The silent exodus of the Central European University is a harsh reality for many. The process, requiring enormous efforts to professionally coordinate and execute the move of an institution this size, takes the whole summer.
The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA) documents the forced relocation of CEU from its home in Budapest to Vienna. The accumulated material—photo and video—will be archived and made available for future research and reference. As the official archives of CEU, Blinken OSA regards its duty to do this service for the entire community.
The draft plan for documenting the move will include an archival photo and video documentation of CEU’s premises in Budapest. There will be interviews with CEU faculty and staff on a voluntary base so that they could talk about their work at CEU and the moments of the great transformation. The project plans to reach out to CEU alumni who can also contribute with interviews to the documentation process. Furthermore, there are plans to set up an independent website where the staff of CEU could upload short videos.
Unknown to many, most of the offices are being emptied and vacated these days. We feel obliged to record the process for further research and reference in the hope of a future moment when researchers will be able to study the move with distance and fairness, removed from the turbulent era it is happening in.