ABSTRACT
Due to the strong Asian connections in Hungarian ethnogenesis the 19th-century emergence of nationalism brought about substantial interest in Asia and inspired several expeditions and scientific inquiries. After the turmoil of the World Wars, the establishment of the Hungarian People’s Republic in August 1949 led to profound changes that affected academia and Hungarian sinology equally. This chapter employs a bottom-up view to study the interplay between the “micro-” and the “macro-” levels of Hungarian sinology: the lived experience of a Hungarian researcher studying China, in the context of fluctuating Sino–Hungarian relations and the global Cold War as seen through the life of the prominent Hungarian sinologist Barna Tálas. His career was more intertwined with larger Sino–Hungarian connections than most of his scholarly contemporaries because of his government-related positions as an academic. This chapter describes the impact of Hungary’s political structure on Barna Tálas’s experience and career as a sinologist while also examining his role in shaping the structure of the field of Hungarian sinology.
