Magyars and Monkeys? Darwinism, Race and the Public in fin-de-siècle Hungary Seminar

This talk will examine the relationship between Darwinism, political culture, and (popular) ideas of race in 19th-century Hungary. Almost immediately after the publication from Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1959, the Hungarian scientific community had to face the challenge of communicating knowledge about Darwinism and evolution to the public, where they could be appropriated for various political or cultural purposes. The study of the Hungarian reception of Darwinism shows how the concept of race, together -- and often overlapping -- with ethnicity and the nation, was still rather flexible in the Hungarian scientific and public discourse.