The Hungarian Academy of Sciences will celebrate the 200th anniversary in 2025. Among its members are many distinguished students and teachers who have left their mark not only on the Academy but also on the history of our institution. Ferenc Toldy (1805–1875), literary historian, university professor and former director of our library, was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1830.
Ferenc Toldy, then known as Schedel, was appointed head of the University Library in 1843. Toldy, whose original training was as a doctor, already had considerable library experience, as he had been the Academy’s secretary from 1835 and had managed the library himself, organising and registering it before its ceremonial opening in 1844. As director of the University Library, he drew up the rules for the use of the library of the Academy in 1848, which he then introduced in the University Library with minor modifications in the same year.
Ferenc Toldy was at the helm of the University Library for more than three decades, and this period was one of the most turbulent and challenging for the library. The library building was in a state of virtual disrepair when Toldy took over, and throughout his directorship he struggled to build a new library building and to gain ownership of the land on which the library stood. The results of his efforts were still to be seen, but the new library building was not yet ready to be handed over. The internal life of the library also underwent significant changes under his directorship. He established an auxiliary library of major national and foreign lexicons and dictionaries to assist researchers in their work, and he also opened a journal reader. During his directorship, he was careful to surround himself with the best staff, employing János Garay the poet, Antal Reguly the linguist, Iván Nagy the historian and József Szinnyei the bibliographer. He was himself a major scholar, one of the greatest critics and aestheticians of his time, and is credited with the systematic scholarly shaping of Hungarian literary history.