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Biography of Dr. Árpád Göncz,
Recipient of the Vision for Europe Award 2000
Árpád Göncz, who served as President of Hungary through two terms in office from 3 August 1990 to 4 August 2000, was born on 10 February 1922 in Budapest.
He graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Pázmány Péter University of Arts and Sciences in 1944. While at university, he worked as a clerk at the National Land Credit Institute.
In 1944, as a member of the Táncsics battalion, he participated in the armed resistance movement against the occupying German forces.
In 1945 he began to work in the Independent Smallholders' Party. After the party was broken up he lost his job in 1948 and worked as a welder and pipefitter from 1949 to 1951, and as a soil conservationist and agricultural engineer from 1951 to 1956.
Between 1952 and 1956, he completed four years of studies at the University of Agricultural Sciences of Gödöllö, near Budapest, but could not graduate because he was expelled from the university on account of his involvement in the revolution of 1956.
During the 1956 Hungarian revolution, Dr. Göncz worked in the Peasants' Federation, then joined the resistance after 4 November, when Soviet troops entered Hungary. Two years later, as defendant of second degree in State Minister Bibó's trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released with an amnesty in 1963.
While in prison, Dr. Göncz learned English and after being freed worked as a literary translator and free-lance writer.
Dr. Göncz wrote plays (Hungarian Medea, Balance, Iron Bars, A Pessimistic Comedy, Persephone) and published a novel (Men of God in 1974) and collections of short stories (Encounters and Homecoming and Other Stories in 1980 and 1991 respectively). He has translated over one hundred works, mostly by British and American authors (J. Baldwin, E.L. Doctorow, W. Faulkner, W. Golding, E. Hemingway, W. Styron, S. Sontag, J. Updike, E. Wharton and others).
Dr. Göncz received the Attila József Literary Prize in Hungary in 1983 and was awarded the Wheatland Prize for outstanding interpretation of English literature (1989) as well as the Premio Meditteraneo for his human and literary achievements (1991).
He was head of the translation section of the Hungarian Writers' Association from 1981 to 1989, President of the Writers' Union from 1988 to 1989, President of the Federation of Hungarian Writers from December 1989 to September 1990 and was elected Honorary President of the Federation in September 1990.
Dr. Göncz joined Hungarian political life from the end of the 1980's; he was a founding member of the Network of Free Initiatives (NFI), then of the Alliance of Free Democrats (AFD) which emerged from the NFI and of the Historical Justice Committee.
He became a member of Parliament after the elections in 1990, in which he headed the Budapest territorial list of the AFD. He was elected Speaker of Parliament by the founding session. In this function, in accordance with the Constitution, Dr. Göncz also acted as interim president. Parliament elected him to be President of the Republic of Hungary on 3 August 1990.
Over the years since his election and re-election, Dr. Göncz has served as patron of several Hungarian movements and programmes, and received honory doctorate titles from several foreign universities. He was also awarded many prestigious foreign decorations, including the prize of the American Institute of East-West Studies.
Dr. Göncz's mandate as President of the Republic of Hungary expired on 4 August 2000, when he concluded his tenure of office.
Dr. Göncz has been married since 1947. His wife, Zsuzsanna Göntér, was a social worker, clerk and later industrial worker. They have two sons, two daughters and seven grandchildren. Dr. Göncz is a passionate reader and loves to listen to music in his lesure time. He speaks English and some Italian.
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