Balázs Trencsényi (born 1973) is a Hungarian historian of East Central European political and cultural thought.[1] He is currently a Professor at the Department of History, Central European University as well as the Co-Director of Pasts, Inc. Center for Historical Studies.[2]
Life
Balázs Trencsényi was born in Budapest. He graduated from Lycée Ferenc Toldy in 1991.[3] He studied history and philosophy at Eötvös Loránd University and graduated with a MA in 1997. In 2004, he graduated from the Central European University with a PhD in history. His doctoral dissertation compared the Hungarian and British discourses of nationhood in the early-modern period.[4]
Since then, he has worked as assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and departmental head at the Department of History, Central European University. [2][5] He was the director of the History in the Public Sphere Erasmus Mundus MA Program at CEU until 2023.[6][7] Since then, he has been the director of CEU Institute for Advanced Study.[8]
Balázs Trencsényi has been interviewed by numerous Hungarian-language,[15][16][17] German-language,[18][19][20] Czech-language,[21] Ukrainian-language,[22][23] and English-language outlets.[24] Trencsényi views the Orban regime as similar to Horthy system and the Kádár system in that it also managed to win over a "silent majority".[25] Orban's "attack on CEU weaves together a complex web of antiliberal and neo-authoritarian political forces and ideological streams."[26] He is also critical of the technocratic considerations in the European project, which made "people feel overconfident, and neglect their duties, which are actually transnational duties."[27]
He is a co-organizer of the Invisible University for Ukraine.[28][29]
History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe. Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the "Long Nineteenth Century" by Balázs Trencsényi, Maciej Janowski, Mónika Baár, Maria Falina, and Michal Kopeček (Oxford UP, 2016).[31]
History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe. Volume II/1: Negotiating Modernity in the "Short Twentieth Century and Beyond" (1918-1968) by Balázs Trencsényi, Maciej Janowski, Mónika Baár, Maria Falina, Luka Lisjak-Gabrijelcic, and Michal Kopeček (Oxford UP, 2018)[32] and II/2: Negotiating Modernity in the "Short Twentieth Century and Beyond" (1968-2018) (Oxford UP, 2018).[33][34]
In Hungarian
A politika nyelvei. Eszmetörténeti tanulmányok (The languages of politics. Studies in intellectual history) (Budapest: Argumentum, 2007).
A nép lelke. Nemzetkarakterológiai viták Kelet-Európában (The spirit of the people. Debates on national characterology in Eastern Europe) (Budapest: Argumentum, 2011).
Honours and awards
Balázs Trencsényi has been elected as a member of Academia Europaea since 2011.[35] In 2023, he has been awarded Community Service Excellence Awards at CEU.[29]
