Iván T. Berend, economist, historian and former Rector of Corvinus, has passed away

In 1953, he earned a degree in economics from the predecessor of Corvinus University, the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences, and a degree in history teaching from the Faculty of Humanities at Eötvös Loránd University. He received his doctorate in economics in 1957, after which he began working in the Department of Economic History at the Karl Marx University of Economics—first as an assistant lecturer, becoming an associate professor in 1960, and a full professor in 1964. He served as department head from 1967, dean of the university between 1962 and 1965, and rector of the institution from 1973 to 1979. 

Initially, his research focused on 20th-century Hungarian economic history, later expanding to comparative economic history of Central and Eastern Europe. He defended his candidate dissertation in historical sciences in 1957 and his doctoral dissertation (Doctor of Sciences) at the Academy in 1962. He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) in 1973 and a full member in 1979. Alongside the Hungarian Academy, he later became a member of the American, British, Austrian, European, Bulgarian, and former Czechoslovak academies of sciences. 

He participated in the preparation of the 1960s economic reforms. His work was recognized with the Kossuth Prize in 1961. In 1964, he spent a year in the United States on a scholarship. 

Between 1988 and 1990, he served as co-chairman of the HAS–Soros Foundation, and from 1989 to 1990, he chaired the advisory body to the Council of Ministers established by Miklós Németh. He was a member of the last Central Committee of the MSZMP (Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party) from 1988 to 1989, during which he led a working group that drafted the country’s first three-year plan for marketization and privatization in 1988. In January 1989, he became chairman of the Historical Working Group responsible for re-evaluating the previously negative assessment of the 1956 Revolution. From 1985 to 1990, he was the last president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences prior to the regime change. 

In 1990, he became a professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). That same year, he moved to the United States with his wife. In 1991, he left the University of Economic Sciences permanently. He was appointed Director of UCLA’s Center for European and Russian Studies in 1993, a position he held until 2005. He retired in 2015 at the age of 85, after teaching at UCLA for 25 years. 

His research focused on the economic history of Hungary and Central Europe, primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the economic modernization of less developed European regions and the post-regime-change economic transformation of the area. 

He was the author of numerous influential books and a beloved educator, establishing him as an internationally recognized thinker. 

His memory will always remain with us. 

Cover image source: UCLA