Iván Vitányi
Iván Vitányi was born in 1925 in Debrecen. After finishing secondary school he was enrolled to the Faculty of Arts of the Péter Pázmány University and to the Art School at the same time. From 1950 to 1957 he worked in the main department of music of the Ministry of Education and Culture. In 1957 he was dismissed, accused of being a ‘counter-revolutionary’. From 1957 he was an associate of the ‘Music’ journal, and between 1964 and 1972 he worked for the editorial office of the review ‘Reality’. In 1972 he was appointed director of the Institute of Education and Culture. In the same year he started to lecture at the Department of Sociology of the Eötvös Lóránd Univesity. In 1971 he was granted the candidacy of psychological science and in 1980 he obtained the title of doctor of sociological sciences. From 1980 to 1986 he was director of the Cultural Research Institute of the National Education Centre then in 1986 he was appointed director-general of the National Education Centre. In 1989 he was elected president of the ‘Circle of Kárpátalja’. From 1992 he worked as an academic deputy director of the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and in 1995 he was appointed President of the Board of Directors of the Institute. His research area includes aesthetics, the sociology and psychology of culture, lifestyle and the development of social structure. He is the author of numerous studies and articles on these subjects. He joined the then forming Hungarian Socialist Party in 1989 and was elected member of the National Bureau. From 1990 he served as chairman of the National Committee of the party. From 1990 to 1994 he worked in the parliamentary fraction of his party as the chairman and spokesman of the cultural working group. Iván Vitányi is chairman of the Cultural and Press Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Hungary and member of the cultural working group of the fraction of the Hungarian Socialist Party.