December 7, 2007

Ferenc Glatz, historian, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Science has been working in the Institute of History of HAS since 1965, as director since 1988. He was President of the Hungarian Academy of Science between 1996 and 2002, at present he works as director of the Institute of History again, as well as President of the Scientific Council of the Social Research Centre of HAS. He has been teaching historiography, cultural history, modern age source studies and natural history at the Eötvös Loránd University since 1975. He has been editor-in-chief of the periodical História since its foundation in 1979. His major publications include: Történelemelméleti és módszertani tanulmányok [Studies on Historical Theory and Methodology], Történetíró és politika [Historiographer and Politics], Nemzeti kultúra, kultúrált nemzet 1867-1987 [National Culture – a Nation of Culture 1867-1987], Történetírás korszakváltásban [Historiography in Epoch Change], Tudománypolitika az ezredforduló Magyarországán [Science Policy in Hungary at the Turn of the Millennium] , Új szintézis felé [Towards a New Synthesis], Helyünk Európában [Our Place in Europe], A magyarok krónikája. Major prizes and awards: Österreichische Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst [Cross of Honour for Science and Art of the Austrian Republic], Freedom Cultural-Scientific Grand Prize, Széchenyi Prize, Pro Minorities Prize, International Herder Prize, Interfaith Gold Medallion. His achievements were first acknowledged by the highest state award of the German Federal Republic, the Grand Cross of Honour, then by the Grand Cross of Honour of the Republic of Hungary.

 

Glatz Ferenc, Member of the HAS, historian: I am happy to have received this prize, which is based on the recommendation of my fellow scientists, and artist friends but is awarded by entrepreneurs of the business sphere, whose inventiveness, smartness and cleverness in communicating social demands to us, workers of culture is so essential. In the first thirty years of my life I had been dreaming of a science-friendly society and tried to achieve social acknowledgement for us, educators, researchers, guardians of bequests of various collections, and to contribute to the society’s becoming science-friendly. I am also happy to have received this prize because in the past ten years, apart from achieving a science-friendly society, I aimed to work for a society-friendly science, as well. I wanted to achieve that science senses the problems and concerns of people in this era of simultaneously evolving material wealth and moral-emotional crisis at the beginning of the 21st century. The world cannot advance without a society-friendly science. But I am also happy to have received this prize because this has brought happiness to my immediate colleagues, my family, and primarily my mother who has raised me from a very young age in the spirit of appreciating knowledge and loving people. Again, thank you very much!