About

Dr. Thomas L. Sakmyster is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Cincinnati in 20th-Century international relations, foreign policy and Hungary.

Dr. Sakmyster was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in 1943. He received a BA in History and German from Dartmouth College in 1965. He received an MA in History from Indiana University in 1967. He received a PhD in History also from Indiana University in 1971, where he wrote his dissertation on Hungary and the Coming of the European Crisis, 1937-1938.

Dr. Sakmyster taught History at the University of Cincinnati for his whole career: assistant professor (1971–1976), associate professor (1976–1982), professor (1982–2005), and professor emeritus (2007-Present). He served as Walter Langsam Professor of European History as of 1995.

Courses he has taught include: European Civilization, History of Eastern Europe, European Diplomatic History, Colloquium on Film and History, Film and the History of World War II, Honors Special Topics Course: Hitler and Stalin,  World War II in Europe, Film and History, European History, and Literature of Modem Europe.

Books include:

• Hungary, the Great Powers, and the Danubian Crisis, 1936-1939 (1980)
• Hungary’s Admiral on Horseback:  Miklos Horthy, 1918-1944 (1994)
• Red Conspirator:  J. Peters and the American Communist Underground (2011)
• A Communist Odyssey: The Life of József Pogány/John Pepper (2013)
• The Shakers of White Water, Ohio, 1823-1916 (Clinton, NY: Richard W. Couper Press of Hamilton College, 2014) – co-editor with James R. Innis, Jr.
• The Last Shaker Apostate: Augustus Wager and Union Village, Ohio (Clinton, NY: Richard W. Couper Press of Hamilton College, forthcoming 2017)

Articles include:

• “The Hungarian State Visit to German~of August, 1938: Some New Evidence on Hungary in Hitler’s Pre-Munich Policy,” Canadian Slavic Studies, 3, no. 4 (1969), pp. 677-91
• “History and Films of East Europe,” Film and History, 3, no. 3 (1973), pp. 20-33 “Hungary and the Munich Crisis: The Revisionist Dilemma,” Slavic Review, 32, no. 4 (1973), pp. 725-40
• “Army Officers and Foreign Policy in Interwar Hungary, 1918-1941,” Journal of Contemporary History, 10, no. 1(1975), pp. 19-40
• “Miklos Horthy, Hungary, and the Coming of the European Crisis, 1918-1941,” East Central Europe, 3, no. 2 (1976), pp. 220-32
• “Istvan Bethlen and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1921-1931,” Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies, 5, no. 2 (1978), pp. 3-16
• “The Great Powers and the Magyar Minorities of Interwar Europe,” Nationalities Papers, 8, no. 1 (1980), pp. 20-28 I
• “Great Britain and the Making of the lireaty of Trianon,” in Total War and Peacemaking, ed. Bela Kiraly (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 107-29
• “From Habsburg Admiral to Hungarian Regent: The Political Metamorphosis of Miklos Horthy,1918-1921,” East European Quarterly, 17, no. 2 (1983), pp. 129-48
• “The Search for a Casus Belli and the Origins of the Kassa Bombing,” Hungarian Studies Review, 10, no. 1 (1983), pp. 53-65
• “A Hungarian Diplomat in Nazi Berlin: Dome Sztojay,” in Hungarian History/World History, ed. Gyorgy Ranki (Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1985), pp. 295-305
• “Magyar katonatisztek es Kassa bombfizasa” (Hungarian Military Officers and the Bombing of Kassa), Törtenelmi Szemle, no. 2 (1985), 368,373.
• “Mikl6s Horthy (18.68-1957),” in Paul Body (ed.), Hungarian Statesmen of Destiny (Highland Lakes, N.J.: Atlantic Research, (1989), 97-120.
• “Film and East European History,” AAASS Newsletter, Sept., 1991, p. 20.
• “Miklos Horthy and the Jews of Hungary,” in Labyrinth of Nationalism. Complexities of Diplomacy. Essays in Honor of Charles and Barbara Jelavich (Columbus: Slavica, 1992), 121-42
• “Great Britain and the Establishment of the Horthy Regime,” in East Europe and the West (London: St. Martin’s, 1992), pp. 71-80
• “The Cinema of Intimidation: Nazi German War Documentaries, 1940-1941,” in Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, no. 4, 1996,485-514
• “Miklos Horthy and the Allies, 1945-1946,” Hungarian Studies Review, 23, no. 1 (Spring, 1997), 67-79
• “A Hungarian in the Comintern: József Pogány/John Pepper,” in Agents of the Revolution. New Biographical Approaches to the History of International Communism (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 220-245
• “A Communist Newspaper for Hungarian-Americans: The Strange World of the Uj Elore.” Hungarian Studies Review, 32, no. 1-2 (2005). 40-52
• “Gyula Gömbös and Hungarian Jews, 1918-1936,” Hungarian Studies Review, Vol. 33, nos. 1-2, 157-68
• “Sandor Goldberger/J. Peters es az amerikai kommunista mozagalom” (Sandor Goldberger/J. Peers and the American Communist Movement), Századok, Vol. 141, no. 1 (2007), pp. 185-202
• “The ‘Lautner Affair’ and the American Communist Party,” American Communist History, Vol. 6, no. 3 (December, 2010), 257-91
• “A Time of Tribulation for the White Water Shakers: The Child Molestation Trial of 1840,” American Communal Societies Quarterly, Vol. 5, no. 4 (October, 2011), 204-223
• “A Visit to the Shaker Village of White Water in 1881,” Communal Societies, 32, no. 1 (2012), 57-81
• “Lunacy and Dissent Among the Shakers,” American Communal Societies Quarterly, Col. 8, no. 2 (April, 2014), 67-93

