Institute of ethnology of the hungarian academy of sciences

INSTITUTE OF ETHNOLOGY of the HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 1014 Budapest, Országház u. 30. Postal address: 1250 Budapest, Pf.: 29 Tel.: +36-1-224-67-81; fax: +36-1-356-80-58 E-mail: etnologia@etnologia.mta.hu
Overview of the scientific activities of the Institute of Ethnology in 2009 Main tasks of the research institute in 2009 – The publication of an essential handbook of ethnology: the eighth and final volume in the series Magyar Néprajz (Hungarian Ethnography) — Táj, nép, történelem. A magyar népi műveltség korszakai (Landscape, People, History. Eras in Hungarian Popular Culture) (Vol. I.2.) – Examinations of socio-ethnographical changes in local societies that differ in terms of geographic and type: individuals and the community, tradition and innovation, and adaptation strategies in present-day and recent economic, social and cultural processes. – The collection of folkloristic texts (tales, legends, proverbs), beliefs, expressions of popular religion and customs, and the expansion, digitalisation and analysis of archives. The examination of nineteenth-century folk poetry. The organisation of an interdisciplinary conference to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Elek Benedek. – Processes in the history of popular culture: the exploration and publication of sources, and investigations into social history. – The ethnological exploration of the modernisation aspirations and related local cultural responses in Siberia, Mongolia and South East Asia. Outstanding research and other results, and their socio-economic impact in 2009 – The publication of Táj, nép, történelem. A magyar népi műveltség korszakai (Landscape, People, History. Eras in Hungarian Popular Erudition) (Vol. I.2), as part of the eight-volume series Magyar Néprajz (Hungarian Ethnograpy). The institute regards as a task of outstanding importance the publication of the ultimate volume of the essential handbook series Magyar Néprajz, concluding a unique academic synthesis. The publication marks a pivotal point of orientation in setting the further directions of ethnographical research. The second part of the closing volume of the eight-volume series, Táj, nép, történelem. A magyar népi műveltség korszakai. Magyar Néprajz I.2 (Landscape, People, History. Eras in Hungarian Popular Erudition) (Hungarian Ethnography, Vol. I.2), has been published, in advance of the first volume. The pioneering endeavour provides a chronological overview of historical changes and eras of popular culture, and outlines the peculiarities of popular material and spiritual values that have been passed from generation to generation, sometimes being enriched and sometimes depleted in the course of change. Taking prehistoric heritage as its starting point, it traces the fate of cultural values through the foundation of the Hungarian state and the centuries that followed the adoption of Christianity, the Middle Ages, the early modern age and the end of classical capitalism, until the mid-twentieth century. By calling attention to the cultural façades, innovations, lost objects and archaic words of the eras in question, the volume demonstrates the perpetual changes in popular culture, while taking into account the creative co-existence of “oriental heritage” and Western cultural values, as well as the continued productive significance of permanent elements and systems. The structure of the volume reflects the themes of ethnography and follow its system: starting with the organisation of society, it describes according to era the historical changes of the great units of material culture (farming, crafts and lifestyle) and folklore (folk poetry, music and dance). The historical survey of popular civilisation can be illuminating for the majority of history-related disciplines (the history of language, the history of technology, and socio-cultural history), and also for those members of the wider public interested in the history of the Hungarian people. The editor-in-chief of the volume is the institute’s academic research professor, while the editor and four authors are researchers at the institute. The Hungarian Cultural Fund provided financial support of HUF 900,000 for the publication of the volume. – Examinations of socio-ethnographical changes in local societies differing in terms of geography and type Nine researchers from the institute’s Department of Social Ethnography are analysing the living and adaptation strategies of individuals and local communities in a variety of local societies that differ in terms of geography and type. The analysis also covers new forms of communal organisation, issues of local and ethnic identity, and relationships in local politics and power. Local societies respond in a variety of ways to economic and social changes, and can be seen as different models. The institute carries out parallel research on the subjects of (post-)peasant traditions, farming and survival strategies. In 2009, the consultant researcher involved in the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund’s project “The transformation of peasant communities. Changes in the village value system in the second half of the 20th century” published a summary of his research in the volume Peasant tradition and forced modernisation – Approaches to the examination of changes in ethnography (Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology, 2009, 199 pp). The research was carried out between 2005 and 2008, and was closed financially in 2009. Financial support of HUF 8,509,000 was provided for the four-year project. The festschrift Élet/út/írások (Life, Path, Writings) (Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology and ELTE BTK Néprajzi Intézet, 2009, 433 pp.) was published in honour of a researcher working as scientific advisor to the institute. The volume includes papers by 11 researchers from the institute, with a particular focus on the importance of contemporary socio-ethnographic research in the science of ethnography. As a result of recent social transformations, research in the field of urban ethnography, and in particular the situation of the Roma and generational issues are gaining in significance. One of the research workers from the Department of Social Ethnography has compiled, interpreted and published his research findings in the form of studies on the prestige-object economy of the Transylvanian Gábor Roma. His paper on the construction and materialisation of ethnicity appeared in English in Social Anthropology in 2009. The institute’s contemporary research fields include the examination of forms of social interaction, changes in the world of standards, everyday customs, lifestyles, and common expressions of identity. As part of the institute’s Documentatio Ethnographica series, a volume of studies has been published on cleanness and cleanliness, with the support of the National Cultural Fund (Tiszta sorok. Tanulmányok a tisztaságról és a tisztálkodásról [Clean Lines. Studies on Cleanness and Cleanliness], Budapest, L’Harmattan; Angyalföldi Helytörténeti Gyűjtemény; MTA Institute of Ethnology, 2009, 332 pp). Four of the contributors, as well as the editor of the volume, are members of the institute. The publication is a compilation of papers from last year’s interdisciplinary conference dealing with changes in the concepts of cleanliness and neatness; the disappearance or transformation of the practices and tools of traditional peasant personal hygiene in the twentieth century; as well as the cultural dirty/clean dichotomy. The demographic processes taking place at the turn of the twenty-first century — changes in the age structure of the population, increased life expectancy, and the rise in the number of old people — necessitate an examination of inter-generational relationships, the place of the elderly in society and social relationships, as well as research into family and institutional models for the care of the elderly and an investigation of the role of migrants in the system of social support for the elderly. A young researcher who was earlier a scholarship holder at the institute successfully defended her doctoral thesis in the form of a socio-ethnographic examination of elderly people. An area of outstanding importance for the institute is the presentation and interpretive analysis of the processes taking place during the second half of the twentieth century within the socio-economic relationships of Socialism, as well as after the change of regime and during accession to the European Union. This work was strengthened by the addition of two young research scholars during 2009. The research carried out by one of the scholars centred on the micro-historical analysis of the change in lifestyle within peasant society after 1945. The locations under investigation, Tiszapalkonya and Tiszakeszi, are urbanised villages in the form of satellites of the former Leninváros (now Tiszaújváros), an extremely important centre of Socialist industrialisation, and can be regarded as the town’s provincial setting. The parallel examination of the two villages provides an opportunity to explore the catalysing role of the city and its connected industry, and to analyse its radiation and the phase delay in its reception. The intensive fieldwork carried out by the other researcher furthers the exploration of the ecological awareness, botanical knowledge and traditional uses of the landscape among the Ghymes people. It also follows the impacts of the new regulations and obligations arising as a result of EU accession in the transformation of the traditional use of the landscape and in the changes that have taken place in dairy farming and the management of grasslands and pasture. In the future, the research institute would like to give special emphasis to research in the field of urban folklore. To this end, in 2009 the Board of Directors discussed a research concept presented by a senior member of the Department of Social Ethnography, who is highly experienced in this field. The proposal summarises the antecedents of research into urban lifestyle and culture, its conceptual and methodological themes, and its possible goals. The institute plans to communicate this proposal to a wider public in the form of roundtable discussions and debates, and will also organise a conference on the subject. A new colleague belonging to the “middle generation” joined the institute in 2009, thus improving the age distribution within the organisation. She is involved in researching urban diet in Pesterzsébet in the context of contemporary urban ethnographical studies. Everyday and celebratory eating habits are investigated using precise and objective questions in relation to nutrition, with the goal of mapping the