Brigitta Kinga Schvéd
Degrees: PhD in History (University of Pécs, 2026); MA in History (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, 2018); BA in History with Art History minor (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, 2014)
Research interests: early modern political thought in Britain and continental Europe; intellectual and conceptual history; media history and periodical studies; political iconography; early modern women’s intellectual history and self-representation
Publications: MTMT
Membership: Royal Historical Society, European Society for Periodical Research, European Society for the History of Political Thought, Magyar Történelmi Társulat (Hungarian Historical Society), Österreichische Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts (Austrian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies), Reformation Research Consortium
Contact: schved.brigitta.kinga[at]uni-nke.hu; Academia.edu; ResearchGate; ORCID; ODT
Projects: British Conservative Thought in a European Context; Traditions of Hungarian Constitutional and Political Thought
Brigitta Schvéd (born in Budapest in 1992) is an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute. She holds a BA and an MA in History and Art History from Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and a PhD in History (awarded summa cum laude, 100%) from the University of Pécs. Her doctoral dissertation examined the principle and concept of the balance of power in early eighteenth-century English political media. Her research focuses on early modern political thought, with an emphasis on eighteenth-century political theory, intellectual and conceptual history in Britain and continental Europe, as well as the study of political press and pamphlet literature of the period. Political iconography and the relationship between visual and verbal forms of political communication also constitute an important part of her work.
In recent years, she has also pursued research on Margaret Cavendish and early modern female self-representation in collaboration with Professor Ferenc Hörcher within the framework of an institutional research project. In November 2024, they presented their initial findings at a seminar of the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities (currently ELTE Research Centre for the Humanities), Institute of Philosophy. Schvéd subsequently presented their research to an international audience in a paper at the 2024 International Margaret Cavendish Conference, hosted by the University of Seville. This collaborative research has since been considerably expanded, and Schvéd and Hörcher are currently preparing a joint article on Cavendish’s autobiographical work A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life (1656). Reading the memoir alongside early modern women self-portraits, the study examines the interplay between textual and visual forms of self-fashioning.
Schvéd has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences and workshops in Hungary and abroad. Since beginning her doctoral studies, she has received research fellowships from the New National Excellence Programme and the Wacław Felczak Foundation. She has also conducted extensive archival and library research with Campus Mundi at the Senate House Library, the British Library, and The National Archives in London. She completed the long-established Concepta Summer School: Introduction to Conceptual History at the University of Helsinki in 2019 and the London International Palaeography School at the Institute of English Studies, University of London, in the same year. Between 2021 and 2026, she taught courses on early modern European history at the University of Pécs. She previously served as Reviews Editor of Újkor.hu and worked as an editor at Corvina Publishing House. Since 2024, she has been a member of the editorial board of Ceræ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and since 2025, she has served as an editor of the Journal of European Periodical Studies. In 2024, she spent seven months as a doctoral research fellow at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, where she worked on the completion of her dissertation.
Selected publications:
Schvéd, Brigitta: “These are Great and Noble Occasions for a Good Christian’s Joy” – Discourse on Peace and Balance of Power in the Political Sermons of John Adams (1662–1720). In: Boersma, Karla – Selderhuis, Herman J. (eds.): Wellbeing in Early Modern Christianity: Perspectives and Practices for a Happy Life. (Refo500 Academic Studies [R5AS], Band 102) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2024. pp. 225–255. DOI: 10.13109/9783666500855.225
Schvéd, Brigitta Kinga: Lengyelország első felosztása az erőegyensúly-diskurzus tükrében a kortárs londoni hetilapok véleménycikkeiben [The First Partition of Poland in the Balance-of-Power Discourse of Contemporary London Weeklies], Világtörténet 14 (46), no. 1 (2024): pp. 99–119.
Schvéd, Brigitta: “To Preserve that Balance of Power on which the Happiness and Prosperity of Europe Depend” – Discourse on the First Partition of Poland and the European Balance of Power in London Newspapers (1771–1774), RussianStudiesHu 6, no. 1 (2024): pp. 81–107. DOI: 10.38210/RUSTUDH.2024.6.5
Schvéd, Brigitta Kinga: The First Partition of Poland and the Issue of the European Balance of Power in Contemporary English Media (1772–1774), Specimina Nova Pars Prima Sectio Mediaevalis 11 (2021): pp. 203–225. DOI: 10.15170/SPMNNV.2021.11.10
Schvéd, Brigitta Kinga: The Concepts of Universal Monarchy and Balance of Power in Charles Davenant’s ‘An Essay Upon The Ballance of Power’ (1701), Specimina Nova Pars Prima Sectio Mediaevalis 10 (2019): pp. 251–263. DOI: 10.15170/SPMNNV.2019.10.13