The Trianon cult at the University of Debrecen A Trianon-kultusz a debreceni egyetemen

Abstract

In the years following World War I, the University of Debrecen was forced to deal with the difficulties of starting in a challenging situation – in the crisis caused by the war, and the conditions that changed as a result of the Trianon Peace Treaty. In this article the difficulties that were a challenge for the University of Debrecen in this situation are briefly reviewed. Changes in the number of students, the transformation of the enrolment area, the slowing down of infrastructural developments, the failure of the university policy concept meant to give the university a profile are all such difficulties, which individually would have represented a serious challenge for a university struggling to get started. But arising at almost the same time, compounded by the trauma of the World War, they weighed on the shoulders of the university community as an almost insurmountable burden. The symbolic gestures in which the community faced its problems on festive occasions contributed to the processing of this traumatic situation. In the present analysis, we present the series of festive commemorations at which the university community remembered its war volunteers and victims of the war are shown, as well as the series of celebratory speeches in which the University of Debrecen wanted to face the Trianon Treaty are reviewed. Forming celebratory speeches into discourse it seems that university professors who remembered the Trianon peace treaty in their speeches have done that by various approaches over the years. These paint a very colourful picture of how the University of Debrecen sees Trianon. The scale goes from professional legal approach to personal feelings, prophetic convictions and liberal faith.