background of urban poverty and the process of impoverishment. The institute’s deputy director successfully defended his doctoral thesis “The regional structure of Hungarian folk culture in the light of the digitalisation of the Hungarian Ethnographical Atlas.” The significance of the subject can be recognised in the light of the conference “Regional ethnographical research in the Carpathian Basin”, organised by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on the 2009 Day of Science. During the conference, the author of the doctoral thesis gave the presentation “Hungarian cultural regions in the Carpathian Basin”, and the director of the institute spoke on “Kalotaszeg as a ‘Hungarian identity’ region.” The director, together with the head of the Department of Historical Ethnography, has been involved in researching the community of Kalotaszeg, Transylvania, and its wider environs for over a decade, examining the historical and present-day organisation of regional structure and identity. – Organisation of the Elek Benedek interdisciplinary conference In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of folktale collector Elek Benedek and the 80th anniversary of his death, and on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the birth of Ágnes Kovács, the most significant Hungarian researcher of the life of Elek Benedek and a former member of the institute, the Department of Folklore organised an international memorial event in 2009 in cooperation with the Petőfi Museum of Literature and in connection with the museum’s exhibition “Once upon a time…” A variety of events were held during the anniversary year, illustrating the rich and diverse career of Elek Benedek. The institute’s contribution took the form of an examination of textological problems, a study long overdue in folkloristics. Interdisciplinary cooperation became a successful practice during the annual “Folklore in Hungarian Cultural History” conferences, organised by the Department of Folklore. Representatives of several disciplines participated in the memorial event. Presentations covered the hitherto underexplored heritage of Elek Benedek and his contemporaries (László Arany, István Tiboldi and Zsigmond Móricz), comprising literary and folklore genres, literary translations, reading books and textbooks for the dissemination of historical information, light reading and almanacs. Presentations on non-artistic official documents, letters, editorial messages and invitations, illustrated with new sources, attracted major interest. Several presenters dealt with the relationship between textualisation and authenticity, the subsequent construction of tradition, and authenticity problems in nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklore collections that have arisen with the emergence of the principles of redaction both in Hungary and abroad. The 27 presenters and section chairpersons from Hungary and outside its borders included 11 researchers from the institute. The presentations, which were of interest not only to folklorists but also to literary historians, pedagogues and library scientists, kindergarten pedagogues, educationalists and teachers, will be published in a volume of studies. – The collection of folkloristic texts (tales, legends, proverbs), beliefs, expressions of popular religion and customs, and the expansion, digitalisation and analysis of the archives An examination of the corpus of nineteenth-century folk poetry. Sponsored by the National Cultural Fund, Folklore and Music (Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 2009: 517 pp) is the latest addition to the volumes of studies based on the interdisciplinary conferences Folklore in Hungarian Cultural History. The new volume comprises 28 studies, 10 of which were written by researchers from the institute. Szólások and közmondások (Idioms and Proverbs) (Budapest, Osiris, 2009: 1,461 pp.) by the head of the Department of Folklore is a rich data resource. Summing up many years of work, the monumental publication is based on historical collections and major linguistic and ethnographical journals. The volume also contains variations, explanations, the denotation of genres, and literary quotes. In response to interest from the wider public, an abridged version of the work has also appeared in the publisher’s dictionary series for students (Budapest, Osiris, 2009: 744. pp). Based on the posthumous papers of Márton Istvánovits, a former member of the institute, a selection from the narratives of Caucasian peoples, Nartok. Caucasian Heroic Legends, has been published, edited by folklorists from the institute. As a contribution to research into the major prose epic genres of Hungarian-language areas, the ninth volume in the series Magyar Népköltészet Tára (Anthology of Hungarian Folk Poetry) was published in 2009. Alongside the volumes of witty tales from the Szilágyság region, folk narratives of the Bodrogköz, and a collection of legends from Hunyad county, the ninth volume, Folk Poetry of Csinód. The Folkloristic Traditions of the Csangó People from the Uz Valley, contains a rich corpus of legends (Budapest, Balassi Kiadó, 2009: 546 pp. plus 24 maps.) In the Béla Vikár memorial meeting of Department I of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a folklorist from the institute gave a presentation on previously unpublished nineteenth-century folklore texts, based