Lajos Für, b. 1930
Born into a family of farm labourers at Egyházasrádóc (Vas County), Für attended the Csurgó Reformed Church Grammar School. In 1950, he continued his studies at the Lajos Kossuth University in Debrecen, obtaining a history degree in 1954. He then became an assistant lecturer in history there. Für joined the HWP and remained a member until 1956. In the spring of that year, he became secretary of the Kossuth Circle in Debrecen, which followed the pattern of the Petőfi Circle in Budapest. As a follower of the developing movement for political reform, Für was one of the initiators and leaders of the movement among university students, becoming secretary to the presiding committee of the DSZFB. On October 31, Für led the delegation from Debrecen that had talks with Géza Losonczy in Budapest. On November 4, the Soviet forces arrested him along with members of the city’s revolutionary committee and he was not freed until the end of November. In February 1957, he escaped to Austria as the prospect of reprisals against him loomed and soon arrived in France. He returned in May 1957, taking advantage of the amnesty offered to returning defectors by the Hungarian government. He was interrogated several times during 1957 and 1958, but no charges were brought against him. From 1957 to 1961, he worked as a casual labourer, a manual worker and a librarian. From 1961 to 1964, he taught in primary schools in Dabas and Pestújhely (15th District). He then worked as a researcher at the Hungarian Agricultural Museum from 1964 to 1987. He obtained a doctorate in 1958, a Hungarian Academy of Sciences candidacy degree in 1971, and an Academy doctorate in 1983. From the end of the 1970s onwards, he taught at teachers’ training college, first in Nyíregyháza and later in Eger, where he was appointed a senior lecturer in 1987 and a professor in 1990. From the 1960s onwards, Für was an organizer of an intellectual circle that placed national (and minority) problems at the centre of its scholarly and political activity. By the early 1980s, he was a leading figure in what came to be known as the popular opposition group. He helped to prepare for and organize the Monor Meeting of 1987. He attended the illegal conference on the 1956 revolution held at the flat of István Eörsi in December 1986. In 1987–8, Für became a founder member of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, in which he held various offices. He was the Forum’s candidate for president of the republic in 1989. He entered Parliament as a Forum member in 1990 and served in the Antall and Boross governments as defence minister until 1994. From 1996 to 1998, he sat as an independent.
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