162


Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies

Vol. 69 (135)



No. 1/2018
pp. 162–179

András Németh and Imre Garai

ISSN 0038 0474

The developmental phases
of the Hungarian educational sciences
in the 20th century
Abstract: The research to date indicates that several phases in the development of educational sciences as an academic discipline can be distinguished. The first part of this paper focuses on giving an
overview about the development and peculiarities of science of education in Hungary in the first half
of the 20th century. This chapter tries to analyse these processes by involving in archival sources and
other secondary literature. After the 2nd World War, the influence of the Soviet Union grew and began
the fourth phase of development of the educational sciences in Hungary. In the second half of the study,
we investigate those political and social circumstances which made the Hungarian scientific institutional
system (i.e. universities and the Scientific Academy) transform in the era of the Rákosi dictatorship.
This part of the paper is based on the results of a recently ended, significant research study about the
time period of the Stalinist dictatorship which was financed by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund.
Keywords: history, educational sciences in Hungary, development phases, disciplinary field, humanistic/
cultural pedagogy, science of socialism/communism
UDC: 37(091)
Scientific article

András Németh, PhD, full professor, Selye János University, Faculty of Education, Bratislavská cesta
3322, 945 01, Komárno, Slovakia; e-mail: nemeth.andras@ujs.sk
Imre Garai, PhD, senior lecturer, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Egyetem tér 1-3, 1053 Budapest, Hungary; e-mail: garai.imre@ppk.elte.hu



Németh, Garai

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Introduction
A new direction of international research interest is the world of education of former socialist countries, i.e. the education that occurred within existing socialism. By using this term, we refer to those countries in Europe and
Asia, after 1945, which belonged to the Soviet influence zone and followed Soviet-type social and political structures. Thus, we investigate the settings of
education as a scientific discipline in circumstances, in which one party dominated the political agenda. Economic production and distribution of goods were
planned and organized according to the ruling party’s Marxist-Leninist ideological
principles.
In the last two decades, several researchers from the former Yugoslavia
have focused on the development of educational science and related educational
areas (Batinić and Radeka 2016; Miovska-Spaseva 2016; Protner and Vidmar
2016; Šušnjara 2016; Vidmar 2016; Zorić 2016; Živković and Spasenović 2016).
Hungarian researchers have recently started revealing the educational phenomena of the ‘existing socialism’ (Donáth 2006; Golnhofer 2004, 2006, 2006a;
Hopfner et al. 2009; Kéri 2006; Nagy 2006; Németh and Biró 2009; Németh et al.
2015; Németh et al. 2016; Sáska 2006; Pukánszky 2004; Szabolcs 2006, 2006a,
2006b).
Our approach is based on a newly emerging theme that examines the Soviet-type
science development in post-Soviet countries. Researchers have recently begun to
show interest in the pedagogical phenomenon of existing socialism. We also intend
to examine the pedagogical peculiarities of the communist-socialist dictatorship
in Hungary. The discipline of education and its structure as a part of the lattermentioned scientific system are also part of our analysis. This paper has two main
chapters. The first chapter gives an overview of the development and peculiarities
of the science of education in Hungary during the first half of the 20th century. In
this chapter, we try to analyse these processes by involving archival sources and
other secondary literature in our inquiry. In the second half of our study, we investigate those political and social circumstances which made the Hungarian scientific

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institutional system (i.e. universities and the Scientific Academy) transform in the
shadow of the Rákosi1 and Kádár2-dictatorships.
This part of the paper is based on the results of a recently ended, significant
research study about the period of the Stalinist dictatorship that was financed
by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund. We will examine those factors which
profoundly transformed the whole structure of universities and academic sciences,
including the education discipline, as a part of this structure in Hungary during
the Rákosi dictatorship (1949–1953). Core sources for our paper included archival
sources (university and ministerial materials, reports of scientific institutions and
scientific events) and the relevant secondary literature about the topic (scientific
book series, textbooks and journals) published between 2010 and 2015.
Theoretical and methodological approach – the discipline notion
Robert Merton began to establish new theoretical and methodological approaches to research on the sociology of science in the United States in the last
decades of the 20th century. He also used to modify his concept, the empirical ‘structural functionalist’ sociological theory of Talcott Parsons. One European trend
in theories of Parsons and Merton emerged in the work of Niklas Luhmann. We
used the discipline notion, which was worked out by Luhmann’s follower, Rudolf
Stichweh, and became widespread in research on the history of science (Stichweh
1994). Based on these theoretical concepts, a couple of monographs and edited
books were published in recent decades, which examined the development of the
education discipline from the viewpoint of social history (Drewek and Lüth 1998;
Horn 2003; Horn et al. 2001; Wagner et al. 1991).
One of our research’s core elements is the macro theoretical viewpoint, which
is Stichweh’s scientific discipline notion. This notion is widely used in historical
research of science, which has a sociology of knowledge orientation, and it is also
used in systematic research on the theory of science (Becker 1989; Stichweh 1994).
Scientific works and scholars are also an essential part of science according to
Stichweh’s discipline notion (autonomous scientific field).
In order to grasp the micro-patterns of the development of science, we used
Bourdieu’s ‘socio-analytical’ conception, which was originally developed to examine
the deeper layer of the society, and we also adopted categories and the structure of
his conception’s notions about the theory of scientific fields as a second core element of our research (Bourdieu 2005). According to Bourdieu, most societies are
constructed by functional spaces that can be recognized by different structures
of the society. These socially constructed spaces constitute the whole of a society,
1
Mátyás Rákosi was the general secretary of the Hungarian Workers Party (name of the Hungarian
communist party, HWP) between 1945 and 1953 and the prime minister between 1952 and 1953. He
was the ultimate political leader in this time period.
2
János Kádár was an important politician during the Rákosi-dictatorship. He held several important
political offices in the party and in the government too. After the revolution of 1956, he was picked as
first secretary of the transformed communist party, and he became prime minister two times: 1956–1958
and 1961–1965. Between 1956 and 1989, he was the ultimate leader of the Hungarian political life.

