Hildebrand Dezső Várkonyi


Hildebrand Dezső Várkonyi was a monk and a teacher of Bencés order. Várkonyi was a respected and well-known Hungarian philosopher, pedagogue and psychologist.
He was elected a private teacher at the Magyar Királyi Szent Erzsébet Tudományegyetem in Pécs. Later, between 1929-40 he became the head of Pedagogical and Psychological Instituti on at the University of Szeged. From 1940 Várkonyi was a professor in Kolozsvár and later in Budapest.

Career

Várkonyi pursued his academic studies at The Teacher Training College of Bencés Abbey in Pannonhalma between 1906–1911 and graduated of a secondary school teacher. He accomplished his doctoral studies at the University of Budapest in 1913 and became a private teacher in University of Pécs. Between 1928-29 he was on a studytour in Sorbonne in Paris.
Várkonyi was promoted a university professor on 27 December 1929, and from this time he was the Head of Pedagogical and Psychological Institution at Ferenc József University in Szeged, where he held the Dean's Office for years. Between 1930-1940 Paul Schiller Harkai, László Tihamér Kiss, Hildebrand Dezső Várkonyi and Ferenc Mérei was in Hungary Jean Piaget's theories of psychological popularizers.
On 19 October 1940 Várkonyi moved to Kolozsvár to teach at the Hungarian Royal Franz Joseph University, which had just then been reorganised. In Kolozsvár he was the Head of Psychological Institution for 7 semesters. Várkonyi fled to Budapest towards the end of the Second World War. In 1947 he left Bencés Order because started a family. He acquired a degree of academy of sciences in 1952 in accordance with the new academic system that was based on the Soviet model. He was a professor at the University of Budapest until his retirement in 1954.

Work

"I do not doubt that it is humanity again after the big crises of our age the ghost and truth will yearn and after the treasures of the soul, than himself Pascal and his age."
Besides being a teacher, Várkonyi was a researcher into philosophy, pedagogy, psychology and infant behaviourism. Among his well-known students were Viola Tomori and Béla Reitzer. Other famous Hungarians such as Miklós Radnóti, Gyula Ortutay and Dezső Baróti, who were impressed by Várkonyi's intellectuality, attended his lectures. Radnóti, for example, a famous Hungarian poet, was deeply influenced by Várkonyi's lectures on infant behaviourism. Later in his career, Radnóti talks about his gloomy childhood experience in his poems.
Várkonyi continued teaching at the University of Kolozsvár during the years of war.
Várkonyi was a philosopher, psychologist, and a pedagogue in one person. For him philosophy was not only a discipline but a struggle for the answers to the ultimate questions of human existence.

His recollection

In 1988, on the occasion of the 100. anniversary of his birth Institute of Psychology leader, Lajos Duró and his colleagues published a memory volume of his respect, and name a lecture hall after him. Várkonyi Hildebrand Dezső lecture hall is the integral part of Institute of Psychology today.
In 2008, it was issued on the occasion of the 120. anniversary of his birth Várkonyi Hildebrand Dezső medallion, and it was handed over who makes work willing to make sacrifices on those who are the research of the educational psychology and his disseminations area.

Studies (selection)