Drawn to Decisions: Hungarian Jewish Citizen Ignác Goldziher

Abstract

Abstract In a previous study about Max Nordau (1849–1923), a doctor, writer, journalist, and Zionist born in Hungary who had spent his youth in Budapest and had a successful career in Paris, and Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), who became known as a playwright in Vienna, an employee of the newspaper Neue Freie Presse, and ultimately as the author of Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), I examined the role that assimilation, language, and identity played in the development of their careers. Ujvári, Hedvig, “Issues of Assimilation, Language and Identity in the Lives of Young Max Nordau and Tivadar Herzl”, AHEA: E-journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association 5 (2012), 1–20, http://ahea.net/e-journal/volume-5-2012. The present study is a continuation of that train of thought, this time focusing on Ignác Goldziher (1850–1921), the founder of what would become Modern European Islamic Studies. He and Nordau were high school classmates Goldziher himself refers to the classmate relationship in his Diary: “Max Nordau was among my classmates.” See Goldziher, Ignaz, Tagebuch, ed. by Scheiber, Alexander, Leiden: Brill, 1978, 30; Goldziher, Ignác, Napló [Diary], Vál., s. a. r., az előszót és a jegyzeteket írta Scheiber Sándor [ed. by Scheiber, Sándor], Budapest: Magvető, 1985, 39. and prepared for their graduation together, during which time Goldziher also attended the university lectures of Ármin Vámbéry (1832–1913) in preparation for his scientific career. At the age of 20, Goldziher completed his doctorate in Leipzig with every promise of a successful career in Hungarian higher education; however, the death of Minister of Culture József Eötvös dashed these hopes, József Eötvös (1813–1870): lawyer, writer, first minister of religion and public education in the Batthyány and then Andrássy governments, and president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1866–1871). and instead of joining the ranks of academia, Goldziher was forced to earn a living as a religious notary for the local Jewish community and worked on his academic research at night. He spent the rest of his life in Budapest, only leaving Hungary for short periods of time to attend academic events such as conferences on Orientalism, and consistently refused every foreign job offer that came his way.