Hungarian Academy of Sciences

of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1825-2001)

 

The need for establishing a scholarly society was first mentioned by Act VIII of 1808. During the last decade of the 18th and the first decade of the 19th century, various plans were conceived for the establishment of an academy for developing and propagating the Hungarian language and for promoting the development of science, but funds for establishing such a society were not available. This question was often raised until, at the November 3, 1825, district session of the Diet in Bratislava (the seat of the Hungarian Parliament), the county delegates started a debate on the matter of a Hungarian Learned Society, criticizing the magnates for not making sacrifices for a national cause. It was there that Count István Széchenyi offered one year's income of his estate for the purposes of a learned society.

Széchenyi's example was followed by Ábrahám Vay, Count György Andrássy, and Count György Károlyi, who also made significant contributions to the founding of the society.

 

First decades (1825-1867)

The task of the society was specified as the development of the Hungarian language and the study and propagation of the sciences and the arts in Hungarian. Act XI of 1827 stated: "The voluntarily and freely donated capital in money shall be used to establish the Learned Society, that is, the Hungarian Academy."

The foundation of the Learned Society in Hungary, then on the threshold of bourgeois transformation, meant the realization of earlier aspirations that held that developing the Hungarian language and the flourishing of science were one of the important means of national progress.

A committee of the four founders and eleven writers and scholars worked out the bylaws of association, which the monarch endorsed in 1831, and the first "general assembly" of the Hungarian Learned Society convened on February 14, 1831.

The foundation itself pointed in the direction of bourgeois development, while the bylaws and the organization reflected the feudal conditions of the time of their conception. The Learned Society was directed by a 25-member Governing Board confirmed by the king. The Governing Board of mostly aristocrats and Church dignitaries selected the first members, elected the president and vice-president from among themselves and managed the Society's assets. The president and the vice-president were confirmed by the king. The bylaws stipulated that the Society was obligated to submit its publications to censorship, and its members were obliged to abstain from politics.

Society members gathered in six sections: I. Linguistics, II. Philosophy, III. Historiography, IV. Mathematics, V. Jurisprudence, VI. Natural Science. In accordance with the bylaws, the Society had 24 honorary, 42 full, and an unspecified number of corresponding members. The first full members included the poets Dániel Berzsenyi and Sándor Kisfaludy, the writer and language reformer Ferenc Kazinczy, the poets and dramatists Károly Kisfaludy and Mihály Vörösmarty. The first president of the Learned Society was Count József Teleki, its vice-president Count István Széchenyi, and its first secretary Gábor Döbrentei, who was replaced by Ferenc Toldy, a physician and literary historian, in 1835.

Its work was regulated by weekly meetings and annual assemblies. Members reported on their research results, students of the arts read their poems and literary works. The themes of competitions were worked out and subsequently judged at the weekly meetings. Commemorative lectures were also read there. Attendance was compulsory for full members residing in Budapest. Sections began to hold separate meetings only from the 1840s on. New members were elected by the assembly by secret ballot on the written recommendation of honorary and full members.

Organizing the Society's library enriched the Society and helped improve the conditions of scholarly work. Its foundations were laid by the Teleki family's 30,000 volume library and enriched by further donations and the foreign exchange of books. It also acquired important manuscript bequests.

János Arany described the first decade of the Academy as follows: "When our Society was founded, in six sections at first according to the six main sciences, the sections were not separated according to the needs of independent work. The Academy always holds joint meetings; and, generally, true to the aim formulated in the bylaws, namely, 'the study and propagation of the sciences in Hungarian', it tends to regard itself a 'language cultivating' association in accord with the old wish of the patriots, rather than a scholarly society working according to fields of study. At this time, the minutes show an intimate, almost familiar picture of the sessions. A few honorary, 8 or 10 full members, the anointed representatives of literature, and sometimes one or two corresponding members gather weekly. They confer and criticize articles in the journal; sometimes the subject is some field of study, the bee-like busy collection of dialectal words and technical terms; the screening and re-coining of the latter; preparatory work in wording and lexicography, the encouragement of belles lettres, the standardization of literary language, making the achieved aesthetic revival permanent, and further developing it; in short, aspirations to improve and expand the Hungarian language, to propagate science in Hungarian. This effort is made not only at the center: the corresponding members are under obligation to send in strictly taken periodical reports and they are assigned with supervision of provincial printing houses, etc. The machinery is simple, but, in view of the results, the years of self-sacrificing work that the most eminent among us have put into things, sometimes not meant for geniuses, deserves all our gratitude."

