Balázs AporAssistant Professor

aporb@tcd.ie

Balázs Apor graduated from the University of Debrecen in Hungary majoring in History and English. He completed his doctoral studies in 2006 in the Department of History and Civilizations at the European University Institute, Florence. Dr Apor is currently assistant professor in European Studies in the Centre for European Studies and the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies. He is also Director of the European Studies MPhil programme at the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultural Studies.

Dr Apor is a historian of Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century, with a special focus on the Communist period. His research interests include the study of propaganda and symbolic politics under Communist rule, and the Sovietisation of Eastern Europe
after the Second World War. He has a particular interest in the study of leader cults, the invention and dissemination of socialist myths and the functioning of rituals in Soviet-type societies. He has also studied social attitudes towards Communist rule, most importantly dissent and popular indifference.

Apart from several articles on these subjects, he is co-editor of two volumes:

The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc (2004),
The Sovietization of Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on the Postwar Period (2008),
and a number of articles on the communist leader cult.

Research Profile