Search

Search Results

• Report of the international workshop Science between Tradition and Innovation: Historical Perspectives

  153-160

  Tibor Bodnár-Király

  Views:

  130

  Conference Review on the workshop of Science between Tradition and Innovation: Historical Perspectives. On 28th and 29th of May 2019 ’The Patterns of the Circulation of Scientific Knowledge in Hungary, 1770–1830’ research group organized the conference on Science between Tradition and Innovation: Historical Perspectives in Szekfű Gyula Library (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest). The programme of the conference was based on the English and German papers of the Hungarian, Czech, Austrian and German guests and the members of the research group of history of science at Eötvös Loránd University Institute of History. The principle aim of the conference was to negotiate the East-Central European context of the problem of tradition and innovation which has become well-known in recent studies of history of science and cultural history. Periodically, the conference framed the frequently underrated, eighteenth-century period of early modern scientific culture. The thematic panels and papers investigated the historical and analitical implications of the long eighteenth century paying special attention to such questions as of the use of concepts, scientific practices, knowledge production, transfer processes, and scientific disciplines.

• Szabó Árpád klasszikus filológus, tudománytörténész életrajzi kronológiája Születése 100. évfordulójának tiszteletére

  146-154

  István Gazda

  Views:

  69

  THE BIOGRAPHY OF ÁRPÁD SZABÓ CLASSICAL PHILOLOGIST AND HISTORIAN OF SCIENCE. his collection of data reviews the most signiicant events of the long career of Árpád Szabó (1913–2000), an internationally recognized classical philologist and historian of science. He worked as a university teacher at the University of Debrecen, later moved to Budapest, but due o his role in the 1956 hapennings, he did not get a chance of teaching in Hungary until the 1990s. From the end of the 1950s he was an associate at the Institute of Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of Science, and during this period, against his political background, he had a compelling scientiic career. he chronology reviews his most important works, his lectures
  abroad and his role in the international scientiic circles.

• Benedek László ideggyógyász-professzor, a debreceni m. kir. Tisza István-Tudományegyetem 1935–36. tanévi rector magnificusa

  3 - 10

  József Mudrák

  Views:

  256

  László Benedek Professor of the Neurology, the Rector Magnificus of the Hungarian Royal István Tisza University of Debrecen during the academic year 1935/1936. The first professor of neurology and psychiatry and the director of the Department of Neurology of the University of Debrecen between 1921 and 1936 was László Benedek who studied at Cluj as a student of Károly Lechner. In the academic year of 1935/36 he held the post of the Rector of the university. This period was the era of silent development in the life of the university. Benedek as Rector focused on improving the living circumstances of the students. After his rectorate he was appointed to a professorship of the Péter Pázmány University of Arts and Sciences and the director of the Clinic of Neurology and Psychiatry in Budapest. His wife was the wellknown actress Irén Zilahy. After her tragic death in April 1944 Benedek collapsed and in March 1945 he committed suicide in Kitzbühel in Austria. László Benedek was a brilliant lecturer, an urging leader, and an inventive professor of science whose work in several partial branches of science was outstanding.

• BALÁZS GUSZTÁV: ILLUSTRATED CHRONICLE OF HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES

  298-301

  Béla Surányi

  János Kátai

  Views:

  112

  Béla Surányi and János Kátai are presenting the Gusztáv Balázs -edited book. The Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) with a new organisational structure was established on 1st February 2021, which also means that the national agricultural education is still searching its own path.

• The FIRST YEARS OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE OF DEBRECEN AND ISTVÁN TISZA

  98-105

  György Bazsa

  Views:

  141

  The study presents the remarkably small number and content of documents of the relationship between the Royal Hungarian University of Debrecen and Count István Tisza, a Hungarian politician. The presented period lasts between the beginning of the university's operation in 1914 until the politician's death on October 31, 1918. It also mentions the relevant elements of this relationship before and after the four-year period.