During the first decade of the Learned Society's existence, its organizational framework operational system were established. At the same time, the partly organizational shortcomings, which became an obstacle to work, also came to the surface. The emergent reform aspirations in the country also exerted their influence in the Society, as a result of which proposals and demands for increased professionalism, as well as certain organizational changes, were formulated. A debate started on the aims of the Society over whether the Academy was a scholarly or a linguistic institute. Proposals were made to reorganize the six sections into four or three sections and concurrently establish their autonomy in their respective fields of study. There were criticisms of the power wielded by the Governing Board and the learned body's dependent position. It was noted that the natural sciences needed greater scope and greater financial assistance. These aspirations led to certain internal changes, but any modification of the bylaws was resisted by the Court.

The Learned Society, or the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (as it came to be called after 1845), worked successfully up to 1848 in developing the Hungarian language and literature and the national theater. It espoused the collection of Hungarian folk poetry, posted competitions for the solution of questions of national interest, and commissioned the writing and translation of plays. It laid the foundations for scientific book and journal publishing in Hungary. It regularly awarded prizes for outstanding scientific and literary achievements.

The prelude to and outbreak of the 1848 revolution, again brought the unsolved questions to the surface. On March 20, 1848, preparations for reforming the bylaws began. Some of the proposals for reform put forth that officers be elected by the members and not by the Governing Board, that the state extend financial assistance to the Academy, and that the lectures be made public. Others said that the measure of Academy members should be talent and knowledge, not birth or privileges. However, military actions pursuant to the outbreak of the revolution prevented the convening of the assembly to modify the bylaws as planned for the fall. The reform had to wait for better times. But they did not come.

The country's occupation after the defeat of the revolution and the war for independence greatly restrained the work of the Academy. It resumed partial activity only in spring 1850 with the imperial commissioner's permission. It was allowed to hold the weekly meetings but not the assembly for electing members. The new vice-president, Count György Andrássy, instead of the sickly president, directed the Academy's limited work.

The Academy - on imperial order - requested a license to operate, the granting of which was conditional on the modification of the bylaws. The new bylaws were framed by the government, approved by the monarch, and acknowledged by the Academy only in 1858. Until then it was allowed to work - for years without legal grounds - only under the direct supervision of the imperial commissioner. Permission was needed to hold meetings, and these were attended by the imperial commissioner.

The dual nature of the new bylaws characterizes the period well. On the one hand, it reflected dependence, the strict control exercised over the scope of activity by the ruling power which treated the country as if it were a province. Accordingly, instead of election by the Governing Board, it was the monarch who selected one of three candidates for the presidency, and instead of election by the assembly, it was the governor-general who nominated new members. On the other hand, it contained those changes in the Academy's organizational structure which guaranteed the framework for activity by legalizing the committee system, still in an early stage of development, and independent section meetings. Henceforth the institution was officially called the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

After nine years, the Academy held its ceremonial general assembly in December 1858. Its greatly reduced membership acquired 74 new members. This was the time when such eminent figures of Hungarian literature as the poet János Arany, the doctor-writer Pál Gyulai, the novelist Mór Jókai, the historian Sándor Szilágyi, and the art historian Arnold Ipolyi became members. The number of representatives of the natural sciences also grew significantly. They included the surgeon János Balassa, the geographer János Hunfalvy, and the physicist Ányos Jedlik, the engineer József Stoczek, the geologist József Szabó. In the 1850s, more than half of the Governing Board members were replaced. Baron József Eötvös and Ferenc Deák joined the leading body in 1855. This same year, Count Emil Dessewffy succeeded József Teleki as president, and Baron József Eötvös became vice-president.

