Refugee Voices: Exploring the Life Stories of 1956 Hungarian Refugees in Britain.

1956年匈牙利难民危机是出现新的移民管理制度和国际援助架构的关键。1956年秋苏联入侵后，估计有20万匈牙利国民逃离他们的国家。其中，到1957年夏天，大约有21,000人抵达英国，其中14,312人永久留在英国。通过倾听在英国重新安置的匈牙利难民的声音，该项目将有助于更好地了解当代寻求庇护者和移民的生活经历：他们如何理解失去家园、流动和流离失所，以及他们如何在所在社会想象和创造新的归属感、身份和社区形式。在难民研究领域，人们越来越有兴趣将难民的声音重新置于历史分析的中心，强调他们的生活故事是如何被更广泛的社会、文化和行政背景塑造的。在这一趋势的基础上，通过应用口述历史方法并结合分析档案材料，该项目将探讨匈牙利难民如何导航、解释和交流他们在一个新国家的逃亡和重新安置的经历。特别是，它将审议儿童难民的经历，据估计，到1957年底，有2000名儿童难民在无人陪伴的情况下抵达奥地利，这引起了关于儿童遣返的激烈辩论。通过口述历史追溯他们后来的生活史，可以揭示这些孩子是如何在与家庭和家庭分离的背景下，在异国社会长大的背景下，协商自己的匈牙利身份的。特别是通过利用口述历史，该项目将首次近距离分析匈牙利难民的生活故事，揭示不同性别、宗教和职业子群体之间出现的细微差别。在使用口述历史方法的同时，该项目还将利用档案材料，作为展示1956年匈牙利难民方案背后的行政功绩的一种手段。因此，有必要广泛前往日内瓦的红十字委员会档案和布达佩斯的Veritas档案。该项目以1956年匈牙利难民危机为例，建议证明，考虑到大规模的政府和非政府人道主义努力之间的相似之处，以及各国利用类似的配额制度和重新安置计划，“匈牙利人的外逃”可以为我们理解最近的难民危机提供重要帮助。因此，通过以口述历史和第一人称证词为基础，提供对难民经历、故事和申请的历史见解，将难民的声音转移到关注的中心，该项目将为当前英国关于庇护的辩论提供相关的新贡献。

The 1956 Hungarian refugee crisis was pivotal to the emergence of new regimes of migrant management and the architecture of international aid. Following the Soviet invasion in autumn 1956, an estimated 200,000 Hungarian nationals fled their country. Of these, approximately 21,000 had arrived in the UK by the summer of 1957, of whom 14,312 remained permanently. By listening to the voices of the Hungarian refugees who were resettled in Britain the project will contribute to a better understanding of the lived experiences of contemporary asylum-seekers and immigrants: how they understand loss of homeland, mobility and displacement, and how they imagine and create new forms of belonging, identity and community in their host societies. Within the field of refugee studies there has been increased interest in relocating refugee voices to the centre of historical analysis, highlighting how their life stories are shaped by wider social, cultural and administrative contexts. Building on this trend, and by applying oral history methodologies combined with analysis of archival material, the project will explore how the Hungarian refugees navigated, interpreted and communicated their experiences of flight and resettlement in a new country. In particular, it will consider the experiences of child refugees, of whom it is estimated that 2,000 arrived unaccompanied in Austria by late 1957, giving rise to intensive debates about child repatriation. Tracing their subsequent life histories through oral histories will reveal how these children negotiated their 'Hungarian-ness' in the context of separation from family and home and growing up in a foreign society. By utilising oral histories in particular the project will offer the first close analysis of the Hungarian refugees' life stories, revealing nuances of experience which emerged among varied gender, religious and occupational subgroups. Coinciding with the use of oral history methodologies the project will engage also with archival materials as a means to demonstrate the administrative feat behind the 1956 Hungarian refugee programme. As such, extensive travel to archives such as that of the ICRC in Geneva, and Budapest's VERITAS archive will be necessary. Focussing on the 1956 Hungarian refugee crisis as a case study, the project proposes to demonstrate that the "Hungarian exodus" can serve as an important aid to our understanding of more recent refugee crises, considering parallels between the large-scale governmental and non-governmental humanitarian efforts, as well as states' utilisation of similar quota systems and resettlement schemes. Thus, by offering historical insights into refugee experiences, stories and claims, based on oral history and first-person testimonies that shift refugee voices to the centre of attention, this project will provide a relevant new contribution to current UK debates on asylum.