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Inauguration and Beyond
- A string of events marked the launch of the Hungarian Research
Institute of Canada in the fall of 1985. Representatives of the
federal and provincial governments attended the inauguration event and
read out the messages of their respective governments and
parties.
(Below: some of the participants - left to right - Dr. L.J.
Simon, University of Toronto Vice-President of Research, David Nowlan, Barbara
McDougall, Tibor Fekete, Francis Floszmann and Prof. Levente Diosady)
- GALA CONCERT - World-renowned pianist and conductor Tamás
Vásáry gave a concert and a recital as part of the inaugural
celebrations. The main concert, at Convocation Hall consisted of a
predominantly Liszt program, while his illustrated lecture,
demonstrated his approach to Chopin's music. A one-time
 student of
Ernst von Dohnányi and assistant professor to Zoltán Kodály in the
Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, Vásáry earned an outstanding
reputation starting with his triumphant debut in London in 1960 and
his equally successful U.S. debut the following year in Carnegie Hall
as a brilliant pianist and a consummate musician.
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Tamás Vásáry at the Piano
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FIRST REPORT - The HRIC Board's first report was
received warmly by the University's Vice-President of Research, Prof.
David Nowlan. The Committee on Research and Academic Services, he
told the HRIC Board, was ”very pleased” with the Institute's
activities so far. ”I and my colleagues at the University offer our
congratulations on getting the Institute well launched,” Prof.
Nowlan stated.
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CULTURAL EVENTS - The Hungarian Research Institute of Canada
also presented literary, musical and other cultural events and public
lectures of the highest calibre to the general public. Among these
were performances by the well-known classical actor  György Bánffy,
His two North American tours, also sponsored by the HRIC and local
Hungarian communities, took him to New York, Montreal and Washington,
D.C.
György
Bánffy in a monodrama portraying the 17th century Transylvanian scholar,
nobleman and diplomat Miklós Bethlen, whose ideas about life, love and politics
have resonance even to modern ears.
- FIRST FORMAL LECTURE - As the first formal lecture under the aegis
of the HRIC, Prof. George Schöpflin presented a paper on the ”Politics
of Ethnicity.” Held in April 1986, in Massey College, Prof. Schöpflin's
presentation was an academic analysis of the ”highly intractable question
of why Hungarians and Romanians find it so difficult to understand each
other.” He examined Hungarian-Romanian relations and their respective
political cultures, by going ”back to the historical roots... to try to
understand how it has come about that Hungarian and Romanian value systems
are so radically different...”
- POLITICAL SCIENTIST PROBES POST-WAR REGIMES IN HUNGARY - Another
lecture sponsored by the HRIC was by Prof. Charles Gáti of Columbia
University on ”Rákosi, Nagy, Kádár and the Russians,” also presented
at Massey College, in January, 1987. Prof. Gáti gave a bird's eye view of
Hungary in the years after the Second World War, the events of 1956, then
added some lesser known details about the period.
- A UNIQUE CONFERENCE - 30 years after the Hungarian Revolution,
co-sponsored by the HRIC and held at York University in the fall of 1986,
this conference was the only one of its kind in the world to commemorate the
events of 1956. Some of those present had featured prominently in the events
of 1956: Prof. Béla Király, former General of the Hungarian Revolutionary
Army; Sándor Kopácsi, the former Chief of Police of Budapest and his
one-time prisoner, poet George Faludy. And somewhere in the audience, too,
was a former military officer who, by his own admission, had been ordered,
in those tumultuous days, to shoot General Béla Király, but had refused -
and suffered the consequences.
- EXHIBITION - An exhibition of posters, drawings, books and other
artifacts of Hungarian culture accompanied the conference at York
University, entitled ”The Culture of the Possible.”
- MOVE - The Institute moves from the College Street address to its present location at Trinity
College.
- See Highlights for more information on the
activities of HRIC.
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