20th Karlsruhe Dialogues - Speakers

György Dalos, born in 1943, grew up in Budapest in a Hungarian-Jewish family. He studied at Moscow University, where he specialised in German history. In 1964 he became a member of the Hungarian Communist Party, and in 1968 he was put on trial for anti-state activities (in the framework of the so-called Budapest Maoists’ Trial). This resulted in a suspended seven-month prison sentence as well as a temporary employment ban. After this, Dalos worked as a freelance translator from Russian and German. From 1984 to 1985 he held a fellowship from the Berlin Artist-in-Residence Programme and also worked at Bremen University’s Research Centre for East European Studies. Since 1987 Dalos has been living in Vienna and working as a freelancer at German radio stations (Deutschlandfunk, WDR). From 1992 to 1996 he was a board member of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and from 1995 to 1999 he was director of the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin (the Balassi Institute) and curator of the Focus of Interest on Hungary at the 1999 Frankfurt Book Fair. He has received numerous awards and honours, including the 1995 Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, the 2010 Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, and the 2015 German Federal Cross of Merit First Class. His publications include: Proletarier aller Länder, entschuldigt mich. Das Ende des Ostblockwitzes (1993); Ungarn in der Nußschale. Geschichte meines Landes (2004); and Geschichte der Russlanddeutschen (2014). His books have been published in numerous countries.