HGV: Hungarian President Plagiarized Bulgarian Researcher

Pal Schmitt, 69, has been President of Hungary since 2010. File photo

Over 80% of the doctoral dissertation of Hungarian President, Pal Schmitt, of 1992 modern Olympics was copied from a similar work published in 1987 by a Bulgarian researcher, according to headlines in a Hungarian magazine.

Schmitt was a successful fencer in his youth, winning two gold medals at the Summer Olympics. He later became the Chief of Protocol of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and presided over the World Olympians Association between 1999 and 2007.

On Wednesday, the website of the HVG magazine accused Schmitt of plagiarizing the work of a Bulgarian sport expert for his doctoral dissertation. Nikolai Georgiev's Analyse du programme olympique (des Jeux d'Olympiade) was finished in 1987. A large part of Schmitt's dissertation, written in 1992, appears to be an exact translation of this work, according to HGV. The Bulgarian sports researcher had been a diplomat in Switzerland in 1987. He passed away in 2005.

The Hungarian Presidential Office firmly denied the allegations set out in the weekly HGV. Schmidt knew personally Georgiev, while the main sources of both dissertations include minutes of meetings of IOC and its Executive Committee as well as analysis of documents from the Olympics, indicated the Presidential Office.

The magazine, which cites in detail both documents, stresses that Schmidt mentions the study of the Bulgarian researcher in the bibliography, but had not applied footnotes to indicate which parts he quoted. According to the weekly, a total of 180 of the 215-page dissertation of the Hungarian president was copied from Georgiev.

Pal Schmitt, 69, has been President of Hungary since 2010. He served as an ambassador during the 1990s, and was a Vice President of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2010. After briefly serving as Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary in 2010, Schmitt was elected as President of Hungary in a 263 to 59 vote in the Parliament. Schmitt is a supporter of the second cabinet of Viktor Orban.

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