on personal documents and correspondence in the Vikár-bequest in the manuscript archives of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Having successfully defended her thesis “The folktale in the Hungarian literature of the 1840s” before her colleagues, one of the institutes folklorists submitted the thesis for a PhD. – Processes in the history of popular culture: the exploration and publication of sources, examinations in social history. As part of the institute’s programme “Popular textile culture in the light of economic and cultural changes between 1850 and 1950” (implemented between 2006 and 2011 with the support of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, HUF 8,100,000), the researcher traced the innovations that advanced the bourgeois transformation, such as the changes in the market that followed the expansion of the railways, and changes in dressmaking and adherence to the dictates of fashion following the appearance of the sewing machine. On the basis of a peasant biography, she also analyses the role of low-cost books and the cinema in expanding cultural opportunities. Among the factors delaying urbanisation, she underlines the beginnings of the transformation of folk art into a movement. For many years, the head of the Department of Historical Ethnography has been disseminating her research findings on the evolution of national costumes in the modern age monarchies of Central and Eastern Europe in the form of lectures and publications. In 2009, the Romanian-Hungarian exchange programme of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences made it possible to add examples from the Romanian Kingdom. On the theme of changes in the functioning of communities in Szőlőhegy in Transdanubia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the document “Hill regulations and papers concerning the establishment of vineyards from Somogy County, 1732–1847” was prepared for publication as volume 5 in the series “Sources for the history of grape hills (szőlőhegyek)” (50 pages of author’s text plus 200 pages of source material). Two curators of the exhibition “Calvinist Tradition: Reform Church Cultural Heritage along the Danube”, which opened on October 31, 2009 in the Budapest Historical Museum, are also researchers from the institute and played a decisive role in the preparatory research for the exhibition. They were responsible for writing the exhibition’s extremely rich catalogue. The catalogue was also edited by one of them, who successfully defended her PhD thesis “Church and Community in the New Modern Age in the Reflection of the Documents of the Küküllő Reformed Church Diocese (seventeenth and eighteenth century). – The ethnological exploration of the modernisation aspirations and related local cultural responses in Siberia, Mongolia and South East Asia. For two years, ethnologists from the institute explored the impacts of modernisation aspirations in Siberia, Mongolia and South East Asia in collaboration with the research institute CNRS Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laicités. The broad research explores the transformation of lifestyles and social organisation, and the role of concept systems in these changes, on the basis of field research among various nations. Those participating in the research examine the new social, cultural and economic systems in the region in the post-Soviet era, and the conflicts generated by modernisation. While their work is being carried out in areas that have traditionally been at the centre of Hungarian ethnological research, at the same time the region is becoming increasingly valuable to the international economy. Their publications provide an insight into the value systems, culture and characteristic thinking of Burjat, Evenk, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Mongol peoples and of minorities from China and Vietnam living in this region — that is, of societies that are newly joining the globalised world. In 2009, the English translation of Selkup Mythology was published as part of the handbook series Encyclopedia of Uralian Mythology, which is planned as a multi-volume dictionary of the faith systems of linguistically related peoples. One of the editors-in-chief of the series, which is being prepared by an international team, is the institute’s scientific research advisor. A young research scholar has also joined the project, contributing the exploration and organisation of the textual corpus necessary to an examination of Nganasan mythology. Based on material obtained in the course of fieldwork carried out in Varsány (Hungary) and Kenya (East Africa), the director of the Department of Ethnology examines the contemporary social situation of food producers in wholly and partly marginalized regions. One of the members of the institute is a consultant for the Hungarian-Mongolian Dialect and Folk Culture Research Expedition Programme, which aims to explore and document, through regular fieldwork, the dialects of the peoples of northern and western Mongolia, as well as the living elements of their traditional culture, their material and spiritual culture, and their religious beliefs and customs. He is also participating in an international team sponsored by foreign donors, the most important goal of which is the discovery, archive digitalisation, and possibly publication of sources, rare manuscripts and xylographs of