Within the University of Cincinnati, he has served as:

• Member of University Athletics Committee (1976-1979)
• Member of A&S College Honors Council (1976-1980)
• Member of Committee to Establish Honors Special Topics Courses (1976)
• Member of Grant Review Committee of University Research Council (1980-81)
• Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, 1984-1989
• Director, Russian and East European Studies Program, University of Cincinnati (1986-Present)
• Member of University Research Council (1989-1990)
• Member of Taft Faculty Board (1992-1994)
• Chair, Taft Publications Committee (1993-1994)
• Representative of University of Cincinnati to the International Relations and Exchanges Program (IREX) (1994-Present)
• Member, Steering Committee of the University Graduate Minorities Program
• Acting Head, Department of History (1998, 2000)

Outside the University of Cincinnati, he has served as:

• Managing Editor: Hungary, for the journal East Central Europe (1972-1977)
• Secretary, American Association for the Study of Hungarian History (1973-1975)
• Consultant for Rutgers University Press (1974)
• Textbook Reviewer for Scott, Foresman, and Company (1976)
• President, American Association for the Study of Hungarian History (1978-1979, 1986-1989,1998-2000)
• Program Chairman, Midwest Slavic Conference (1980)
• Member, Program Committee, Ohio Academy of History (1981)
• Consultant for Columbia University Press (1983)
• Consultant for Indiana University Press (1985)
• Member, Editorial Board, Hungarian Studies Review (1989- Present)
• Member of Executive Committee, Association for the Study of Hungarian History (1993-95)
• Reader for the Advanced Placement examination in Modem European History, Trinity College (June 1994)
• Associate Editor (entries on Hungary and film) for the Encyclopedia of Modern East Europe, History
• Consultant on tenure decision,  University of Washington (Fall 1994)
• Consultant on promotion decision at University of Arizona (Fall 1995)
• Consultant on promotion decision at  University of Vermont (Fall 1997)
• Member, Council of Member Institutions, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1994-1997)
• Member, Fellowship Review Committee, IREX Fellowship Program on Central and Eastern Europe (1997-1999, chair 1999)
• Consultant on tenure decision at University of Florida (Summer 2000)
• Organizer and Chair of Program Committee, Biennial Meeting of IAMHIST (The International Association for Media and History) in Cincinnati (2005)

He has been a member of the following professional organizations:

• American Historical Association
• American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
• American Association for the Study of Hungarian History
• Film and History Conference Group
• IAMHIST (International Association for the Study of Media and History)
• Friends of White Water Shaker Village
• Communal Societies Association

He has received the following fellowships, grants, and honors:

