Charles of the East

* Bratislava, July 18, 1833 – † Budapest, May 29, 1892 / statistician, economist, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1875); ; Brother of painter and art critic Gusztáv Keleti. He graduated from high school in Pest. He was a gunner in the Hungarian War of Independence. After the War of Independence, he was an economic trainee for several years in the Alcsút estate of the heirs of Palatine József. He was a financial official in Buda and then in Szolnok. In the meantime, he completed his studies, which were interrupted during the War of Independence, and in the late 1850s he resigned from his position for political reasons and returned to Pest, where he also edited József Eötvös's Political Weekly from 1865. Then, when the Hungarian Land Loan Institute was established, he was its official and the institute's secretary. In the 1860s, he published studies on banking, customs, industrial and financial statistics in journals and in the statistical and national economic bulletins of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences that he edited. Seeing the difficulties revealed during the 1870 census, the legal background of domestic statistics was created on his initiative. After the Compromise, he became the head of the statistical department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade. From this, the National Statistical Office was established in 1871, in the organization of which he played a significant role. He was the first director of this office until his death. He was an active contributor to international statistical congresses, and at the 1869 Hague congress, he represented Hungary with János Hunfalvy (Nagyszalók). He was one of the vice-presidents of the 1872 St. Petersburg congress. The 1876 congress was held in Budapest on his initiative. Then he was the chairman of the standing committee replacing the congresses. The first planner and director of the Hungarian statistical surveys. The organizer of the 1869 census and the introducer of the individual counting sheet system in the 1880 census. One of the pioneers of the scientific cultivation of statistics in Hungary. The organizer of the first industrial statistics. He participated in the revival of the National Industrial Association in the 1860s, was one of its directors when it was founded in 1867, and later was its president several times. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in 1868, a full member in 1875, and a director in 1890. The Faculty of Economics of Óbuda University, established in 2010, bears his name. ; ; His main works: ; Hungarian Agriculture, 1867, ; The official and scientific practice of statistics, 1868, ; Our country and its people, 1871, ; Statistics of Hungary, 1874, ; Handbook of practical statistics, 1875, ; A look back at a quarter of a century of our economy, 1876, ; Nationality relations in Hungary based on the 1880 census, 1881, ; Zur Statistik der Hypothekarschulden in Ungarn, 1885, ; Ungarn im Weltverkehr, 1885, ; Economic and cultural conditions of Hungary in 1885, 1886, ; Food statistics of the population of Hungary on a physiological basis, 1887.