Whose association is it? : three MEFESZ in history of Hungary

MEFESZ (Association of University and College Students, AHUCS), which is considered to have been the spark of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, was founded at the University of Szeged on 16 October 1956. The acronym (MEFESZ) appeared three times in the Hungarian history of the second half of the 20th century (in 1945, 1948, and 1956), and all three of them were youth and education organisations. The few years of the existence of each ‘MEFESZ’ has many lessons to teach. The three organisations, abbreviated identically but different in long forms of their names, each had different objectives and roles. In this paper, we show that the 1956 AHUCS (the third MEFESZ) was not a successor to either of the earlier organisations: the first MEFESZ of the period of the “tentative democracy” (1945–1948) and the second MEFESZ (in the first period of the communist dictatorship, 1948–1950). The precursor of the 1956 revolution (MEFESZ3 , AHUCS) was a new grassroots initiative, grounded in democratic principles in its aims, programs, and missions. The 1956 AHUCS organisation was not an umbrella organisation of student associations like the first MEFESZ organisation. The founders of the 1956 AHUCS were deliberate in not seeking to become the sole, unified organisation of university youth (like MEFESZ)

Masterclass: international law and constitutional development in 19th century Europe (Part II)

1. Today, Hungary is a small Central-Eastern-European country making headlines with its domestic political and constitutional controversies. Yet, throughout its 1000-year history, this country had many struggles and developments, which, when put into a European comparative context, are relatively unknown and nevertheless very interesting. Hungary was similar to its Western-European counterparts in many ways: it was a monarchy, which joined the Roman Catholic Church upon its founding. It established a domestic administrative system, regulated land ownership and eventually established feudal representation. The pace of its development may have been a little slower sometimes than that of the West, but Hungarian scholars studied at the Western Universities, its rulers fought and consulted their foreign counterparts and the country had a normal-size territory to be considered a country, like any other, in Europe. 2. At the same time, Hungary was also different in many ways than its Western counterparts. The country only had a so-called historical constitution and no written constitution until the 20th century. Due to certain elements of this historical constitution, the structure of land ownership, local public administration and social structures remained the same throughout the middle ages. As a result of the Turkish occupation in the 16th-18th centuries, the country dipped into the second wave of serfdom. It did not embark on the road to a civil society as the West has after renaissance and reformation. Roman law was never officially received in Hungary and multiple codification attempts for domestic laws failed throughout the 18th-19th centuries. A closer examination of the 19th century constitutional development in Hungary and especially the rather unique dualist state of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy may provide additional meaning to legitimacy, sovereignty and multi-level governance in international law. A multitude of questions arise in this regard, such as the true significance of the 1867 Ausgleich between the Austrian Empire and Hungary from the perspective of international law, the relevance of domestic constitutional order within related states, etc. Taught together with dr. F. Dhondt (Legal History Institute)

Lessons and Criticism of the Criminal Jury in the History of Hungary

The present study gives data to the history of lay jurisdiction in Europe focusing the attention to the criticism of the Hungarian jury system between 1867 and 1914 via the presentation of the legal status of juries and the summary of a famous criminal case happened in Hungary concerning to jury behaviour. One can read details about the professional opponent of and the experiences of trials by jury written by outstanding Hungarian jurist at the beginning of the 20th century

A magyar zenetudomány bibliográfiája (1900-1950)

Hungarian musicology failed to compile a summary of the history of Hungarian musical writing in the 20th century so far. Though the book series ’Music history of Hungary’, one of the central projects of the Musicological Institute, aims at presenting every aspects of musical life in Hungary, research into history of Hungarian musical writing concentrates primarily on the leading figures of Hungarian musicology. Creating the database ’Bibliography of Hungarian Music Literature (1900-1950)’ (http://db.zti.hu/mza_biblio/biblio_Kereses.asp) which includes more than 2000 data already, may give a more concise picture of the volumen of this literature and can inspire further researches

Héber források Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetéhez - 18. század: források feltárása és tudományos kiadása = Hebrew sources relating to the history of Hungary and the Hungarian Jewry - 18th century

Posztdoktori kutatásom feladata az MTA Judaisztikai Kutatóközpont hosszú távú kutatási programjának részeként a Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetére vonatkozó 18. századi nyomtatott héber források feltárása, valamint feldolgozásuk megkezdése volt. A munkát egy izraeli kutatóval, Dr. Shlomo Spitzerrel (Bar-Ilan University, Izrael) együttműködésben végeztem. Munkám első lépése a források jegyzékének összeállítása, vagyis a történeti, művelődéstörténeti szempontból releváns héber szerzők, szövegek gyűjtése, válogatása volt. A feltárt forrásanyag feldolgozását és közreadását nagyobb szerzői, kronologikus illetve tematikai egységekben gondolkodva kezdtem el. Az első két év munkája eredményeként elkészült az Ezekiel Landau prágai rabbinak magyarországi rabbikhoz írt, magyarországi eseteket tárgyaló responsumait feldolgozó kötet, kiadását most készítjük elő: Ezekiel Landau döntvényei. Magyarországra vonatkozó adatok (Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetéhez - 18. század, 1). Ennek a kutatási egységnek az eredményeit több előadásban, illetve publikációban ismertettem. (Lásd a részletes beszámolót.) Több forrás feldolgozása, illetve a 18. századi rabbi-archontológia összeállítása az ösztöndíjas időszak alatt csak részben készült el, ezeket a feladatokat a Judaisztikai Kutatóközpont munkatársaként lesz lehetőségem folytatni. | My postdoctoral research was part of a long-term project of the Center of Jewish Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, study and publication of Hebrew sources relating to the history of Hungary and the Hungarian Jewry in the 18th century. I worked together with an Israeli professor, Dr. Shlomo Spitzer (Bar-Ilan University, Israel). The first phase of my work was creating a catalogue of the sources, that is collecting and selecting Hebrew texts that have historical relevancy. I started to study and translate the sources, and to prepare their critical edition according to authors or chronological and thematic units. In the first two years I studied the responsa of Ezekiel Landau the chief-rabbi of Prague with Hungarian rabbis of that period, this material (with introduction, bibliography and remarks) constitutes our first volume: Responsa of Ezekiel Landau relating to Hungary (Hebrew sources relating to the history of Hungary and the Hungarian Jewry - 18th c., 1). This volume is going to be published in 2007