Posted: 07/March/2018
The successful candidate will work on the processing of digital files from the Free Europe Committee (FEC) collection together with the Senior Reference Archivist. Besides being privileged to enhance her/his knowledge of the Cold War history and inter-Atlantic connections, she/he will contribute considerably to the creation of a new digital curated collection that will enrich OSA’s digital archives in general.This position requires an excellent command of English. Knowledge of 20th century East-European history, or related fields, and of processing textual and audiovisual materials including descriptive techniques, archival standards, good practices and metadata standards in general is an asset.Please send your complete application package that includes a short CV and a motivation letter to Ms. Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu until April 10, 2018.
Posted: 26/February/2018
Re-Verzio: A selection of the 14th Verzio Film Festival's program, including the opening film and award winners.
February 7 – March 7, 2018
5 occasions to see some of the best documentaries of recent years.
A selection of the 14th Verzio’s program, including the opening film and award winners.
Free film screenings on Wednesdays from 6pm at Blinken OSA Archive (Arany János u. 32. 1051 Budapest).
Posted: 20/February/2018
Prime Time Nationalism, The Role of Television Broadcasts/Archives in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars - was the title of a conference organized by Blinken OSA on May 13-14, 2016.
Posted: 19/February/2018
International Workshop: After ICTY – Prospects for Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in the post-Yugoslav Region
Organized by the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives and the Department of Political Science at Central European University
February 21, 2018, 13:00-18:00
At the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (1051 Budapest, Arany János utca 32.)
In December 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) completed its primary task of prosecuting crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Yugoslav wars. Hardly any of its decisions passed without controversies. However, dissatisfaction with and public denials of the last ICTY verdicts can be seen as an indication that the prosecution of war crimes left many questions regarding the establishment of transitional justice in the post-Yugoslav region still open. What have ICTY judgments achieved in terms of justice making in the former warring countries? To which extent did the ICTY verdicts contribute to a process of national and regional reconciliation? What was the role of the ICTY indictments in contesting or reproducing the dominant war narratives among the countries? Was responsibility for the committed crimes in the name of a collectivity adequately assumed?
This workshop featuring speakers from academic institutions and NGOs, aims at elaborating these questions. It will be focused, in particular, on specifying legal and political mechanisms of transitional justice, their moral justification and the possibilities for their application within the post-Yugoslav social and political context.
Admission is free and open to the public, but places are limited. For further information and registration, please contact Perica Jovchevski, jovchevski_perica@phd.ceu.edu
Posted: 04/February/2018
A program keretében tartott kétnapos műhelyfoglalkozás lehetőséget nyújtott középiskolás és egyetemista diákoknak, hogy megismerjék a 21. századi újságírás alapjait, a sajtószabadság és a független média fontosságát.
4 gyakorló újságíró mentor segítségével betekintést nyerhettek a videós újságírás alapjaiba, megtanulhatták az adatvizualizáció és adatújságírás mesterfogásait, kipróbálhatták élesben is a lapszerkesztést.
A program célja, hogy az újságírás főbb pilléreinek megismerése után egy gyakorló diák-szerkesztőség alakuljon, ahol közösen ötletelve egy laptervvel álljanak elő a résztvevő diákok. A már elkészült lapterv alapján a frissen felállt szerkesztőség március 14-re egy kész lapszámmal jelentkezik majd.
A workshop egyik apropója, hogy 2018. március 14-én a Blinken OSA Archívumban kerül megrendezésre az egyik legrangosabb európai sajtódíj, a European Press Prize díjátadó rendezvénye.
A workshop résztvevői meghívást kapnak a február 14-i European Press Prize díjátadóra valamint az aznap 14:00 órától tartandó, angol nyelvű mesterkurzusra a European Press Prize szervezésében.
Posted: 01/February/2018
On January 10, 2018, Blinken OSA co-organized and hosted the Symposium on Refugee Rights in Records.The final report of the symposium summarizes the key topics covered by invited speakers from international bodies, NGOs, archives and academic institutions, raises research questions and delineates possible avenues of development for the project.
Posted: 31/January/2018
Pályázati felhívás
PressUP! Média- és sajtószabadság a 21. században
KREATÍV WORKSHOP diákoknak a legjobb fiatal magyar szakemberek vezetésével