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Natural disasters and man in Central Europe (18th-19th centuries)

Man-made and natural disasters are increasingly interconnected, with human activity (anthropogenic factors) often worsening, triggering, or accelerating natural hazards like floods, fires, and landslides. While natural disasters result from geological or atmospheric processes, their impact is heavily influenced by human vulnerability, infrastructure failure, and climate change.
Natural disasters have caused profound mental changes in society, provoked reflections on the relationship between man and nature, influenced scientific and philosophical development, and forced state authorities to adopt various centrally and regionally focused technical and systemic measures to ensure survival during future disasters. The dissertation will examine individual disasters (fires in Banská Bystrica 1761 and Lučenec 1849, earthquakes in Komárno 1763, 1783 a 1822, Lakagigar 1783, flood on the Váh and Hron rivers 1813, Tambora 1815 etc.) and their impact on nature, the state and man, on his thinking and actions.

The Image of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Narrative Tradition of the Imperial Sphere in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

The dissertation focuses on the analysis of the image of the Kingdom of Hungary in narrative sources of imperial provenance from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The research is based on the assumption that these texts, particularly chronicles, annals, hagiographical works and travel literature, should not be understood merely as descriptive records of historical events, but also as active instruments in the formation of contemporary perceptions, mental frameworks and ideological patterns of the Latin medieval world.
The aim of the dissertation is to examine the ways in which the Kingdom of Hungary was thematised, interpreted and evaluated in these sources, with particular attention to political, religious and cultural discourse. Special emphasis is placed on the image of Hungary as a political actor in the Central European region, as part of the Christian order and as a frontier and contact zone of the Latin West. The study analyses the narrative strategies, ideological premises and stereotypes through which authors of imperial sources represented this space and framed its meaning within a broader historical and cultural context.
Methodologically, the research is grounded in critical textual analysis, a comparative approach and systematic work with manuscript material and editorial corpora. The dissertation seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of historical memory and identity formation in medieval Central Europe, as well as to a critical reflection on the image of the Kingdom of Hungary within the intellectual milieu of the imperial and Western world.

Historical and social topography of the Jewish community in Bratislava using GIS, as reflected in the records of domicile acts from 1918 to 1945

In connection with the ongoing project analysing the history of Jews in Bratislava from the Middle Ages to 1945, it will be necessary to examine the period from the collapse of the monarchy to the first months of peace after World War II. The basis for this should be mainly documents on citizenship from the Bratislava City Archives. Using historical statistical methods, it will be necessary to summarize the available personal data (especially the geographical origin of individuals, their occupation, address, family members, etc.), visualize it using GIS, and then evaluate all the data using both historical and demographic methods. 

The aim of the dissertation is to analyze a so-far almost entirely unused yet unique source for the history of urban society: municipal accounts and other town books. In the case of medieval Bratislava, an extensive corpus of account books, the so-called Kammerrechnungen, is available, providing a detailed insight into the life of medieval urban society. The goal of the dissertation is to offer an analysis of the role of women in urban society: their participation in the exercise of power, in services for the town, in trade and crafts, the presence of queens and noblewomen in the town, and their influence on the urban community.
Requirement: knowledge of Slovak/Czech, German and the ability to work with medieval sources in German, and English (at least B2).

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the legal disputes of the Sztáray noble family in the 18th century as part of their family and economic strategies. The enforcement of inheritance and property rights to family domains often led to legal disputes between family members and other heirs. The thesis will focus on examining the intensity, course, and nature of these disputes, not only within the Sztáray family, but also in comparison with other families in Zemplín during that period. Special attention will be paid to the economic aspects that emerge from individual witness statements. The research will be based on the analysis of court records, property inventories, property valuations, and other sources, through which it will be possible to reconstruct the everyday life of the Hungarian aristocracy in the context of property and legal disputes. 
Requirements: Knowledge of Slovak/Czech and English (min. B2) is required; a good knowledge of the languages of the relevant archival sources (usually Hungarian, German, Latin).

