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

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

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF IGNAZ GOLDZIHER AND MAX H

ERZ From the letters it appears that they first met personally during the study tour of Hungarian secondary school teachers to Egypt at the turn of 1895 and 1896. This tour was sponsored by the Hungarian Ministry of Religion and Education and it was headed and organized by Goldziher. Some organization work in Egypt was undertaken by Herz, who also acted as guide to the group in Cairo.

1

8 We possess a letter by Herz to Max van Berchem, in which he informs van Berchem of his first personal encounter with Goldziher: "I have had the pleasure of having made the acquaintance of Professor Goldziher. He is here with a party of twenty Hungarian teachers. We have spoken of you several times. He is going to leave the day after tomorrow. (J'ai eu le plaisir de faire la connaissance du profess. Goldziher. 11 est ici avec une caravane de 20 professeurs hongrois. Nous avons cause de vous á plus, reprises. IIpart aprés demain.

)"''' It is known that in addition to his professional merits Max Herz was a very kind and amiable person, who loved to mix with people and whose company too was eagerly sought by "reigning monarchs and simple workers alike" - as his wife wrote later on. One gains the impression from the letters that Goldziher had a similar relationship with Herz. He too liked Herz very much and was lenient with him when he was repeatedly unable to fulfil his promises concerning the composition of scholarly articles because of his heavy duties in the Comité.

2" This is evident from the letters and the following passage seems to point in this direction too: "My Honoured Professor and My Dear Friend. I am answering your esteemed letter of April only now; I wanted to write T am able to answer' but I cannot do that with a MCMXVIII-ra [Almanac of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with Civil and Astronomical Calendars for the year 1918], Budapest 1918,75. 1

8 Ignaz Goldziher, Tagebuch. Ed. Alexander Scheiber, Leiden 1978, 198, 200. On the study tour see Egyiptom. Tanulmánykönyv [Egypt. Collection of Studies]. Ed. László Körösi, Budapest 1899. 1

9 Letter to Max van Berchem dated Cairo 11 February 1896. Bibliothéque publique et universitaire, Ville de Genéve. 2

0 It is certainly not an exaggeration when Herz talks repeatedly of his heavy duties and eventually of overwork. During his time as chief architect to the Comité several factors contributed to this state of affairs. Given the amount of work to be done - and it was certainly a lot Herz did not have the staff necessary for its execution. He had to occupy himself with minor works also. Owing to organizational discrepancies the spheres of authority and competence were not clearly defined, rather they overlapped to a great extent thus as a rule necessitating an incredible amount of paper work because of the permanent conflicts between the various authorities (the Comité. the Waqf Administration, the Ministry of Public Works etc.). Allocating the rather meagre funds was always a serious problem with finding the right proportion among the various monuments of architecture in need of preservation or restoration. Cf. Achille Patricolo, La conservation des monuments arabes en Egypte. I. Histoire du Comité, Cairo 1914, 8-17. 165