The first time I heard about Blinken OSA was in spring 2019, when I was spending a semester in Budapest as an Erasmus+ exchange student in my second year of the master’s degree in “Library and Archival Studies.” I had a meeting with Csaba Szilágyi and Örs Lehel Tari, to discuss the possibility of starting an internship at the Archives after my graduation, in the frame of the Erasmus+ Traineeship program.

On July 17, the Archive's gallery space reopens, presenting the exhibition POST-SOVIET – Photos by Lenke Szilágyi 1990–2002. Lenke Szilágyi (who has also been working as a photo-archivist in the Archives for a number of years) has regularly traveled to the (former) Soviet Union, witnessing and documenting the fall of Communism and Post-Soviet realities. Her photos are sensitive imprints of an era of constant change and a territory of eternal immutability.

The CEU and Blinken OSA community is mourning the passing of renowned Croatian historian, former distinguished professor at Yale University, and memorable professor at CEU. After a long and grave illness, Professor Ivo Banac passed away in Zagreb on June 30, at the age of 73.

“Sarajevo, the biggest concentration camp in the world,” wrote Arma Tanović at the age of 15. Arma was one of the Sarajevan kids and teenagers, who, a year into the siege, sent letters to their American pen pals, in which they introduced themselves and their daily challenges hardly imaginable for others, and asked their unknown friends to do everything they could to stop the war.