The aim of the doctoral dissertation is to examine the functioning of judicial practice in the early modern period as a space in which legal norms, moral concepts, and social strategies intersected. The research should focus on a clearly defined chronological framework, while the doctoral candidate may choose to work within a regional or urban setting, or to concentrate on a specific offence or group of offences (such as moral offences, violent crime, defamation, etc.), or on gender-specific forms of criminality.
Crime should be analysed not only as a violation of legal norms, but also as a social and cultural phenomenon closely connected to contemporary notions of honour, morality, order, and justice. Particular emphasis may be placed on the analysis of the strategies employed by the actors of judicial proceedings—judges, defendants, plaintiffs, and witnesses—and on the ways in which they mobilised legal norms, moral and religious arguments, and local customs. Attention may also be paid to differentiated patterns of punishment depending on social status, gender, social capital, and mitigating or aggravating circumstances.
Further possible areas of research include the comparison of secular and ecclesiastical approaches to the adjudication of offences; the implementation of legal reforms in judicial practice, particularly with regard to religious and moral offences following the adoption of Joseph II’s criminal code; and processes of criminalisation and decriminalisation of selected offences.
The dissertation will be based on a systematic analysis of archival sources combined with a critical reading of relevant domestic and international scholarship. The precise thematic and chronological scope of the research will depend on the state of preservation, content, and extent of the available sources.
Requirements: a good command of the languages of the archival sources (typically Latin, German, or Hungarian) and proficiency in Slovak/Czech or English at a minimum level of B2.

The aim of the doctoral dissertation is to examine the phenomenon of marginalisation within a suitably defined chronological framework and, where appropriate, within a specific regional context, focusing on a selected group of the population. The research may address socially excluded groups defined by ethnicity, way of life, socio-economic status, occupation, or religious affiliation (such as Jews, Roma, vagrants, beggars, prostitutes, and other so-called dishonourable occupations). The topic may be explored across several analytical dimensions: (1) a normative dimension, focusing on legal restrictions and sanctions as articulated in laws, ordinances, and statutes; (2) the level of judicial practice, examining local strategies and procedural approaches; (3) a discursive dimension, encompassing legal and theological treatises as well as narrative sources; and (4) the reflection of the status of these groups in popular culture, drawing on both written and visual sources. By combining different types of sources, the doctoral candidate will analyse the extent and forms of social exclusion, the diversity of contemporary attitudes, and the accompanying phenomena of marginalisation—such as stereotyping, rhetoric of exclusion, scapegoating, criminalisation, and persecution—as well as their possible transformations over time. The findings may subsequently be compared with developments in Western Europe in order to identify parallels, continuities, and transfers of behavioural and regulatory patterns.
Requirements: a good command of the language(s) of the relevant archival sources (typically Latin, German, or Hungarian) and proficiency in Slovak/Czech or English at a minimum level of B2.

The dissertation will focus on a comparative analysis of the lives of aristocratic women in Hungary in the nineteenth century, based on archival research. Its aim is to identify the strategies through which women adapted to prevailing gender norms, consciously transgressed them, or rejected them altogether. From the early nineteenth century onward, the bourgeois ideal of women as faithful wives, exemplary mothers, and diligent housekeepers gradually gained ground in Hungary. This model increasingly confined women`s activities to the private sphere, while the political and public spheres remained predominantly male domains. A turning point came in 1848, after which scientific and technical progress, industrialization, and growing demands for education led to a gradual expansion of opportunities for women`s participation in society and to the emergence of emancipatory tendencies. 
Aristocratic women constituted a distinct social group, as their noble status and material and financial security afforded them a broader sphere of influence than women from lower social strata. The dissertation will examine how these women adapted to, modified, or rejected bourgeois ideals of femininity and how they coped with the challenges of modernity. The research will draw primarily on ego-documents, correspondence, and other types of archival materials preserved in the family archives of prominent Hungarian aristocratic families (Pálffy, Esterházy, Andrássy). These sources make it possible to reconstruct aspects of daily life, family relationships, social networks, and patterns of social interactions among aristocratic women.
Special attention will be paid to issues of reputation and its preservation or loss in cases of perceived "deviations from the norm," such as extramarital affairs, divorce, separation, or prolonged stays away from the family environment. The dissertation aims to contribute to scholarship in the field of gender history, microhistory, and the history of everyday life within the broader context of nineteenth-century Hungarian history.
Applicants are expected to have a basic overview of the political and social development of the territory of present-day Slovakia (within the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy) during the period under review. In addition to proficiency in Slovak or Czech and English, the ability to work with sources in Hungarian and German is required for research covering the period up to 1918.

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the changes in therapeutic procedures and regulations against venereal diseases with the special focus on their causes and social consequences as well as mechanisms of social exlusion and stereotypes  during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the context of Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Case studies of selected institutions (e.g. specialised medical facilities, brothels, charity societies etc.) will form part of the dissertation. A combination of macro- and micro-level approach will be preferred. A comparison of the selected institution on the territory of today's Slovakia and similar example in another region of the Habsburg Monarchy or its successor states is welcome. In addition to archival material on selected institutions, contemporary medical, health and educational literature (including press), memoirs, correspondence and fiction would serve as important sources for analyses.
The candidate is expected to have a basic overview of the political and social development of Slovakia in the period under review; in addition to knowledge of Slovak/Czech and English, the ability to work with sources in Hungarian and/or German is necessary for research into the period up to 1918.

