Projects
In addition to teaching and my reaearch, I have been involved in a number of academic and community projects over the years, several of which are on-going.
- I started working on some genealogical research into my father's
family recently, with a focus on my grandmother's and great
grandmother's generation. My grandmother, Mária
Borsai, was an author of children's stories in Transylvania. During
the 1920s and early 1930s, her family participated actively in
Hungarian literary circles. I recently came across detailed references
to my father's family in a biographic work written by Hungarian painter
and author György Szántó, who was a close family
friend. Click here, to read exerpts
from the book Fekete Éveim
that relate to my father's family, as well as my short
introduction.
- In late 2009, I established The
Visegrad Review, a scholarly journal on the politics, history,
culture, society and economy of the Visegrad Group. The Review's ISSN numbers have been
registered and the first print issue will appear in April 2010.
- In August 2008, I was appointed to serve as an advisor
on the
Canadian First World War Internment
Recognition Fund's Advisory
Council. The Government of Canada
provided the Shevchenko Foundation with a $10 million endowment to
explore and commemorate the internment of Eastern Europeans in Canada
during World War I and the Advisory Council manages the distribution of
these funds.
- I am an editor for a website entitled The Hungarian Presence in Canada--Sharing the Present, Remembering the Past and Sharing the Future. The site was funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage and is maintained by the Canada Hungary Educational Foundation. I am also a member of the Foundation's Board of Directors. To visit the site, click here.
- I have served as president of the Montreal Hungarian Historical
Society since June 2006, when our newly-formed organization began
planning an exhibit at Montréal's City Hall, on the occasion of
the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The exhibit's
goal was to introduce the history of Montreal's Hungarian
community to the city's French and English residents. I served as
curator of this exhibit, which we entitled: "Hungarians in Montreal--A
Shared Heritage." Click here for detailed information on the exhibit,
including the original press release and photos. Click here to access the
Society's website.
- In addition to academic writing, I have long enjoyed
participating in the world of journalism and broadcast media. I served
as the co-host of A Montreáli
Magyarság (The Hungarians), a weekly television programme
that aired on Montreal's channel 14 for two seasons, between 2003 and
2005. I have also written dozens of articles in English and Hungarian,
and conducted interviews in Canada, Hungary and the United Kingdom. One
of the lengthier interviews that I
conducted over the past two years was with British actor and musician Rupert Hill, during a trip to Manchester.
- I established the Kanadai
Magyar Hírlap (Canadian Hungarian Journal) in February
2004 as an online newspaper, which aims to present Canadian political,
cultural, social and community news in Hungarian. I continue to edit
and publish the Journal online. To access all articles going back to
June 2007, click here. All
older issues are archived by the National Széchenyi Library in
Budapest and can be accessed by clicking here.
- I defended my MA thesis in April 2005. Entitled The Apologetics
of the Accused--Fascism, Communism and the Catholic Church of Hungary,
copies of the thesis are available at the Library and Archives Canada
(LAC) and at the Carleton University Library. The introductory chapter
has been uploaded to this site and is available here.