• Szarvas Pál kémia professzor élete és munkássága

  25-31

  Ernő Brücher

  Views:

  105

  The Life and Work of Pál Szarvas, Professor of Chemistry. At the University of Debrecen, the Faculty of Science was founded in 1949. The management boards of the new Faculty and of the University spared no effort to bring prominent scientists as leading members of the newly organized science departments. In this manner, Pál Szarvas was also invited in 1951 to come to Debrecen to be the Head of the Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry. His first task here was to organize the furnishing and equipment of the student and research laboratories, to initiate classroom teaching and research work despite the rather unfavourable financial conditions. From 1952 on the number of staff members began to increase and from the mid-1960s the level of the laboratory equipment was also improving. Research work was launched in the field of analytical chemistry, where various methods were developed for the determination of some rare metals in the presence of larger amounts of other elements. From the end of the 1960s the main research field of the Department was solution chemistry, the equilibrium and kinetic studies on the formation of complexes of transition metals and lanthanides with organic ligands. Another developing field was the synthesis and study of new boron-organic compounds. The focus of research in analytical chemistry shifted to the use of emission spectrography and atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Professor Szarvas was also involved in the leadership of the Faculty and of the University. He was Dean of the Faculty (1954–58) and the Rector of the University (1963–66). His activity was highly important in the preparation of the construction of the chemistry building. Professor Szarvas, who retired in 1975, played a significant role in the organization of the teaching and research work of the Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, which has exerted an important impact on the current existence and successes of the Department.

• REMEMBERING GYULA WALLESHAUSEN (19232010) RESEARCHER OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

  216-226

  Erzsébet Koósné Török

  Szilvia Molnár

  Views:

  109

  On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, we commemorate Gyula Walleshausen, an outstanding and dedicated authority in the Hungarian librarianship and the first great generation of librarians after 1945, and in addition, one of the most important researchers in the history of Hungarian agricultural education, agricultural higher education and agricultural vocational training. In the course of his work as a librarian and historian, he respected, analysed with his competent knowledge and transformed the historical values of the past into volumes with scientific precision, thus preserving and handing them down to posterity. His writings on librarianship and university history are indispensable, important basic works for anyone researching a subject he studied or anyone who is simply interested in the history of a library issue, institution or discipline. In this article, we commemorate his entire career and his work, but above all his work as an agricultural historian.

   

• The BOARD OF THE HUNGARIAN HERALDIC AND GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY.

  191-206

  József Mudrák

  Views:

  164

  In 1883, a group of Hungarian historians led by Baron Béla Radvánszky founded the Hungarian Heraldic and Genealogical Society, which brought together scholars of the auxiliary historical sciences (mainly family history, heraldry, sealology). Their journal, Turul, was published several times a year. The society and its management consisted of a few scholars, patrons of the arts, amateur family historians and archivists. After the Second World War, political attacks and lack of funds made it impossible to survive and it ceased to exist at the beginning of 1951. Family history and heraldry became a forbidden science for decades under the communist regime. This study provides up-to-date details of the society’s management, based largely on the minutes of its general meetings published in the journal.

   

• REZSŐ BOGNÁR PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, RECTOR MAGNIFICUS OF THE KOSSUTH LAJOS UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES BETWEEN THE ACADEMIC YEARS 1951-54. AND 1973-75

  3-23

  Márta Virágos

  Ferenc Sztaricskai

  Views:

  133

  Rezső Bognár graduated from the József Nádor University of Technology and Economics in Budapest and worked beside Géza Zemplén at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Applied Sciences unil 1950. At the age of 35 he already became a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.  He moved to Debrecen as an academic, where he organised the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University's newly established Faculty of Natural Sciences.  The four decades he has spent in Debrecen have spread far beyond the walls of the institute, since he was rector of the university for a total of five academic years, and vice-rector for seven academic years, both positions he has held on two occasions. He played a particularly significant role in enabling the Debrecen Academic Committee to start its work in 1976 and to build its headquarters in Debrecen.  

• The DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OLOMOUC IN THE 17TH-18TH CENTURIES

  111-130

  Libusc Spacilova

  Views:

  53

  The Jesuits founded a grammar school in Olomouc in 1566, adding a philosophy faculty in 1576 and a theology faculty in 1582. The document describing the Jesuit educational system, Ratio et institutio studiorum, divided education into three stages, the highest of which was called studia superiora, and included philosophy and theology. From the second year onwards, students studied mathematics, astronomy and geography, and in the third year, from 1637 onwards, ethics. The Jesuits did not pay much attention to the teaching of the natural sciences, as these subjects undermined the authority of the Church and contradicted fundamental Church dogma. As a result, in the second half of the 17th century and the early 18th century, only very sporadic research and education in the sciences developed. Nevertheless, the University of Olomouc did have professors engaged in mathematical, physical and astronomical research, including a number of foreign-born scientists. In scholastic disputations, topics approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, mostly controversial, were discussed. Nonetheless, we do find here scientific topics in philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, although not in as large a number as would have been desirable.