The doctoral project focuses on analysing the role of confessional differences in the processes of social and cultural modernisation in the Slovak milieu of the nineteenth century through a case study of Daniel Lichard (1812–1882). The aim of the dissertation is to examine how confessional identity and interconfessional tensions shaped his public engagement, journalistic and literary output, as well as his strategies of communication with Slovak society, which was confessionally divided between an Evangelical minority and a Catholic majority.
The principal theoretical framework of the research is the concept of the Second Confessionalisation, which makes it possible to analyse religion and confessional affiliation not merely as a persistent cultural framework, but also as an active political and social factor in the modernisation processes of the nineteenth century.
The dissertation will investigate how Daniel Lichard addressed and negotiated the confessional question in different historical contexts—from the disputes over mixed marriages in the 1840s, through the revolutionary years of 1848/49 and the period of neo-absolutism, to the conflicts between the so-called Old School and New School in the 1860s and 1870s, as well as the so-called Matica years. Particular attention will be paid to identifying when and in what ways confessionalism was employed as a mobilising instrument in political and cultural struggles, and conversely, in which periods efforts emerged to mitigate confessional tensions in favour of the concept of national unity.
The research will focus on an analysis of Lichard’s texts (including his sermons), public speeches, and associational activities as arenas in which strategies of confessional communication, social mobilisation, and national integration were formulated and tested.
The doctoral project forms part of a broader research programme on confessionalisation and the politicisation of society in the long nineteenth century, conducted within an APVV-funded project at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Requirements: proficiency in Slovak/Czech; English (minimum B2); German; at least passive knowledge of Hungarian is an advantage.

The doctoral project focuses on the study of religious (confessional) motifs in Slovak nationalist discourse in connection with processes of political socialisation and the mobilisation of the population in the territory of present-day Slovakia during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The research will concentrate on selected events and phenomena—such as state policies in the fields of education and childcare (the introduction of Hungarian as the language of instruction, preschool education, adoption campaigns targeting Slovak children), the introduction of civil marriage and state registries, and the regulation of child upbringing in confessional mixed marriages—which representatives of the Slovak national movement perceived and interpreted primarily through the lens of national and religious oppression of Slovaks by the Hungarian state authorities.
The project will focus on discourse analysis while simultaneously examining the institutional frameworks of social practice related to the production and reception of this discourse. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between elite discourse and local reception, including the activities of confessionally grounded associations, manifestations of “popular” protest and resistance to state policies, as well as the local-level implementation of laws and regulations.
Special emphasis will be placed on the ways in which confessional affiliation shaped processes of political mobilisation and identification in relation to state authority, the Slovak national movement, and competing ideological currents during the period of the emergence of mass politics.
During the first semester, further specification of the thematic and regional focus of the dissertation project is anticipated.
The first two semesters of the doctoral programme will include a systematic study of theories of political socialisation, nationalism, and mass political mobilisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as methodological approaches in social and cultural history and discourse analysis.
The doctoral project forms part of a broader research agenda on confessionalization and politicisation in the long nineteenth century and offers integration into ongoing grant-funded research at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Requirements: proficiency in Slovak or Czech, Hungarian, and English (minimum level B2); knowledge of German is an advantage.

The aim of the dissertation will be to investigate the public spaces of music production within selected cities of Upper Hungary. These are the so-called redoutes existing as independent public urban buildings or as part of theatre buildings. Mimicking what was originally a noble place of representation, the construction of redoutes in the 19th century became an important integrative element of local bourgeois elites alongside theatrical buildings. The Redoute built in 1788/89 in Pressburg will be used as a model example. In addition to concerts and balls, repeatedly organised to raise funds for the charitable activities of the associations, the space, equipped with a restaurant and a casino, was also used for meetings of the Hungarian Diet and the annual meetings of important city associations.   
The concepts of politicization and socialization applied to the cultural and political function of this space, as well as tracing the multiple loyalties and ambiguous identities of the Pressburg  inhabitants, will be the initial concepts to be explored. The sources of the research should be the programmes and contemporary criticisms, the reports of the Diet sessions, the annual reports of the associations whose activities took place in the premises and, last but not least, the city official books providing information on the renting of the Redoute and its constructional modifications. During the doctoral studies, comparisons will be made with similar buildings existing in the 19th century in the territory of Upper Hungary, as well as with the current hall of the Bratislava Redoute, built between 1913 and 1919.
The applicant is expected to have an interest in cultural-historical research, a basic overview of cultural life in the selected region, and the corresponding language skills: in addition to Slovak/Czech and English, the ability to read German, and, where appropriate, to speak other language(s) of the regions selected for comparison.

