Elemér Hankiss (4 May 1928 – 10 January 2015) was a Hungarian sociologist. His first wife was MEP Ágnes Hankiss.

Career

He was born in the town of

Debrecen Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...

in eastern Hungary, where his father, János Hankiss was a professor of literature. He received his university degree in French and English languages from School of English and American Studies of the Faculty of Humanities of the

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University (, ELTE, also known as ''University of Budapest'') is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, where he later obtained a PhD. Following the

1956 Hungarian Revolution The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...

he spent 10 months in pretrial detention but was eventually acquitted. He was the president of the Hungarian Television from 1990 to 1993. It was a state-owned monopoly at the time, which he tried to turn into a modern, production- and viewer-oriented, competition-ready media company. In 1993, he was controversially forced to resign in connection with the so-called Media War (''Médiaháború'') between the government and the media in the early 1990s. He has written extensively on values system in Hungary and Central Europe, as well as on global civilization. His concept of ''Second Society'' has been much cited in East European Studies. He was a professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, the

Bruges Bruges ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is in the northwest of the country, and is the sixth most populous city in the country. The area of the whole city amoun ...

and

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

University Institutes, as well as the

Central European University Central European University (CEU; , ) is a private research university in Vienna. The university offers graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities, which are accredited in Austria and the United States. The univ ...

. He died in Budapest after a short illness on 10 January 2015.

Works

* ''Fears and Symbols: An Introduction to the Study of Western Civilization'' (2006).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hankiss, Elemer Hungarian sociologists 20th-century Hungarian philosophers People from Debrecen 2015 deaths 1928 births Academic staff of Central European University 21st-century Hungarian philosophers

Career

Works

See also

References