The fate of Antal Hodinka’s scholarly legacy and the Hodinka renaissance: on the 80th anniversary of his death

Abstract

The study provides a brief overview of the life, scholarly achievements, and legacy of Antal Hodinka (1864–1946), one of the outstanding figures of Hungarian historiography and Slavic studies, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of his death. Hodinka was born in the village of Ladomér in Zemplén County into a Greek Catholic clerical family. He pursued theological, historical, and Slavic studies in Uzhhorod, Budapest, and Vienna, where, among others, he acquired the methodology of Slavic philology under the guidance of Vatroslav Jagić. Recognising provincialism as one of the major shortcomings of Hungarian historiography, he consciously expanded the source base of his research by consulting materials held in archives in Vienna and Rome, as well as in numerous ecclesiastical archives. He also consistently drew upon his exceptional command of approximately ten to twelve languages in his scholarly work. Hodinka began his career at the Hungarian National Museum and later worked in the archives of the Joint Ministry of Finance in Vienna and in the Fideicommissary Library. From 1906 he taught at the Academy of Law in Pressburg, and from 1914 he served as a professor at Elisabeth University. In 1932 he became rector of the university after its relocation to Pécs. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in 1910 and a full member in 1933. His scholarly oeuvre encompasses three principal areas: the history of Slavic–Hungarian relations, the history of the city of Pécs, and the ecclesiastical and secular history of the Rusyns of Transcarpathia. Early in his career, he conducted extensive research on South Slavic — Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian — sources. Later, under a pseudonym, he also wrote scholarly texts in Rusyn, which rank among the pioneering works of Rusyn academic writing. His most important work is The History of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo (1909). His other publications in Slavic studies (The Hungarian Aspects of the Russian Chronicles, 1916), linguistics (Rusyn–Hungarian Verb Dictionary, 1922), and ethnography (The Ruthenians, 1900; One Hundred Rusyn Folk Songs, 1922) likewise remain fundamental sources to this day. Hodinka’s scholarly estate was deposited in the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In Transcarpathia, the reception of his work was largely interrupted in the decades following 1945, but was revived from the early 1990s through the pioneering work of István Udvari and Kálmán Soós. The most recent comprehensive assessment of his life and work is Volodymyr Fenych’s monograph, published in 2026. Today, his name is borne by the Antal Hodinka Research Centre for Linguistics at Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University in Berehove, as well as by the Antal Hodinka Award, established at the initiative of the Antal Hodinka National Association of Rusyn Intellectuals jointly with the National Rusyn Self-Government. In September 2026, a trilingual commemorative plaque was unveiled in his honour in his native village of Ladomér. The anniversary is both an act of tribute and a reminder: the processing of Hodinka’s manuscript legacy, the publication of some of his works, and the preparation of reprint editions remain important tasks for Hungarian and Transcarpathian scholarship today.