The Impact of Emigration on Hungarian Citizenship Law, 1945–64

State socialist regimes generally prohibited emigration altogether. Nevertheless, many people managed to leave the territory of Hungary, either legally or illegally, during and after the consolidation of the Communist regime. Those who left were branded as enemies and untrustworthy by the regime, which, however, periodically tried to lure some of them back, by proclaiming amnesty, or at least draw them into its political influence. This duality resulted in the question of the Hungarian citizenship of the emigrants remaining unsettled; later contradictory regulations were made, distinguishing between emigrants to “friendly” and Western countries, as well as between politically trustworthy and hostile emigrants, sometimes based on the date when they left Hungary. This study discusses the topic from the end of World War II to the consolidation of the János Kádár regime. The author explores the stormy relationship between emigration and citizenship law in these two decades based mainly on primary sources.