Theodor Ortvay. The Representative of the Scientists´ Republic

István Gaucsík 930.1-051
Theodor Ortvay. The Representative of the Scientists´ Republic 94(437.6)

Keywords: Tivadar (Theodor) Ortvay, Ortvay, biography, Hungarian historical science, history of Pozsony (Bratislava)

Theodore Ortvay (1843-1916) was one the best-known personalities of the 19th-century Hungarian positivist historiography. Nonetheless, his scientific biography featuring new aspects is still missing. This study is partly an attempt to compensate for this. Although the Slovak historical science considers him as a historian specialized on the medieval history of Bratislava, Ortvay´s academic activities were of a much wider range. His works of an enduring value encompassed the uneasy areas of social, economic and cultural history. Despite the fact that he spent three decades in Bratislava, his academic research remained mainstream. The author of this study deals with Ortvay´s career and achievements, he highlights the historian´s engagements in Bratislava from the perspective of fundamental research. He examines Ortvays´s works in the context of the 19th century social sciences in Hungary, in the contemporary discourse. He devotes special attention to the analysis of the historian´s scientific and public social networks (Szentkláray, Flóris Rómer, Arnold Ipolyi). A further, not-so-hidden objective of the study is to pave the way for Ortvay´s cult in Bratislava—in a positive sense, of course.