• Foreign Area Fellowship (1969, 1970)
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (1975)
• Article Prize of the American Association for the Study of Hungarian History (1975)
• University of Cincinnati Teaching Council Grant (1976)
• University of Cincinnati Research Council Grant (1978)
• Taft Foundation Research Grants (1973, 1975, 1980, 1993)
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (1985)
• Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic (1992)
• Book Prize of the American Association for Study of Hungarian History (1995)
• Distinguished Achievement Award from University of Cincinnati (1995)
• Walter Langsam Professor of European History at the University of Cincinnati (1995)
• Awarded Rieveschl Prize for Scholarly Achievement – University of Cincinnati (2000)
• Fellow of the Graduate School – University of Cincinnati (2001)

Lectures and panel presentations include:

• A paper entitled “Miklos Horthy, Hungary, and the Coming of the European Crisis,” at the American Historical Association meeting of December, 1975
• A paper entitled “The Political Metamorphosis of Admiral Miklos Horthy, 1918-1921,” University of Cincinnati History Department Faculty Seminar, May, 1976
• A lecture entitled “Hungary in Revolt: 1956” at the College of Humanities, Ohio State University, October, 1976
• A paper entitled “The Great Powers and the Magyar Minorities of Interwar Europe” at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting, October, 1978
• A paper entitled “A Hungarian Diplomat in Nazi Berlin: Dome Sztojay” at the Pacific Coast Branch meeting of the American Historical Association, August, 1979
• Comment on a session entitled “The Armies of Danubian Europe on the Eve of World War II” at the Southern Slavic Association meeting of October, 1979
• A paper entitled “Kalman Kanya” (as part of a panel devoted to foreign ministers of interwar Eastern Europe) at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting, October, 1979
• Chairman of a session entitled “Functional Myth in East European History” at the American Historical Association meeting of December, 1979
• Paper on “Dome Sztojay” contributed to a symposium on “Hungary and the Third Reich” at the First International Conference on Hungarian History, May, 1981
• Lectures on “Admiral Miklos Horthy” and “Hungary and the Third Reich” delivered at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto, October, 1981
• A paper entitled” Admiral Miklos Horthy and the Jews of Hungary” at a University of Cincinnati Faculty Seminar, May, 1982
• A paper entitled “Hungarian Military Officers and the Bombing of Kassa” at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting, October, 1982
• A paper entitled “Admiral Horthy and the Fate of Hungary’s Jews in World War II” at the Conference on Russian and East European Studies, New College, March, 1983
• A lecture entitled” Admiral Horthy and Interwar Hungary” delivered at Indiana University, December, 1985
• A paper entitled” Admiral Miklos Horthy: Hungary’s White General” at a conference on “War and Society in East Central Europe” at the Rockefeller Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy, February, 1986
• A paper entitled “The Image of Admiral Miklos Horthy in Marxist Historiography,” at the American Association for the Advance1llent of Slavic Studies meeting, November, 1986
• Commentator at a panel entitled “Eastern Europe in 1938” at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting, November, 1988
• Organizer and Chair of a panel entitled “The Munich Crisis: A Retrospective after 50 Years” at the American Historical Association meeting, December, 1988
• A paper entitled “Film in the History Classroom” at the meeting of the International Association for Audio-Visual Media in Historical Research, July, 1989
• A paper entitled “Great Britain and the Establishment of the Horthy Regime” at the World Congress of Soviet and East European Studies, Harrogate, England, July, 1990
• Organizer and chairman of a panel entitled “Women in 20th Century Hungarian History” at the American Association for the Advance1llent of Slavic Studies meeting, October, 1990
