A cooperation agreement was signed in 2023 between Consulate General of Hungary in Montreal and the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Debrecen (UD) in order to the history of Hungarians in Montreal and preserving their heritage. The cooperation project was then joined by the Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University and several other organizations.
Research into the past and present of the Hungarian diaspora in Montreal, the mapping of its traditions and memories as well as the scholarly presentation of its history, has been coordinated by Institute of English and American Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at UD.
The existence of these priceless documents that have recently been returned home, including handwritten memoirs, correspondence, passports, birth certificates and documents related to the history of the Church, was revealed during the course of conducting relevant research.
“It was last year that I learned about this project researching the heritage of Hungarians in Montreal, and I began to hope that, before I pass away, I would be able to find a way to save these documents for posterity. I am truly grateful that, with the help of the University of Debrecen, the documents of Mihály Fehér can be returned ‘home,’” said Mária Fehér, the daughter of the founding minister.
Mihály Fehér was born in Méhtelek in 1900. Between 1912 and 1918, he was a student of our Reformed College and, from 1920 to 1923, he was a student of the Royal Hungarian István Tisza University of Debrecen. He continued his studies at Princeton University between 1923 and 1926. In 1926, he founded the First Hungarian Reformed Church of Montreal for the large contingent of Hungarian immigrants who had arrived in Canada at that time, which he then served until 1967 following a brief return home.
“These documents are considered unique in several ways. They not only help present a special life story, which is interesting itself, but also provide insight into the history of Hungarian emigration, the role of the Church in the lives of immigrants to Canada, the history and relationships of various organizations, and the integration challenges associated with each wave of immigration. A special feature of the documents is that both Mihály Fehér and his wife are related to Debrecen and our city’s former educational institutions in a number of ways. Negotiations concerning the placement of the documents in specific archives are currently underway,” said Balázs Venkovits, the head of the research team, to hirek.unideb.hu.
As regards the future of the recently received documents, the director of IEAS at UD revealed the plans to use them to prepare a multilingual volume on the life and work of the founding minister, following consultations with the current leadership of the church. The publication would commemorate the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian Reformed Church of Montreal, as part of the events organized for this special occasion.
Besides the processing of recently received documents, the work of the research team also continues with new interviews conducted in the Hungarian community of Montreal, as a result of which an interactive map will soon be available, providing an overview of the Hungarian-related organizations and events in Montreal over the past one hundred years, presenting approximately 170 locations in English and Hungarian, with the help of contemporary photographs and other archival material. In addition, colleagues at the Institute of Sociology (Faculty of Humanities, UD) are also preparing a survey covering the entire area of Canada.
As Péter Csatár, Deputy Dean for Strategic and Economic Affairs at the Faculty of Humanities of UD, has put it, this research is also of special importance for the Faculty of Humanities for a rather specific reason. The Faculty’s Center for International Migration Studies, in addition to having offered comprehensive courses in both Hungarian and English for several years to convey the research findings of several academic fields investigating the issue of migration, intends to make the historical mapping of Hungarian emigration a priority research direction in the future, for which the project focusing on Hungarians in Canada would be the first step.
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