In the 1850s, debates at the Academy, operating under difficult circumstances, were renewed from time to time, in order to decide the role of scholarship and the Academy in society, its function in the bourgeois transformation of society. One group of social and natural scientists, who considered the exploration of reality to be the task of science and the service of the emerging bourgeois Hungary to be the Academy's national duty, came into conflict with those forces that tried to effect even the inevitable and absolutely necessary changes by relying solely on the aristocracy. By the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s, the balance of forces in the Academy changed in favor of a rational, realistic policy. The Academy was directed increasingly by Vice-President József Eötvös; Ferenc Toldy was succeeded by László Szalay as secretary in 1861 and he, in turn, by János Arany in 1864.

In the 1860s, the Academy's activity was increasingly pervaded by the science policy principle, according to which the results achieved in the natural and engineering sciences abroad were to be adopted and the sciences "developed further to the best of our ability." Furthermore, the social sciences had to employ modern methods to explore and show the nation's historical past, past and present life conditions, changes in the economy, the processes of urbanization. Secretary János Arany put this program as follows: "There's one thing mainly that awaits us Hungarians above all: to discover our country in every respect and show it to the world. When every lump of soil on this holy land of ours becomes known, every piece of stone reveals where it came from, whom it met; when everything living that breeds and moves there and that we have collected becomes part of one system; when we learn ... its moods, the nature of winds that bring rain and drought; when we unearth the deepest layers in the burial ground of its peoples, and, especially, when we see the language and actions expressing the past and present of those living today - of our dear nation - in the light of science, we acquire a political capital that cultured foreign countries are most happy to recognize."

Development of the system of committees continued in the 1860s with the setting up of the Statistics Committee alongside the Historiographic, the Linguistic, and the Archeological Committees set up in the 1850s.

The Academy became a national scholarship center in the 1860s, and it made several national initiatives to strengthen this position. It spoke up for the preservation of documents in the county and city archives, and initiated the establishment of the Statistical Office; its Archeological Committee dealt with the protection of monuments. It also wished to promote the process of bourgeois transformation through competitions.

During the course of this decade, the Academy's income grew considerably as a result of increased donations, in which the national collection for the construction of the Academy played an important part, and rising interest rates on foundation funds. In 1867, for the first time since its establishment, it also received a state subsidy.

The inauguration of the building of the Academy in 1865 was an important event in its history. Its reading rooms, conference rooms, art gallery, collection of minerals, and rich library offered great opportunities for scholarly work.

 

After the Compromise (1867-1949)

The Compromise of 1867 created a new situation in the country's life. The changes prompted the Academy to rid itself of the restraints imposed by the bylaws of 1858. The new bylaws were adopted in 1869 and, with a few modifications, remained in force until 1945.

According to the bylaws, the Academy's aim was the study of science and - adhering to the traditions of the reform period - the study and propagation of literature in Hungarian. The bylaws defined three scientific sections: I. Linguistics and Aesthetics; II. Philosophical, Social, and Historical Sciences; III. Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

The role and composition of the Governing Board changed significantly. Management of the Academy's assets and financial affairs remained within its jurisdiction. In addition to the president, vice-president, and secretary-general, it had 24 members, 12 of whom were elected from among the founders and the patrons of science, the other 12 from among the members of the Academy. The organizational change in 1869 promoted a more autonomous and free development of the sciences.

In the decades following the Compromise, the Academy's international relations began to gradually grow. From the 1870s, Hungarian scientists representing the Academy began to attend international congresses with increasing frequency. In 1900, the Hungarian Academy joined the International Association of Academies. Granting honorary membership to foreign scientists indicated the broadening of international relations. Already in 1858, the English historian Michael Famday, the German geographer Alexander Humboldt and historiographer Leopold von Ranke, and the Finnish folklorist Elias Lönnrot became members of the Academy. The English philosopher John Stuart Mill and natural scientist Charles Robert Darwin, the German physician Rudolf Virchow, the French chemist Louis Pasteur, the Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, and the French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincaré, among others, were elected honorary members in the ensuing decades.

