É. Apor (ed.): David Kaufmann Memorial Volume: Papers Presented at the David Kaufmann Memorial Conference, November 29, 1999, Budapest.

Greetings - MAROSI, Ernő

GREETING ADDRESS TO THE CONFERENCE Ernő Marosi Member of the Presidential Board of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Ladies and Gentlemen. 1 have the honour and great pleasure to welcome you to this noble House of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I was chosen by the Head of the Oriental Collection to fulfil the role of the host greeting you on behalf of the community of Hungarian scholars in my modest capacity as a member of the Presidential Board of our Academy. I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of this conference in this room to commemorate the centenary of the death of David Kaufmann, the great Hebraist and collector. You are at home in this palace, not only as his followers and interpreters of his rich heritage, recent representatives of international rank of his scholarly subject, but also by the right of his foundation. The walls of this room, as well as the other rooms of our Art Collection, are decorated with the portraits of the founders, patrons and members of our Academy. You can see Count István Széchenyi here, whose noble donation in the Parliamentary Session of 1825 was the first important moment for the establishment of a Learned Society, when he devoted one year income to this purpose. In another room, you can see Count József Teleki, who was the first President of the Academy and founder of the Library of the Academy, situated now in the neighbouring building. In the group of patrons and donators, David Kaufmann occupies a pre-eminent place. After his untimely death, in conformity with his intentions, his important collection of manuscripts and books was donated to our Academy. This collection is now a gem of the Oriental Collection, which is situated on the ground floor of this Neo-Renaissance palace built in the 1860s. We commemorate now this patron and the past activities of our Academy, which was founded in the spiritual tradition of the Age of Enlightenment for the service of both Nation and Humanity, for the protection of sciences and humanities and with the exclusion of any social and religious discrimination. There were no discussions of faith among its members, who searched for a purely scientific approach in all the branches of the different disciplines. The Kaufmann Collection has always been a secluded island of scholarship. The scholars who continued to work in the spirit of 11