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>>/42214/ As the thaw set in the 80s the possibilities of the professional historians widened, so the change started earlier. Besides research of other eras (and ofc scientists of different fields) could reach out abroad, they could travel, cooperate with foreign (even Western, but probably not American) institutes, getting access to archives and so on. In fact - to stay the example above - the book I have about Hungary's military history from 1985 calls the destruction of the 2nd Hungarian Army at the Don a "tragedy" and absolves the Hungarian soldiers from the responsibility of the collapsing front. But the author only does that put the blame on the class enemy, the Horthyst officers, high command, the ruling class, and the Horthy-system itself. Compared, Horthy himself in a communique also absolved the soldier, but the army as a whole. We could say that is an overlap in opinion between these guys very far from each other on the political scale, then must be true. However Horthy also had ulterior motive, he wanted to keep morale up, or at least not shatter it in the whole country, plus wanted to show support of the homeland for the troops marching out of the most dangerous situation. But after '89-90 suddenly foreign books appeared on the market along with the works of semi-amateurs/semi-professionals. Curriculum changed - politics reshuffled the emphasis on many topics - too. I think pressure from all sides also led to the change in the tone of the historians. Today they reached to the point where they can safely say aren't the soldiers to blame, but not because of the system were at fault instead of them, they acknowledge that was the most what in that situation could be done. When people talk about the battle - beside the "what if" scenarios - they usually stick to what I previously wrote, the nursing grudges and accusations, like how the retreating German troops didn't help to our retreating troops - which has nothing to do with the actual battle itself -, or that our soldiers got boots with paper soles which was ruined by a puddle of water - this happened in WWI but was turned into a meme and it is repeated on every instance. Tho the critique - which also frequently echoed - that our army got a too long piece of front to defend compared to the size of the unit (to the low manpower), and for this the Germans are to blame, is justified. So all in all, it's not to bad where we are at. Picrel is a map from the book of 1985.