The Academy's role in society and scientific life changed during the last decades of the 19th century. Its weight and influence began to decline, and its energetic development came to a standstill.

From the 1870s, everyday life began to make demands on scientific research with increasing urgency. Agricultural needs were the first to induce the state to establish experimental research institutes. Mining interests led to the establishment of an independent institute for geological research. The Academy was not entrusted with directing the work of institutes which came into being under the supervision of the respective ministries. This was due not only to the Academy's autonomy but also to its cumbersome administration. In addition to research institutes, experimental laboratories directly serving practical needs and research centers at universities were also gradually established. All this took place outside the walls of the Academy.

In the last decades of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, the Academy came increasingly under attack - and not without reason - for isolating itself from social progress, from urgent social problems. Because of its conservatism, it was also incapable of espousing the new trends in literature and art. During this period it owed its prestige mainly to outstanding natural scientists such as the physicist Loránd Eötvös, the chemist Vince Wartha, the biologist István Apáthy, the mathematician Gyula Kőnig, the doctors of medicine Endre Hőgyes and Mihály Lenhossék, the mathematicians Lipót Fejér and Frigyes Riesz, the veterinarian Ferenc Hutyra, and the mechanical engineer Donát Bánki.

In spite of the deterioration in the general science policy of the Academy, the activity of its sections and committees increased, not least because the growing number of researchers doing high-standard work. The network of committees grew: the Literary History Committee was set up in 1879, the Classical Philology and the Military Science Committees in 1883. Their members were appointed from among the full and corresponding members at section meetings held concurrently with the assemblies. Young professionals who were not members of the Academy but were considered suitable for the job could also work on the committees as "assistant members" on the recommendation of sections. New corresponding members were elected mainly from among them. The Academy also resumed its publishing activity and, in late 1870s, launched the so-called Special Library series in the fields of history, law and political science, and literature. During these years an increasing number of scientific journals were published, financed wholly or in part by the Academy.

Conservatism in the Academy leadership strengthened at the beginning of the 20th century. Albert Berzeviczy, who was elected president of the Academy in 1905 and filled this position for 30 years, was a steadfast representative of this science policy.

The proletarian dictatorship established by the revolution of 1918-1919 wanted to dissolve the Academy and end its state support and "national status." Attacking the unquestionable conservatism of the institute, the new cultural policy wished to break with every tradition. But after the brief, four-month-long dictatorship, the Academy -though broke - was able to resume work.

During the interwar period a peculiar situation set in at the Academy. The leadership represented the conservative ideals of the pre-World War One period, yet outstanding scientists, who made their mark in their respective fields, joined its ranks. A number of them gained international fame, including Albert Szent-Györgyi, Nobel-Prize-winning biochemist; Ottó Titusz Bláthy and Kálmán Kandó, mechanical engineers; Sándor Korányi, physician; Géza Zemplén and József Vargha, chemists; Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály; Zoltán Gombocz and Miklós Zsirai, philologists; Gyula Szekfű and István Hajnal, historians; János Horváth, literary historian; Farkas Heller, economist; István Györffy, ethnographer and Sándor Jávorka, botanist.

The successive governments tried to use the Academy to extend their social-cultural influence and propagate their own conservative ideas and the national ideology of the time. The Academy's leaders did their best to comply. At the same time, politics also helped the Academy to recover. As a result of the wartime inflation, the Academy lost many of its assets. However, Count Kunó Klebelsberg, the minister of religion and public education, had an important role in mind for the Academy and, therefore, provided regular state assistance. State subsidies and again increasing donations, plus foundations - the posting and reward of competitions, the support of the publication of scientific books and journals - helped the Academy to gradually regain its leading role in science in traditional ways.

At the end of the 1920s and the early 1930s, the work of the committees revived and expanded. The Ethnographic Subcommittee was organized: in its Folkmusic Subcommittee Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály worked. The Fine Arts Committee and the Jurisprudence Committee also began their work.

