On 7 October, the Liszt Institute Paris and Sciences Po’s Dijon campus held a roundtable at which our Deputy Scientific Director joined Jacques Rupnik, a leading scholar of Central Europe, to consider the international context and political consequences of the Hungarian Revolution seven decades ago. Drawing on his earlier research, Fejérdy also focused on Otto von Habsburg’s ties to Spain.
The discussion drew keen interest from students as well as older participants who had experienced 1956 as children. Ulysse Manhes, a lecturer at the university and a political philosopher specialising in the region, and Paolo Modugno, Academic Advisor at the Dijon campus, proposed a programme examining Otto von Habsburg’s political significance and commitment to Europe, for which they consider our Foundation’s collaboration essential. Further details will be agreed in the near future.
The following day, at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in Paris, Gergely Fejérdy gave a lecture alongside Catherine Horel, one of the speakers at our recent conference. He examined the response in France to the 1956 Revolution and the fate of Hungarian refugees, while addressing the role of our namesake and the wider geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War. The audience included Pascale Andréani, former French ambassador to Hungary, as well as numerous descendants of Hungarian émigrés.
While in Paris, our colleague met the Advisor to the Executive Chairman of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), who also chairs the Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe, founded in 1978. Their discussion explored possibilities for cooperation and broadened our Foundation’s Franco–Hungarian ties.