Tibetan-Mongolian Buddhism, and Mongolian and Tibetan history and cultural history. One of the senior members of the Department of Ethnology, whose research field is the ethnology of South East Asia, and in particular the culture and religion of the mountain tribes of the former French Indochina, has carried out fieldwork on several occasions in recent years among the Bru (“mountain people”) in Vietnam. He submitted the doctoral thesis “Mentality, religion and social practice among the Bru of Vietnam.” III. Presentation of national and international relations The cultivation of national culture is essentially regarded as a national task and priority even within the framework of the European Union. In this understanding, the institute aims to disseminate its research and publications not only among experts in the given discipline, but also among representatives of related disciplines, as well as the wider public. The aim is achieved by means of book launches and through the “Ethnological Workshop” lecture series, in which researchers regularly give accounts of their latest fieldwork experiences and research findings, and guest lecturers are also invited to speak. In 2009, five of the 11 presenters in the series were from abroad. Two of them came from France, and were working at the institute as part of the joing research programme “Modernisation in Socialist and post-Socialist Countries of Asia: Local Responses to the Challenge” (2008–2009) implemented by the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology and CNRS Goupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités. The presentation “The Sign of the Cross among the Protestants” by an academic ethnographer as part of the workshop series was greeted with particular interest even outside the members of the institute. In 2009, some 304 items were added to the book and CD stock of the institute’s library, as well as 125 foreign and Hungarian periodicals. At the end of the year, the library’s stock comprised 42,848 registered items (books, periodicals, special editions, CDs, maps etc.). The library has 160 exchange partners. Some 1,200 copies of publications produced by the institute were given away in the form of exchanges, complimentary copies and gifts (at conferences and other events). The estimated value of the book turnover (loans, returns, books read on site) is 2,200 volumes. Members of the institute organised two international conferences. A researcher from the institute, who for three years taught in Bloomington as Visiting György Ránki Chair of Hungarian Studies, organised the two-day conference Landscape, Environment and Society: Past and Present Environmental Issues in Hungary, involving 15 presenters, five of whom were from Hungary and the other 10 from America and Canada. The other international conference, From Hungarian Ethnography to European Ethnology and Social and Cultural Anthropology, was organised by the Department of Cultural Anthropology of the University of Pécs. One of the members of the institute won a four-year European Union Marie Curie research grant for the department. At the closing conference of the fellowship, all 16 foreign researchers who had taken part in the four-year programme gave a lecture, as well as some of the outstanding students who had been trained in the framework of the programme. Five leading researchers gave presentations at the tenth Finnish-Hungarian Ethnographic Symposium, Past and Present Stereotypes – Ethnological, Anthropological Perspectives, which was held in Hungary in 2009. Since November 2009, a member of the institute has been working in Bloomington (Indiana University) on a 12-month HAESF (Hungarian American Enterprise Scholarship Fund) Senior Leaders and Scholars Fellowship. Another researcher also carried out research there as a visiting scholar as part of the programme Self-image, Self-representation and “Heritage Institutions” – Research on the Institutional Network of Hungarian Ethnic Communities in the US. One of the senior members of the Department of Ethnology also worked as a visiting scholar for one year in Cambridge on the (visual and textual) reception of early European ethnology/anthropology. One of the ethnologists is carrying out research on “Power and Emotion in Russia” as part of an international team (including researchers from Cambridge University’s Department of Social Anthropology, and the Centre for Independent Social Research of St. Petersburg), with the financial support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Another ethnologist is working on the project “Losing Culture, the Evenk in Russia”, supported by a UNESCO Keizo Obuchi scholarship. Working in South East Asia, one of the institute’s research ethnologists is representing the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in the European Consortium of Asian Field Studies (ECAF), which was founded in 2007 as a French initiative. Founded by 30 Asia research institutes (academies, universities, research institutes, museums, scholarly societies) from eight European countries, and with a further 11 affiliated scientific institutions from Asia, the primary goal of the ECAF is to establish, in the spirit of the EC’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP 7), a homogeneous European research infrastructure for research carried out in Asia. A total of 21 pan-European research centres have been set