 developmental phases of the Hungarian educational sciences in the 20th century
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which could have different forms in time and can vary from country to country.
These functional spaces are also responsible for distributing different forms of the
Bourdieu invented capital types (financial, social and cultural types of capital) and
thus the stratification of the society.
Because of its permanent change, there is a need for a typology to describe the
current form of social positions, which is also useful in the dynamic examination
of its modifications. Bourdieu thought that this criterion might be fulfilled if social
space is interpreted as a dynamic activity field. On the one hand, this field necessarily affects the agents as a summary of compelling forces. On the other hand,
this field also served as a battlefield where agents can fight with each other. The
enforcement of interests within the field is determined by power relations and the
harmony of tools and aims related to this relationship (Bourdieu 2002, pp. 44–48).
Widening the theoretical background of our research towards the theory of
fields resulted in our theory that discipline creates a field constructed on institutional and cognitive elements (Bourdieu 2005). Its macrostructure is based on the
adaption of Stichweh’s discipline notion and the tight connection of four elements
that can be interpreted in historical processes (Stichweh 1994, p. 13). Identification
of disciplines in this sense has four elements:
––

––

––

––

Formation of the institutional basis: historical processes of the professionalization
of research; emergence and formation of preconditions of a given disciplinary
field (scientific field).
Historical development processes of communication networks: the discipline
(specific scientific field) that includes its scholars and forms a homogenous
community which is specialised to solve common issues (scientific community).
Historical processes of forming the different cognitive products of scientific
recognition: Institutional and communication infrastructure of the disciplinary
field provides the formation of common scientific results, which are subject to
scientific recognition.
Historical processes of the training of young scientists and their professional
socialization: Institutional function of a given disciplinary field is to transfer
the disciplinary knowledge to the next generation of professionals and provide
their professional education and socialization. This guarantees the selection of
professionals from the discipline corpus, the clear appointment of the boundaries
of the discipline and the function of selection mechanisms which can maintain
the scientific standards.

During our research, we used Bourdieu’s theory and his structure of notions
about the functioning of scientific fields—part of his theory on activity conception—to analyse these four dimensions (Bourdieu 2005). According to his theory,
all scientific disciplines create their own scientific fields, which have their own
structures, and there is also a space of competition that helps maintain and restructure the field. A scientific field is formed and developed by the relationship
of the agents who perform within it. Moreover, the scientific discipline is a kind

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of space for competition, which is a socially constructed field for performing, and
where agents with different capabilities can confront each other to maintain or
transform the current situation of the field.
The specific habit, which relates to a specific scientific discipline, is developed
in this field. According to Bourdieu, this is the personalization of the scientific field.
The scholar who gains the peculiarities of the scientific field has the same perception structures as his field does; therefore, the scholar can constantly comply with
the current expectations of the field. Habits of scholars can be different according
to the peculiarities of each scientific field, but they can also be influenced by other
factors, e.g. origin, social life or professional career.
Disciplines construct fields which are separate from each other, but they are
constant and can be identified well: a) They have well-known names which have
gained prestige in educational, social and disciplinary spaces; b) They have independent and autonomous departments, laboratories, journals, international forums,
processes for certifying professional knowledge, payment methods and awards; c)
They have their own independent scientific style; d) Prestigious scientific disciplines have their own strictly codified boundaries; and e) Disciplines’ rank in the
hierarchy of sciences depends on their commonly accumulated capital and their
independence from political, confessional or economic influence (ibid., pp. 65–67).
As a consequence of the political character of the Rákosi era, we used the political religion as a third core element of our research in the second half of our paper
(Baska 2015). Eric Vogelin wrote the classic work that pointed out and analysed the
significance of political religion in the 1930s (Voegelin 1936). According to Voegelin’s
final conclusions, the history of humankind moves forward from transcendental
religious beliefs (überweltlich) to inner-oriented beliefs (innerweltlich) and ideologies (Balogh 2011). The latter deem themselves as the only possible option of reality
that can be possessed by a certain race, class or even nation. This historic process
leads to the emergence of ‘modern gods’ when using the symbols of religion, and
fulfilling its functions would result in the replacement of God by politics or science.
As a result of this process, perceptions about the world will appear as an unlimited
body of knowledge that has tight connection with historical processes. The very
end of these historical processes is the end of history, when there is a possibility of
salvation by the emergence of the perfect conditions of humanity.
The Voegelin-introduced notion that provides a tool for describing the characteristics of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century recently became popular
(Gentile 2000, 2003; Harting 2008). Gentile, in his work about the sacralisation of
politics (Gentile 2000), pointed out that totalitarian regimes always want to take
over the country in a legal or illegal way and create a political system in which
the new government supresses the whole society. The new rulers try to transform
the whole society through an anthropological revolution. Thus, the members of
the transformed society are willing to fully accept the main aims of the party by
subordinating all aspects of their personalities in order to create and establish a
supranational civilisation.
Consequently, political religions transform a totalitarian political ideology
into a sacral phenomenon that behaves intolerantly towards rival political move-

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ments. Thus they make attempts to eliminate these competing ‘prophecies’.
Private-interest-led activities would be replaced, under pressure, with the aim of
fulfilling the goals of the political elite without any hesitation. New sacral rituals
provide a behavioural scheme and ethical codex for the community. By using
ideological pressure and physical forms of violence toward prominent members
of the former political elite or scientists, the new political elite can force the
population to comply with these socialization schemes.3 Representatives of the
political system who perfectly comply with the political regulations are admired as
‘saints’. All subsystems of the society are eager to reach the Messianic aim of the
party, which is to create the utopian communist society. The education system’s
responsibility is considerable in this process, as an important element of the social
subsystems.
The Hungarian pedagogy in the first half of the 20th century
Recent science historical studies which focus on analysing scientific interactions separate three fundamental directions in the development of the science of
education in Western-Europe and Central-Eastern Europe. In the first phase, which
began in different parts of Europe at different times, pedagogy had not yet become
a university discipline. The dynamics of the development became even stronger
following the institutionalization of two forms of the training of pedagogues in
the last third of the 19th century (Németh 2007). On the one hand, the pedagogical
practice and particular theoretical constructions articulate with each other. The
most typical form of this process is Herbartianism. On the other hand, the process of university institutionalization of pedagogy had just begun in this period.
Pedagogy departments established in this time period had a strong relationship to
philosophy. This connection provided the pedagogy with the opportunity to evolve
into a university discipline because the philosophy had reached this status earlier.
Thus, the second phase of the development of pedagogy began around 1880 and
lasted until the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Pedagogical world movement evolved in this period and revolved around the empiric research paradigm.
This was especially true for psychology, which became even more significant among
social sciences. This paradigm was very popular among elementary teachers, and
their movement significantly evolved. They wanted to implement reforms in teacher
training. Different directions of this movement (e.g. reform pedagogy, experimental
pedagogy, and paedology) had not yet been fully accepted at universities. In the
following decades, pedagogy became the science of education and, as a result of
this process, the emancipation of reform pedagogy and empirical pedagogy would
3
This endeavour could be perceived in show trials in the 1950s, in which prominent figures of the
communist party or even scientists, for instance in the so-called MAORT-trial (Hungarian-American
Oil Refinement Company) and Standard Electricity-trial, were sentenced to capital or long-term prison
punishment. The aim of these trials was to demonstrate the supreme political power of the communist
party and to make obvious for the public that if they did not follow the indoctrinations of the party,
they could end up in the same situation (Romsics 2004, p. 311).

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be acknowledged (Hofstetter and Schneuwly 2002; Hungarian reception of this
process: Németh 2004).
The history of Hungarian scientific pedagogy can be interpreted as a history
of reception. The evolution of the Hungarian science of education was brought
about by implementation of foreign (German) intellectual trends. Furthermore,
scientific performance was judged by the rapidity of reception of Western scientific
results and the originality of its adaption. By investigating the scientific development of Hungarian university, we can conclude that the background of its progress
was determined by modernisation claims, challenges and reform solutions of three
consecutive reform phases. The first phase lasted from the Compromise4 to the
turn of the 20th century; it was a period in which the modern Hungarian public
education, higher education and scientific institutional systems were created according to reforms of national liberalism and the pedagogical intellectual trend of
Herbartianism. The second reform phase lasted from the turn of the century to
the end of World War I and the revolutions after the war. This was the phase of
expansion of reform pedagogy and experimental pedagogy. Obviously, this expansion had a strong connection with urbanisation and emergence of radical political
and life reform movements, which resulted from the crises of the modern era. The
next phase of reform lasted from the 1920s to the middle of the 1930s. In this time
period, the Hungarian science of education was emancipated and became a university discipline. Moreover, its representatives helped the government to implement
new educational policy solutions in the 1920s for resolving the challenges resulting
from the Treaty of Trianon5 (Németh 2002, 2005).
The development of university disciplines has had a strong relationship to
European modernisation trends, especially with the process of professionalization, which led to the emergence of special intellectual professional skills. According to Hungarian researchers (Gyáni and Kövér 2006), this group includes
those ‘intellectuals’ who owe university or academy degrees and they did not have
administrative works as state officials in the state bureaucracy but they worked
as lawyers, physicians or teachers. Consequently, they worked as professionals
in their professional field, from which they gained their university degree. This
narrowly interpreted intellectual notion includes liberal professionals and those
who were not officials: solicitors, medics, teachers, engineers, priests, journalists
and other creative professionals like artists, writers and actors. The main trait
of the Hungarian intellectuals was that they were mostly in employee status.
4
By accepting the Compromise, the two-decade-long completion between Hungarian political elite
and the Habsburg-dynasty ended after the revolution of 1848-1849. The 12th Act of Parliament in 1867
created political and economic stability for the rest of the ‘long 19th century’, which provided both parts
of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with an excellent opportunity for economic and social development
(Romsics 2004, pp. 17–20).
5
The 4th June 1920 signed peace treaty of Trianon had disastrous consequences for Hungary. The
‘Historical Hungary’ had a population of 18.2 million, and its territory was 282.000 square kilometres
without Croatia. As a result of the treaty, Hungary’s population and territory decreased to 7.6 million
and 93.000 square kilometres, respectively (Romsics 2004, p. 147). Understandably, the prescriptions
of the treaty resulted in serious political and social crises which, of course, had effects on the sphere of
education.

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This was especially dominant among pedagogues and clerical intellectuals (ibid.,
pp. 277–289).
In the wake of the aforementioned development tendencies, the pedagogy
evolved into an independent university discipline – a process that can be observed in
all philosophy faculties across Central-European universities (Horn 2003; Tenorth
and Horn 2001). By following this development scheme, Hungarian university
education discipline also took an important step in the direction of evolving into a
modern scientific discipline. According to Stichweh (1994), we summarise the main
trends of these development in the upcoming parts of our paper.
Formation of the institutional basis – infrastructural development of
supporting elements of researches
By the time the popularity of the approach of “Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik” increased, the discipline’s development into a science had been acknowledged
by the Hungarian Scientific Academy. Its institutional opportunities and boundaries
had also increased. In that time period, one could find pedagogy departments under
the direction of full professors at all four Hungarian universities. These professors
expanded their teaching activities and their research topics. Mostly, they tried to
cooperate with philosophy professors on the philosophy faculties. As the proof of
their acknowledgement, they were elected as full members of the Scientific Academy,
and they had wide international network connections.
One peculiarity of the university teaching staff of philosophy faculties was
that both members of the Catholic clergy (Gyula Kornis or Cecil Bognár) as well
as Protestant theologians could be found among them. This phenomenon can be
explained by the late secularisation processes. Moreover, the contemporary assessment process which determined the selection of intellectuals by using Westerntype meritocratic viewpoints was not the only way of joining the intellectual elite.
Members of positional elite were also allowed to become members of the intellectual
elite. Thus, the university intellectual elite occupied leading positions in scientific
organisations, and they had influential positions in their religious organisations as
well. An additional requirement has to be highlighted in connection with membership in these elite groups. Those intellectuals who were candidates for intellectual
positions had to be committed to Christian values, which influenced the scientific
research and approaches as well. Acceptance of these values was expected of all
state officials at that time. Their social rank was ‘gentleman’, and they had to
follow those consensual ethical rules according to their social status (Gyáni and
Kövér 2006, pp. 239–242).
The number of private university lecturers (Privatdozent) and their publications
significantly grew; furthermore, themes of their lectures became more diversified.
Until the middle of the 1930s, 14 scholars were awarded the title “private lecturer”.
Moreover, philosophy or pedagogy professors held pedagogy courses available not
only in the capital but also at rural faculties. All of the rural universities had the
capability to offer pedagogy courses for their students, and at least one private uni-

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versity teacher was employed in these institutes. Furthermore, studying pedagogy
was also possible in teacher training institutes during this time. These institutes
became widespread after the 27th Act of the Parliament in 1924. By establishing
teacher-training institutes, the legislature wanted to make the teacher training
more systematic (Garai 2016, pp. 184–187). Visiting theoretical and methodological
pedagogy courses was, therefore, obligatory for those students who wanted to get a
secondary teacher diploma. Pedagogy institutes were also established at universities. These facilities had their own library and laboratory. The University Reform
of 1933 made it obligatory for all students to visit courses at least 20 hours per
week, and they were also expected to fulfil the requirements of one seminar or
proseminar per semester.
Development and change processes of scientific communication
networks
Independent scientific societies and journals emerged in the second half of
the 19th century, and the numbers of these organisations and their members rapidly grew until 1946.6 University full professors and associate professors played
significant roles in establishing and managing these associations. The number of
scientific publications and journals also significantly increased. Moreover, their
professional standards remarkably rose. Mostly, humanistic/cultural pedagogy
(i.e. Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik) inspired scientific publications that were
able to reach the standards of European scientific works. The number of these type
of publications rapidly grew between the early 1920s and the middle of the 1930s.
One hundred theoretical, philosophical, anthropological or psychological pedagogy
monographs were published by full university professors or associate professors.
Their international connections were comprised mainly German scholars.
Processes of forming the cognitive products of scientific recognition
and their development
A newly emerged theoretical paradigm, the Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik,
became dominant at the University of Budapest and among pedagogical scholars.
In spite of the fact that neo-Kantianism inspired pedagogical approach prevailed in
rural universities in the 1920s, reception of humanistic/cultural pedagogy became
even stronger in these institutes. The change of the attitudes towards human6
Established in 1891: Hungarian Pedagogical Society (Magyar Pedagógiai Társaság); in 1892:
foundation of journal Hungarian Pedagogy (Magyar Paedagogia); in 1906: foundation of Hungarian
Children Inquiry Society (Magyar Gyermektanulmányi Társaság); in 1906: foundation of National
Pedagogical Library (Országos Pedagógiai Könyvtár); in 1907: first issue of the journal of The Child (A
gyermek). Emergence of further journals: in 1908 The Hungarian Secondary School (Magyar Középiskola); in 1909: Hungarian Special Pedagogy (Magyar Gyógypedagógia); in 1926: On the paths of the
future (A jövő útjain); in 1927: Protestant Educational Journal (Protestáns Tanügyi Szemle).

 developmental phases of the Hungarian educational sciences in the 20th century
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istic/cultural pedagogy can be observed in the transformation of curriculums and
themes of public lectures. A further example of this change is evidenced by the
editorial board of the Hungarian Pedagogy Lexicon (Magyar Pedagógiai Lexikon),
which consisted of teachers from the University of Budapest (Ernő Fináczy, Gyula
Kornis) and German supporters of this approach (Spranger and his colleagues). As a
result of evolving humanistic/cultural pedagogy approaches, the empirical research
methods were marginalized. Ödön Weszely’s scientific work, however, proved the
survival of experimental pedagogy at the University of Pécs.
Processes of the training of young scientists and their professional
socialization
The number of scholars who gained PhDs in pedagogy also increased during
this period. As a result of this phenomenon, many pedagogy scholars were recruited
from those doctoral students who received their doctorates in this scientific field.
Their numbers fairly increased and later they could continue their professional
careers as associated professors or, later, full professors (Lajos, Prohászka, Béla
Tettemanti, Erzsébet Baranyai) (Németh 2002, pp. 372–375).
As Romsics (2004) pointed out, Hungarian politics could be described as a
limited parliamentarian political system which had authoritative elements between
1919 and 1944. Some elements, like plurality of political life, the government’s
responsibility towards the Parliament, independent jurisdiction and pluralist intellectual life, originated from the democratic political system of the dualist era.
Nevertheless, the political system’s functioning was absolutely antidemocratic
during the interwar period. Safety checks like an open voting system until 1938,
excessive influence of the government, restriction of freedom of press and racial,
confessional discrimination made the formation of democratic competition between
parliamentary parties impossible. One interesting peculiarity of the Hungarian
political and social system was its transitional character, which is often described
in the international literature as ‘authoritative’.
Consequently, institutions of a plural political system functioned until 1945.
The autonomy of capital existed, and there were organizations which advocated
for the interests of economic and industrial elites. Their influence and potential to
reach their political aims, however, were limited. Operation of the press, publishing
books, arts, and public and higher education systems’ functioning were permitted;
nevertheless, their operations were influenced by a nationalist-Christian ideology and
their autonomy was also limited. The influence of confessions was also remarkably
high in the sphere of the elementary school system and among 8-grade secondary
schools which had elite training function.

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Nationalization7 of higher education, peculiarities of the communist
education discipline
As a result of political and economic transformation, a new era began in the
history of Hungarian higher education that anticipated the profound changes in this
sphere in 1950s. The communist perception of science that denied the principles of
Western-type scientific norms paradigmatically transformed the institutions and
infrastructures of the Scientific Academy and universities. This transformation
resulted in the alteration of the socialization scheme of the scientists, communication structures and the traditional perception of scientific work.
These changes together created the socialist discipline model that was profoundly different from specialties of the Western-type perception of science. This
socialist model neglected the meritocratic standards and indoctrination functions,
and quasi-religious attitudes had almost ceased the traditional forms of creating
scientific products. Disciplines’ social acceptance and their recruitment processes
also changed significantly.
Scientific development also changed in the discipline of education after the new
phase beginning after 1945. Its function was determined by the basic dichotomy of
the communist ideology, which divided the world into two different parts. According
to this quasi-theology-oriented rhetoric, the faith of the world is determined by the
combat of heavenly and evil forces. The communist party, which represents the
‘good’ side in this combat, made the scientific disciplines serve the purpose of peace
of humankind, and it founded new scientific institutions, which made economical
process more predictable and purposeful. Representatives of the other, ‘evil’ side
are aggressors and profit-hunter capitalists who wanted to deter the science from
further development. The basic character of the Stalinist-type dictatorship’s rhetoric
was provided by an epic cultural indoctrination, which overwrote the abstraction
and cognitive approach.
The nationalization process in higher education had begun in the first half of
1949 with the announcement of the 260/1949 Ministerial Decree (12th January).
After the announcement of this decree, reforms in universities and the Scientific
Academy were declared in the sessions of Secretary of Hungarian Workers’ Party
(HWP) every half year. The Party only let the public know that there were some
important reforms in the sphere of higher education. Communist politicians highlighted that more students were allowed to attend academies and universities than
before,8 and the financial support of this sphere also increased in a way that had
never been expected.9 On the level of higher education policy, the party restructured
the scientific field because the governing and authorizing role of the Ministry of
7
This expression is a reference to a certain economic and political process at the very end of the
1940s and the beginning of the 1950s in Hungary. During this process, the government, which had been
taken over by the communist party, extended its influence over economic companies, social and political
organizations. The communist government used the legislation to create laws, by which ownership of
companies or organizations was granted for the government (Romsics 2004, pp. 310–313.).
8
Session of Central Committee of HWP on 27th November 1948. Hungarian National Archive (HNA)
fond 276, bunch 52, unit 4, pp. 41–42.
9
Session of Central Committee of HWP on 2nd April 1949. HNL f. 276. b. 52. u. 6. pp. 33–35.

 developmental phases of the Hungarian educational sciences in the 20th century
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Religion and Public Education profoundly changed. Contemporaneously with the
criticism of each department of the Ministry, the party separated a few areas from
it, and set up new institutes to authorize these separated fields (Kalmár 2014, p.
58).10 By the criticism reaching the Department of Universities and Academies of
the Ministry, this organization had also been transformed and its authority was
limited on supervision of affairs of universities and academies.
The other direction of transformation of the scientific institute was reached by
27th Act of Parliament in 1949, which resulted in the integration of the Hungarian
Scientific Committee and the Hungarian Scientific Academy. By announcing this
act, the communist party could reach the transformation of the Scientific Academy
by supporting an organization which was comprised by communist scholars. Before
the proclamation of the unity, the party had carefully selected those scholars who
were found fit to be a member of the reformed Academy in political and scientific
aspects.11 By implementing this process, the party had to conclude that there were
only a few scholars who were really committed towards their political aims. They,
therefore, accepted the neutral political behaviour of all scholars except the scientists
of human and social disciplines. It meant that scholars from natural sciences did
not have to be enthusiasts of the party’s current political agenda, although they
were expected to not question openly the general policy of the party. Nevertheless,
scholars from social and human sciences were expected to be committed towards
the ideology and indoctrination of the party. This can be explained by the fact that
those in scientific fields were expected to play a crucial role in establishing the
basics of the socialist political and social order.12 Transformation of the scientific
field’s boundaries had not concluded at the end of 1949 because the HWP made
the Scientific Academy responsible for recruitment of young scholar generations
by setting up the Committee of Training Scientists (CTS). By implementing the
aspirant training with the announcement of the 44th Decree in 1950 (26th September),
controlling of the Bourdeiu-created notion of an ‘entrance fee’ became the task of
the Academy; thus, the Scientific Academy became the most important institute
authorising the Hungarian scientific institutions and its scholars.13 The scientific
community other than the Academy was transformed by the 26th Decree in 1951 (11th
November). By setting up the Committee of Scientific Ranking (CSR)14, the party
appointed those scholars who were picked as Doctors of Sciences or Candidates of
Sciences, who were given further ‘operation permission’ in their own scientific fields.
All in all, 340 applications were submitted to the CSR for decisions about
awarding higher scientific ranks for candidates. Only 81 scientists had member10
2267/1949. Proposing bill about the transformation of the government of Hungarian Republic.
HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 48. pp. 17–18.
11
Alexits, György: Proposal for the Secretary about transforming the Hungarian Scientific Academy
and Hungarian Scientific Committee. Budapest, September 1949. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 62. pp. 14–21.
12
Alexits, György: Proposal about the members and structure of the Hungarian Scientific Academy.
Budapest, 18th October 1949. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 67. p. 29.
13
Proposal about implementing the aspirant training. Budapest, 17th August 1950. HNA f. 276. b.
54. u. 114. pp. 8–10.
14
Horváth, Márton: Proposal about appointing president, secretaries and members of the CSR.
Budapest, 19th November 1951. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 169. p. 69.

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ships in the communist party.15 The party wanted to have direct influence over
certain scientific fields. In case of scholars of technical and natural sciences, they
tried to persuade them or at least reinforce their natural political behaviour with
the donation of scholarships and by promoting leading figures of these scientific
fields to high administrative positions. Excessive donation by these sciences can
be perceived by examining the number of Soviet scholarships of these scientists16
and the appointment of institute directors when establishing new universities
from technical faculties. 17 Furthermore, the asymmetric relationship between
natural sciences and human sciences can be explained by their different roles in
fulfilling the aims of the first 5-years-plan and the emergence of challenges in the
Soviet sphere of influence in Europe, which were results of the scientific-technical
revolution (ibid., p. 73).
The Scientific Academy had already authorised scientific research studies
and careers of scholars; moreover, the party hoped that it could govern all the
universities directly by setting up a new governmental institute. Contours of the
conception of the Higher Education Committee became sharp by the second half of
1950. The party wanted to make the Committee a central authority of the higher
education system in connection with, or instead of the Department of Universities
and Academies of the Ministry of Religion and Public Education. Prominent politicians thought that the ministerial department could not cope with the operative
task of governing the whole higher education system on their own.
According to the inner logic of the party, they just had to find the proper
scholars for leading positions to gain total control over the whole higher education because they had already transformed the structure of the university system
and set up new governing authorities. Drawbacks of these methods clearly arose,
however, when the party wanted to appoint vice-rectors and vice-deans. The HWP
treated the nationalization of Hungarian higher education as a kind of governing
question. They wanted to create total authority by establishing narrow-profile
universities for certain disciplines and pick politically loyal scholars to be leaders
of scientific institutes. Socialisation of the new generation of scholars, however,
went very slowly in each discipline; thus, some scholars who were appointed as
vice directors turned out to be disloyal or hostile towards the general policy of the
party, or they could not support the changes in higher education.18 Consequently,
the Secretary had to remove the proposal from its agenda, concluding that the
party could not find enough trustworthy scholars for leading positions.19 They put
15
Hungarian Scientific Academy: Report on promoting scholars to higher scientific ranks. 1st group
of university teachers. Budapest, 4th July 1952. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 201. p. 44.
16
HWP Central Directorate Agitation and Propaganda Committee’s proposal about distribution of
scientific scholarships. Budapest, 11st January 1949. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 26. p. 4.
17
Friss, István: Proposal for the Secretary about decentralisation and specialization of technical
universities. Budapest, 2nd June 1951. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 147. pp. 18–23.
18
“He made snide remarks about the people’s democracy. He is not developed enough in ideological
aspect, he had clerical sentiments.” Cader description of Dr József Varó. Budapest, 9th March 1951.
HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 134. p. 80.
19
Record about proposals of vice rectors and vice deans. Budapest, 9th March 1951. HNA f. 276. b.
54. u. 134. p. 89.

 developmental phases of the Hungarian educational sciences in the 20th century
The

175

off this question at the session of 5th April 1951. The realization that the party’s
goal of total control over the higher education sphere could not have been fully
achieved motivated policy makers to change their methods.
This failure in appointing vice directors of universities forced the politicians of
the higher education sphere to find a new method for continuing the nationalization
process. By this time, the party had strengthened its organizations again to keep
a tight rein on universities and the Scientific Academy. Nevertheless, they were
not satisfied with merely implementing governing reforms. Therefore, they took
additional political measures to improve the party’s control over higher education.
By transforming the examination structure and eliminating remaining elements
of the bourgeois pedagogy, the party wanted to change the governing system. The
concept of setting up the independent Higher Education Ministry, following a Soviet
pattern, came from the idea that the new institute should synchronize the Academy’s theoretical scientific governing role with universities’ tasks of conducting
research and training young scholars under tight control of the new ministry.20
In fact, setting up the independent Higher Education Ministry served not
only as a tool for improving governmental authority over universities, but also as
an opportunity for the government to manage and influence directly the teaching
methods of universities and research projects in all sciences. It was also expected
to be the final step of transforming the whole scientific field because, in former
phases of the nationalization process, the party had already regulated and authorized the criteria for becoming a scholar (‘entrance fee’)21, the function of scientific
societies had been restructured and influence of methods of certain scientific fields
had also been exercised during previous stages of the nationalization process.22 By
1952, very few elements of the structure of the universities were reminiscent of
the Humboldt-type university model that had been formed by following the neohumanist scientific philosophy in Central-Eastern Europe in the second half of the
19th century. The structure of Hungarian higher education began to resemble the
Soviet and French patterns of universities by creating narrow-profile universities.
The French system of higher education was mainly comprised of special lyceums and
academies (grandes écoles), which were authorized by an administrative organization (Imperial University) in the 19th century. These patterns shared some common
features with the Russian – and later Soviet – higher education system (Tóth 2001,
pp. 99–101). The political elite began to realize these changes and, therefore, they
considered changing the name of universities and academies. Paradoxically, newly
founded narrow-profile universities tended to be the most vehement opponents
of this idea by referring to traditions. 23 Thus, the party had to call off this idea,
and the politicians declared to finish the transformation of higher education by
separating the teacher training from vocational training at universities. After the
Horváth, Márton: Current situation of our higher education system and its governing system.
Budapest, 21st April 1952. HNA. f. 276. b. 54. u. 190. pp. 14–19.
21
The ’entrance fee’ was regulated by the transformation of the scientific ranking system in 1951.
22
Horváth, Márton: Record about Current situation of our higher education system and its governing
system. Budapest, 21st April 1952. HNA. f. 276. b. 54. u. 190. p. 3.
23
2180/52.VIII.19. Horváth, Márton: Proposal about the names of academies and universities.
Budapest, 19th August 1952. HNA f. 276. b. 54. u. 207. pp. 170–171.
20

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Németh, Garai

death of Stalin, political changes in Central-Eastern European countries, including
Hungary, made it possible to implement some changes at universities which was
realized only in the second half of the 1950s. After the Revolution of 1956 in Hungary, the political climate changed significantly. The party decided to cease the
practice of prescriptive curriculums, and it permitted the universities to work out
the requirements of their training programs within certain parameters that complied with political issues. Former elements of secondary teacher training (special
teacher training boarding schools and teacher training committees at universities)
were implemented, and universities were even allowed to grant minor scientific
ranks for students with scientific interest. Nevertheless, these improvements were
abolished by new education reforms in 1963, which again introduced prescriptive
curricular regulation (Ladányi 2008, pp. 104–119).
By restricting the autonomy of elite scholars at universities and in the Scientific Academy, the characteristic features of the Soviet-type university model
became even more dominant. The institutionalized form of this phenomenon is
the nomenclature system. Members of the nomenclature are those individuals
who were appointed to be officials by different levels of the party. The socialistcommunist scholar elite became an ideology-producing elite instead of researchers
and educators examining natural and social phenomena by using traditional and
strictly controlled scientific methods. Their most important task was to serve the
interest of the expanding political field.
Conclusion
By examining the changes in the discipline of education, we can conclude
that it was strongly characterized by the profound transformation of autonomy/
heteronomy relations of the previously autonomous scientific field. The formation
of basic elements of the party state created the political conditions responsible for
changing the whole spectrum of the scientific field. Institutional frameworks of
providing the autonomy and standards of scientific work ceased, and they were
replaced by collective governing boards. This resulted in the elimination of the
autonomy of Hungarian disciplinary spaces, which were relatively free from direct
political influence.
Eliminating the autonomy of the scientific field, which also determined the
function of discipline of education in the first half of the century, resulted in serious
consequences for all components of the discipline of education. By following the
norms of nomenclature, the discipline of education became part of the politicalideological field, which was authorized by totalitarian measures of the new political
system. Hungarian scholars with professional and scientific autonomy became
members of the ‘priest order’, and they approached public and higher education
with missionary zeal. They also created the “atheist theology” of communist “state
religion” and, thus, they also became the part of the political field (Bourdieu 2005).
The Hungarian communist/socialist science of education, as an adherent of
the socialist pedagogy, opposed the Western-type meritocratic perception of sci-

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The

177

ence24. Socialist scholars of education discontinued research based on the previous
principles and steps of examining pedagogical phenomena: empirical approaches to
perceived pedagogic events, creating hypotheses and then confirming or dismissing
them by using appropriate methodological processes. New theorists of pedagogy
transformed the pedagogical prescriptions of the Stalinist variant of MarxismLeninism, which incorporated normative principles as an atheist theology into
doctrinaire pedagogical theorems. The socialist scholar of education—as an ideologically committed ‘converter’ who denied the principles of Western-type scientific
ethos—used this political indoctrination as a tool to re-educate the members of the
society according to the party’s current political ideology. In order to fulfil their
aim, these scholars used literary epic language instead of exact scientific language.
This resulted in suppression of abstract cognition, scientific analytical thinking,
the critical approach and cognitive abstraction viewpoint.
As opposed to Medveš (2015, p. 2), who described the ‘socialist pedagogy’
phenomenon in Slovenia, the Hungarian science of education had not assumed
a socially reflective function in the 1950s. Its critical approach was restricted to
criticising the previous scientific approaches of education (for instance, Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik) and to providing the political elite with Marxist-Leninist
ideologically based new theories to restructure the Hungarian public and tertiary
educational systems. As we have seen in the earlier parts of our paper, the scientific
boundaries of the discipline of education faded away, and its role was restricted to
intrude into core parts of other disciplines through methodological issues and to
convey ideological indoctrinations of the party to the public.
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