The aim of the PhD thesis will be to examine the dynamic development of football as a new mass phenomenon in the context of Slovak-Hungarian rivalry in towns in southern Slovakia during the First Czechoslovak Republic. During the interwar period, sport, and football in particular, became a factor that helped to shape the national identity of the ethnic Slovak population within the democratic republic. The task for potential applicants will be to comprehensively document football events and their broader political and social context in the ethnically mixed cities of southern Slovakia, where clubs officially declaring themselves to be Slovak (or, in the context of the time, Czechoslovak) and Hungarian competed alongside each other. The Slovak-Hungarian football rivalry was intensified by the organizational structure of football in the interwar republic, where the Czechoslovak Football Association (ČSFA) brought together several national federations, with the most numerous clubs in Slovakia belonging to the Czechoslovak and Hungarian federations. In cities such as Bratislava, Nové Zámky, and Lučenec, clubs affiliated with both the Czechoslovak and Hungarian federations of the ČSFA operated, quickly becoming fierce rivals. These processes will need to be documented based on research of archival materials and a study of contemporary press, considering the methodological approaches of foreign, especially Anglo-Saxon and German-language historiographies. A deeper interest in the history of nationalism and a preliminary orientation in the topic are expected. 
Requirements: knowledge of Slovak/Czech language, English language (min B2). Knowledge of Hungarian, German and other world languages is welcomed.

After the First World War, usury was rampant in Slovakia. To supress it, Anti-usury people's courts were established in 1919. This institution was not based on the authority of professional judges, but of lay judges, who were not subject to professional qualification requirements. The lay element in judiciary has a historical genesis. The main objective of this dissertation is to chart the developments, weakness, and strengths of this institution in our modern history. A model example will be the post-war Anti-usury people's courts and an approach to the mechanism of their functioning. The research of the topic requires the study of specialist historical and legal literature, contemporary press, and archival research. The ability to appreciate the broader context of economic, social, and societal issues is required.
Prerequisite: knowledge of Slovak/Czech language, English (B2 minimum). Proficiency in Hungarian and German is an advantage.

The aim of the doctoral thesis will be to research the impact of socialist competition on the efficiency of voluntary labour brigades within the Slovak economy. Following the end of the war, the most significant role in the brigade movement were played by enthusiasm, peace-time fervour, and the desire to rebuild the destroyed economy. After the onset of socialism, this form of labour became an integral part of the state-building program, and the ideological education of the citizenry. The declining interest in brigade activities led to the introduction of a new level of socialist competition in the late 1950s: The Brigades of Socialist Labour. Following the first semester, the thesis topic will be further narrowed down, for instance, to a specific region, economic sector, or a target group of brigade workers.
The doctoral candidate is expected to demonstrate a profound interest in examining the influence of economic and ideological issues on public behaviour. The development of the topic requires archival research, the study of specialized historical literature, and the analysis of contemporary periodicals. Requirements include proficiency in English (min. B2), Slovak/Czech, alongside a passive knowledge of another European language.

The dissertation will have two main goals. The first is a theoretical evaluation of the main features and development of the second industrial revolution based on the latest knowledge of the historiography of the countries of Central Europe and the works of Anglo-Saxon historiography, and a current analysis of the specific features of the onset of the second industrial revolution in Hungary and in today's territory of Slovakia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The second goal is source research and analysis of the development of the second industrial revolution on the concrete example of industrial enterprises of the Banská-Štiavnica mining district with various types of state and private enterprises in mining, metallurgy, engineering, and light industry. It will include research into broader economic and political contexts and the genesis of modern management with its capital and business strategies. The dissertation will require original archival research in the central archives of Slovakia, Hungary and Austria, as well as in departmental and regional archives of central Slovakia. Further research will focus on professional and economic literature and periodicals.
The applicant is expected to have basic knowledge of the economic-political and technical-economic development in Hungary and Slovakia in the observed period. In addition to knowledge of the Slovak/Czech and English languages, the ability to work with sources in Hungarian or German is required for research into the period up to 1914.