This publication, launched in Spring 2011, is the second volume of a book series on the democratic transition of CEE, published within the framework of the project Oral History. In this book, published in English, author Iván Bába summarizes the conclusions of the “Oral History” interviews and draws lessons learned for countries which are in a similar transitional period now. This volume is designed specifically – but not exclusively – for the non-Hungarian audience, and presents the birth and evolution of the social movements, organizations and political parties that played significant role in Hungary’s peaceful democratic transition in a way that enables those that are not familiar with Hungarian internal affairs to understand the whole process.

Our book, The Hungarian Transition is a unique piece of work, an exciting experiment which aims at covering social and political aspects of the story of the regime change in Hungary, applying the so-called Oral History approach for the topic. The author of the book presents the birth and evolution of the social movements, organisations and political parties that played significant role in Hungary’s peaceful democratic transition from a communist regime into a democratic establishment. Based on dozens of video interviews, conducted by the publisher, the International Centre for Democratic Transition between the years 2006 and 2009, with prominent Hungarian participants of the process of the regime change from all sides, the reader will get a matchless panorama picture of this exciting period of time in Hungary. The topics discussed in this volume range from the social-intellectual roots of the first semi-legal or illegal opposition movements of the Kádár-era, their long way of institutional evolution towards becoming political parties to the permanently changing Hungarian political landscape during the first term of the country’s democratic political governance between 1990-1994. We cover such milestone events and processes of the Hungarian regime change as the National Round Table negotiations, the country’s extremely important first referendum held in 1989 or the election campaigns and results of the first democratic elections of Hungary’s modern-day history. Special regard is paid to the discussion on and the evaluation of the term of Hungary’s first democratic elected government, formed by Prime Minister József Antall in 1990, up until his tragic death in 1993.

The Oral History approach of this work, which provides an essentially original character for it, implies that the text and contents of the volume are based. Our interviewees were not only asked about the basic tendencies of the transition, but also about their personal memories so that the public would be able to acquire subjective and, up to now, unknown information about 1989. This is what makes us confident to call our book a definitely unique initiative and therefore a must-read for all individuals interested in the process of democratic transition and the history of Central and Eastern Europe.