Scientific Creativity in Hungarian Context

Comparing with the population, many Hungarians achieved outstanding success in natural sciences in the 20th century. From this fact, the conclusion can be drawn that Hungarians are very creative. In analyzing this conclusion, a simple general model of creativity is used which distinguishes between the approaches of the genious theory and Zeitgeist theory. By applying the Zeitgeist theory, the paper concludes that some elements of the Hungarian culture significantly contributed to the success of the Hungarian scientists, although all of them left Hungary at a certain point of their career. Migration was a key element of their success because they could find relevant problems and meritocratic scientific community in the scientific centers.