Lajos Somogyvári PhD University of Pannonia Teacher Training Centre

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1 The Hungarian School Reform-Committee Actors of the Educational Policy (1958-1960)
Lajos Somogyvári PhD University of Pannonia Teacher Training Centre Veszprém, Hungary ECER 2017, Copenhagen

2 Overview Topic of the presentation: history and historiography
The corpus Methodology Main aspects of the analysis Conclusion and further researches References Picture 1. Youngsters’ Collective Farm in Polgár (Public Education, 14 October, 1959, front cover)

3 Polytechnic Education in the Socialist Pedagogy:
A Forgotten Story School reform inspired by Khrushchev in 1958 Picture 2. Khruschev to workers in Smolensk, 24 August, 1958 Cited from the Pravda: Rudman, 1959 Sources of the topic The main question: Who made the decisions in the state socialist education? The Hungarian School Reform-Committee ( ) – formed the main principles, translated the ideology into practice

4 The corpus of the research
Three lists about the Committee (Hungarian National Archive) 2 December 1958 (Javaslat a Bizottság összetételére, 1958) László Orbán, 40 members 2) 1959 (Javaslat a Bizottság összetételére, 1959) 38 members 3) 28 July, 1959 (Iskolai Reformbizottság tagjai, 1959) 19 members were constant MSZMP KB TKO to MSZMP PB Total: 64 members Confidential process, excluding publicity The Committee as a unified body The corpus of the research

5 Methodology Paradigmatic turn in the social sciences: from the structures to the individual (Geertz, 1980; Cowman, 2012; Martin, 2014; Goldman, 2016) Importance of the biography in state socialism Prosopography Investigation of the common background characteristics of a group of actors in history through a collective study of their lives (Stone, 1971) Multiple carreer analysis Elitist and mass school

6 Using prosopography Process of the prosopographical analysis (Keats-Rohan, 2007) 1) Creating a biographical lexicon/dictionary Defining target group Collecting data 2) Analysis Prosopograhic studies Studies in ancient history (Verboven, Carlier & Dumoly, 2007) Analysis about the recrutation of the professional and scientific elites, making databases (Karády & Nagy, 2003, 2004; Karády, 2008; Karády & Nagy, 2012; Nagy 2013; Kovács, 2014; Biró, 2015; Kovács, 2016)

7 Main aspects of the analysis
Sources and limitations creating the biographical lexicon: Pedagogical lexicons (Hild & Stisser, 2015), databases, archontologies, biographies, memoirs, archive records etc. Lack of informations, false informations, stressing different biographic elements etc. Aspects of the multivariete analysis 1) raw data: membership, actual position, name, sex (64) 2) date of birth (54) 3) original qualification (51) 4) Party membership (with the date of the affiliation) (32) Two levels of the analysis As a collective group Biographic patterns and individual careers

8 Table 1. Memberships based upon age cohorses
Age and generations Table 1. Memberships based upon age cohorses Male dominance Fluctuation Generation experiences (Koselleck, 2006) – most of the carreers began before 1945

9 Positions and groups Government (Ministries) – 12 → 16
Cultural Ministry, Departments and Ministries related to the labour market (agriculture, heavy, light and building-industry, trade etc.) 2) Academics – 10 → 6 MTA (Hungarian National Academy) and universities 3) Public education – 6 → 2 Directors of elementary, secondary and vocational schools 4) Executive branch at the local-regional level – 4 → 6 Leaders of counties, districts and educational departments 5) Party control – 3 → 2 MSZMP KB TKO 6) „Transmission belt”: trade unions and mass organisations – 3 All Trade Union, Teachers’ Trade Union, Communist Youth League (Labour market – 2 factory-directors)

10 An example of the multipositional elite
Definition (Lengyel, 1993) Positions of Gyula Kállai: State Minister ( ) Chair of the School Reform-Committee ( ) Cultural and Ideological Secretary at the MSZMP KB ( ) Head of the of the Patriotic People’s Front National Committee ( ) Editor of the Társadalmi Szemle (Social Review, ) Member of the MSZMP PB ( ) Picture 3. Gyula Kállai. Source:

11 The original qualifications
Table 2. Chart about the members’ original qualifications 26 members from the total 64 had academic degree: candidates and doctors - engineers, education sciences, free and liberal arts

12 Labour movement and the Party
„The movement heritage” as individual legitimation (Szalai, 1994, p. 66) Central element of the communist biography - date of entrance (Morgan, 2012) Internationalism, Soviet Union and home communists Involving illegality, connections, common political socialisation and experiences – trustworthiness, lojality (vs. expertise at positions) Biographical thinking as political activity – screening processes Changes of the regimes ( , 1948) The case of „cripto-communists” Waves of the entering

13 Changing to other Party Endre Bakonyi Sebestyén
Party memberships I. Name Date of entrance Party Changing to other Party Gyula Hevesi 1916 MSZDP KMP Ottó Benedikt 1918 KMP Sándor Szerényi 1921 1924 – FKP Ödön Kisházi 1922 1948 – MDP Márton Valkó 1930 FKP 1945 – MKP István Simonovits 1932 Endre Bakonyi Sebestyén CSKP 1935 – MSZDP, KMP László Földi 1935 Dezső Kiss 1936 MKP László Orbán 1937 KMP Pál Ilku Ferenc Erdei 1939 NPP (1944 – MKP) Valéria Benke 1941 Gyula Kállai György Gonda 1943 József Mekis 1944 MKP

