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Ivanyi-Grunwald Collection

Archive Collection description: IVA

Iványi-Grünwald Collection (1936-1965)

Béla Iványi-Grünwald (1902-1965) was born the son of a well known Hungarian painter of the same name and grew up in an artists' colony. He studied history at Budapest University and completed a Ph.D thesis on the proposed economic reforms of Count István Széchenyi (1791-1860). As a result he was commissioned to edit a critical text of one volume of Széchenyi's collected works. This work with its lengthly introduction by IG was ground breaking for its time and established IG as economic historian. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War IG left his post as Reader in Hungarian History at Budapest University to take up a scholarship to Britain in order to study the activities of the exiles of the 1848-1849 Hungarian War of Independence. While he was in Britain war broke out and after Hungary entered the war IG renounced his (Hungarian Government funded) scholarship in protest and applied for political asylum which was granted.

IG lived in Britain for the remainder of his life. He became a regular contributor to the Hungarian Service of the BBC and was lecturer in Hungarian at SSEES 1947-1965. He wrote a number of works including a monograph on Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894) and also a biography of Széchenyi which were never published. His interests went beyond Hungarian history to include various aspects of British history such as eighteenth century dissenters and Catholic recusants. IG also became a collector of books, prints, maps and pamphlets.

Note 1: for convenience Iványi-Grünwald is referred to as IG throughout this catalogue.
Note 2: there are few clues as to date range of the majority of material in this collection. The majority of items are therefore dated circa 1939-1965, this being the period in IG's life between his arrival in Britain and his death.

Contents

8 boxes

(Language) English & French & German & Hungarian & Latin

Unrestricted access

See also: the archive collection catalogued here is part of a larger collection of books which have been entered into SSEES Library stock. A catalogue of the books, maps and prints (and also three manuscripts) is available - "Hungarica: English books, prints, maps, periodicals, etc. relating to Hungary collected by Bela Ivanyi-Grunwald", compiled by Lorant Czig ny (Alphamstone, 1967).



A record for this collection is also available on the UCL Archives web site. To see it, please type IVA into the search field.

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This page last modified Wednesday 28 April 2010.