© Végel Dániel

But it is their arguments that are most impressive. On the one hand they claim that: "every academy in the world has lifelong membership," and on the other that: "this subsidy of excellence has existed since 1831, and is thus not some 'Stalinist oddity.'" The current president added something along the lines of the Academicians' honorarium being a fine old tradition.

As far as the global comparison is concerned, it's worth pointing out that in the history of Hungarian science, many undeserving scholars have been elevated to the rank of Academician. There have also been many academicians who had once deserved the honour but who had produced nothing for decades when they were finally elevated. Foreign academies probably have the same problem, and it would certainly be hard to kick a burned out, washed up former scholar out of the Academy. But even they could be excluded from the Academy's professional activities, perhaps by tactfully offering a new title – emeritus, say, or honorary. It is more difficult with those who were never good scholars but who became members for political reasons. The Academy squandered the opportunity it had in 1989 to get rid of them, because it thought it more important to keep the peace, lest someone should feel persecuted. But 15 years later there have been few resignations. Is it not time to revisit the issue? It is certainly not a concern for most of the world's science academies.

As far as the fine old tradition of the honorarium is concerned, we should not forget that it was the greatest Hungarian himself who opened up his own wallet to establish the Academy, and nobody then thought of asking the government for money. There were far fewer members back then, and they received their pay from a private foundation. There are in any case plenty of Hungarian traditions of which we can be proud, and also many of which we should not. The birch is quite an old tradition, it even made a come-back in a darker period of the last century, but we do not call for its return. Abolishing serfdom was not an "overly hasty change to the law," even though it was a well-established Hungarian legal tradition.

The argument is not about whether the Academy should spend a little less money (though the sums involved are not small), and it is not even the most important reform the Academy has to get to grips with. But symbolic gestures have meaning. They reveal an institution's intentions: reform in this area would show that the time had now passed when once- or never-great scholars could receive privilege and generous subsidies from the state. It would show that scholars were now expected to perform, or that rules could be abandoned if they ceased to be useful.

There is another lesson here, one that goes beyond the reform of the Academy. It is hard to believe that root-and-branch reform can be carried out by people who stand to lose their prestige, power, privileges, money and purpose if they are successful in their efforts. We can only believe they mean what they say if they take steps that bear risks for themselves, thus showing that they hold themselves to the same standards that they hold everybody else in the wider system. Even if these measures are not the most important. This is a lesson not just for the Academy, but for all the reformers out there.

György Kálmán C. is a literary historian.