This book reconstructs the intellectual and political trajectory of Zoltán László (1881–1961), a representative figure of the East-Central European middle-class intelligentsia. His shifting positions—on nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, antisemitism, racism, and anticommunism—mirror the broader ideological and political transformations of the region from the nineteenth century to the aftermath of the Second World War.
Before 1914, László established himself as a journalist, writer, academic, and willing agent of Austro-Hungarian imperial policy. In the interwar period and during the Second World War, his expertise as a propagandist found expression in racist circles.
By examining László’s life as a case study, the book offers a microhistorical perspective on how members of the educated middle classes became implicated in, and often willing participants of, imperial, racist, and totalitarian projects. It demonstrates how the lived experience of one individual illuminates the complex entanglement of ideology, identity, and power in East-Central Europe’s modern history.

Krisztián Csaplár-Degovics is a Hungarian historian dealing with the Balkan-policy and colonial past of Austria–Hungary, nation- and state-building and humanitarian interventions in the Balkans. As the Head of the Department for Southeast European Studies, he is working for the ELTE Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. A Citizen of Vienna
1. Zoltán László’s Father Mihály (1849–1932) and His Milieu
2. Childhood and Secondary School
3. Young Adulthood
4. Adventures in Bosnia-Herzegovina
5. The Ambitious Journalist
6. The Creative Writer
7. The Orientalist
8. A Hungarian Soldier in the Service of Emperor Franz Joseph
Part II. A Citizen of Budapest
9. Life after the Catastrophe
10. Racial Protectionism in Everyday Life
11. Everyday Turanism in the Interwar Period
12. László’s Links to Interwar Hungary’s Extreme Right
13. His Final Years
Conclusion
Sources
Bibliography
Index