István Deák Papers, 1960-1995
István Deák Papers, 1960-1995
Summary Information
Abstract
At a Glance
- Call No.:
- MS#1568
- Bib ID:
- 8644506 View CLIO record
- Creator(s):
- Deák, István
- Repository:
- Rare Book and Manuscript Library
- Physical Description:
- 9.89 linear feet (14 document boxes 3 record cartons 1 microfilm box)
- Language(s):
- Material is primarily in English and Hungarian with some German.
- Access:
- You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
-
This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.
Series II, Box 13, Folders 10 and 11 and Box 17 folder 9 contain student papers and are restricted until 2035.
Description
Summary
The István Deák Papers document his professional life, with a particular focus on his work during the 1980s and 1990s. The majority of the papers are comprised of articles, essays, conference programs and lectures. There are also two large groups of research notes, one set of research contributing to his PhD dissertation on intellectuals in the Weimar Republic, the other a large collection of data sheets related to Hungarian soldiers in the Habsburg Army. The collection is intellectually arranged by series, including scholarly writing, teaching and administrative activities, conferences and lectures, and research notes in two sections. However, the collection retains its original physical order reflecting Deák's arrangement of the files. Many of the original folders with Deák's extensive notes have also been retained and kept with the files they originally held.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged in five series.
Using the Collection
Restrictions on Access
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.
Series II, Box 13, Folders 10 and 11 and Box 17 folder 9 contain student papers and are restricted until 2035.
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); István Deák Papers; Box and Folder (if known); Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Accrual
No additional materialexpected
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Source of acquisition--István Deák. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--07/13/1999.
2008.2009.M012: Source of acquisition--István Deák. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--12/28/2008.
About the Finding Aid / Processing Information
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Processing Information
Papers processed Alison Lotto, New York University and the Palmer School, 2013 04/01/2011.
Finding aid written Alison Lotto, New York University and the Palmer School, 2013 04/15/2011.
Revision Description
2011-06-02 XML document instance created by Alison Lotto
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
Biographical Note
István Deák, the Seth Low Professor Emeritus of History, was born in Hungary in 1926, and in 1948 emigrated to France and studied history at the Sorbonne. From 1948 to 1956, he worked in France and Germany as a journalist and librarian and moved to New York in 1956, to pursue his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He received it in 1964, with a dissertation entitled "Weimar Germany's 'Homeless Left': The World of Carl Von Ossietzky." Deák taught at Columbia from 1964 until his retirement in 1997, with some brief appointments at other universities. He was also the director of the Institute on East Central Europe from 1968 to 1979. After his retirement, Deák continued to teach at Columbia as a lecturer and worked at Stanford in 2002.
Professor Deák's research concentrates on 20th century central and east central Europe. He has published a number of works, including Weimar Germany's Left-wing Intellectuals: A Political History of the "Weltbuhne" and Its Circle (The University of California Press, 1968); The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848-1849 (Columbia University Press, 1979), Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848-1918 (Oxford University Press, 1990), Essays on Hitler's Europe (University of Nebraska Press, 2001), and edited The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath (Princeton University Press, 2000). Deak has received a number of prizes for his work including the Lionel Trilling Book Award, the Way S. Vucinich Book Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the John S. Guggenheim Fellowship, and he was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna Austria.
Subject Headings
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
All links open new windows.
| Genre/Form |
|---|
| Articles |
| Correspondence |
| Name |
| Columbia University -- Alumni and alumnae |
| Columbia University -- Faculty |
| Deák, István |
| Subject |
| Historians |
| Historians -- Hungary |
| Military historians |
Series I: Scholarly Writing, 1963-1996
This series contains documents related to Deak's published and unpublished scholarly writing. It documents his professional life, particularly the relationships he had in the intellectual community, and his professional status in the study of the history of central Europe as a contributor and editor.
Deak wrote many articles, and kept copies of those articles as well as their reviews from other publications. There are a number of drafts and published copies of articles. The files also contain correspondence regarding articles and that Deak worked on, copies of reviews of his work and letters in response to negative and positive reviews of his work.
Box 1 Folder 3
Box 1 Folder 4
Box 1 Folder 5
Box 1 Folder 6
Box 1 Folder 7
Box 2 Folder 1
Box 2 Folder 2
Box 2 Folder 3
Box 2 Folder 7
Box 2 Folder 10
Box 2 Folder 11
Box 2 Folder 12
Box 2 Folder 13
Box 2 Folder 14
Box 2 Folder 18
Box 2 Folder 19
Box 3 Folder 1
Box 3 Folder 2
Box 3 Folder 3
Box 3 Folder 4
Box 3 Folder 5
Box 3 Folder 6
Box 3 Folder 7
Box 3 Folder 8
Box 8 Folder 10
Box 11 Folder 11
Box 12 Folder 2
Box 12 Folder 5
The correspondence covers various academic topics, some related to articles and books that Deak was working on, conference organizing, and his response to other people's work. Deak corresponds with academics and publishers, almost entirely on work-related subjects.
