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• LAJOS FEKETE, HUNGARIAN ROYAL MINISTER COUNCELLAR, DIRECTOR OF THE HUNGARIAN ROYAL ACADEMY OF MINING AND FORESTRY

  33-74

  Attila Bende

  Dénes Bartha

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  Lajos Fekete, Hungarian Royal Minister Counsellor, Forestry Academy professor is a leading figure in higher forestry education, who achieved indefeasible results in creating Hungarian language education and the Hungarian forestry language. Between 1872 and 1891, he headed the Department of Phytology and Silviculture at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Mining and Forestry in Selmecbánya, and from 1891 until his retirement he headed the Department of Forest Management. He played an important role in the organisation of the Academy campus, the construction of new educational buildings and the development and furnishing of the botanical gardens, as well as in the compilation and development of collections related to the subjects he taught (zoology, entomology, botany, climatology and soil science). Hungarian experiments in forestry began to take institutional form in 1897/98, and Lajos Fekete was responsible for this, as well as for the idea of establishing forestry education on a secondary level. Although he had already exceeded the possible age of retirement in 1894, his tireless work ethic kept him in the Academy. He enjoyed the confidence of the Academy's teaching staff and served as vice-principal in the academic year 1892/93, then as director in the academic years 1897/98, 1898/1899 and 1899/1900, and was also head of the forestry department. At the age of 69, on 1 October 1906, he was retired at his own request, because of his failing eyesight towards the end of his life. Thus, the last serving teacher of the first faculty of the Forestry Academy left the academy chair. On this occasion, he was awarded the title of Minister Counsellor in recognition of his services. In 1910, six years before his death, he received the highest recognition for his work, being accepted as a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. There is no branch of forestry science in which his work has not left a lasting mark. Despite this extremely productive and diversified career, which produced outstanding achievements in all fields, posterity has treated and still treats Lajos Fekete, whose work and human behaviour can stand as an example to us all, rather cruel.