Do Not Forget This Small Honest Nation. Cardinal Mindszenty to 4 US Presidents and State Secretaries 1956–1971 as Conserved in American Archives and Commented by American Diplomats. A Documentary Overview. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B., and Tibor Zinner. English translation (foreword, narrative part between the documents) by Judit Zinner. (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2013. Pp. xxx, 417. $26.99 clothbound, ISBN 978-1-479-76860-8; $18.99 paperback, ISBN 978-1-479-76859-2.)
“His Eminence Files.” American Embassy Budapest. From Embassy Archives 15 (1971) / Mindszenty bíboros az Amerikai Nagykövetségen. Követségi Levéltár 15 (1971). Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. Second, updated ed. (Budapest: METEM [International Society for Encyclopedia of Church History in Hungary]. 2012. Pp. 368. ISBN 978-9-639-66225-4.)
The Cardinal Mindszenty Documents in American Archives. A Repertory of the Six Budapest Mindszenty Boxes/Mindszenty bíboros budapesti amerikai követségi tartózkodásának dokumentumai. Repertórium. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. [The Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty Papers, Subsidia 1.] (Pannonhalma: Pannonhalmi Főapátság. 2012. Pp. 288. ISBN 978-9-639-05389-2.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty. I. Documenta 1971–1975. Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása 1971–1975. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. (Budapest: METEM. 2007. Pp. 278. ISBN 978-9-639-66234-6.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty, II. Documenta 1956–1963. Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása, II. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. [End Page 342] Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. (Budapest: METEM. 2009. Pp. 264. ISBN 978-9-639-66234-6.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty, III/1., Documenta 1963–1966. Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása, III/1. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. (Budapest: METEM. 2010. Pp. 547. ISBN 978-9-639-66245-2.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty, III/2. Documenta 1967–1971.—Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása, III/2. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. (Budapest: METEM. 2012. Pp. 700. ISBN 978-9-639-66245-2.)
When Cardinal József Mindszenty (1893–1975), primate of Hungary, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a communist show trial in 1949, Pope Pius XII and the leaders of the Western world raised their voices in his defense, and Time magazine made him its “Man of the Year.” The cardinal became a symbol of anticommunist resistance, particularly for Americans. In 1956, after troops who sympathized with the anti-Stalinist uprising liberated him from his prison, the cardinal again garnered international media attention. Fifteen years later, at a time when Mindszenty was a “guest” of the U.S. legation in Budapest (which became an embassy in 1966), the cardinal reappeared in the news. But this time, Western mainstream media considered him a “relic of the past,” a man who had lost touch with reality. Delegates from East and West—U.S. officials, Vatican representatives, and communist leaders—were now engaged in détente and Ostpolitik, expressions of a political climate that viewed stubborn anticommunism as out of place. Since his death in 1975 as an exile in Vienna, the Hungarian cardinal has been mostly forgotten. This is not the case in Hungary, however. After the end of communism in 1989, he became a symbol to some of a national leader who never surrendered, whereas others regarded him as a narrow-minded reactionary. Hungarian Catholics initiated a process of beatification in 1994 that is pending today.
Most recently, Csaba Szabó, director of the Hungarian Institute of History in Vienna, and Margit Balogh, fellow of the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, have published new, extensive studies of Mindszenty’s life, based on a vast amount of archival materials that became accessible only after 1989.1 [End Page 343]