Biography of Göncz Árpád

Árpád Göncz (born in Budapest on 10th February 1922 - died in Budapest on 6th October 2015) was a Hungarian writer, translator, lawyer and liberal politician who served as President of Hungary from 2nd May 1990 to 3rd August 2000. Árpád Göncz was born in a petty bourgeois family of intellectuals. He graduated from Pázmány Péter University of Sciences, Faculty of Law in 1944. While a student, he worked in the National Land Loan Institute between 1939-1944.

On 19 March 1944, Hungary was occupied by Germany. In December, Göncz was conscripted into the 25th Reserve Mountain Infantry Battalion of the Royal Hungarian Army, and ordered to Germany; however, he deserted and joined the resistance movement. In 1945, he deserted his unit which was ordered to Germany. As a member of the Táncsics Battalion of the Freedom Front of Hungarian Students, he participated in the resistance movement against Nazis. After the siege of Budapest, the Soviets arrested him several times, but he always managed to escape. After the war, from 1952, he went on to study agricultural science at the Agricultural University in Gödöllő (GATE), where he completed four years of study.

He was member of the Independent Smallholders’ Party (FKgP) from 1945. First, he was Chairman of the Budapest youth section of FKgP, and also the editor of the periodical Nemzedék (Generation.) Later, he became the parliamentary secretary of the Party, then personal secretary to Béla Kovács. After the dissolution of FKgP, he worked as an unskilled worker, as a welder and a locksmith.

After 4 November 1956, he took part in working out a memorandum, the position of the Hungarian Democratic Independence Movement, which was conveyed by the Government of India to the Soviet Government in order to settle the Hungarian-Soviet relations. In February 1957, he helped to get the manuscript of Imre Nagy’s  ’In defence of the Hungarian people’ abroad.

He was arrested in May 1957. The People’s Tribunal of the Supreme Court sentenced him to life imprisonment on 2 August 1958 without a right of appeal. In March 1960, he participated in the Vác prison hunger strike; he was released in 1963 in a general amnesty.

After his release, he started translating technical texts, and then, he became a free-lance writer and literary translator from 1965. Some of his best-known translations include Mary Shelley: Frankenstein, Thomas Wolfe: Of Time and the River, William Faulkner: Sartoris, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!,  A Fable, Ernest Hemingway: Islands in the Stream, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano, William Styron: Lie Down in Darkness, The Confessions of Nat Turner, John Ball: In the Heat of the Night, Colleen McCullough: The Thorn Birds, Yasunari Kawabata: The Lake, John Updike:  Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich, The Inheritors, William Golding: Pincher Martin, The Spire, The Pyramid and Rites of Passage, E. L. Doctorow: Ragtime, World’s Faire. His most famous translation work is J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

His own works include short stories, novels and dramas; Sarusok /Men of God (1974), Magyar Médeia/ Hungarian Medea (1976), Rácsok/ Iron Bars  (1979) and Találkozások/ Encounters (1980).

He was founding member of the Network of Free Initiatives in 1988, and founding member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ). He was managing director of SZDSZ in 1988-89, then in 1989-90, he became member of the SZDSZ National Council. He was a founder of the Committee for Historical Justice in 1988, later he was President thereof. He was managing president of the Budapest Chapter of the Human Rights League, Chairman of the Hungarian Writers’ Association in 1989-1990, then Honorary President. Member of Parliament from 1990. Speaker of the House between May and August, 1990, then provisional President of the Republic of Hungary until 3rd August 1990.

He was President of the Republic of Hungary from 3rd August 1990 to 4th August 2000. During his term of office (re-elected for a second term in 1995), he was always at the top of rankings with a 70-80 per cent  popularity index.

Although Árpád Göncz retired from active political life in 2000, his 90th birthday in February 2012 was widely celebrated in Hungary.

Árpád Göncz was married to Mária Zsuzsanna Göntér, the founder of the “Hand in Hand Foundation” helping people living with disability.

They have four children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren

Titles, decorations

Honorary President of the Hungarian Pen Club and the Hungarian Tolkien Association

Honorary doctorates (honoris causa)

1990 Butler University (Indianapolis, USA)
1991 New Delhi University (India)
1991 Brussels Free University (Belgium)
1991 Connecticut University (USA)
1993 Bangkok Thammasat University (Thailand)
1994 Alcalá de Henares University (Madrid, Spain)
1995 Oxford University (Great-Britain)
1996 Sorbonne (Paris, France)
1997 Rio de Janeiro University (Brazil)
1998 Philippines University
1998 Bologna University (Italy)
1999 Sydney Technical University

Decorations

1991 Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (Great-Britain) 1991: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Italy)                                  1994: Order of the White Eagle (Poland)

1994 Award of the EastWest Institute (New York, USA)
1995: Collar of the National Order of Merit (Malta)

1995 Award of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Salzburg)
1998 Joseph-Bech Prize of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation (Hamburg, Germany)
1998 Giorgio La Pira Prize (Pistoia, Italy) 2000 Roosevelt Prize (USA)
1999 : Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great (Lithuania)

1999: Norway – Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav

1999: United Kingdom – Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath

1999: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievements

2000: Romania – Grand Cross with Chain of theOrder of the Star of Romania

2000: Germany – Special Class of the Grand Cross of theMerit of the Federal Republic of Germany

2000: Slovakia – Grand Cross (or 1st Class) of theOrder of the White Double Cross  

2003: Czech Republic –Order of the White Lion

2000 Open Society Prize (Hungary)

2000 George Washington Award (USA)
2000 Vision for Europe Award of the Edmond Israel Foundation (Luxembourg)
2000: Special Class of the Grand Cross of the Merit of the Federal Republic (Germany)

2000: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Double Cross (Slovakia) 

2001 Pro Humanitate Prize (Strasbourg)
2001 Maria Valeria Bridge Memorial Medal (Stúrovo)
2002 Polish Business Oscar Award (Warsaw)

2002 Imre Nagy Prize (Hungary)

2003: Award of the Budapest Corvinus Europe Institute

2009: International Adalbert Prize for Peace, Freedom and Cooperation in Europe of Adalbert Foundation

2011 Medaille de la Fédération Internationale des Resistants

Art Prizes

1980 Art Foundation Literature Prize
1983 József Attila Prize
1989 Wheatlands Prize
1991 Albert Schweitzer Prize
1991 Paul Harris Prize
1991 Premio Mediterraneo Prize