up, the maintenance of which is no longer the responsibility of the national governments but also that of the EU. In 2009, the institute’s scientific advisory researcher was re-elected as president of the International Society for Shamanistic Research. Several researchers organised significant cultural events and exhibitions both in Hungary and abroad — for example A Weekend of Hungarian Culture in Bloomington, which included concerts, dance, folk-dance teaching, and an open lecture. One ethnologist who carried out fieldwork in Central Asia staged an exhibition of his collection of photographs at the Research Centre for Social Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Thirteen researchers are involved in regular teaching activities in higher education institutes in Hungary (at the departments of Ethnography, Cultural Anthropology, Inner Asia and Finno-Ugrian studies of the Eötvös Loránd University; the departments of Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology of Pécs University; the Faculty of Hungarology at the Balassi Institute; the International Study Programme of Corvinus University; the Institute of Cultural and Visual Anthropology of Miskolc University; the Sárospatak Calvinist Theological Seminary; and the Vilmos Apor Catholic College). Seven of the institute’s researchers taught at various doctoral schools, and the institute’s academic research professor heads the European Ethnology PhD programme at the Department of Material Ethnography of Eötvös Loránd University. Members of the institute are frequently invited to speak as guest presenters by foreign universities. In 2009, five members participated in the educational programmes of foreign universities. Between 2006 and 2009, one of the senior members of the institute taught in Bloomington as Visiting György Ránki Chair of Hungarian Studies. In 2009, the deputy director of the institute defended his doctoral thesis, while another member submitted a thesis. Two former young research scholars obtained PhDs. Fieldwork is an integral part of ethnographical research: in 2009, members of the institute spent 696 days carrying out research in various locations, primarily in Hungary and Hungarian-speaking regions across the Hungarian border, as well as among Siberian and Caucasian peoples and in China and Mongolia. The institute was involved in academic exchange partnerships with eight countries in 2009. Collaboration with the Romanian Academy of Sciences, based on two separate agreements, was the most intensive: a total of four researchers worked in Romania for 11 weeks, and two researchers spent four weeks in Hungary. This collaboration provides researchers with an opportunity for regular fieldwork, as well as research opportunities in libraries and archives. Mention should also be made of the traditionally successful cooperation with French, Polish and Estonian institutes. A total of 14 researchers travelled to 12 countries for a combined duration of 42 weeks, while nine guest researchers came to Hungary for a total of 27 weeks in the framework of bilateral relations and the Hungarian Science and Technology Foundation. Brief evaluation of successful national and international grants Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (HSRF) tenders won earlier, with the institute acting as consultancy (results presented under point I): – Popular textile culture in the light of economic and cultural changes between 1850 and 1950. HUF 8,100,000. Research number: K 60316; implementation period: 2006-2011. – The transformation of peasant communities. Changes in village scale of values in the second half of the twentieth century. Research number: T 048432; implementation period: 2005-2008; closure and closing of accounts in 2009. HUF 8,509,000 HSRF projects in 2009: – Material culture, ethnic identity and the politics of difference among the Transylvanian Gábor Roma. Research number: 77944; implementation period: 2009-2012; HUF 6,433,000 (annual contracts worth HUF 2,670,000). The goal of the research is to interpret, in the form of studies, the experience of anthropological fieldwork carried out on the topic of the prestige-object economy of the Transylvanian Gábor Roma, and, at the end of the period, to publish a thematic monograph. – Equality relationships, hierarchical connections. Research number: PD 76045; implementation period: 2009-2012; HUF 18,593,000 (annual contracts worth HUF 3,636,000). The project aims to model the communication strategies of inter-ethnic relationship systems using the example of the Evenks and Burjats living near Lake Baikal, in the taiga-steppe borderland. National Cultural Fund grants for the publication of books: – Folklore and music. (Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 2009: 517 pp). Ten of the 28 studies in the volume, which is based on presentations given during the series of interdisciplinary conferences Folklore in Hungarian Cultural History, were written by members of the institute. HUF 600,000; research number: 1912/0430 – Beliefs and legends of Őrtilos. Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology: 244 pp. Collected material on popular beliefs in Őrtilos during the 1960s was published as the Volume 21 in the institute’s Folklore Archive series. HUF 400,000; research number: 1912/0431
Hungarian Digital Picture Library project (September 2008 to April 2009). Contract: HUF
1,800,000).
