Opportunism and Enforcement: Hungarian Reception of Michurinist Biology in the Cold War Period

This chapter describes the impact of Lysenkoism in Hungary in terms of three topics and three stages. The topics we cover are the controversy’s effect upon the institutionalization of biology in postwar Hungary, the five strategies of response exhibited by Hungarian biologists, and Lysenko’s personal contribution to the demise of his theories in Hungary. The three historical stages these three topics are examined across are the reception to Lysenko’s theories in Hungary prior to the Cold War, the imposition of Lysenko’s theories upon Hungarian biology once the Cold War was underway, and the counter-reception to Lysenkoism, beginning in 1953.