14 Table 3. Party memberships
Party memberships II. Name Date of entrance Party Change to other Party Lajos Cseterki 1944 MKP Jenő Lugossy 1945 MSZDP (MKP) MSZMP Jánosné Bugár János Halász Ernő Péter József Szigeti Ferenc Várnai Győző Vidor Gyula Ortutay FKGP (MKP) Rezső Trautmann MSZDP 1948 – MDP Gyula Szekér NPP MKP József Fekete 1946 János Molnár 1947 Géza Szili Ferenc Orosz 1950 MDP András Magyari 1952 Table 3. Party memberships

15 Continuities and discontinuities
Hard vs. soft dictatorship Continuity Joining to the Party before 1948 Education and socialisation in the Horthy Era Traditional institution of recruitment the elites – the Eötvös College Leadership with special expertise e. g. administration of Ministry of Trading, Light Industry, Health (vs. Ministry of Education) Discontinuity Breakdowns in the careers: inprisonment in Stalinist Soviet Union and Rákosi’s Hungary e. g. Kállai and Kádár in the prison between 1951 and 1954 with the same accusation

16 Conclusion and further researches
Conclusions Different sources, different emphasis Interest groups? Creating groups - homogenisation Different interests, changing positions, temporality Collective vs. individual level The Committee making-process has been still unknown – aspects of the members’ selection Further researching possibilities network-analysis argumentation, pros and contras role of the intellectuals in the Post-Stalin Era (Slapentokh, 2014) Connections between political power, interest groups, professions, academics and experts (monopoly of power vs. shared and controlled power)

17 References Primary sources
Iskolai reformbizottság tagjai (1959) Javaslat a Politikai Bizottság elé oktatási rendszerünk felülvizsgálatára. MNL OL, 288 f. 33/1959/2. ő. e. MSZMP KB TKO, november 12. Melléklet, július 28. Javaslat a Bizottság összetételére (1958). Jegyzőkönyv a Politikai Bizottság december 2-án tartott üléséről. MNL OL, 288 f. 5/106. ő. e. MSZMP PB, december 2. Melléklet Javaslat a Bizottság összetételére (1959). Javaslat a Politikai Bizottság elé oktatási rendszerünk felülvizsgálatára. MNL OL, 288 f. 33/1959/2. ő. e. MSZMP KB TKO, november 12. Melléklet, dátum nélkül Secondary sources Biró, Zs. H. (2015). Bölcsészdiploma és társadalom. Budapest: Gondolat. Cowman, K. (2012). Collective Biography. In Gunn, S. & Faire, L. (Ed.), Research Methods for History (pp ). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Geertz, C. (1980). Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought.  The American Scholar, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Spring 1980), Goldman, L. (2016). History and biography. Historical Research, Vol. 89, no. 245, Hild, A. & Stisser, A. (2015). A neveléstudományi lexikonok – a tudománytörténet kutatási anyagaként? In A. Németh, H. Zs. Biró & I. Garai (Eds.), Neveléstudomány és tudományos elit a 20. század második felében (pp ). Budapest: Gondolat. Karády, V. (2008). Educated Elites in Pre-Socialist Hungary – Issues, Approaches, Sources and Some Preliminary Results of an Overall Survey. Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, Vol. 33, No. 2 (124), Karády, V. (2015): Egy szocialista értelmiségi „államnemesség”? Kandidátusok és akadémiai doktorok a hazai társadalomtudományokban. In A. Németh, H. Zs. Biró & I. Garai (Eds.): Neveléstudomány és tudományos elit a 20. század második felében (pp ). Budapest: Gondolat. Karády, V. & Nagy, P. T. (2003). Educational inequalities and denominations, Database for Transdanubia. Budapest: Oktatáskutató Intézet. Karády, V. & Nagy, P. T. (2004). Educational inequalities and denominations, Database for Western-Slovakia and North-Western Hungary. Budapest: John Wesley Theological College. Karády, V. & Nagy, P. T. (2012). Educational inequalities and denominations, Database for Transylvania. Budapest: John Wesley Theological College.

18 References Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (2007). Introduction: Chameleon or Chimera? Understanding Prosopography. In Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (Ed.), Prosopography Approaches and Applications: A Handbook (pp. 1-32). Oxford: University of Oxford. Koselleck, R. (2006). Tapasztalatváltozás és módszerváltás. Korall, 23, Kovács, I. G. (2014). A debreceni tudományegyetem református hittudományi kari tanárainak prozopográfiája és a református felekezeti-művelődési alakzat szociológiája. Korall, 56, Kovács, I. G. (2016). Sárospatak erőterében. A tiszáninneni származású református egyetemi tanárok életrajzi adattára és életútleírása. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó. Lengyel, Gy. (1993). A multipozicionális gazdasági elit a két világháború között. (Fejezetek egy történetszociológiai kutatásból). Budapest: ELTE Szociológiai és Szociálpolitikai Intézet. Morgan, K. (2012). Comparative Communist History and the ’Biographical Turn’. History Compass, 10(6), Nagy, P. T. (2013). Elitszociológia és neveléstörténet-írás. Neveléstudomány, 1(3), Rudman, Herbert C. (1959): De-Emphasis of Academics in the USSR. The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 59, No. 5 (Feb., 1959), pp Shlapentokh, V. (2014). Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power. The Post-Stalin Era. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ. Stone, L. (1971). Prosopography. Daedalus, Vol. 100, No. 1, Historical Studies Today (Winter, 1971), pp Szalai, E. (1994). Útelágazás. Hatalom és értelmiség az államszocializmus után. Budapest -Szombathely: Pesti Szalon-Savaria University Press. Verboven, K., Carlier, M. & Dumolyn, J. (2007). A Short Manual to the Art of Prosopography. In Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (Ed.), Prosopography Approaches and Applications: A Handbook (pp ). Oxford: University of Oxford.