Source: Századunk 9. 1934. 9. volume p. 330-341. Excerpts.

Pál Szende was born in Nyirbátor on 7th February 1879.

His father was the doctor of the township, His mother was the daughter of a rich landowner family. Father was known as a skilful specialist who learned at the University of Wien; he was a broad-minded, intelligent, clever man with  sense of music that was inherited by his children. The father raised the interests of his 3 children in the matters of world. Remarkable events were discussed at the family's table; everything (that conversation turned to) was explained. The father had easier discipline as an attitude towards children, so, mother (as a stricter personality) made them accustomed to discipline which was kept in all circumstances of Pál Szende's life.  According to his relatives, he inherited some important things such as huge thirst for knowledge, ambition, diligence and great retentive memory on his mother's side; everyone was impressed by them.

His great intellectual abilities became known in his childhood; he attended  the upper classes of Lutheran Secondary School in Nyíregyháza; he was eminent in all of his school years. He got interested in his favourite subject (or science), history, quite early.
His father predicted quite nice future for his son whom he knew very well, but unfortunately he died at the age of 57 in 1904.

He was admitted to the law-faculty of the university in Budapest in 1896, in the year of millennium celebrations. He had a close relationship with his uncle Ignác Acsády, a prominent Hungarian historian of the age.

Similarly to the years of secondary school, he was eminent in the university as well; he graduated from university without a hitch. He wanted to get a diploma in law and make his way as soon as possible. He worked hard as a trainee solicitor and he also was quite busy in legal studies when he worked as a solicitor after he passed the bar exam in 1904. He also was the staffer of Magyar Közgazdasági Lexikon (Hungarian Economic Encyclopedia).

In 1905,  he had a closer relation to the circle of Huszadik Század, the progressive wing of the Society of Social Sciences; he had a good personal relationship with Oszkár Jászi, they were friends until Szende's death. As the result of that fruitful relationship and cooperation, Szende wrote some essays and other articles; they were published in the periodical of the Society, Huszadik Század.

Members or groups of members in the Society of Social Sciences were heterogeneous considering social backgrounds and ideologies; it was in crisis in the second half of the first decade of the 20th century; by separation of parts of the Society  the clarified program crystallized thoroughly. The circle of the Society re-formed and Szende became an ambitious leading member with great oratory.
There was a reading session of the Society when several  learned  German visitors  (Vereinigung für Staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung)  came and an essay by Pál Szende titled Über die staatsrechtlichen Verhältnisse Ungarns was in focus. The author gave a realistic picture of Austrian - Hungarian relations; the audience was impressed. Prof. Bernhard Harms  (later director of  Weltwirtschaftliches Institut in Kiel) expressed his and other visitors' appreciation and thanks for the lecture and the useful presentation.  He encouraged Hungarian scholars to spread their ideas in a wide circle.

Tax reform of the 1900s was analysed by Szende with the intention of striving for social justice; though it was a complicated issue, historical and economical preparations were carried out by his critical articles, lectures and discussions as well as essays related to details...
Besides his tax related studies and ideas in the field of tax sociology, the issues of sociology of law were in focus, too, in his work.

It is worth mentioning that he dealt with the crisis of lawyers (as a profession) in Hungary and he wrote a monography in which he depicts the role of the lawyer in class state (marxism), how this profession developed in Hungary and why it became overcrowded in our days. Szende emphasized that crowdedness among Hungarian lawyers (as a career) is the result of efficient causes (economic and social causes), and it would stop by reformation (or rather radical change)  of the political organization and economical system in Hungary.

His unceasing discontentment originated in longing for change and his humaneness; actually, he was not only a researcher (researching, observing and revealing) and teacher but a politician as well; so, he was interested not only in the circumstances at that time, how they developed or were created but what to change for the better (and how).

To provide the chance to prosper or to bring the chances of prosperity near(er) to the wide public, Szende wanted to make use of the possibilities of practical implementation; he was convinced that middle class should take definite form first - to become a more independent social class, including the ability of resistance. 
In the middle of the 1900s a movement with the features of people's democracy started in Hungarian Freemasonry. Some leaders of the Society of Social Sciences together with Pál Szende joined the movement.
He got acquainted with Pál Sándor the president of National Hungarian Trade Association - the institution before Hungarian Trade Association (established in 1990) -, who was a  member of parliament, dealing with public affairs. Although they were different from each other in respect of several ideological issues, Szende honoured Pál Sándor for his moral courage and uprightness; Sándor appreciated Szende's versatility, severe personality, his expertise and skills as an orator. In 1908, Szende became the secretary general of National Hungarian Trade Association, due to Sándor's invitation and he held the position for nearly ten years. 

In the last years of the war (WW I) Szende  immersed himself in political life, however, he did not want to forsake his colleagues and his work, he did his best in his job until the revolution in autumn 1918, when he got into the political maelstrom.

In 1917, Szende and his political fellows founded civic radical party and he participated in left-side political movements, mainly in the movement led by Mihály Károlyi; later he became a leader member of National Council and minister of finance of Károlyi Cabinet. They became friends and the relation of friendship (between Szende and Károlyi) remained during the years of emigration when their political ways separated. (Unfortunately (or not), he couldn't implement his programs as a minister of finance, including tax reforms. )

After he emigrated, he settled in Vienna and spent most of his time with learning; he studied maths and physics and picked up German to write his articles  and hold the lectures in German.

Due to his wide variety of interests and good mental abilities he immersed in theory of relativity, though it was far from his basic interests, he learned new maths related theory as well, he did some relevant researches and finally he wrote a study (or essay) on the significance of Einstein's theory (Nyugat periodical, 16 January 1922).

He slowly got involved in intellectual life of emigration, joining the Austrian social democratic party and won friends among social democrats. To earn his living, he worked as a journalist (Arbeiterzeitung, Leipziger Volkszeitung and some foreign journals).

From 1925, he spent some months in Paris. He picked up French, so he could hold lectures in Collège libre des sciences sociales as a teacher. As he also participated in the activities of Hungarian League for Human Rights and the socialist party, he got acquainted with some prominent people of the organizations, namely Léon Blum, Brack, Longuet and Renaudel as well as Basch professor and Aulard (writer and historian), among others. 

Besides, he got acquainted with leading politicians and intellectuals, scholars and other emigrants in the salon of  Mme. Menard-Dorian, a French woman of letters and a literary salon hostess. She had active participation in all left-wing movements until her death in 1929. Her salon was a favourite meeting place for left-wing politicians,  emigrants and scholars from all over the world.  Briand, Herriot, Branting, Vandervelde, Breitscheid, Einstein, Nitti,  Mihály Károlyi and other prominent left-wing personalities often visited the salon.

Szende always returned to Vienna when he went to hold lectures in Paris, London or towns in Germany. When the political conditions began to change in Austria, he had an excited period that affected his health badly. In the first half of the 1930s  he succeeded in preserving his health more or less...

After the revolution in Vienna, Szende moved to Czecho-Slovakia. There he met President Masaryk more times and he was summoned (together with Oszkár Jászi) by the president to discuss the conditions on the revision of Hungarian border. The issue was discussed with Benes as well; however, they never said anything about it to the public, because it was impossible to fulfill the conditions  within the circumstances of internal politics of that period.

After staying in Czecho-Slovakia, Szende got ill seriously in Prague. A few weeks later he seemed to recover, however, the systems of his human organization were  impaired so severely that his power of resistance was broken. He travelled to Szinérváralja  (Transylvania) to his mother and sister and he felt better, living in peace. Unfortunately, a repeated heart attack killed him on 15th July.

István Varró