Ferenc Mádl, a researcher at the Institute of Political Science and Law of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Ferenc Mádl (1931–2011), the future president of the Republic of Hungary (2000-2005), began his career as an official at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in the spring of 1956. His talent-as a law student, he won a faculty (1953) and a nationwide (1955) academic competition-and his eagerness enabled him to begin a professional career soon after, in addition to his official duties. From 1958 until the late 1980s, Mádl worked at the Institute of Political Science and Law of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1971, he was transferred from the Academy to the Faculty of Law at the University of ELTE. As a researcher, he began to deal with private international law and – as one of the first in Hungary – with the law of the European Economic Community. At the beginning of the regime change, Ferenc Mádl was one of the most respected experts on European law within the so-called Soviet Block, and his name was well known not only in Eastern, but also in Western academic circles. József Antall brought him into his government primarily because of his expertise in the field, and he also remained in public life because of his knowledge of European law. Mádl’s vision of a reunification of Hungary and the Central European region with Western Europe was widely supported both in politics and in the societies concerned. This paper examines the beginnings of his academic career, mainly on the basis of documents from the Archives of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, from the beginning until 1971, when Mádl was transferred to the university at his own request.