Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Árpád Göncz
Summary
Árpád Göncz (ˈaːrpaːd ˈɡønt͡s; 10 February 1922 – 6 October 2015) was a Hungarian writer, translator, agronomist, and liberal politician who served as President of Hungary from 2 May 1990 to 4 August 2000. Göncz played a role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, for which he was imprisoned for six years. After his release, he worked as a translator of English-language literary works.
He was also a founding member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) and Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary (de facto head of state) before becoming president. He was Hungary's first freely elected head of state, as well as the first in 42 years who was not a communist or a fellow traveller.
He was a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Árpád Göncz was born on 10 February 1922 in Budapest into a petty bourgeois family of noble origin as the son of Lajos Göncz de Gönc (1887–1974), who worked as a post officer, and Ilona Haimann (b. 1892). The Roman Catholic Göncz family originated from Csáktornya, Zala County (today Čakovec, Croatia), where Göncz's great-grandfather, Lajos Göncz, Sr. was a pharmacist. He later participated in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and following the defeat, he was sentenced to nine years in prison. Árpád Göncz's father, Lajos Göncz was also a successful tennis player, who participated in the 1924 Summer Olympics, where he was defeated by René Lacoste in men's singles in the second round. Árpád Göncz's parents divorced when he was six years old, thus his relationship with his father became tense in the following years. Göncz's mother, who was a Unitarian, was born in Transylvania, she had Jewish and Székely roots. She became an orphan as a child and after a brief spell in an orphanage, she was raised by the merchant Báthy family from Budapest.
After finishing four-grade elementary school, Göncz began his secondary studies at the Werbőczy Secondary Grammar School in 1932. There he involved himself in the activity of the Hungarian Scout Association.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.