Notwithstanding the worldwide surge ahead and differentiation in the natural sciences, the Academy's outdated organization kept the natural and engineering sciences in a minority position. The automatic distribution of funds for research and the higher costs of natural scientific research made its disadvantageous position even more conspicuous.

In the democratic political atmosphere following World War Two, the question of the transformation of the Academy could no longer be evaded. The new bylaws, giving the natural sciences a greater scope, were adopted in 1946. The independent Academy of Natural Sciences, founded by the Nobel-Prize-winning Albert Szent-Györgyi, was merged with the Academy, and the number of natural sciences sections increased to two. The Governing Board's autonomy was terminated, and henceforth its members were elected from among the academicians. The process of democratic transformation came to a standstill in 1949.

 

The Academy under the communist system (1949-1988)

Act XXVII of 1949, modelled on the Soviet example, integrated the Academy into the newly developing political and institutional system, thus ending its autonomy and placing it under direct Communist Party and state control. According to the law, its duties included "the framing of a national scientific plan and the direction of the work of academic and non-academic research institutes with a scientific point of view." Its duties also included ensuring a succession of scientists, the operation of postgraduate training, developing a unified, centralized system of new academic degrees, and academic qualification. Furthermore, it was the Academy's job to supervise scientific societies, direct the publication of scientific books and journals, and promote international scientific relations. The Academy was intended to play an important part in disseminating the official ideology of Marxism-Leninism and its application in the field of science. In order to make the Academy suited for performing this role, the new bylaws stipulated the substantial reduction in the number of Academy members from 257 to 131. For political and ideological reasons, the majority of the old members and specifically, 122 of them - including many eminent scholars - were reclassified consulting members, thus virtually excluded. In the course of the reorganization, the Aesthetics Subsection, composed of writers and artists, was dissolved. At first six, then ten sections were created. The scientific sections established a broad network of committees by changing the previous system of committees. In the 1950s and 1960s, the academic research institutes were established primarily for the purpose of carrying out basic research in the field of natural sciences and the study of social sciences.

The operational system of the Academy - particularly in the beginning - was strictly centralized. Formally, the general assembly of academicians constituted its supreme body, but in fact it was a new organ, the Presidium, controlled by the Hungarian Workers' Party, that directed the Academy. The Presidium was comprised of elected officers and section chairmen. The sections were headed by five-to-seven-member directorates.

Although many elements in the function, jurisdiction, operational mechanism of the Academy changed between 1949 and 1989 - mostly following the partial changes in the political system and in science policy therein - essentially it remained a scientific body highly dependent on political authority and, simultaneously, an organization performing state administrative tasks. Over this 40-year period the Academy had four presidents: István Rusznyák (1948-1970), Tibor Erdey-Grúz (1970-1976), János Szentágothai (1976-1985), and Iván T. Berend (1985-1990).

The organizational reform introduced in 1969 intended to put an end to the difficulties arising from the dual function of acting both as a scientific body and as an administrative organ supervising the institutes, by formally keeping the unity of the Academy but organizationally separating the two activities. It "relieved" the scientific bodies (the Presidium, the sections and committees) of the administration of institutes in order to enable these bodies to exert a greater conceptual and methodological influence on the whole of scientific life, and put it them under the control of the president and the Presidium. The secretary-general, appointed by the government, was assigned with management and the supervision of the institutes. He was assisted in this work by the Central Bureau, which had ministerial status and carried out state administrative functions. Party and state control could be exercised directly - bypassing the various bodies - through the secretary-general acting as a government official. Although this rigid separation eased at the end of the 1970s and the role of scientific bodies in controlling the institutes grew, in essence, this organizational duality persisted until 1990, that is, formally speaking, until 1994 when the new law on the Academy came into force.

