The study provides an analysis of entries on teachers of the Faculty of Reformed Theology in Debrecen recorded in the forthcoming prosopography database of all university teachers active in Hungary between 1848 and 1944. The family history of theology professors appointed in the first half of the twentieth century can be traced back two-three generations and often as far back as the eighteenth century. The main research question of the analysis is whether it is possible to use sociology to verify a previous hypothesis, which suggests that there is an organically developed confessional-educational structure behind the protestant segment of the intellectual elite of twentieth-century Hungary. Even a relatively small sample of twenty individuals was sufficient to demonstrate the continuity of this formation from the eighteenth century onwards. Its core comprised of a clerical order similar to the German Pfarrhaus, complemented by other elements such as teachers, primary teachers, notaries or rural administrators who were all part of a complex web with close ties to the landed gentry. Although priesthood as a profession was passed on from generation to generation, which resulted in the birth of preacher dynasties, the continuity of the formation was mostly maintained by the constant addition of further individuals and families. At the same time, despite its internal movements, the pool that provided the supply of newcomers can be characterised as relatively constant. This pool consisted of upwardly mobile protestant members of nobility, non-aristocratic small-holders, craftsmen, aristocratic and honoratior intellectuals, and smallholder noblemen of Hungarian ethnicity. The concept of this protestant Hungarian confessional-educational formation can only be analysed together with this supply pool, as well as the whole ecclesiastical and educational institutional framework, which controlled not only the process of supply but the denominational block as a whole.

Nincs absztrakt.

This paper adds source critical comments to those of Viktor Karády’s writings in which the author defines the proportions of bigger ethnical aggregates in Hungarian middle schools between 1883 and 1915 by relying on data drawn from statistics on language competence. This study first reveals the practice of language competence data collection and data provision concerning middle schools in dualist times, then presents the broader circle of language competence data collection and analyses the data base down to the level of concrete data-providing schools and by this, finally arrives at the conclusion that Karády’s conclusions do not bear closer examination. The expression „thoroughbred” (törzsökös) Hungarian that the author uses is unclear. If we vaguely identify the term as „Hungarians of not assimilant origins” then this group cannot be identical with students speaking only Hungarian. And, in close connection with this, those students with Hungarian mother tongue who have knowledge of other languages spoken in Hungary cannot be on the whole identified with the assimilated allogenes. Having arrived at this conclusion, the statement that in dualist times Hungarians were strongly underrepresented in middle schools – that provided new generations of the intelligentsia – cannot be stated as evidence.

The study presents data concerning the secondary education of the inter-war intellectual elite. We are familiar with the high schooling data of 1252 members, covering 83,3% of the elite that counted 1502 persons on the whole. The elite group studied in the high schools of historical Hungary prior to the Treaty of Trianon, mainly between the years 1860 and 1920. This essay is, among others, concerned with the methodological problem of dealing with the individual choice of changing schools. Moreover, it presents the ranking of elite schools that released the most elite members and presents the changes, modifications in ranking according to the four age-groups of the elite, and to certain sub-patterns (university professors, members of the Academy etc.) as well. The study also pays attention to the shifting role of schools in the traditional school-towns and the rising regional centres. Furthermore, it also enlarges upon the proportional modification of denominational schools and the newly founded, proliferating state schools in elite schooling. Finally, it analyses how much share certain school types had in education and also deals with the question of the place of birth, taken both in a narrow and a broad sense. As facts show, to a different extent however, but almost the entire high school network took part in elite schooling. The role of Budapest, with a proportion of one third, is certainly outstanding and determining. Still, the fact that there were schools in 132 of all settlements in the country, whose graduates could become part of the national intellectual elite, suggests a well expanded network.