CEU History Department Yearbook 1997-1998 [antikvár]

Insisting onIn memóriám(1921-1997)Utopia:Péter HanákThere are personalities who leave their mark so powerfully on theinstitution they worked at that it is difficult to imagine it could ever bethe same as before without them. This is especially the case with newinstitutions, whose very outlook and character took shape under theguidance of such figures. More than once during its short history, theCentral European University has had the critical experience of losinga dominant personality, and now a chapter in the history of herHistory Department has come to an end: as this Yearbook was stillunder work press, its Founding Chair, Professor Péter Hanâk, passedaway unexpectedly.Insisting on Utopia was the title of one of his last books, a collec-tion of essays amounting to a scholarly autobiography - appropriatelyfor a man who could always reconcile a scrupulous care for historicalaccuracy with a profound devotion to and a passionate championingof his convictions. The apparent contradictions that make up for acomplete human character were in no-one more smoothly resolvedinto one another than in Péter Hanâk's personality. The sudden andpowerful outbursts of his quick temper were balanced by a uniquetenderness of mind and a general attitude of profound tolerance.His criticism was always sharp, sometimes scathing, but alwaysaccompanied by an equally acute sense of self-criticism and intro-spection; the little ironic smile that always played around his lips wasmeant for himself as well as others. He was a thinker of totality and astudent of the ordinary: his encyclopedic knowledge in fields of lear-ning that ranged from the arts, literature and music throughmathematics to the history of technology served his bent to search andfind the place of each new piece of information in a synthesis, while