Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy ofSciences

Hommage àGyörgy RánkiAuthor(s): ZSIGMOND PÁL PACHSource: Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 34, No. 4, IN MEMORIAMGYÖRGY RÁNKI (1988), pp. 353-357Published by: Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy ofSciencesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42555667 .

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Acta Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (4) pp. 356-357 (1988)

Hommage à György Ránki

ZSIGMOND PÂL PACH

It is more than four months by now that György Ránki left us but letters of con- dolence still keep coming to me, my colleagues and our institute. Letters in which our foreign colleagues, practically from all parts of the world, write about their sympathy, their bereavement and their grievous loss. There is an ever returning paragraph in these messages of condolence which I am going to quote now from one of the recent letters, written by our learned colleague from France, Jacques le Goff. He himself is mourning over György Ránki: "excellent historien, homme charmant et bon ami 99 - the excellent historian, the engaging man, the good friend.

It is neither mere chance nor just flowers of speech on a sorrowful occasion that such or similar attributive adjectives echo in the letters, even in the letters of foreign colleagues who do not know one another at all. But they all knew György Ránki, whose character is really perfectly described by the quoted words. And, what is more, few people can we meet in our life in whose person the mentioned properties are amalgamated to such a high degree as they were in case of our George. It is rare, extremely rare to find such a combination and coincidence of these precious characteristics as he represented

He was an excellent historian. Is it necessary at all to keep stressing this merit of his in this circle, among his colleagues? His significance asa historian could be demonstrated only very inadequately and fragmentary by the obituaries which were written in the first hours after the serious blow and the immense loss. However, it is our intention and decision to analyze in detailed and thorough studies his unbelievably abundant and far- reaching scientific œuvre pressed into the tragically short period of three and a half decades. His œuvre started from the research into the economic history of Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century and it unfolded in time, spanning over the last two hundred years; it expanded in range, covering at first the East-Central European region which includes our country and, then in fact, practically the whole continent; its subject became wider and wider, touching upon the crucial questions of politics, diplomacy and the history of ideas. The points of view became always more profound and richer as he attempted to comprehend the different spheres of historical life and to sense the com- plicated interrelations as well as to grasp the full completeness of historical reality. A contribution to the analysis of his scientific œuvre will be the György Ránki memorial

♦Opening address to the memorial meeting held in the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (27 June 1988)

PACH, ZSIGMOND PÁL, Institut d'Histoire de l'Académie Hongroise, Budapest, Uri u. 53. 1014

Acta Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (4) (1988) A kadémiai Kiadô , Budapest

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354 Zsigmond Pál Pach

volume which is planned to be published by the Institute of History and the National Committee of Hungarian Historians, including authors from abroad, before the coming 1990 World Congress of Historians in Madrid and which is to be placed on the table of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, a table at which, alas, he will no longer take his place in person as the international organization's first vice-president, respected by all. The editors of Századok, Tôrténelmi Szemle, Danubian Historical Stud- ies and Acta Histórica will also endeavour to contribute to the appreciation of his scholarly activity in the forthcoming numbers of the periodicals.

György Ránki was an excellent historian because he had a magnificent intellect, sharp historical sense and unusually quick ability of apperception: the innate gift to recognize the relation and the connection between apparently distant phenomena; to see, behind the heap/ of facts and events, the essence and the really importance. Many a time we mentioned jand appreciated this quality of his, but did we Emphasise it enough in this circle, do our young colleagues all know, with what unusual diligence and zeal he developed, evolved and completed this innate gift inherited in his genes? All his colleagues knew and admired his almost unlimited working capacity - his apparently unlimited working capacity, as we must now sorrowfully add. But does everybody know what the first sign of this great labour zeal and working capacity was during the long years of the beginning of his scientific career? Together with his close friend and co-author, Iván T. Berend, day by day, every morning they were there when the archives or the libraries opened and it was they whom the meticulous keepers and librarians could get rid of as the last ones when closing time came in the evening. And in those days there was no xerox at all and even microfilms were rare. They had to copy the great amount of sources and literature or to make notes of them by hand, in the same way as the preceding gen* erations of historiáns did.

