Balazs Trencsenyi

Balázs Trencsenyi is Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at Central European University (CEU) and serves as Director of the CEU Institute for Advanced Study in Budapest. He is also Co-Director of Pasts Inc., Center for Historical Studies, and a Member of the 'Democracy in History' Working Group at the CEU Democracy Institute. His academic leadership includes directing the Erasmus Mundus+ Program 'History in the Public Sphere' (2019–2023) and heading the History Department (2017–2020).

His educational background includes a PhD in Comparative History from CEU (2004), an MA in Nationalism Studies from CEU (1998), and an MA in Philosophy from Eötvös Loránd University (1997).

Trencsenyi is a leading scholar in the intellectual and political history of East Central Europe, with a focus on transnational and comparative approaches. His research examines political modernity, crisis discourses, nationalism, national characterology, anti-modernism, and the conceptual history of identity and temporality. He has directed major collaborative projects such as the ERC-funded 'Negotiating Modernity' and 'European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History.' His influential publications include the multi-volume A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe (Oxford University Press) and Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond (2025).

His recent articles reflect sustained engagement with crisis discourses, authoritarian regime-building, transnational intellectual history, and the politics of memory in East Central Europe. Themes across his work include the fragility of democracy, the legacy of state socialism, and the interplay between nationalism and modernity.

• CEU Community Service Excellence Award (2023)
• Fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2020)
• Member of Academia Europaea (2011)
• ERC Starting Grant (2008–2013)

Trencsenyi has supervised numerous doctoral students in political thought, nationalism, and intellectual history. He has led research clusters such as 'Crises of Democratization' under the CIVICA project and co-organizes the 'Invisible University for Ukraine' initiative. He is Editor of East Central Europe (Brill) and has served on editorial boards and peer-review panels for major academic institutions and journals. His teaching covers comparative history, political modernity, crisis discourses, and counter-cultural movements under socialism.