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

  33-74

  Attila Bende

  Dénes Bartha

  Views:

  102

  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.

• ON THE HISTORY AND SITUATION OF THE HUNGARIAN RECTORS’S CONFERENCE – SEEN FROM DEBRECEN

  143-163

  György Bazsa

  Views:

  159

  The Hungarian Rectors’ Conference was established in 1988 by the rectors of 19 universities in the spirit of intensifying self-organization and representation of the interests of higher education. HRC undertook and played a decisive role in the change of our higher education, in consolidating its autonomy and social role, as well as in the preparation and implementation of the first Higher Education Act. The framework of its operation, the impact and effectiveness of its activities were further shaped partly by its own aspirations and partly by the frameworks provided or limited by the current government. Recently, the role and weight of HRC both in the radically modified domestic and the changing authoritative international higher education space has sharply decreased, although its active role would be important for our institutions, science and society: the voice of universities must be heard and recognized everywhere.

   

• Az 1944 novemberében-decemberében Budapesten felavatott debreceni doktorok

  126-129

  József Mudrák

  Views:

  97

  INAGURATION OF DOCTORS IN DEBRECEN IN NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER OF 1944. After war had reached the István Tisza University in Debrecen in October 1944, the majority of the professors led to Budapest where they held several meetings. Doctors, who had received their degree earlier, were inagurated in Budapest between November 4 and December 20 in the name of the Debrecen University (23 medical, 3 law, 3 political science, 2 arts doctorate certiicates were given). he partly oicial operation in Budapest lasted until the second part of December, while some of the professors in Budapest, some in rural areas waited out the end of the ights. Some, though, had joined the medical training in Halle and Breslau organized by András Csilléry appointed government commissioner.

• REFORMED COLLEGE OF SÁROSPATAK (Áron Kovács, Éva Kusnyír)

  158-159

  Ádám Hegyi

  Views:

  112

  Book review by Ádám Hegyi

• A debreceni Stomatologiai Klinika története Adler Péter professzor vezetése alatt (1946–1979)

  11 - 23

  Barna Kelentey

  Views:

  398

  History of the Stomatology Clinic in Debrecen under the Leadership of Professor Péter Adler (1946–1979). With the approaching front of the 2nd World War in October 9, 1944, Professor András Csilléry head of the Stomatology Clinic left Debrecen because of his political views, so the institution remained without a leader until 17th November. Thereafter as a substitute, trainees then Stefánia Morvay Assistant Lecturer under the supervision of Professor Gyula Verzár was the head. From June 20, 1946, Péter Adler was assigned to the lead, which was one of the longest leading positions of the Faculty of Medicine since he was director of the clinic until July 1, 1979. Péter Adler graduated from the University of Vienna, where he specialized in the field of Dentistry and worked at the Department of Orthodontics at the Polyclinic of Vienna, while in spring 1939 he had to return home for political reasons. During the war he worked as a translator and then assigned to forced labor, and after the war, he was placed to the Stomatology Clinic in Debrecen. From 1948 he worked as a chief clinician, in 1952 he became candidate of sciences (CSc), and in 1953 he was appointed as a university professor. He received Doctor of Science (DSc) degree in 1957. He was a member of the editorial board of several foreign professional journals, he was accepted by several international editorial boards, wrote several textbooks. He translated two books written by others into German. He was chairman of the Association of Hungarian Dentists and Editor-in-Chief of the Stomatologica Hungarica. The main topics of the research at the Stomatology Clinic are: examination of hypersensitivity to dental anesthetics, clarification of many details of caries epidemiology, proof of the protective effect of fluoride against caries. Under his leadership there was a dynamic scientific work on the Stomatology Clinic, proven by the fact that between 1945–1980 12 books, 487 publications, book chapters and monographs appeared, which was unique among similar national institutions. He lay down the fundaments of the dental education in 1976 and contributed the architectural and professional requirements of the new Stomatology Clinic in 1981.

