On 28 October 2024, at the 11th Fraknói Workshop Lecture, I presented my latest research results under the title Fraknói, Haynald, Ipolyi and the Monumenta Vaticana Hungariae: Lessons of a Historiographical Discourse (2004–2024).
The lecture reviewed my historiographical debate with Gábor Adriányi, who passed away in the summer of 2024, concerning the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Monumenta Vaticana Hungariae. Drawing on newly identified sources, it was possible to clarify the history of what was arguably Fraknói Vilmos’s most important scholarly initiative and to resolve a question that had long remained open in historiography. The core of the problem lay in the tension between the predominantly secondary sources used by Adriányi and the primary documentation associated with Haynald and Fraknói, later incorporated into a historical narrative by Arnold Ipolyi.
The ways in which this tension can be resolved, as well as the methodological approaches adopted in 1882 by leading figures of modern Hungarian historiography, are discussed in the recorded lecture and in its annotated written version (Collectanea Vaticana Hungariae, class III, fasc. 2), available for download here.
The study is dedicated to the memory of Gábor Adriányi, who, even in the midst of a solution-oriented scholarly debate, consistently showed paternal goodwill toward the author and toward the Fraknói Research Group during the demanding work on the Bischofslexikon 1804–1918. As we were unable to attend his quietly announced funeral in Veszprém, this publication—together with the reproduction of his obiutary and a photograph taken at the University of Vienna on 18 September 2014—serves as a farewell in the centenary commemorative year of his great predecessor, Vilmos Fraknói.
Péter Tusor
Abbreviated version of the lecture and its ppt presentation (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 28 November 2024).
