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Anna Ambrosy

1/518 Highbury Rd

Glen Waverley 3150

Australia

Tel: +61 03 9877-7819

Price> $15.00 (Aus) + postage

INTRODUCTION

In 1983-1984 the (then) Victorian Ethnic Affairs Commission undertook a survey aimed at identifying the impact of changes in the manufacturing industry on a range of ethnic communities and migrant workers. The Hungarian community was amongst those surveyed and, as a result of the information obtained, it was decided that further research should be conducted to provide a more detailed profile of this community's characteristics and needs.

Subsequently, a large-scale research project, jointly funded by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and the Victorian Ethnic Affairs Commission, was Carried out in 1986-1987 by Anna Ambrosy and published under the title of A Survey of the Hungarian Community in Victoria.(1)

The results of this study provided government with substantial information about the ethnic Hungarians living in Victoria. Subsequently, other ethnic communities' researchers were encouraged to take this study as an example of what can and should be done in research.

In 1992, Anna Ambrosy began to collect data for Immigrant Stories, a new study, in which she intended to interview and present the life stories of some elderly Hungarians immigrants who had lived most of their lives in Victoria. Initially, participants were randomly selected from those respondents to A Survey of the Hungarian Community in Victoria who were sixty years or over at the time that survey was conducted. Unfortunately, in the intervening years, many of these respondents had passed away and additional subjects were drawn in through other sources. More recently, a number of the subjects whose lives have been documented here have also passed away.

It is interesting to note that a large proportion of the Hungarian immigrants who were involved in this study came from a wealthy, upper class background. They left their wealth and their high society life behind to start a new life as immigrants in Victoria. Many of the participants were highly educated and intellectual, though a small number came from working class backgrounds. Some came to Australia from present day Hungary, others from the former Hungarian territories.

Regardless of what they left behind, they started new lives here and worked without complaint in their new adopted, homeland, becoming honest and lawabiding Australian citizens.

In 2001, Anna Ambrosy published A Brave Nation: A Short Political and Social History of 20th Century Hungary (2) . The book contains a wealth of information that complements the fascinating oral histories documented in Immigrant Stories.

*A. Ambrosy, A Survey of the Hungarian Community in Victoria, Hungarian, Dezsery Publications, Adelaide, 1990

2 A. Ambrosy, A Brave Nation: A Short and Social Political History of 20th Century Hungary, Hungarian Life Edition, Melbourne, 2001