• A paper entitled “Miklos Horthy and the Jews of Hungary” at the American Historical Association meeting, December, 1990
• A paper entitled “The White Terror in Hungary, 1919-1920” at the American Historical Association Pacific Coast Branch meeting, August, 1991
• Discussant at a panel entitled “The East European Question and the Atlantic Democracies in World War II” at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting, November, 1992
• A paper entitled “The Cinema of Intimidation: German War Documentaries, 1939-1941,” at the biennial meeting of the International Association for the Study of Film and History, Amsterdam, Holland, July, 1993
• A lecture entitled “Miklos Horthy in Hungarian and European History: A Reassessment,” at Indiana University, April, 1996
• A paper entitled “The Hungarian Mafia in the Comintern,” at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting, October, 1997
• A paper entitled “Gyula Gombos, the Jews, and the Remaking of Hungary, 1918-1936,” at the American Historical Association meeting, January, 1997
• A paper entitled “Gyula Gombos, Anti-Semitism, and the Jews of Hungary” at the AACPCS International Congress on Communist and Post-Communist Societies, in Melbourne, Australia, July, 1998
• A lecture entitled “Miklos Horthy and the Jews of Hungary” at the Sydney Jewish Museum, Sydney, Australia, July, 1998
• Commentator on a session entitled “New Research on Interwar Hungary” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boca Raton, Florida, September, 1998
• A paper entitled “The Hungarian Christopher Columbus: John Pepper and the American Communist Movement” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, St. Louis, MO, November, 1999
• Chair and commentator at a session entitled “Hollywood and Hungary” at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, St. Louis, MO, March, 2000
• A paper entitled “Miklos Horthy in European and Hungarian History: A Reassessment,” at the VI World Congress of Russian and East European Studies, Tampere, Finland, July, 2000.
• Commentator at a session entitled “Hungary and Poland: The Historical Relationship” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Denver, CO, November, 2000
• A paper entitled “Hungarians in the Comintern” at a conference devoted to “A Prosopography of the Comintern” at the University of Manchester, April, 2001
• Commentator at a session entitled “Jewish Identity in the Modern Hungarian Cinema” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Washington, D.C., November, 2001
• A paper entitlted “A Communist Newspaper for Hungarian-Americans: The Strange World of the Uj Elöre” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Washington, D.C., November, 2004
• Participant in a roundtable on “Teaching Film and History” at the biennial meeting of IAMHIST in Cincinnati in July, 2005.
• A paper entitled “Sandor Goldberger/J.Peters and the American Communist Movement,” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Denver, CO, November, 2005.
• A paper entitled “Hungarian-American Communists and the Rajk Trial” at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, MA, November, 2009.
• A paper entitled “A Time of Tribulation for the White Water Shakers: The Child Molestation Trial of 1840,” annual conference of the Communal Societies Association, South Union Shaker Village, September, 2011.
• A paper entitled “Hungarian Communists and the American Communist Party” at the annual of conference of the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Washington, D.C., November, 2011.
• A paper entitled “Mothers and Daughters at White Water Shaker Village,” at the conference of the Communal Societies Association, Oneida, N. Y, October, 2012.
• A paper entitled “Lunacy and Dissent Among the Shakers,” at the 2013 Shaker Seminar, Hancock Shaker Village, July, 2013.
• A talk entitled “Hungarian-Americans and Radical Left-Wing Movements” at an NEH Institute, Columbia University, June, 2014
• A talk entitled “The Last Shaker Apostate: Augustus Wager and Union Village, Ohio,” at the 2015 Shaker Seminar, at Sienna College, July, 2015.
• A paper entitled “The Last Shaker Apostate,” at the conference of the Communal Societies Association, Pleasant Hill Shaker Village, October, 2015.

