The establishment of the institutional framework of comparative law in the socialist Czechoslovakia and Hungary

Abstract

The paper deals with the institutional framework and development of comparative law during the socialist period in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The history of comparative law in Hungary is longer than in the Czech Lands and later in Czechoslovakia, but its post-war socialist development was very similar. Viktor Knapp and Imre Szabó played the crucial role in the process of forming socialist comparative law. They had law diplomas from the interwar Charles University in Prague, and they sympathised with the left wing of political life. After WWII they both joined the communist movement. Later, they belonged to the communist professional lawyer establishment and played an important role in the personal and institutional changes of the 1950s. Their professional careers were also very similar – they had positions in the state administration and in the educational sphere. Knapp and Szabó managed the institutes of state and law of the Czechoslovak and Hungarian academies of sciences from the 1950s onwards. These institutes played a dominant role in the organisation of comparative research before 1989. Their classical legal education, strong professional skills, knowledge of Western languages, and good connections inside the communist regime helped them to establish the professional centres of comparative law under the communist regimes.