• THE AMBASSADOR OF THE RECOMMENCEMENT: ISTVÁN BENCSIK (1953-1970)

  5-14

  Béla Surányi

  Views:

  83

  Agriculture played a significant role in consolidating the domestic political system after 1956. The rapid development of the Hungarian agricultural sector's performance contributed significantly to the country's relations with the economically developed regions of the world, with the so-called Hungarian model incorporating backyard farming into large-scale agriculture. However, this progress was achieved through an arduous road to development, resulting in internationally recognised vocational training standards in agriculture, particularly in higher agricultural education. Since the second half of the 1960s, there has been a noticeable development in the agricultural sector in Hungary. It has managed to preserve the creative traditions of its historical peasantry to a certain extent. The Debrecen agricultural higher education had a decisive role in the ambitious development of Hungarian agriculture. István Bencsik was an outstanding player in this process, actively contributing to the material and intellectual foundation of higher education in Debrecen. His work later impacted the agriculture of Tiszántúl and the wider region.

• Frühneuzeitliche Disputationen: Polyvalente Produktionsapparate gelehrten Wissens

  210-214

  Ádám Hegyi

  Views:

  126

  The disputatio research is very popular in the Hungarian Cultural Studies. The book helps us to understand what is the opinion of the German Historians about the role of disputacio in the Early Modern Age culture.

• The BEST WORKER OF THE UNIVERSITY’S ESTABLISHMENT - IN HE MARGIN OF AN OBITUARY

  145-149

  György Bazsa

  Views:

  184

  Count József Degenfeld took on a decisive role in the establishment of the University of Debrecen on the one hand as the major of Debrecen and on the other hand as the chief guardian of the Trans-Tisza Reformed Diocese. The state university has already expressed its honour symbolically in his life by providing the solemn address as a church official at the inauguration of the reception building in the presence of the royal couple. When he died it issued a special obituary acknowledging him as ”the best worker of the university’s establishment”.

• Beáta Tombi: Science and Popular Education in Italy in XVII-XVIII century

  László Pete

  Views:

  159

  Where we could draw the line between scientifique and general information publications? What are the main criteria based on which we could separate the scientifique and educational texts? These are the questions that are to be answered in the new book of Beata Tombi, lecturer of the University of Pecs. The book review was prepared by Laszló Pete.

• Emlékképek Fornet Béla professzor úrról és az I. sz. belklinikai otthonunkról

  133-137

  János Hankiss

  Views:

  50

  Flashes of Memory: About Professor Béla Fornet and Our Home at the Clinic of Internal Medicine One. Retired internalist head physician, titular professor, and writer-doctor János Hankiss reminiscenses about his years spent in Debrecen. The guiding spirit of the clinic of internal medicine headed by Professor Béla Fornet was this: the patient comes first. Moreover, it is not the disease that has to be treated, the sick man has to be cured, at the highest possible level of science and at the same time with a humane attitude. Forms of refresher training, reading, scientific research are required to make treatment ever more efficient. The mode of presentation is unusual: it assumes the form of a dialogue, and concrete memories elicit distilled ideas.

• Szakszerűség, tudományosság, kritikusság – a politikai aktivitás kezdetei az egyetemi ifjúság körében kétszáz éve

  43 - 58

  János Ugrai

  Views:

  198

  Comp etence, Erudition and Critical Thinking. The Beginnings of Political Act ivity among University Students in the Early 19th Century. The first decade of the 19th century was a period of significant change in terms of the political activity of European university students. They had come forward before in hope of achieving interest- or value-based goals, and in such cases, they exhibited a considerable ability to promote their own interests. However, their involvement and political role was entirely different in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times. From the 1810s on, the opinion and activity of university student as political actors independent from both the university and the professors were taken into account – and often even feared – by the political elite in power. The transformation of university students’ political role was the result of several, almost simultaneous changes accumulating. Due to the branching off of professional degrees and the increasing expertise of their scientific base, expectations of civic engagement based on critical thinking, and a new kind of uncertainty deriving from various sources made university students especially responsive to problems of their times. Several factors played a vital role in this growing responsiveness: the (cameralist) teachings of the Enlightenment; the strengthening of academies of science, which were the primary competitors of universities; as well as a concomitant separation of disciplines and the disappearance of the shared theological-philosophical-philological language used before. These factors were intensified by career starter graduates’ recurring fears of unemployment – triggered by processes of professionalization – which further increased university students’ interest in public affairs and their political activity.

