J. Pótó, M. Tolnai, P. Zilahy (eds.): Understanding the Hungarian Academy of Sciences : a guide

Sándor Kónya: A Brief History Of The Hungarian Academy Of Sciences (1825-2002)

UNDERS TANDING THE HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: A GUIDE al 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 ifit 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 was 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 VicePresident 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 Historiographie, 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 construc12