Gyermekrontó, liliomtipró: kiskorúak elleni szexuális zaklatások a magyar nyilvánosságban a 20. század első felében
Cradle Snatcher, Satyr, Child Molester: Sexual Abuse of Minors in the Hungarian Public Sphere in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Summary/Abstract: The emergence of paedophile abuse in the Hungarian public sphere is not a new phenomenon; abuse and violence against children received significant media attention from the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, especially from the 1920s onwards. The contemporary press regularly reported on sexual crimes committed against minors. The aim of this study was to analyse and interpret the representation of paedophile crimes in the Hungarian press in the first half of the twentieth century, as well as to examine specific sexual crimes that attracted particular attention using microhistorical methods. Based on various search terms (child molestation, cradle snatcher, satyr, sexual abuse of children, etc.), Arcanum (an online Hungarian database for historical journals) alone records thousands of press appearances during the period under review. The analysis focused particularly on how the news appears across different press outlets (sensationalism, opinion pieces, social drama, etc.), the scope and prominence of reports, and how the perpetrator and victim(s) were portrayed. What do we learn about them (social status, occupation, other crimes, etc.)? How were the journalist’s opinions, public sentiment, and social reactions presented within the reports? What political, social, or other factors might explain these trends? How can the Hungarian press be characterised within an international context?

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