Gyula Ortutay (24 March 1910 – 22 March 1978) was a Hungarian ethnographer and politician, who served as Minister of Religion and Education between 1947 and 1950.

Biography

Early life

Born in Szabadka (now: ''Subotica'',

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

) to a Catholic petty bourgeois family. His parents were István Ortutay journalist, editor of the ''Szegedi Napló'' and Ilona Borsodi. He finished his secondary school studies at the

piarists The Piarists (), officially named the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools ( la, Ordo Clericorum Regularium pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum), abbreviated SchP, is a religious order of clerics regular of the ...

in Szeged. After that he attended the

Franz Joseph University Royal Hungarian Franz Joseph University ( hu, Magyar Királyi Ferenc József Tudományegyetem) was the second modern university in the Hungarian realm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Founded in 1872, its seat was initially in Kolozsvár (Clu ...

from 1928. His

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

teacher was Hildebrand Dezső Várkonyi. Soon he was making left-wing friends such as

Miklós Radnóti Miklós Radnóti (born Miklós Glatter; 5 May 1909 – November 1944) was a Hungarian poet and teacher. He was murdered in the Holocaust. Biography Miklós Glatter was the son of a vendor of the textile business company Brück & Grosz in Bu ...

, Gábor Tolnai, Dezső Baróti, Ferenc Erdei, György Buday and Viola Tomori. He married Zsuzsa Kemény, who served as chairperson of the Hungarian Dance Association from 1948, in 1938. They have three children: Mária (psychologist), Tamás (ceramist) and Zsuzsanna (district nurse).

Political career

He got into contact with the communist intellectuals ( László Orbán,

Gyula Kállai Gyula Kállai (; 1 June 1910 – 12 March 1996) was a Hungarian Communist politician who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1965 to 1967 and as Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary 19 ...

, Ferenc Hont) in the end of the 1930s. but

Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre Kálmán Bajcsy-Zsilinszky ( Szarvas, June 6, 1886 – Sopronkőhida, December 24, 1944), was an influential Hungarian national radical politician and an important voice in the struggle against German expansion and military policy. Exec ...

had the largest effect on him. From 1942 he participated in the

antifascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

movements. In the next year he joined the

Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party The Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party ( hu, Független Kisgazda-, Földmunkás- és Polgári Párt), known mostly by its acronym FKgP or its shortened form Independent Smallholders' Party ( hu, Független Kisgazdapárt), ...

(FKGP). He was Secretary-General of the National Council of The People's Patriotic Front.

References

Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon

Biography

Early life

Political career

References

See also