Ferenc Kemény

Ferenc Kemény [ ˈfɛrɛnts ˈkɛmeːɲ ] (* July 17, 1860 in Nagybecskerek , Austro-Hungarian Monarchy , today Zrenjanin, Serbia ; † November 21, 1944 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian educator and humanist , whose international fame was his position as a founding member of the International Olympic Committees and its role in the contemporary peace movement.

Ferenc Kemény

The original family name of Ferenc Kemény, whose family was of Jewish descent, was Kohn . He completed his school days in Budapest, where he then began studying for a teaching post. A longer study trip brought him to Stuttgart , also to improve his German language skills. In 1883 he received the teaching diploma for mathematics and physics at the University of Budapest .

In 1884 he went to Paris and attended lectures at the Collège de France and at the Sorbonne , primarily to deepen the French language. He met Pierre de Coubertin in student circles . As a pedagogue, Kemény was impressed by Coubertin's basic idea of ​​a reform of the educational system based on sport. But he was even more preoccupied with the early bourgeois peace movement, for which Paris was one of the centers at that time.

According to sources from the Hungarian National Olympic Committee , it is said that Kemény, in addition to the educational effect of sport, also saw the possibility of using sport for the peace movement, and therefore made the proposal to Coubertin during his stay in Paris that the Olympic Games should Revive antiquity . Kemény and Coubertin had a close friendship throughout their lives; so after Kemény's return to Hungary in 1888 both remained in constant contact by letters.

During his time as a teacher in the Hungarian provinces, Kemény obtained diplomas in German and French. In 1890 he took a teaching position in Eger , where he was later appointed school director. Kemény, who in the meantime became known for his publications about the modernization of the education system, met with resistance for the first time in conservative aristocratic circles.

In early 1894, Kemény received a letter from Coubertin inviting him to an international sports congress that same year at the Sorbonne in Paris, which would later go down in history as the first Olympic congress . Kemény immediately sought support from the Ministry of Culture and Education in his home country. The policy of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, however, required careful action in international affairs. (Foreign policy was a matter of common concern to both halves of the empire, cultural and sports policy was a matter for each half of the empire.) Thus, although Kemény received no official and therefore no financial support, he was given a free hand. A trip to Paris was not possible for him, but it was not surprising that Coubertin nevertheless appointed him as a member of the International Olympic Committee, which was founded on June 23, 1894, the last day of the Congress.

Kemény was an avid supporter of the Olympic movement . He immediately tried to set up a committee to send Hungarian athletes to the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 . On December 19, 1895, the National Olympic Committee of Hungary was founded, in which Kemény took over the function of secretary.

His views on the Olympic movement were shaped by the idea of ​​peace. He saw the Olympic Games as an ambassador for the international peace movement and viewed it as a festival that should be among the happiest, most peaceful and fraternal movements of the world's youth . This attitude was characteristic of Kemény's work for peace, which he performed as the 26th member of the International Peace Bureau , as a board member and first secretary of the Hungarian Peace Association and as general secretary of the World Peace Congress in Budapest in 1896.

The ongoing disputes over the financing of the Olympic Games in Athens prompted Kemény to move to Budapest, where in 1896 the festivities for the 1000-year history of the Magyars were held. In the end, the Games stayed in Athens and Kemény led the small Hungarian delegation on behalf of the Hungarian government. He also participated there as a referee and participated in numerous meetings of the IOC. His publications after the games received a lot of attention and made Kemény a respected person in political circles.

Kemény's intense efforts to promote the Olympic movement, however, did not meet with unanimous support everywhere in Hungary. Again, it was particularly the aristocratic circles who did not see Kemény as the appropriate representative in the IOC because of his bourgeois origin. It was Coubertin who encouraged Kemény to withstand the hostility and to continue working in the IOC. Kemény led the Hungarian delegations in Paris and St. Louis in 1900 and 1904 , where he represented the IOC together with Willibald Gebhardt .

In the power struggle of the Hungarian sports federations before the Olympic Games in London in 1908 , the pressure on Kemény increased. The Magyar Atletikai Club , which always had a negative attitude towards him, had meanwhile taken on a leading role. He already provided most of the athletes for the Olympic Games and members of the National Olympic Committee of Hungary. This decided that his representative in the IOC should be a person of good standing and reputation, class and honor. Kemény felt this as a clear sign of disdain for himself and in 1907 gave up his membership in the National and International Olympic Committee. In 1908 he took part privately as a spectator at the Olympic Games in London, but without having any contact with Coubertin or other IOC members.

As a peace friend, Kemény nominated Emperor and King Franz Joseph I for the Nobel Peace Prize for 1908, 1913 and 1914, without success .

Kemény devoted himself exclusively to pedagogical studies. In 1934 he was co-editor of the Encyclopaedia of Pedagogy . During the Second World War , Kemény was undoed by his Jewish descent. He evaded the threatened deportation by committing suicide with his wife in the basement of his apartment in 1944.

On June 1, 1980, a newly built sports hall in Eger received his name.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alma Hannig: Franz Joseph, the Prince of Peace in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , Hamburg, No. 24, June 5, 2014, p. 11 f.

Web links

Commons : Ferenc Kemény  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ferenc Kemény in the catalog of the German National Library