Perspektywy i wyzwania polskiej hungarologii

In 1998 at Stanford University, in the spring of 2000 in Frankfurt, and in the fall of the same year in Pécs, Jacques Derrida gave a famous lecture L’avenir de la profession ou l’université sans condition [The Future of the Profession or the Unconditional University], whose ideas inspired Ernő Kulcsár Szabó to write in 2025 the essay Az egyetem eszméje és valósága [The Idea and Reality of the University]. Inspired by these texts, the paper reflects on what the idea of the university means in 2025 and what the challenges, tasks, and opportunities of Hungarian studies in Poland are today. The paper addresses issues such as: the criteria of modernity, the current position of the university and the humanities, the subject of Hungarian studies, the duality of the modern world, generational and identity politics, and specific Hungarian studies projects. The considerations presented in the paper lead to the conclusion that the academic community cannot be isolated from the social context in which it exists, which seems particularly relevant in 2025. The university is always a field of various tensions, both synchronic and diachronic: on the one hand, relating to social, ethnic, and sexual diversity, and on the other, generational tensions, which are factors that shape the reality of the university on a daily basis.