Ervin Szabo

* Szlanica, August 23, 1877 – † Budapest, September 29, 1918 / librarian, editor ; ; Original name: Schlesinger Sámuel Ármin. He began his university studies at the Faculty of Law of the University of Budapest, and after passing two basic exams, he continued at the University of Vienna. He received his doctorate from the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Budapest in 1899. While still a university student, he gained international fame with his statistical and librarian work. He was an intern in the library of the House of Representatives for one year, and from 1900 to 1904 he was the librarian of the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry, then moved to the Metropolitan Library, where he became its director from 1911, and under his leadership it reached the level of a modern social science library. He planned a wide-ranging cultural network and tried to make the library accessible to a wide range of people. His work as a librarian was closely connected with his significant participation in the labor movement, both theoretically and practically. From 1900 he was an active member of the MSZDP183, a permanent contributor to Népszava and the editor of the annually published Népszava Calendar, the leader of the socialist student movement, and the author of numerous agitation pamphlets. ; He began his social science work – at the scientific level – in 1903, primarily in the Social Science Society (of which he was vice-president from 1906) and in Huszadik Század, in the latter he regularly provided information on issues of the international labor movement. He also wrote articles for the German Neue Zeit and the French Mouvement Socialiste journals. Two volumes of selected writings of Marx and Engels (1905, 1909) were published under his editorship and with his preface, which constituted the basis of Marxist literature in Hungarian. With his writings, he supported the journal Szabadgondolat and the daily newspaper Világ. During the years of World War I, his activities received new impetus, and despite his serious illness, he became the intellectual leader of the anti-militarist movement. He participated in the work of the group that prepared the assassination attempt on Prime Minister István Tisza. In his sickbed, he completed his great historical work on the 1848/49 revolution. ; ; His main works: ; The Hungarian Jacobins, 1902, ; Social and Party Struggles in the Hungarian Revolution of 1948–49, 1921, ; Selected Writings of Ervin Szabó (with a complete bibliography of his works), 1958, ; Collection of Ervin Szabó's studies and criticisms on library science and cultural policy published in Hungarian 1900 – 1918, 1959.