István Hajnal

István Hajnal (3 July 1892 – 16 June 1956) was a Hungarian social historian and palaeographer.

Hajnal has been characterised as "perhaps the most prominent Hungarian palaeographer of [the twentieth] century.

[2] In 1921 he gained his Privatdocent, and started teaching at the University of Budapest, where he was Professor of Modern History from 1930 to 1949.

[3] In the 1980s Hajnal's work, promoted by László Lakatos,[4] "suddenly burst into public consciousness as an oeuvre comparable with and compatible with the Annales.

The István Hajnal Circle [Hajnal István Kör], named after him, sponsors research into East Central European social history.