On May 21, 2026, the Institute for Minority Studies at the ELTE Research Center for Social Sciences, in collaboration with the Forum Institute in Somorja and the National Institute for Minority Studies in Cluj-Napoca, presented “Károly Tóth: The Ghost of Autonomy. Studies, Essays, Articles, Conversations 1982–2013” at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Research Center for the Humanities in Budapest. The recording of the book launch can be found here.

Károly Tóth (February 27, 1959 – September 10, 2016), a Slovakian Hungarian literary critic, academic administrator, editor, and politician, and founding director of the Forum Institute for Minority Studies, had his works edited and annotated by Kálmán Balla and Tamás Gusztáv Filep.

According to the editors’ afterword: “This volume on Károly Tóth is neither an anthology nor a collection of selected writings; rather, it is intended to provide a complete picture of his work, his activities, his thinking, and, in a certain sense, his life as well. A decade after Károly Tóth’s …death and three years after the establishment of the Forum Institute, we saw the need for a substantially complete publication of his written oeuvre as more urgent than ever…”

The book launch was attended by František Mikloško, former Speaker of the Slovak Parliament; Peter Zajac, literary critic and former Member of Parliament; Ágnes Kiss, political scientist at the National Institute for Minority Studies in Cluj-Napoca; and Nándor Bárdi, historian at the ELTE Faculty of Humanities’ Institute for Minority Studies. The event was moderated by Iván Gyurcsík, external collaborator at the ELTE Faculty of Humanities’ Institute for Minority Studies and lecturer at NKE.

The speeches delivered at the book launch will be published in our Institute’s quarterly academic journal, REGIO.