1. Avant-Garde Research Group

Avant-Garde Research Group

Members of the research team of the project Lajos Kassák’s Avant-Garde Journals from an Interdisciplinary Perspective (1915–1928)

Eszter Balázs PhD (Petőfi Literary Museum–Kassák Museum, Kodolányi János University of Applied Sciences)
Historian, leader of the research group

Eszter Balázs holds a PhD in History, and has been leader of the research group since 2017. Since 2009, she has been an assistant professor of the Media Studies Department at the Kodolányi János University of Applied Sciences. Her research fields include history of intellectuals, cultural history, history of ideas, and media history. She defended her PhD thesis in a ‘co-tutelle’ program in 2008 at the EHESS in Paris, entitled “En tête des intellectuels.” Les écrivains et la question de la liberté et de l’autonomie littéraires (1908–1914) with honours and commendation by the jury. She updated her thesis for publication in Hungarian as Az intellektualitás vezérei. Viták az irodalmi autonómiáról a Nyugatban és a Nyugatról (Budapest, Napvilág, 2009). In 2014, she was awarded a Bolyai János research grant by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for research on Hungarian intellectuals and writers during World War I. The output of the project, pursued between 2014 and 2018, was evaluated “excellent”. She co-authored with Phil Casoar the book Les Héros de Budapest (Paris, Les Arènes, 2006) and its Hungarian version Budapest hősei (Budapest, Scolar-Vince, 2016), and co-wrote the script for a documentary film based on the book, which received the Camera Hungaria award in 2007.

Gábor Dobó PhD (Petőfi Literary Museum–Kassák Museum)
Literary historian, full-time research fellow

Gábor Dobó earned his PhD in Literary History from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, having previously studied at universities in Florence, Italy (MA) and Angers, France (a one-semester scholarship for his PhD studies). Currently, he is one of the researchers in the project Lajos Kassák’s Avant-Garde Journals from an Interdisciplinary Perspective (1915–1928), hosted by the Kassák Museum (Budapest) and supported by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office. He is a committee member of the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit). He has widely published in the field of East-Central European and Italian avant-garde studies, with a special emphasis on the network of avant-garde journals. Currently, he is editing the book Pluralities: Dada Techniques in Central and Eastern Europe, eds. Oliver Botar, Irina Denischenko, Gábor Dobó, Merse Pál Szeredi (Brill/Rodopi, forthcoming).

Merse Pál Szeredi (Petőfi Literary Museum–Kassák Museum)
Art historian, full-time research fellow

Merse Pál Szeredi holds an MA in Art History from Eötvös Loránd University (2013), where he is currently studying for a PhD. His research focuses on Hungarian avant-garde art and the history of Lajos Kassák’s magazine Ma (Today) in Vienna between 1920 and 1925, with special emphasis on its international networks. He has been working in the Kassák Museum since 2015, and has curated exhibitions there and in the Virág Judit Gallery (Budapest) and the Janus Pannonius Museum (Pécs). He has also worked on exhibitions in the Hungarian National Gallery and the Berlinische Galerie. His work, written in Hungarian, English and German, has been published in several academic journals, exhibition catalogues and multi-author volumes.

Edit Sasvári (Petőfi Literary Museum–Kassák Museum)
Art historian, senior research fellow

Edit Sasvári has been Director of the Kassák Museum since 2010. She has degrees in Hungarian Language and Literature and History from Janus Pannonius University, Pécs, and in History of Art from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She studied museum management in the Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Vienna. She is completing her PhD in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School of the Department of Modern History, University of Pécs. She has been working in the museum field since 1988, and her main areas of research are historical modernism, the avant-garde, and the cultural politics of art during the 1960s. She led a research programme into Hungarian art of the 1960s and 1970s between 2014 and 2018, which led to the book Art in Hungary 1956–1980: Doublespeak and Beyond, edited by Edit Sasvári, Hedvig Turai and Sándor Hornyik, Thames & Hudson, London, 2018 (also published in Hungarian).

György Tverdota Professor Emeritus (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Literary historian, senior research fellow

György Tverdota was a member of staff of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute of History from 1975 until his retirement, and between 1986 and 1991 was head of the Department of Modern Hungarian Literature. He was a guest professor in the Sorbonne between 1991 and 1994, and a professor in Eötvös Loránd University between 2003 and 2013, since when he has been professor emeritus. His research interest is in twentieth century Hungarian literature, and particularly the life and poetry of Attila József. Since 2016 he has been a senior member of the research group.

Gábor Palkó PhD (Institute for Literary Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Eötvös Loránd University)
Literary historian, senior research fellow

Gábor Palkó is a member of staff of the Institute of Literature of the Research Institute for the Humanities and joint head of the Eötvös Loránd University Digital Humanities Centre. His research areas are: digital humanities (philology, cultural heritage), archive theory, the art and media theory of Niklas Luhmann, and twentieth century Hungarian fiction.