Andras Fay

* Kohanóc, 30 May 1786 – † Pest, 26 July 1864 / writer, lawyer, economist, politician ; ; Some sources mistakenly list Felsőkohány, formerly also known as Kohanócz, as his birthplace, which is located near Homonna. He spent his childhood in Gombá, Pest County, and on his maternal grandparents' estate in Gálszécs. In 1793–1799, he studied at the Sárospatak College, then continued his studies in Bratislava for four years. In 1803, he returned to Sárospatak, where he first studied philosophy for a year and later law. From 1804 he was a legal practitioner in Pest, qualified as a lawyer, but at his father's request he took on public office: in 1810 he became the civil judge of the Pest district, and in 1812 he became the Váci district judge. In 1818 he retired to the Gomba estate to farm, and in addition he was involved in literature and took on a public role. ; His house became a kind of literary salon, where famous young writers and poets of the time (including Pál Szemere, Károly Kisfaludy, Mihály Vörösmarty, Mihály Vitkovics) regularly visited. ; He was also preoccupied with social issues and, even before Széchenyi, he recognized how economic and cultural backwardness could be offset (Hungarian theater, free industry and trade, modern legal practice, founding savings banks, etc.). From the mid-1830s he was a parliamentary envoy and a judge of the Pest County. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him an honorary member in 1831, and in 1847 he was its deputy president. He became the director of the Kisfaludy Society when it was founded in 1837. He also worked hard to create Hungarian theater culture. However, his most important deed is considered to be the founding of the Pesti Hazai Első Takarékpénzárt in 1840. He did not participate in the events of 1848/49, instead retiring to his Gomba estate, but later, from the 1850s, he again carried out diverse work, supported numerous initiatives, and even supported them financially. Pál Szemere was jokingly called the “all-rounder of the nation,” and others a “merry sage.” As a writer, he also wrote novels, comedies, dramas, short stories, aphorisms, and poems. He was also the author of numerous political, economic and journalistic works, and the number of his newspaper articles is almost innumerable. ; ; His main works: ; The Bélteky House (novel), 1832, ; Plan of a savings bank to be established for the common people of Pest County, 1839, ; The rules of the first savings bank in Hungary under the patronage of Pest County, 1840, ; Female education, 1841, ; The people of the East in the West, 1842, ; Collections published in the present day on the immediate tasks of the country, 1846, ; Plan of the life insurance institution, 1848, ; Data for a broader description of Hungary, 1854, ; School and home pupil life, 1860, ; Poverty, 1862.