• The LEADERS OF THE AGRICULTURAL HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS OF DEBRECEN BETWEEN 1868 AND 1945

  79-88

  Béla Surányi

  Views:

  129

  . In 2018, Debrecen's agricultural higher education celebrated a century and a half since its foundation. In the decades since, it has become the country's leading professional education institute for agriculture. It was born in the post-1867 Reconciliation era, realising the vision of the city's farmer society, in line with the  state's engagement, which extended the scope of central power, and gave a new impetus to Hungarian education policy and helped to launch the modernisation of Hungarian agriculture. This special anniversary has inspired the chroniclers of our times to provide an overview of the scholarly teachers of a century and a half who were school founders, who were at the head of the institution for a considerable period of time, and whose activities included enhancing the quality of Hungarian agricultural higher education. The articles in the university history journal, Gerundium, serve this purpose.
  
  

• Ramism in the KIngdom of Hungary and in Transylvania

  Gábor Kecskeméti

  Views:

  195

  Ramism in the Kingdom of Hungary and in Transylvania. The study reviews the impacts of Ramism on the scholarly, pedagogical, and cultural life of the Kingdom of Hungary and of Transylvania, including the local publications in grammar, rhetoric, homiletics, and logic, and the presence of Ramist considerations and components in domestic education. Judging by the evidence of its reception in Hungary and Transylvania, we can conclude that Ramist influence was present in the main Calvinist institutions, that is, in the colleges at Gyulafehérvár, Kolozsvár, Sárospatak, Várad, and Debrecen during the mid- and late seventeenth century. Such influence affected the whole system of classification of the academic sciences, and elements of Ramism remained detectable until the mid-eighteenth century. More sporadic, but not insignificant, was Ramist influence usually taking a more syncretic form at Lutheran institutions that adhered to essentially Melanchthonian pedagogy.

  Literary works by Hungarian authors with Ramist and, often, Puritan convictions are clearly understandable texts characterized by their conceptual plainness and clarity, which include only a few elements of belletrism, affective attraction, and literary originality in their predominantly rational argumentation. That such texts strive primarily for intellectual rationality is clearly connected with the authors’ Ramist mindsets, because, under a strictly Ramist theoretical framework, only a small number of the taxonomic processes which distinguish literary works from the natural order of precise, objective, rational discourse could be accepted.

• PORTRAIT OF DEZSŐ SZABÓ, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

  Attila Marosvári

  Views:

  13

  Dezső Szabó was professor of history at the University of Debrecen for 35 years from 1924 to 1959. He graduated from the University of Budapest with a degree in History and Latin. It was at the instigation of his patron, Henrik Marczali, that he began his research on the Hungarian assemblies of the pre-Mohács period. He also wrote his doctoral dissertation on this topic. Thanks to his excellent academic achievements, he graduated from the university with a royal gold ring of honour (sub auspiciis regis). He taught for many years in secondary schools and in 1912 became a privatdocent at the Budapest University of Science. In February 1924, Governor Miklós Horthy appointed him full professor of medieval and modern (universal) history at the University of Debrecen. At that time, his research was already focused on the Urbarium of Maria Theresa. In 1931 he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He published relatively little and concentrated his activities on secondary school teacher training. He was the dean of the Faculty of Humanities for four academic years. He made an invaluable contribution to the reorganisation of university education in 1944. Despite this, he was repeatedly persecuted under the new regime and was only able to retain his chair thanks to the intervention of his influential students. He retired at the age of 77. The second and third volumes of his work, A magyarországi úrbérrendezés története Mária Terézia korában, which is considered the major work of his life, are still awaiting publication.

• EARLY MODERN DISPUTATIONS AND DISSERTATIONS IN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY AND EUROPEAN CONTEXT

  238-244

  Ádám Hegyi

  Views:

  159

  Book review by Ádám Hegyi