Bela Gonda

* Szőlőske, December 28, 1851 – † Budapest, August 7, 1933 / engineer, water management writer, private university teacher, technical historian ; ; He graduated from the Sárospatak Gymnasium and began his studies at the Technical University in Vienna, then obtained an engineering diploma at the Budapest Technical University in 1873. He began his work at the Upper Torontáli Ármentesítő Társulat, then taught at the Magyaróvár Economic Academy (1877), the Budapest József Technical University (1878–1882), the higher industrial school (1880–1882), and later at the Budapest Foreign Trade Academy. In 1878 he was appointed as a private university teacher of agricultural water engineering. In 1877 he founded the Economic Engineer (later the Technical Weekly). economic and technical journal. From 1882 he was the chief engineer of the technical council of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, and from 1893 he was the head of the navigation, Vaskapu regulation and port construction department. He received numerous domestic and foreign awards for his merits in the field of Vaskapu regulation. After the completion of the Vaskapu Canal, he was commissioned to develop the plan for the National and Free Port of Csepel, which he completed in 1907. In 1897 he founded the journal Magyar Hajózás. He was the organizer of the Hungarian Adria Association and its president from 1910, and the editor of the journal Tenger. He organized several scientific expeditions in the Adriatic, the founder of Hungarian marine research. He retired in 1913. He established the first Hungarian international patent office (1880), laid new foundations for the education of railway, postal and shipping officers. In 1918, he founded the Bethlen Gábor Irodalmi és Nyomda Rt. and the Bethlen bookshop. He was an active participant in Hungarian Reformed public life. He was a co-author of the Borovszky county monographs dealing with Fiume and the Hungarian-Croatian coast. A street was named after him in his native village. ; ; His main works: ; The regulation of the Iron Gate and other rapids there (in German and French), 1892, ; The life and works of Pál Vásárhelyi, 1896, ; Hungarian shipping (in German and French), 1899, ; Submarine ships, 1915, ; Biography of István Türr, 1925.