Popular music scholars generally agree that the popular music studies discipline emerged between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s in Western Europe and North America, mainly on the initiative of young sociologists, and that it focuses primarily on modern pop-rock music. Many academics from the former Eastern bloc countries share this narrative. Consequently, the history of popular music’s systematic exploration in this region remains largely unknown. Recent years, however, have witnessed growing interest in the history of popular music research in East-Central Europe, as shown by a few (Czech, Slovakian, Polish, and Hungarian) texts, albeit focusing exclusively on local issues. The present study is the first to deal with the history of popular music research between 1918 and 1998 in a wider Central European context, and the Czech lands and Hungary in particular. It provides a detailed analysis of an extensive collection of Czech and Hungarian sources (archival materials and published texts of both an academic and non-academic nature – monographs, individual studies, articles in popular music magazines, and so on). It aims to show the specifics of theoretical reflection on popular music in both states and the manner and extent of the contacts between the respective scholarly communities in light of developments in popular music and cultural policy.