Box 2 Folder 5
Box 2 Folder 6
Box 2 Folder 8
Box 2 Folder 9
Box 2 Folder 15
Box 2 Folder 16
Box 2 Folder 17
This subseries is related to Deak's academic projects other than publication. In 1991, Deak helped organize an exhibition of the Hugarian Avant-Garde at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and provided an essay for the book describing the context for Hungarian artists working from 1908-1930. Deak also provided a number of entries to encyclopedias.
Box 2 Folder 4
Box 8 Folder 9
Deak wrote many reviews of other people's work, and this series contains a number of formal reviews he published in journals, and informal peer reviews for publishers. The files contain drafts, publisher's preprints, and final copies of reviews. There is also correspondence with publishers and other scholars, and reactions to his reviews. Deak was also very active in peer reviews for books. He read many articles for journals, publishers, and foundations. In many cases he read the articles anonymously
Box 5 Folder 1
Box 5 Folder 2
Box 6 Folder 1
Box 6 Folder 2
Box 6 Folder 3
Box 6 Folder 4
Box 6 Folder 5
Box 6 Folder 6
Box 6 Folder 7
Box 7 Folder 8
Box 7 Folder 9
Box 7 Folder 10
Box 8 Folder 3
This subseries contains Deak's PhD dissertation. He finished his degree in 1964, and the dissertation eventually became his first bookWeimer Germany's Left Wing Intellectuals, A Political History of the Weltbühne and its Causes.
Box 10 Folder 1 to 3
Box 13 Folder 2
Series II. Teaching and Administrative Activities, 1964-1986
Deak was an active teacher, teaching classes on the history of central and east central Europe. This series contains lecture notes, student papers, and various other notes related to his scholarly and teaching activities.
The series contains lectures on a variety of subjects including the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, various philosophers, the Industrial Revolution, and Adam Smith. Most of the lectures come from a class entitled Contemporary Civilization that Deak taught in the spring of 1965. Deak also retained a few student papers that he found particularly interesting.
Box 13 Folder 10
[Restricted until 2035]
Box 13 Folder 11
[Restricted until 2035]
Box 13 Folder 12
Box 14 Folder 1
The notes relate to Deak's teaching and administrative activities. Among the notes are a series of letters and notes where Deak was involved in bringing the papers of Jaromir Smutny, the chancellor to President Benes of Czechoslovakia into the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. It also contains notes from secondary sources related to his teaching and research.
Box 8 Folder 11
Box 12 Folder 8
Box 12 Folder 10
Box 13 Folder 7
This subseries contains a syllabus for a course Deak taught in 1964. He also kept bibliographies from published works related to the classes, and citations of books, as well as guides to archives in his field. There are also lists of suggested books that Deak sent to colleagues interested in topics related to his research.
Box 12 Folder 9
Series III. Conferences and Lectures, 1969-1994
This series makes up the bulk of the papers. Deak kept extensive notes on all of the lectures that he gave across the country, and many detailed records about his activities at conferences. This series includes lecture notes, programs from various conferences, invitations to attend, correspondence regarding lectures and attendance, administrative files, and itineraries related to conference attendance.
