Visegrad Scholarships at the Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA Archivum)

With submission deadlines usually in July and November, the call invites applications along a central theme linked to the Archivum’s holdings, and includes suggested research topics. This academic year, the recommended theme of the proposals is The Language(s) of Freedom(s). The call is part of a reflexive-research program at the Archivum interested in connecting past issues related to oppressive regimes, censorship, violence, and information manipulation, to current phenomena. We would like to assess the potential of a genealogical project linking the contemporary epistemic and political crisis of democracy to past modes of inquiry and activism.

Applicants, preferably but not exclusively from a V4 country, may be researchers, students after their second degree carrying out research, socially engaged artists, as well as journalists. Scholars at risk from war zones and refugees of conscience (scholars fleeing authoritarian regimes) are especially invited to apply.

Since its start in 2010, the Visegrad Scholarship at the Blinken OSA Archivum has been awarded to more than 250 fellows, from 61 countries.

Research Theme in 2025/2026: Living in dystopian times: Lessons from the Cold War (and after)

In his recent dystopian novel Time Shelter (2020), the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov imagined a sick humanity (with people affected by the Holocaust or Communism) that was embracing the past. What we experience today is no longer the romantic withdrawal into what used to be perceived as more glorious pasts, but a globally expanding ideology that seeks to replace liberal democracy while dangerously borrowing a political language from the past. In these dystopian times, in which the very idea of a democratic West is under the assault of autocratic expansionism, it is worth revisiting the past not for its idealized memories, but for its dramatic lessons about the general conditions of both the emergence and collapse of authoritarian regimes, internally and externally. What would be needed is not only the investigation of the possibilities to “resist” in both personal and institutional forms, but also the conditions for the maintenance of very delicate international equilibria, where the politics of force would be countered by those of values and principles.

We invite scholars, researchers, artists, journalists to reflect on what the Cold War era (and its aftermath) could teach/remind us about the following issues:

• the conditions for the emergence of cultures of impunity as both social, political, and legal phenomena
• the role of security/military alliances and their perceptions (the emergence of NATO and Warsaw Pact, their role for “peace” and “freedom,” and the legitimacy of comparing the two)
• the ambiguities and impact of the politics of appeasement with regard to dictatorships
• the confrontation or entanglements between economic interests and political ideals
• the dilemmas of arms race or armed peace in international politics
• the conditions, successes and failures of humanitarian help (clues: the records of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the Human Rights Watch Reports, the Records of the American Refugee Committee's Balkan Programs, Gary Filerman Collection on Hungarian Refugees of 1956, Radio Free Europe’s collections regarding Human Rights, escapees, famines, disasters)
• the history of institutions and mechanisms in countering political violence (role of courts, international organizations dedicated to human rights)
• international justice: the conundrums of establishing judicial and historical truth (clues: the Records of the International Human Rights Law Institute Relating to the Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia, the Trial Proceedings Video of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the David Rohde Collection on Srebrenica, the Records of the Physicians for Human Rights' Bosnia Projects)
• the conditions for emerging oppositional cultures (versus pragmatic survival) (clues: collections of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty regarding “opposition,” “dissent,” and personal collections of former oppositional figures)
• internal emigration under dictatorship and their evolution afterward (religious life, professional aspirations, listening to foreign radios, the emergence of pseudoscience, the a-politics of exact sciences) (clues: the collections of RFE’s Audience and Opinion surveys, the collections of private photos and films, the collections of the Black Box Foundation, etc.)
• the representation(s) of liberal democracy in Eastern Europe under Communism and their translations into political action after 1989 (clues: the Records of the Open Media Research Institute regarding transition, records of the Open Society Institute and Soros Foundation for different countries*)
• the prehistory of populist and anti-liberal thinking traditions (before 1989) (clues: the Archivum preserves not only the archives of human rights and democracy-oriented dissidence, but also that of right-wing movements)
• the role of debate: the structure and differences of public spaces within state Socialism versus democracies (clues: collections regarding samizdat, youth magazines, regional press, collections of Index on Censorship, Western Press Archive)
• the role of media as a corrective instrument before and after 1989
• decolonization and its ambiguities as national, cultural, political, and conceptual struggle(s)
• the cultural challenges in maintaining both moral clarity and critical forms of language and discourse
• impact of rhetorical shifts and semantic destabilization during regime changes
• the workings of propaganda and the dismantlement of the very idea of truth
• historiographies of political abuses and violent phenomena; the causes and impact of the lack of consensual narratives; imagining new methods of non-relativistic comparative history- historical narratives and representation of disadvantaged communities and marginalized individuals;
• critical archiving from the margins (clues: documents about the Roma Parliament in the collection of the Black Box Foundation, Network Women’s Program, collections on the Hungarian Roma Parliament Association*, Roma Civil Rights Foundation*, records about people with disabilities*)

* These are collections partly restricted from access or under processing. Please contact Csaba Szilágyi szilagyc@ceu.edu prior to submission.

We recommend you refer to one of the topics in your application. Please also mention the specific collections you would like to consult. We also suggest possible collections to be investigated, such as Records of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Research Institute, Records of Index on Censorship, Records of the EU Monitoring and Advocacy Programs, Soviet Propaganda Film collection, Records related to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Records of the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute, etc.

Application Procedure

Please submit the following to the Archivum (in one merged pdf file)

• Application letter in English - specifying:

• the expected period of stay and preferred dates - please note that 1) the Archivum does not host Grantees in August; 2) the Archivum’s Research Room is closed during the Christmas period, and 3) the research stay must end on the last day of the given academic year, on July 31.
• how you learnt about the scholarship—through what courses, instructors, social media groups or pages, websites, academic platforms, public programs/projects etc.

• Research description/plan in English: about 800 words, and should include the following:

• introduction
• presentation of the stage of research
• literature on the subject
• preliminary hypothesis
• research questions
• identification of possible documents in the Archivum's holdings
• artists are expected to submit a portfolio, too. We recommend you refer to one of the topics in your application. Please also mention the specific collections you would like to consult.

• Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)
• Proof of officially recognized advanced level English language exam (native speakers and those with qualification from an English-language institution/degree program are exempted)
• Names of two referees with contact details. Letters of reference are not needed.

The Application letter, C.V., the research description/plan, the copy of a language exam certification and the Referees’ contact information should be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu.