Ferenc Glatz (born 2 April 1941) is a Hungarian historian and academician.[1] He has served three terms as the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Biography
Ferenc Glatz was born in Csepel on 2 April 1941. He attended school in Csepel, Szigetszentmiklós and the Fay Secondary School in Ferencváros and graduated from the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University (1964).[2]
From 1967 he worked as a researcher in the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, was appointed Head of Department (1976) and later Director of the Institute (1988). He has been a teacher at the Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences since 1976, is founder of the Department of Historical Museology (1979) and university professor (1990). He has been founding editor-in-chief of the historical political periodical História since 1979. After several study trips abroad (in the Federal Republic of Germany, England, France and the Soviet Union) he was appointed Secretary-General of the Committee of Modern Age Methodology and Source Criticism of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS) (1985), became Secretary General of the Committee of Historiography (1990–95) and was invited speaker at several World Congresses of Historians. He is author of several books on history and historical theory and of hundreds of scientific studies and collections of essays in Hungarian and various foreign languages.[2]
In 1989–1990 he was Minister of Education and Culture in Miklós Németh's second government, several measures are linked with his name that contributed to the dismantling of the Soviet-type cultural policy system (the abolition of censure and the compulsory education of Russian as a foreign language, the launching of a foreign language teaching programme, the annulment of the state monopoly of school founding, re-regulation of the relationship between the state and the Church, the founding of an alternative framework for financing culture etc.) After the termination of his portfolio in 1990 he became Director of the Institute of History of the HAS again.[2]
He was elected Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1993 and became President of the HAS in two subsequent periods between 1996 and 2002.[3] The reformulation of the Academy's social role is considered to be one of his major achievements. He regarded the Academy as a kind of think tank for the nation, which has to pay special attention to the newly emerging possibilities, advantages and turmoil that the nation has to cope with as a result of the political system change and Hungary's accession to the European Union. He initiated and has led the National Strategic Research Programme, the results of which are among others the elaboration of an agricultural programme, strategies for water management, transport, language policy, information technology and environment, the analysis of the social and health care crisis roused by the political system change as well as the minority issue.[2]
Apart from his scientific activity he launched a number of public and civilian initiatives. He is leader of the National Strategic Committee for Land and Water Management (2004), which set the aim of modernising the Tisza and Danube Valley and the Homokhátság (Sand Ridge) region and of easing the social tensions of these regions. The elaboration of the Programme Párbeszéd a vidékért (Dialogue for the countryside) is also linked with his name (2005). The main objectives of this project are the creation of workplaces in rural areas and the promotion of equal opportunities in social and cultural terms.[2]
Since 1991 he has been member of various international committees responsible for preparing the Eastern enlargement of the European Union. He delivered speeches and presented proposals on several European forums in the field of human policy, culture and migration. Given an international mandate he prepared the Central and Eastern European Minority Code (1992), which has also been published in English, German, Slovakian and Romanian. He also participated in the monitoring process of the candidate countries for EU accession between 1994 and 98.[2]
