Hungarian education science between 1945 and 1965 based on the memoirs of László Kelemen

Abstract

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the emergence of socialist pedagogy in Hungary, seven educational scientists (György Ágoston, Béla Jausz, Árpád Kiss, Sándor Nagy, Éva Földes, Alice Hermann and László Kelemen) published their memoirs “On my life and work” in the Pedagogical Review between 1963 and 1965. In the present study, one of these seven memoirs is analysed: the memoir of László Kelemen, who was an expert on the field of psychology of education. The present research examines how László Kelemen’s memoirs reflect the rapidly changing political regimes and cycles of educational policy, whether they are pre-1945 or post-1945. At the same time, differences between the memoirs and the articles on László Kelemen in Pedagogical Lexicons are analysed. One of the sources of our research is the journal issues of Pedagogical Review from 1963 to 1965, where the memoirs of educational scholars, including László Kelemen, were published. The other source of our research are the dictionaries of Pedagogical Lexicons published in the 1970s and 1990s. Since the memoirs of the educational scientists were published in the early Kádár era, they strongly reflect opposition to the politics and educational policies of the Horthy and Rákosi eras, or silence on politically sensitive topics, such as the 1956 revolution. However, the articles of Pedagogical lexicons on educational scientists do not include sections on pedagogical college studies, as in the case of László Kelemen. Finally, it is clear from László Kelemen’s narrative that at that time, because of its ideological content, educational psychology belonged to socialist pedagogy rather than ‘Western’ psychology.