ABSTRACT
From the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy to the Treaty of Trianon, thence through the German and Soviet occupations to the current post-communist climate, Hungarian economic history has remained embedded in political upheavals and economic problems peculiar to Eastern Europe. Sandor Domanovszky had been originally a specialist of medieval chronicles, but his interest turned towards economic history while he was teaching history at the Commercial Academy in Budapest. The personal, institutional and ideological preconditions of Soviet-style Marxist historiography were built up during the preparations of the first five-year plan in 1949– 50. Economic history has declined from a combination of international and domestic factors such as the counter-reaction to the former hegemony of Marxist historical determinism, the temporary priority given to political history and the self-proclaimed autonomy of social history. In the midst of recurrent ideological and scientific paradigm shifts, economic history developed a special form of pragmatism.
