185
Views
1
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Frigyes Riesz between the two World Wars

ORCID Icon
Pages 235-245 | Published online: 22 May 2017
 

Abstract

Frigyes Riesz (22 January 1880 to 28 February 1956), was a Hungarian mathematician today best known for his work on functional analysis. His biography contains reference only to a few events of his life. The present paper intends to contribute to a critical revision of Riesz's biography focusing on three highly politicized moments of his life by using historical sources that have not been studied yet. The focus lies on the following moments: at the end of the First World War, Riesz described in a letter the tense situation in Koloszvár before the exile of the whole university. In the 1920s, he founded in Szeged a new mathematical journal and wrote to colleagues asking for support. During the Second World War, his Jewish ancestry determined the fate of his relatives and of himself, and caused his colleagues abroad to become worried about him.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Koloszvár is the Hungarian name of the town. Its name in German is Klausenburg, in Romanian Cluj-Napoca, and in English Clausenburg.

2 See Thron Citation1997, 23; Császár Citation2005, 45, and Szőkefalvi-Nagy Citation1983, 70.

3 Romania re-entered the war on 10 November 1918 (Kiritzesco Citation1934, 436).

4 See Riesz Citation1919.

5 See Hardy and Riesz Citation1915: ‘Mathematicis quotquot ubique sunt operum societatem nunc diremptam mox ut optare licet redintegraturis D.D.D. auctores hostes idemque amici’, kindly translated into German by Peter Brodkorb, a latin teacher in a German gramar school. Horvath (Citation1982) referred to Hardy's dedication, see page 84.

6 Horvath (Citation1982) rightly called Hardy a pacifist, see page 101. Dauben (Citation1980) wrote a very interesting article on Hardy as a pacifist.

7 The congress proceedings contains a list of visiting members and their Cambridge address (Hobson and Love Citation1913, 10–27).

8 As it happened with Riesz's later correspondence, see next section.

9 See the article The history of the Institute on the website of the Department of Mathematics at the University Szeged. It contains some interesting anecdotes involving measures taken by Riesz and Haar in order to get financial support for the library (Anonymous Citationnd). There is an authorized version of this same article in Csákány et al. (Citation2013). The authors are the same who wrote the chapter concerning the Department of Mathematics in the book Past and present of Szeged University 1921–1998 (Csákány and Varga Citation1999). See also Hersh and John-Steiner Citation1993.

10 Fréchet (Citation1922) wrote: ‘Mais vous aviez surtout chance d’obtenir des exchange avec les journaux publie par des sociétés ou universités ou Écoles’.

11 See Császár Citation1960, Citation1975, 148, Citation2005, 51.

12 I thank Ilona Riesz, Frigyes’ grand niece and Marcell's granddaughter, for the hint. In summer 2008, I visited Győr and met her cousin in Budapest, Sándor's grandson, who gave me further valuable information.

13 Personal communication by Frigyes’ relatives in Budapest.

14 On the holocaust in Hungary see Arendt Citation1964, 301. On the fate of the Jews in Győr see Braham Citation2000, 142.

15 I thank Olga Spitzer, the synagogue's keys keeper, for telling me all this as well as for showing me the holocaust book and for allowing me to study the birth register book.

16 I found the article of Hersh and John-Steiner (Citation1993) after I had met Frigyes’ relatives in Budapest. Since 2013, a few remarks concerning Riesz's Jewish ancestry appear also in the website of the Janos Bolyai Institute.

17 See Arendt Citation1964, 301ff. Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on 9 July 1944 (Braham and Miller Citation1998, 139).

18 Frigyes’ relatives in Budapest conserve a newspaper clipping mentioning Frigyes as one of three world-renowned scholars in Szeged who had been forced to wear the yellow star. The clipping discusses the book Albert Szent-Györgyi in Szeged and the Szent-Györgyi Collection by Tibor Szabó and Andor Zallár which appeared in 1989.

19 Hersh and John-Steiner (Citation1993) are the exception.

20 These phrases are cited at the beginning of the present paper. They go back to Szőkefalvi-Nagy (Citation1983) and Császár (Citation2005).

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 61.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 185.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.