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, Against Her Will. Forced and Coerced Sterilization of Women Worldwide, Open Society Foundations, 2011

This Open Society Foundations fact sheet provides information on instances of forced sterilization of racial and ethnic minorities, poor women, women living with HIV, and women with disabilities in Chile, Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Mexico, Namibia, Kenya, Peru, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uzbekistan. It also provides recommendations for governments, medical professionals, UN agencies, and donors on how to end the practice of forced and coerced sterilization.

Azcel, Tamas ; Meray, Tibor, The Revolt of the Mind: A Case History of Intellectual Resistance behind the Iron Curtain, New York, Praeger, 1959, pp. 449

Focuses on the Hungarian Writers’ Union from 1953-59.

Flam, Helena, Pink, Purple, Green: Women’s Religious, Environmental, and Gay/Lesbian Movements in Central Europe Today, New York, Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 175

Covers variety of movements, but three chapters on problems of gay/lesbian groups in Hungary, Poland and the eastern part of Germany.

Garton Ash, Timothy, We the People: The Revolution of 89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague, London, Granta Books in association con Penguin, 1990, pp. 156

(Published in New York by Random House as The Magic Lantern).

Griffith, Arthur, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland, [1904], Dublin, University College Dublin Press, 2003

(The 1918 edition, which includes references to the unarmed campaign for independence in Finland, is now online.)

This brief book – originally a series of articles – was influential in Ireland and translated into a number of Indian languages, and was almost certainly read by Gandhi. Whilst the historical accuracy is questionable, Griffith’s account was important in conveying the idea of nonviolent resistance. Csapody, Tamas and Thomas Weber, ‘Hungarian Nonviolent Resistance against Austria and its Place in the History of Nonviolence’, Peace and Change, vol. 32 no. 4 (2007), pp. 499-519, analyses the influence of Griffith’s interpretation.

Harman, Chris, Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe, London, Pluto Press, 1974, pp. 296

Examines the 1956 Revolution primarily from standpoint of role of the workers, with emphasis on the workers’ councils, pp. 124-87.

Kecskemeti, Paul, The Unexpected Revolution: Social Forces in the Hungarian Uprising, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1961, pp. 178

Kenney, Padraic, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989, 352, Princeton NJ, Princetown University Press, 2003

Youthful personal impressions combined with later historical research on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Especially strong on the playful resistance of groups such as the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw.

Kopacsi, Sandor, In the Name of the Working Class, London, Fontana/Collins, 1989, pp. 348

Eyewitness account by the police chief of Budapest in 1956, who refused to obey Soviet orders to quell the uprising and was later sentenced to life imprisonment, but released in 1963 in an amnesty granted by Khrushchev.

Lomax, Bill, The Workers’ Councils of Greater Budapest, In Ralph Miliband and John Saville (eds.), Socialist Register 1976, London, Merlin Press, pp. 89-110

Excerpt from his book Hungary 1956, London, Alison and Busby, 1976, pp. 222, which provides a chronology, background to the 1956 uprising and an account of the events of October/November.  

Meray, Tibor, Thirteen Days that Shook the Kremlin: Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution, London, Thames and Hudson, 1959, pp. 290

Prins, Gwyn, Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions, ed. Prins, Gwyn, (Preface by Vaclav Havel), Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990, pp. 251

Includes reflections by leading participants in revolutions from Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, a journalist’s view of ‘Why Romania could not avoid bloodshed’, and an essay by J.K. Galbraith on dangers of the triumph of a simplistic economic ideology, and a comparative chronology of 1988-1990.

Saxonberg, Steven, The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland, London, Routledge, 2004, pp. 434

Chapter 10 ‘Nonviolent Revolutions’ compares Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

Sebestyen, Victor, Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, New York, Pantheon Books, 2006, pp. 340

Srebotjnak, Hana, #MeToo in the East? Women's rights in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe, OpenDemocracy, 2019

The article discusses the high levels of harassment endured by women in South-East and Eastern Europe, revealed in a 2019 OSCE survey, and the difficulty of speaking out. It gives the example Marija Lukic, who accused the former president of a  municipality in Serbia and was insulted by 50 of his supporters when she went to court. The author also comments very briefly on short but ultimately unsuccessful social media MeToo campaigns in Poland and Romania and suggests that in Hungary the response has been confined to 'liberal and cultural circles'. She records that the Council of Europe's 2011 Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women was ratified by Serbia in November 2017 and Croatia in 2018, but has not been ratified by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Moldova, Ukraine or Russia.   

Thompson, Edward P. ; Koszegi, Ferenc, The New Hungarian Peace Movement, London, Merlin Press jointly with END, 1983, pp. 53

Tickle, Andrew ; Welsh, Ian, Environment and Society in Eastern Europe, ed. Tickle, Andrew, Welsh, Ian, London, Longman, 1998, pp. 192

Examines contribution of environmental activism to ‘an immanent civil society’. Chapters on Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia.

Tokes, Laszlo, With God for the People, as told to David Porter, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, pp. 226

Account by Reformed Church minister who resisted oppression of the Hungarian minority, and whose defiance sparked the December 1989 nonviolent protests in Timisoara.

Tokes, Rudolf L., Opposition in Eastern Europe, ed. Tokes, Rudolf L., London, Macmillan, 1979, pp. 306

Includes surveys of human rights and political change, worker resistance and potential for peasant opposition, and essays on Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Hungary from 1968-1978.

Tokes, Rudolf L., Hungary’s Negotiated Revolution: Economic Reform, Social Change and Political Succession, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 554

Chapter 4, pp. 167-209, covers opposition and dissent from 1962 into the 1980s.

Vali, Ferenc, Rift and Revolt in Hungary, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 590

Detailed scholarly study of Hungary from the Communist takeover to 1956, and with a final section on the period of 1957-61 when the Kadar regime established control.

Vollnhal, Clemens, Jahre des Umbruchs: Friedliche Revolution in der DDR und Transition in Ostmitteleuropa, Goettingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012

The disintegration of the Soviet bloc led to different kinds of peaceful transformation in Central Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s.  In spite of many differences, common tendencies became apparent. Leading experts elaborate on similarities and differences in the GDR, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Zinner, Paul E., Revolution in Hungary, New York, Columbia University Press, 1962, pp. 380