Festive, Scientific and Cultural Events at the Elisabeth University

Abstract

The university calendar was full of festive occasions which broke up the everyday activities of teaching and research. The ceremonial opening and closing of the academic year, the awarding of doctorates and honorary doctorates on prominent patrons, etc. were all important events of community life which provided a sense of belonging. Celebrations and academic-cultural events and programmes beyond the everyday teaching activities were meeting points for a wider university community, providing an opportunity to discuss individual and institutional achievements, symbolically displaying the hierarchy between members and reinforcing the stability of the community. A special celebration was the Elisabeth Day commemoration on 19 November, the eponymous Queen’s name day, which also commemorated eminent deceased professors and the heroic dead of the Great War. The Associations of the Friends of the Elisabeth University was founded in 1921 to provide the university with sponsors and thus financial resources. The Elisabeth University also tried to make the results of its research available to the wider public in various forms of educational lectures. Several university institutions have organised such programmes: the most important of which were the university’s Scientific Association, the Ad Astra series of private lecturers, the Cultural Days of the Institute for Minorities and the block lectures of the Maurinum. Between 1934 and 1947, the Elisabeth University continuously organised the Keszthely Summer University, which aimed to familiarise young people from abroad with Hungary’s cultural values and to enable Hungarian students to develop professional and human contacts with students from partner institutions abroad. The main profile of the Summer University was Pannonia Studies.