"Das Genie ist nur Fleiss", i.e. the genious is just diligence as Goethe said, since an extreme thesis like that could be formulated only by such a genious himself as that Gerinan giant of the European spirit was. But who could dispute the message of this exaggerating maxim, namely that even the excellent intellectual abilities and superb taleiits can develop and transform from possibility into reality only if the shapeless mass with noble contents loses its scoria and is finally condensed into noble metal in the furnace of enduring zealous work day after day? Literary history may offer several examples when even the most excellent abilities wasted or did not show their mettles if they were not accompanied by diligence which was required even of Goethe himself. And historical science itself offers lots of examples when great works of historiography were born out of the union of talent, working capacity and labour zeal. It was just eighty years ago that one of the masters of Hungarian history writing, Gyula Szekfü put down in a letter his opinion about the then Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung in Vienna: "The Institut offers a very thorough training for (historian) artisans who, after having worked six days honestly, leave their trade on the seventh, because they do not find the joy in their work which can be obtained only by comparison in the widest possible range and, along with that, by French readings."

We do know of György Ránki that he was an artisan who did not leave his trade on the seventh day but he celebrated the week-end in the same way as he worked for six days. He was a historian inspired by an unending labour zeal, who found his real joy in

Acta Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (4) (1988)

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Hommage à György Ránki 35 5

work (and actually only in work): in research and reading, reading in Hungarian, French and other languages. Not only did he know several languages but he was also a man of wide reading who spared no effort to keep his literacy always up to date. He was such a historian-artisan who was inspired "by comparison in the widest possible range": there- fore he could become a master of the application of the comparative historical method, à master of the profession.

In short, he was an excellent historian . Excellent historian and homme charmant - as Jacques le Goff put it. Charmant -

this characteristically French word is difficult to translate into any other language. Nice, pleasant, kind, engaging, charming? Let us no longer try to find an adequate translation of this word. All the less since all of us who worked together with George know or feel almost precisely what this attributive adjective means in his case. Yes, his charme showed in his pleasant behaviour, kindness and good humour. It did show - but it was much more than that. Because his pleasant behaviour was never the cover of mere being pleasant or formal politeness on the surface. On the contrary: this charme was frequently stinging, ironic, teasing or critical. His kindness and his attention towards people, towards his colleagues was mainly that he really paid attention to them and took care of them. As a leader he observed their work with humane goodwill, which also means that he did not simply make allowances for their mistakes but offered help and assistance. Colleagues who went up to him for a short discussion themselves, or those he had asked for, some- times had reason to feel anxiety because they knew that also an account will have to be given of what they did or they did not do since the last meeting with him. But they also knew that the main and perhaps the only role of this account was to help and to develop - to develop the work of the individual and of the Institute of History as a whole. To develop and to help not by covering up the mistakes "kindly", but by positive criticism and far-reaching scientific guidance, valuable professional ideas and invention.

This is how Ránki's charme was essentially connected with his being a bon ami : he was a good friend who did not understand friendship only as easily spoken sweet words, but meant it first of all as responsibility, real assistance and frequently sharp but never individually harming criticism. This is why the circle of his friends was so wide, so very wide. Not only Jacques le Goff regarded himself as a friend of Ránki but several other foreign historians as well, who all sent their agitated letters of condolence to our institute now; since many noted representatives of the international historian profession were among his friends. Because they all felt his radiating attention and because they all felt, respected . and made use of his critical remarks. In a short time Ránki became popular among international circles of historians, because of his amiable and thoughtful be- haviour, and mainly because of his definite, brave and critical statements which, although observing diplomatic norms, were always determined by the merit of the subject, the theoretical and professional essence of the question at issue and not by external points of view - statements which were authenticated by the hallmark of solid scientific ground- ing.

If he found so many friends and became the friend of so many in the international field of historians, what else can be said of the wide range of his friends at home and firstly and mostly in this Institute of History?