Book reviews include:

• Maria Ormos, Franciaorszag es a keleti biztonsag, 1931-1936 (France and Eastern Security, 1931-36), in American Historical Review, April, 1972
• Gyula Juhasz, Magyarorszag kiilpolitikaja, 1919-1945 (Hungary’s Foreign Policy, 1919-1945) in East European Quarterly, September, 1972
• Mario Fenyo, Hitler, Horthy and Hungary. German-Hungarian Relations, 1919-1944 in American Historical Review, October, 1973
• Miklos Szinai (ed.), Bethlen Istvan titkos iratai (Secret Papers of Istvan Bethlen) in Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Spiling, 1974
• Peter Gosztony, Nikolaus von Horthy. Admiral und Reichsverweser, in East Central Europe, Part 2, 1976 II
• Paul Monaco, Cinema and Society. France and Germany during the Twenties in American Historical Review, February, 1977
• Tamas Zala, Az ujvilag probatetele. Tarsadalomrajz a szazadfordulo Amerikabol (Ordeal of the New World. A Sketch of American Society at the Turn of the Century) in Journal of American History, December, 1977
• Randolph Braham, The Hungarian Labor Service System in American Historical Review, October, 1978
• Aladar Komjathy, The Crises of France’s East Central European Diplomacy, 1933-1938 in East Central Europe, Part 1, 1979
• Gyula Juhasz, Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1918-1945 in Slavic Review, Spring, 1982
• Tibor Hajdu, The Hungarian Soviet Republic in Austrian History Yearbook, 1981-82
• Julian Borsanyi, Das Rättsel des Bombenangriffs auf Kaschau in Hungarian Studies Review, Part 2, 1983
• Charles Wojatsek, From Trianon to the, First Vienna Arbitral Award. The Hungarian Minority in the First Czechoslovak Republic, 1918~1938 in Canadian Review for the Study of Nationalism, 1983
• Marilyn Hitchens, Germany, Russia, and the Balkans: Prelude to the Nazi-Soviet
• Non-Aggression Pact in Slavic Review, Fall, 1984
• Gyorgy Ranki, Economy and Foreign policy. The Struggle of the Great Powers for Hegemony in the Danube Valley, 1919-1939 in Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, December, 1984
• Gyula Juhasz (ed.), Diplomaciai iratok Magyarorszag kUlpolitikaja a nyugati hadjaratt61 a Szovjetunio megtamadasaig, 1940-1941 (Diplomatic Documents on Hungary’s Foreign Policy from the Western Campaign to the Attack on the Soviet Union) in Slavic Review, Spring, 1985
• Stephen Kertesz, Between Russia and the West: Hungary and the Illusions of Peacemaking, 1945-1947 in Slavic Review, Winter, 1985.
• Gabor Vermes, Istvan Tisza. The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist in American Historical Review, Spring, 1987.
• Count Istvan Bethlen, Hungarian Politics during World War Two in Hungarian Studies Review, in Hungarian Studies Review, Spring, 1988.
• Stephen Borsody, The Hungarians. A Divided Country in Slavic Review, Fall, 1990.
• Jorg Hoensch, A History of Modern Hungary, 1867-1986, in Hungarian Studies, 6, no. 1 (1990)
• Anna M. Drabek et al., Das Parteiwesen Osterreichs und Ungarns in der Zwischenkriegszeit, in Austrian History Yearbook (1992)
• Ignac Romsics, Bethlen Istvan. Politikai eletrajza, in Slavic Review, Fall, 1992
• Richard Barsam, Non-Fiction Film: Ai Critical History, Professional and University Activates, in Historical Journal of Film., Radio, and Television, no. 1 (1994)
• Magda Adam, The Little Entente and Europe (1920-1929), in American Historical Review, April, 1994.
• Eva Marie Csaky, ed. Vom Gutachtetel1l rom Geachteten. Erinnerungen des k. undo k. ungarischen Aussenministers Emerich Csaky (1882-1961) in Austrian History Yearbook, 1995, 300-301
• Robert Fyne, The Hollywood Propaganda of World War II in Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, 1995,447-48.
• Andrew Handler. A Man for All Connections. Raoul Wallenberg and the Hungarian State Apparatus, 1944-1945, electronic review on the Habsburg Net, July, 1996.
• Brian Winston Claiming the Real. The Documentary Film Revisited, in Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, 1996, 448~450.
• Aniko Kovacs-Bertrand, Der ungarisctle Revisionismus nach dem ersten Weltkrieg,
• American Historical Review, 1998, 1218-79.
• Peter Haslinger, Hundert Jahre Nachbarschaft. Die Beziehungen zwischen Osterreich und Ungarn, 1895-1994, Austrian History Yearbook, 1998, pp. 289-290.
• Ignac Romsics, Geopolitics in the Danube Region: Hungarian Reconciliation Efforts, 1848-1998, Slavic Review, Spring, 2000, pp. 201-203.
• Ignac Romsics, The Dismantling of Historic Hungary: The Peace Treaty of Trianon, 1920, International History Review, (Mar., 2004), Vol. 26 Issue 1, pp. 177-179.
• Tibor Frank, Discussing Hitler: Advisers of U.S. Diplomacy in Central Europe, 1934-1941, in Austrian History Yearbook, 2005, p. 262.
• “Hungary’s Darkest Days (1939-1945) Revisited,” a review essay of Deborah Cornelius, Hungary in World War II. Caught in the Cauldron, in Hungarian Studies Review, Vol. 39, nos. 102 (2012), 113-20.
• Attila Kolontári, Hungarian-Soviet Relations, 1920-1941, in Slavic Review, Vol. 71, no. 3 (Fall, 2012), 677-78.