Ézsaiás Budai (1766–1841)

Student leader, professor, bishop

Historian, teacher, classicist, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, his talent manifested itself extremely early.Already as a head student at the College, he was hired to teach history and eloquence in Greek and Latin.

He spent four semesters at Gottingen, the famous university of the age, where he later earned the title of doctor honoris causa. He spoke eight languages. Returning to Debrecen he was greeted by Csokonai with a poem. Little did he know that he himself would chair the committee that would expel Csokonai from the College. The poet, however, never resented him.

Budai developed the new curriculum of theory and practice at the College. Generations were educated from his textbooks, which were used nationwide. This attested to the fact that as opposed to the common approach at the time, it was indeed practical to teach Hungarian students in Hungarian. Budai supplied Hungarian annotations to the works of Greek and Latin authors and published them so, single-handedly creating Hungarian classical studies. Author of several scholarly works he was mentor and publisher of Debrecen’s plate engraver-students, too: his Old School Atlas and New School Atlas were ahead of their time, and their significance in educational reform is evident today.

As the most distinguished bishop of the Reformed Church he was co-founder of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Throughout his stellar career this magnificent scholar remained loyal to Debrecen and the College.