Teleki László Foundation
The Teleki László Institute was created with government decree 1007/1991. (II. 09) in 1991 and it became the legal successor of the Hungarian Studies Group (later: Institute) established in 1985. It integrated the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and the Danube Region Institute. The Teleki László Foundation was set up in order to ensure the operation of the institute (with László Diószegi as its managing director). The Teleki László Foundation aims to provide an academic basis for the development of Hungary’s international relations, to examine the political and social processes in the world as well as the diplomatic, foreign trade and security relations of the Central and Eastern European region, to explore the possibilities of international cooperation taking into account the trends and developments in the realisation of human rights, and the situation of ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities. A multi-party board of trustees was set up to ensure the operation of the Teleki László Foundation chaired by Géza Entz, head of the Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad, and the institute was headed by Csaba Kiss Gy. until 1994. Subsequently a smaller board of trustees appointed by the government was headed by Domokos Kosáry and György Granasztói became the director of the institute. Since 1999 the Foundation has also taken on the care of the Hungarian built heritage beyond the borders of Hungary – with separate funding from the central budget. In the mid-1990s it had 70 staff members and a budget of HUF 100 million, and in 2006, when it was closed down, it had 46 staff members and a budget of HUF 122 million. The Institute had three organisational units: the Institute of Foreign Affairs, the Central European Institute and the Library and Documentation Service. The Dunatáj Institute, headed by Gusztáv Molnár, was merged into the Institute of Foreign Affairs and played a decisive role in the development of Hungarian minority autonomy concepts, in the promotion of international minority rights institutions in Hungary and in the introduction of geopolitical thinking. At the Central Europe Institute research concerning Hungarian minority communities was placed in a Central European comparative social-historical framework. This is the starting point for comparative research on national identity, publicity and the sociology of education. The institute was among those in Hungary that pioneered the localisation and application of nationalism studies and cultural heritage research to the processes that were transforming the country and the neighbouring countries as of the 1990s. The library functioned as a documentation base for Hungarian communities beyond the border. The municipal censuses and the time-series national and denominational censuses as well as the Geographical Information System (GIS) processing thereof, the surveying and registration of minority institutions and the preparation of a bibliographic handbook of national minorities in Central and South-Eastern Europe were completed here. The foundation also had extensive publishing activities (more than 100 volumes and two journals), and the annual institute conferences have become a major forum for Hungarian minority studies and Central European studies. The government closed down the institute without a legal successor at the end of 2006. The Hungarian Institute of International Affairs was established on 1 January 2007. In September 2007 the new Teleki László Foundation was established – as a private foundation this time – to act as a public benefit social organisation primarily concerned with the survey and preservation of the Hungarian built heritage in Central Europe.