Opening Speech at the Awards Ceremony of the Kharon Study Competition sponsored by the Hungarian Hospice Palliative Association*

According to the legend, it happened almost 1700 years ago that Barbara, the daughter of a Roman patrician, became a disciple of Christ against the wishes of her father. The furious father incarcerated his unruly daughter in a tower, and later beheaded her with his own hands. Following Pelbart of Temesvar, let us recall Barbara’s last prayer before her death, in which she begs for mercy on behalf of the sinful souls who ask for her intercession: ... whoever remembers your holy name and my death, forgive all their sins, and do not condemn them on the day of the final judgment. The veneration of Saint Barbara has flourished in Hungary since the 15th century, and the faithful considered her as a protector against unexpected death and the patron saint of a dignified and peaceful death. Although the nature of her cult has changed somewhat over time, and since the 18th century, she is mostly known as the patron saint of miners; even today, the following prayer is often heard among the faithful: O Lord, let us, through the intercession of Saint Barbara, receive your sacraments before our death!

The Hungarian Hospice Palliative Association announced its study competition on World Hospice Day. Because of the proximity of the two dates, we though it would be fitting to hold the award ceremony on the feast of Saint Barbara: this would symbolize nicely that the main aim of the organizations involved in this competition (including the Kharon Association itself and also the Review of Thanatology, where the best works are planned to be published) is to restore what in earlier times used to be called ars moriendi: the noble tradition of the art of dying, of the good death.

Please allow me shortly to introduce our journal, which was first published in 1997. That year, the Hungarian Hospice Association founded the Hungarian Thanatology Foundation with the goal of publishing the first scholarly journal in Hungarian dedicated to all the subfields of thanatology and serving as a forum for its practitioners. The board of the foundation and the board of editors have been instituted with a very diverse membership, which included medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, theologians, historians, folklorists and art historians, among others. This composition of the board symbolized our desire to follow an interdiscplinary approach, emphasising the complex interdependence of the differenct branches of science, similarly to how the Annales school of French historians created the concept of mentality history. Our journal deals with the actual issues of the present (such as the inexhaustible topics of the hospice movement, the debate on euthanasia or other social questions) and with the exploration of the past (such as the cult of the death, the folkloristic, historical and art historical aspects of the ceremony of dying, or the publishing of source materials): it is our belief that inasmuch death cannot be understood without understanding life, it is also true that without knowing our past, the questions of our present and future also cannot be answered.

It has also been an aim of our journal to talk to a wide audience: in addition to professionals, we also want to address those non-professionals who are interested in the topics that we deal with, either because they are personally affected by them, or out of sheer curiosity. Because of this, - accepting the risk of heterogeneity -, we decided to publish a mix of high-quality original research papers, popular science pieces, statistical contributions and also writings of a more essayistic, even confessional nature. We also considered it important to provide space not only for the established, well-known professionals, but also for the younger, ambitious generation of the novices of the field: helping their first, often uncertain steps in scientific publication. Because of this, our editors, in addition to their traditional duties, often also act as mentors and reviewers and work intensively with the young authors to help them with crafting their first publications. It is our experience that young researchers are very thankful for such guidance and for our patient and realistic attitude: as opposed to many other forums, we do not expect novices in the field to publish perfect pieces right from the beginning, without any help or guidance.

2008 witnessed a significant change in the life of our journal. While the issues of our print journal have long been available in electronic format too on the homepage of the Hungarian Hospice Palliative Association (in order to reach as wide an audience as possible), in 2008, we decided to fully convert to being an electronic publication: since then, our quarterly issues are no longer available in physical print format. We also managed to digitize all our previous issues: this means that, after registration, anyone can access all our issues free of charge at https://kharon.hu, the homepage of our journal. Publishers’ rights have also been retransferrred from the Hungarian Thanatology Foundation to the Hungarian Hospice Palliative Association.

I would also like to take this occasion to express my gratitude to all our colleagues who played a part in this enterprise. We remember with love Alaine Polcz, who has been the founding editor-in-chief of our journal until her death. From 1997 to the end of 2001, the journal was edited by Péter Berta and János Pilling, with the strong help of the editorial board. In the meantime, Katalin Hegedűs has also joined our team, becoming one of the main engines behind our journal, and acting as a mentor and teacher of many talented young authors. In 2001, I have taken over the responsibilities of editing our journal from János Pilling, coordinating to the best of my abilities all the work which I tried to describe above.

Finally, I would like to thank the competitors for their hard work, and I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the winners. It is a special joy to me that so many young authors decided to enter the competition: this means that luckily, they were not frightened by the task at hand. In the name of the editorial board, I would like to express our readiness and pleasure to publish the studies submitted to the competition in the coming issues of Kharon – A Review of Thanatology.