Joseph Szinnyei (Ferber)

* Komárom, March 18, 1830 –  † Budapest, August 9, 1913 / bibliographer, librarian ; ; Orphaned at an early age, having lost his father at the age of five and his mother at the age of six. From then on, he was raised by his paternal aunt together with his three sisters. He completed his grammar school education between 1839 and 1845 in Komárom and partly in Nitra (in the latter place he studied for two years to master the Slovak language). He began his liberal arts studies in Pest in 1845, then became a student at the Győr Academy, where he studied philosophy and law until May 1848. At that time, he moved to Buda Castle to live with his brother-in-law, Zsigmond Beöthy, a draftsman at the Ministry of Culture. In July 1848, he changed his family name from Ferber to Szinnyei. In August 1848, he joined the national guard in Komárom, and from December 1848, he was assigned to the 37th battalion with the rank of sergeant. He participated in 13 battles and finally laid down his arms as a first lieutenant in Komárom on October 3, 1849. Between 1849 and 1853, he lived again with his brother-in-law, Zsigmond Beöthy, in Komárom, and worked as a lawyer's assistant, while learning French, English, Spanish and Italian. In August 1853, he married and moved to the estate of his wife, Klementina Gancs Gancs in Gancsházi (now part of Somorja). In 1855–1864, he was an assistant in the office of Károly Samarjay in Bratislava. In 1864 he became an employee of the Hungária Insurance Bank in Bratislava, but the bank later failed and merged with the National Insurance Company of Pest and Szinnyei moved to the capital in 1869. ; The financial institution also went bankrupt in 1872 and at that time Szinnyei became the second officer of the University Library of Pest. This had a precedent, since in the 1860s he had sent the history and genealogy of the noble families of Bratislava County to the genealogist Iván Nagy (1824–1898), author of the monumental work The Families of Hungary. Later he began to deal with the description of Hungarian newspaper literature and became a permanent employee of the Vasárnapi Újság. In 1875 he became the first library director of the University Library, and in 1879 its first keeper. In 1884, he began to set up a national newspaper library, and not only wrote articles about it, but also personally traveled the country to collect newspapers. From November 1888, he became the keeper of the newspaper library of the Hungarian National Museum, and in 1901, he became its director. He was a member of the board of several societies (Kisfaludy Society, Hungarian Heraldic and Genealogical Society, Petőfi Society, etc.). The Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in 1899. His most important work is the bibliography of the works of Hungarian writers (Magyar Írók Élete és Munkái I–XIV – MÍÉM), a detailed inventory that he began in the 1880s. It includes nearly 30,000 Hungarian writers. He wrote the 14 volumes almost alone, only the last booklet was completed by his son, Ferenc Szinnyei (1875–1947), a literary historian, university professor, and corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, based on Szinnyei's notes. A huge amount of material was also collected for the planned supplementary volumes, but these were not processed. ; ; His main works: ; Hungarian scientific repertoire of domestic and foreign journals 1–3., 1874, 1885, ; Hungarian natural science and mathematical bibliography 1472–1875, 1878, ; The history of the Hungarian actor in Komárom, 1881, ; Komárom in 1848–49. Diary entries, 1887, ; Tímár-ház. Diary entries, 1889–1907, ; Lives and Works of Hungarian Writers I–XIV., 1891–1914.