É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

ORMOS, István: The Correspondence of Ignaz Goldziher and Max Herz

ISTVÁN ORMOS We know from several sources that Herz was a great benefactor of Hungarians in Cairo and so it comes as no surprise to learn from these letters that he also supported Goldziher's protégés. Of the three names mentioned in this context the name of Goldziher's ill-fated pupil, Salamon Pál Osztern (1879-1944), is known to us. In addition to having published some articles on Islam Osztern is said to have translated the whole Qoran into Hungarian. He met a cruel death towards the end of World War II.

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4 Herz tried to arrange an appointment for him at the newly founded Egyptian University, at least for an academic year, yet he does not seem to have succeeded."

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5 The two other names, Prágay and A. Kőhalmi, could not be identified. In the letters Herz asked Goldziher repeatedly about his opinion of his papers and begged him to be "merciless" in this respect. Unluckily we do not possess Goldziher's letters but we know from his reviews and presentations of Herz's works and the obituary of Herz written by Goldziher that generally he had a high regard of his friend's scholarly activities especially praising his concise history of Islamic art published in Hungarian in 1907. From the letters it is evident that Goldziher kept urging Herz to publish more and more because Herz excused himself several times for not being able to fulfil his expectations because of the large amount of practical everyday work with which he was constantly burdened. Thus for instance in a letter Herz informed Goldziher that he had been just about to finish a communication to the Hungarian Academy when the Egyptian Government had unexpectedly granted LE 20 000 to the Comité which meant at the same time a considerable amount of work for Herz, thus preventing him from fulfilling the planned task.""' It is also evident from the letters that Herz was in constant need of encouragement. He seems to have lacked self-confidence in the field of publishing the results of his scholarly activities. We may assume that this was due to his limited experience in this area because of his heavy everyday duties. It appears from the letters too that Goldziher made efforts to involve Herz in the publication of the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. In his letter dated 1 August 1897 (Stresa, Lago Maggiore, Hotel Beau-Séjour) Herz informed Goldziher of his acceptance of the invitation to 10

4 Zsidó Lexikon. Ed. Péter Újvári, Budapest 1929, 675-676. His memorial plaque in the building of the former eighth district grammar school (present-day Kálmán Kandó Technical College), which the author saw in 1993, has disappeared in the meantime. 10

7 See Herz's letter dated Cairo, 12 February 1909 and his postcard of 24 May 1909. "

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h Der Stoff zu der Kommunikation für die Akademie liegt noch immer unbearbeitet da. Ich schäme mich förmlich dessen. Aber die 20.000 L.E., die die Regierung unerwartet (nach dem Unternehmen in Ober-Egypten) für die arab. Monumente gegeben hat, haben mich auf einmal mit einer solchen Menge von laufenden Arbeiten überhäuft, daß ich nur rasch die geplante Arbeit erledigen hätte können und das wollte ich nicht. Letter dated Cairo, 16 April 1897. The "undertaking in Upper Egypt" was probably part of the campaign to regain the Sudan from the Mahdi's successors. 192