Probably everybody knows but perhaps not everybody is aware of the rare and

Acta Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (4) (1988)

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35 6 Z sigmo nd Pál Pach

outstanding relation and the special link which connected György Ránki to this institute. Suffice it to mention now only the fact that already as a student of economics he parti- cipated in one of the working teams which were then organized within the institute and that, immediately after his graduation in June 1953, he could join the institute which then came to be his main working place for all the years to come. Besides this, for several decades, there was the Debrecen University which he loved and appreciated so much - never regarding the journey to and from as a waste of time and energy. And besides this, in recent times, in the eighties, there was the Hungarian Chair of Indiana University in the United States, which he established and built up himself in Bloomington as a most attractive and best founded mission of Hungarian scholarship and culture abroad. He did this and even much more besides his work in the Institute of History, of which he was deputy director since 1960, then its third director since the beginning of 1986 - un- fortunately a terribly short period.

Surely chance may have had a role in the fact that Ránki's whole career was "so closely connected with this institute - we historians know it well enough what role chance can play in history and in life as well. But just for us historians it was always an endeav- our and an ambition to recognize the factors and connections underlying chances. And in Ránki's case we can also trace the factors which %had some significance beyond these chances. Let us just mention two of them. First of all he could experience from the very start (and later even more) that several talented and well trained historians worked in this institute, colleagues he could learn from, who affected him and who were ready to accept his own influence and incentives. The atmosphere of intellect and professional skill, as well as the character of the scholarly workshop, this was what attracted Ránki already in a former period of this institute and this was one of the underlying factors which bound him here for all his life. The second factor which became more and more characteristic in the 1960s was closely correlated with the first. The general conditions of politics and science policy changed essentially by that time: an ever widening field opened up for unbiased and objective Marxist scientific research, whereas the traditions of dogmatism and vulgarization still heavily weighed on our historiography and our historical education as a whole. Ránki knew very well how much depended on the indi- viduals and on the institute in such a peculiar, transitional situation. The question was if he should comply with the given situation of science policy which was indisputably more favourable than before but, in many respects, still carried the burdens of the past. Or should he grasp the progressive possibilities and, risking conflicts (sometimes very sharp ones), should he turn against rigidity and widen the scope of intellectual and professional activity for our institute, thereby undertaking the role of some kind of vanguard within the field of historical studies and, in some respects, even beyond that? It followed from Ránkťs character and his individual habit that, naturally enough, he chose the second alternative - which was also encouraged by the fact that Erik Molnár, who had been the first director of our institute, also proceeded in the same way, thereby offering opportunities to raise brave questions and to start research along new lines, as he himself also did in several important scientific topics.

Thus in the 1960s and 70s the character of our institute as a home of creative scholars became more and more emphatic. The serious demands for professional level

Acta Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (4) (1 988)

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Hommage a György Ránki 35 7

were norms and specific features just as well as the freedom of research and composition, the possibility of different approaches, the critical spirit and the democracy of science.

And if the process of the development of this institute went on during the past decades and was appreciated both at home and abroad, György Ránki could rightly say with the words of Aeneas: quorum pars magna fui - I had a great part in that.

He could have said, I must add at once. Because he never said so and he never even hinted at his individual merits. It would have been incompatible with, and foreign to, the deepest layer and the internal part of his personality, which all his characteristic features were connected with in one way or the other: his innate democratism and austerity. It was even embarrassing for him when his own results came up in conversation: the signs of some childish inconvenience appeared on his face then, another component of his charme.

He never said so but we have to tell it. We have to tell it when, unfortunately, it is no longer embarrassing for him and we can no longer feel his embarrassment either. We have to tell: in all what the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences means today - pars magna fuisti - you had a great part, a very great part, George.

And we have to tell how difficult, how unbelievably difficult, how almost inextricably difficult it is without you.

Without you - the excellent historian, the humane man, the good friend.

Acta Histórica Acad emiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (4) (1988)

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