In spite of the distortions often forced onto it, or the voluntarily assumed one-sided practices, and mistakes, important achievements mark this 40-year period. Unquestionably, the most important contribution the Academy made to Hungarian science - besides the achievements of its members - was the theoretical work done at the research institutes and its application in practice. The high standard of the work of Academy members and academic institutes justly received international recognition in a number of areas and assured the participation of hundreds of Hungarian researchers in the broad system of international scientific relations. The Academy's participation in the system of academic qualification helped thousands to acquire academic degrees and enhance the success of Hungarian research.

 

The transition (1988-1996)

The economic crisis in the late 1980s also had an impact on the amount of financial aid extended to research. Work began on how to change the management systems, including research management, to make them less costly for the state. It was also raised that the academic institutes should be dissolved, or annexed to universities. Given this situation, at the end of the 1980s, a reform process began to evolve at the Academy with the initiative for framing a new law on the Academy. Academy members unjustly expelled in 1949 were rehabilitated in 1989. In 1990, the new bylaws were adopted. Parallel with the change of the political system and under the leadership of the new president, Domokos Kosáry, reform of the Academy gained momentum. It ceased to exercise jurisdiction as a supreme authority and announced its intention to become a public body. At the president's initiative, the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Art, gathering the eminent representatives of literature and the arts, was established as a so-called associate yet autonomous institute. The law on the Academy promulgated in March 1994 and the new bylaws adopted on the basis of the law signalled the end of the reform process.

According to Act XL of 1994, the Academy is a scholarly public body founded on the principle of self-government, whose main task is the study of science, the publicizing of scientific achievements, and the aid and promotion of research. Its members are the academicians. The number of Hungarian academicians under the age of 70 years cannot exceed 200. The Academy, as a public body, is composed of academicians and other representatives of the sciences with an academic degree, who work to solve the tasks of Hungarian science, express their intention to become members of the public body and accept the duties it involves. They exercise their rights through their representatives. The general assembly is the supreme organ of this public body, which is composed of academicians and delegates representing the non-academician members of the public body. The 200 delegates are elected by secret ballot. The general assembly frames its own bylaws, determines its order of procedure and budget, elects its officers (president, vice-presidents, secretary-general, vice-secretary-general), the committees of the general assembly, and the elected members of the presidium.

As the bylaws stipulate, the Academy has eleven sections:

I. Linguistics and Literary Studies Section,

II. Philosophy and Historical Studies Section,

III. Mathematical Sciences Section,

IV. Agricultural Sciences Section,

V. Medical Sciences Section,

VI. Engineering Sciences Section,

VII. Chemical Sciences Section,

VIII. Biological Sciences Section,

IX. Economics and Law Section,

X. Earth Sciences Section,

XI. Physical Sciences Section.

The sections operate committees corresponding to branches of scholarship and special fields of research. The Academy maintains research institutes and other institutions (libraries, archives, information systems, etc.) assisting their work, and extends aid to university research centers. The operation of research institutes is directed by the 30-member Council of Academic Research Centers with the assistance of three advisory boards. The Council of Doctors may confer the Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences title. The operation of the Academy is financed by the budget, income derived from its assets, and by foundations and donations.

Although the development of the new organisational structure and the new principles of operation accompanying the democratic transition took longer than expected - not least of all because of the drawn out process of framing the law on the Academy - it was accomplished by 1995. The election of officers in 1996 inaugurated a new phase in the Academy's history under the new president, historian Ferenc Glatz.

After two energetic terms involving the consolidation of HAS's obsolete research network, Ferenc Glatz was replaced as President of HAS by eminent medical scientist Szilveszter Vizi. E. in 2002. Renowned physicist Norbert Kroó regained his second three-year term as General Secretary in the same year. HAS organised World Science Forum in late 2003, a memorable first of what is planned to be a series of substantial conferences on the most topical issues of the world of science. Amid budget restrictions and Hungary's 2004 accession to the European Union (1 May, 2004), HAS managed to maintain its high profile in the country's research and higher education structure. HAS is currently in the forefront of the Hungarian research community's struggle to fulfil the European Union's Lisbon resolution according to which each member-state should spend at least 3 per cent of its GDP on R and D by 2010.