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“THE ‘ETERNAL CANDIDATE’ — THAT WAS ME”: INTERVIEW WITH KAROLY BARD
friends the language, otherwise she only taught people involved in foreign trade at
her home. When I started teaching at the university, I took on every conceivable
translation gig because the salary was so meagre. If I got stuck with the translation,
I just hopped over to my grandmother and got all the translation done in two or
three hours that I had been struggling over the past week. Later on, I also worked
as a conference interpreter with awesome, accomplished colleagues. I had learnt
German as a child in Frankfurt, but it was my knowledge of English that gave me
an edge. Consequently, I had an exceptional position at the university.
On my first study trip abroad in 1976, I went to Finland for two months. There
was a scholarship for this study trip that was quite easy to get. Finland was an
“almost Western country”. Also, the location was especially attractive for me,
since there was an excellent institute of criminology in Helsinki. Yet I didn’t go to
the institute but the university instead, where I worked with a very kind, elderly
professor of procedural law, from whom, alas, I didn’t get to learn too much.
However, I somehow got involved with the Legal Policy Institute, which was
headed by one of the most renowned criminologists of the time: Inkeri Anttila.
She organized a lecture for me in Turku. Actually, this was my first step to join
the international academic world.
I got on really well with the Finns. It was at this time that the HEUNI, the
European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control was established, where
Inkeri became director. I was invited to multiple conferences, I worked there
as an advisor for three months, preparing conferences and seminars. This was
particularly attractive, since the Helsinki institute was a sort of bridge between
the East and the West. Here, I got into contact with Western professionals, offering
me various opportunities. Like I said, it was one of my Helsinki presentations that
got me my job at the UN Headquarters in Vienna.
I also had the chance to attend the American Studies Salzburg Seminar where
the most notable researchers of the field lectured. I chose the course given by
Mirjan Damaska, a star lecturer of Yale University. Then there was the Hungarian¬
British Round Table exchange program, launched by the British Council. The
Hungarian team was put together by Katalin Gönczöl. I also gave a lecture there,
upon which the Brits invited me to London the next year for a short study trip.
I even went to Vancouver one time. Tibor Király was invited to a conference on
victimology. However, he kindly offered that I go in his stead, saying his English
was not good enough.
V. Z. K.: Reading the articles you had written in the eighties, what strikes me is
that you often refer to constitutional principles. What’s more, Istvan Kukorelli claims
that itis your articles that laid the foundations of constitutional criminal law. I must
admit, it seems strange for members of my generation that any requirement should
flow from the constitution under an authoritarian regime. Were constitutional and
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