The study sheds light on a single aspect of the professionalisation of the Hungarian Theatre of Pest (the later National Theatre), inaugurated in 1837, based on the examination of the in-house ethical codes and the written minutes of in-house tribunals. These two types of sources reveal the internal processes deployed to build and manage the professional everyday operation of this new, representative, and unique institution. Within a decade after its opening, the theatre could boast three generously supplemented codes. From 1842 onwards, the code of ethics stipulated the job description, jurisdiction and financial liability of all employees, extending to the regulation of the moral conduct of the staff and actors both in and outside the theatre, the enforcement of the regulations and the potential retribution for violating the code. The minutes taken at the hearings contain details, resolutions and fines imposed upon professional misconduct and other violation. A comparative analysis of surviving documentation of the code itself and that of its enforcement and execution presents the stage productions and their behind-the-scenes work from an unusual angle. The misdemeanours recorded reveal a wealth of information about the private life of the nation’s leading theatre community, including episodes such as discovering the sartorial mishap of Zsigmond Szentpétery’s overly tight costume minutes before his stage appearance or the deplorably loud quarrel erupting behind the scenes between two leading actors, Gábor Egressy and Márton Lendvay.

The 1831 regulations of the Hungarian Scholarly Society (A’ Magyar Tudós Társaság alaprajza és rendszabásai) summarises the remit of the institution in twelve points. With regard to its support of Hungarian literature, the document states that it will take part in the following activities: support national theatre by providing criticism, support national literature by launching prize competitions, finance the publication of the best manuscripts received, award money to previously published literary works selected by an award committee, and support the Hungarian translation of eminent foreign-language literary works ‘new and old alike’. The present study examines the literary competitions organised in the first decade of the society’s existence: the Drama Prize and the Grand Prize. The premise of the study is that the society was founded amidst the overhaul of literary life in Hungary, the process of modern disciplinarisation. By the foundation of professional institutions, literature was expected to both slot into a new system of disciplines and find a way to make its role appreciated by society at large. At the same time, besides consistently supporting the legitimisation of literature by inviting original work in competitions and awarding money prizes to new and already published Hungarian literary works, the Academy also legitimised the artistic programme of originality and encouraged the transformation and diversity of Hungarian literature’s disciplinary structure. It seems that the Academy’s communication in the annuals, which published the prize winners every two-three years, was purposefully conceived to give the impression of a dynamically evolving art form, appreciative of and responsive to both professional and national expectations. Contemporary readers were involved in the internal processes of literature in the making: the announcements included more than just the fact of awarding the prizes and the titles of winning works. They also published lists of other critically acclaimed literary works, as well as that the Academy appreciated the important role of both the financial and symbolic value of the prizes in their public evaluation. By examining the practice of weighing the applications as apparent in these reports, the study assesses the symbolic and financial value of the prizes awarded to understand the Academy’s role in the structural transformation of Hungarian literary culture and the ways they communicated this role in the Academy’s official bulletin.