Box 1 Folder 1
Box 1 Folder 2
Box 3 Folder 9
Box 3 Folder 10
Box 3 Folder 11
Box 4 Folder 1
Box 4 Folder 2
Box 4 Folder 3
Box 4 Folder 4
Box 4 Folder 5
Box 4 Folder 6
Box 4 Folder 7
Box 4 Folder 8
Box 4 Folder 9
Box 4 Folder 10
Box 4 Folder 11
Box 4 Folder 12
Box 4 Folder 13
Box 4 Folder 14
Box 5 Folder 3
Box 5 Folder 4
Box 5 Folder 5
Box 5 Folder 6
Box 5 Folder 7
Box 5 Folder 8
Box 5 Folder 9
Box 7 Folder 1
Box 7 Folder 2
Box 7 Folder 3
Box 7 Folder 4
Box 7 Folder 5
Box 7 Folder 6
Box 7 Folder 7
Box 7 Folder 11
Box 7 Folder 12
Box 7 Folder 13
Box 7 Folder 14
Box 7 Folder 15
Box 8 Folder 1
Box 8 Folder 2
Box 8 Folder 4
Box 8 Folder 5
Box 8 Folder 6
Box 8 Folder 7
Box 8 Folder 8
Box 8 Folder 12
Box 8 Folder 13
Box 9 Folder 5
Box 9 Folder 6
Box 9 Folder 7
Box 9 Folder 8
Box 9 Folder 9
Box 9 Folder 10
Box 9 Folder 11
Box 9 Folder 12
Box 9 Folder 13
Box 9 Folder 14
Box 9 Folder 15
Box 9 Folder 16
Box 9 Folder 17
Box 9 Folder 18
Box 11 Folder 1
Box 11 Folder 2
Box 11 Folder 3
Box 11 Folder 4
Box 11 Folder 5
Box 11 Folder 6
Box 11 Folder 7
Box 11 Folder 8
Box 11 Folder 9
Box 11 Folder 10
Box 11 Folder 12
Box 11 Folder 13
Box 11 Folder 14
Box 11 Folder 15
Box 11 Folder 16
Box 12 Folder 1
Box 12 Folder 3
Box 12 Folder 4
Box 13 Folder 3
Box 13 Folder 4
Box 13 Folder 5
Box 13 Folder 6
Box 13 Folder 8
Box 13 Folder 9
Box 14 Folder 2
Box 14 Folder 3
Box 14 Folder 4
Box 14 Folder 5
Box 14 Folder 6
Box 14 Folder 7
Box 14 Folder 8
Series IV. Habsburg Army Research Notes, undated
The research notes in this collection contain detailed information on over 1000 soldiers in the Habsburg Army, as well a numerous notes on the materials written in Hungarian. In the course of his research, Deak created a number of calculations and written documents analyzing the data. In 1990, Deak published Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps.
The data sheets are written in Hungarian and English, and detail each veteran's name, vital statistics, residence, religion, and other details of his life during and after service. Deak particularly analyzed soldiers who came from the nobility.
Box 15 Folder 1 to 9
Box 15 Folder 10
Box 15 Folder 11 to 15
Box 15 Folder 16
Box 15 Folder 17 to 27
These research notes are particularly related to the research he was doing on the Habsburg Officer corps. He looked at different groups of officers in different ways, with particular interest in education, nobility, Jews and Hungarians.
Box 16 Folder 1
Box 16 Folder 2
Box 16 Folder 3
Box 16 Folder 4
Box 16 Folder 5
Box 16 Folder 6
Box 16 Folder 7
Box 16 Folder 8
Box 16 Folder 9 to 10
Box 16 Folder 11
Box 16 Folder 12
Box 16 Folder 13
Box 16 Folder 14
Box 16 Folder 15 to 23
Box 17 Folder 1
Box 17 Folder 2
Box 17 Folder 3
Box 17 Folder 4
Box 17 Folder 5
Box 17 Folder 6
Box 17 Folder 7
Box 17 Folder 8
Box 17 Folder 9
[Restricted until 2035]
Box 17 Folder 10
Box 17 Folder 11
Box 17 Folder 12
Box 17 Folder 13
Box 17 Folder 14
Box 17 Folder 15
Box 17 Folder 16
Box 17 Folder 17
Box 17 Folder 18
Box 17 Folder 19
Box 17 Folder 20 to 21
Box 17 Folder 22
Box 17 Folder 23
Box 17 Folder 24
Box 17 Folder 25
Box 17 Folder 26
Series V. Weimer Germany's Left Wing Intellectuals, A Political History of the Weltbühne and its Cause, 1930-1970
In 1969, Deak published his first book, Weimer Germany's Left Wing Intellectuals, A Political History of the Weltbühne and its Causes. The book was based on his dissertation, and this series contains the administrative files, research files, copies of the original documents used in his research as well as microfilm and correspondence.
The research notes for this book mostly contain copies of original documents used by Deak in writing the book. He was researching newspapers, documents, and pamphlets from the Weimer period, and kept photocopies and microfilm of many of the materials. The series also contains photographs used in the final version of the book.
Box 9 Folder 3
Box 9 Folder 4
Box 10 Folder 4
Box 10 Folder 6
Box 10 Folder 7
Box 10 Folder 9
Box 13 Folder 1
Box 18
One of the most important documents that Deak used was the German journalDie Weltbühne.The major figure in his book was Carl von Ossietsky, a German radical and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. Von Ossietsky was the publisher ofDie Weltbuhnefrom 1927 until it was banned by the Nazis in 1933. Deak had original copies of the journal from November and May 1930 that he used in his research.
Box 9 Folder 2
This subseries contains the administrative files regarding the publication of the book. Deak corresponded frequently with the University of California Press on a variety of different issues. There were numerous reviews of the book during 1969 and 1970, as well as letters regarding review copies, corrections and critiques.
Box 8 Folder 14
Box 9 Folder 1
Box 8 Folder 19
Box 10 Folder 5
Box 10 Folder 8
Box 12 Folder 6
Box 12 Folder 7