'These Schools Being Situated in the Most Advantageous Place Here'

The Influence of the Higher Education Institutions of Pécs as Social Spaces on the Relationships of Baranya County Officials (1784–1848)

Abstract

According to Kálmán Mikszáth, we may also conclude that „student pranks committed together forge stronger bonds than even historical events made together.” Consequently, the examination of higher education institutions as social and sociocultural spaces can be of paramount importance in understanding the networking of the political and administrative elite: within the walls of these schools, not only future vice-comes and other high-ranking officers pursued their studies, but also Pongrác Somssich, the future supremus comes of Baranya.

The aim of our research is to identify individuals among the students of the Royal Academy of Law transferred to Pécs, as well as the Episcopal Lyceum of Law in Pécs, who later took on roles within the county's officialdom, and to track their career paths. In our study, we seek answers to questions such as whether the connections formed during shared schooling can be detected in the later lives of these agents, to what extent these relationships influenced the career opportunities of officeholders, and how much they contributed to the processes of social mobility and political embeddedness.

To answer these questions and to recognize individual life paths and the underlying social structures and interconnections, we combined the tools of prosopography and social network analysis. Following this approach, our study highlights how and to what extent the higher education institutions in Pécs, functioning as social spaces, may have contributed to the development of the social and career connections of the regional political elite.