Árpád Göncz

Infobox_President | name=Árpád Göncz
nationality=Hungarian


order=1st President of the Republic of Hungary
term_start=August 4, 1990
term_end=August 4, 2000
predecessor=Mátyás Szűrös
successor=Ferenc Mádl
birth_date=Birth date and age|1922|2|10|mf=y
birth_place=Budapest, Hungary
dead=alive
death_date=
death_place=
spouse=Mária Göntér
party=SZDSZ (Alliance of Free Democrats)
vicepresident=

Árpád Göncz ("Göncz Árpád", IPA2|gønts a:rpa:d; born February 10, 1922 in Budapest) is a Hungarian liberal politician and former President of the Republic (May 2, 1990–August 4, 2000). He graduated in law from the Budapest Pázmány Péter University of Arts and Sciences in 1944. He has also worked as a writer and has published several novels, plays and essays, and also translated a great number of prose works from English to Hungarian.

In the Second World War he was conscripted and ordered to Germany; however, he deserted and joined the resistance movement.

After the war, in 1945 he joined the Independent Smallholders' Party and was the leader of the party's youth organization for Budapest as well as personal secretary to the general secretary. After the party was dissolved at the communist takeover, he worked as a manual labourer.

In the Hungarian revolution and war of independence of 1956 he worked in the newly recreated Hungarian Peasant Alliance. After the Soviet intervention on 4 November 1956, he participated in the writing of several memonranda and helped to transfer a manuscript of Imre Nagy abroad. He was arrested in May 1957 and sentenced to life imprisonment on 2 August of the same year, without the possibility of appeal. In 1960 he participated in the hunger strike of Vác. Along with more than 4,000 other revolutionaries and freedom fighters, he was released from prison under amnesty in 1963.

In the following decades, he worked as a specialized translator, translator of over a hundred literary works, and writer. Some of his notable translations include J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano", and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. His own works include both novels and dramas; "Sarusok" (1974), "Magyar Médeia" (1976), "Rácsok" (1979) and "Találkozások" (1980) are worth mentioning.

He was a founding member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) in 1988. In 1989 became President of the Hungarian League for Human Rights. From 1989 to 1990 he was President and later Honorary President of the [http://www.iroszovetseg.hu/html/writers.html Hungarian Writers' Association] . In May 1990 he was elected Member of Parliament. Goncz served as Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary between May and August 1990, and subsequently was elected provisional President of the Republic after Mátyás Szűrös on May 2 and President of the Republic on August 4 by the National Assembly. He was reelected in 1995 for another five-year term which he completed on August 4, 2000. In these periods he was very well-received by the public as he succeeded to remain free from politics which helped him gain a wide acceptance. Even today he is honoured by a large portion of the public and in general thought to be the best President of the Republic that Hungary had after 1989 - so much so that he is sometimes - erroneously - considered by many as still being the President of the Republic.

Kinga Göncz, the current foreign minister of Hungary, is his daughter.

External links

* [http://www.keh.hu/index2.php?fm=3&am=3&l=e&hir=10 His biography] on the Office of the President of the Republic of Hungary site