The goal of the project is to systematise, process and make available to the wider public the
valuable and diverse pictorial material contained in the library of the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences and six academic research institutes. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute
of Ethnology contributed a total of 806 photographs to the creation of the archive, surpassing
its original promise. The donated pictorial material is provides an accurate representation of
the scientific work carried out by the institute, including folk religiosity in Inner, Central and
South East Asia, Hungarian collections, and research carried out among Hungarian
Americans.

Complex Digital Documentation and Preservation of Rare Mongolian and Tibetan Manuscripts
and Xylographs (UNESCO research number 17843/2009; HUF 3,615,000)
The primary goal of the project is to discover, digitally archive and possibly publish sources,
rare manuscripts and xylographs related to Tibetan-Mongolian Buddhism, and Mongolian and
Tibetan history and cultural history. Often in poor condition, the materials are generally little
known, or completely unknown, to the international scientific community. Digitally archiving
them will therefore not only ensure their preservation, but will also make them more easily
accessible and researchable by Mongolists and Tibetologists. The current programme is the
continuation of an earlier UNESCO programme, implemented in 2004-2005. It is planned to
publish a total of six rare works in facsimile edition, probably in two further volumes.
As part of a joint bid with six international participants, members of the European Consortium
of Asian Field Studies, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology
Ethnographical Research Institute was awarded EUR 30,000 in the framework of the project
Integrating and Developing European Asian Studies (IDEAS). The goal of the 30-month
project was the evaluation and coordination of European Asian research and the dissemination
of the results in the form of publications. As part of the project, it was the task of the Institute
of Ethnology to survey the Asian research undertaken by the former East European region.
The most important publications and patents in 2009 1. Paládi-Kovács, Attila (editor-in-chief) and Mária Flórián (ed.): Táj, nép, történelem I.2. A magyar népi műveltség korszakai (Landscape, People, History. Volume 1.2. Eras in Hungarian Popular Culture). Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 2009: 745 pp. /Magyar néprajz/ (Hungarian ethnography) 2. Flórián, Mária: “A nép követte a szabást” Folyamatok a magyar parasztok öltözködésének alakulásában 17-19. századi viselettörténeti adatok tükrében. (“The people followed the fashion.” Tendencies in the transformation of Hungarian peasant clothing in the light of the history of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century costume). Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 2009: 180 pp. /Néprajzi tanulmányok/(Ethnographical studies) Hoppál, Mihály: Szamani Eurazjatyccy. (Translated by Agnieszka Barcsezewska). Warsaw, Iskry, 2009: 304pp. Hoppál, Mihály (editor-in-chief) and Péter Berta (ed.): Ethno-lore. Yearbook XXVI of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology. Budapest, MTA Institue of Ethnology: 369 pp. Juhász, Katalin (ed.): Tiszta sorok. Tanulmányok a tisztaságról és a tisztálkodásról (Clean Lines. Studies on Cleanness and Cleanliness) Budapest, L’Harmattan; Angyalföldi Helytörténeti Gyűjtemény; and MTA Institute of Ethnology, 2009: 332 pp. /Documentatio Ethnographica 25./ Magyar, Zoltán: Csinódi népköltészet. Az Úz völgyi csángók folklórhagyománya. (Folk Poetry of Csinód. The Folkloristic Traditions of the Csangó People from the Uz Valley). Budapest, Balassi Kiadó, 2009: 546 pp plus 24 maps. /Magyar Népköltészet Tára IX./ (Volume 9 of the Anthology of Hungarian Folk Poetry). Magyar, Zoltán: Szilágysági dekameron. Szilágysámsoni tréfás népi elbeszélések. (The Szilágyság Decameron. Witty folk tales from Szilágysámson). Marosvásárhely, Mentor Kiadó, 2009: 220 pp. + 24 maps. Szemerkényi, Ágnes (ed.): Folklór és zene (Folklore and music). Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 2009: 517 pp. Szemerkényi, Ágnes: Szólások és közmondások (Idioms and proverbs). Budapest, Osiris, 2009: 1,461 pp. /A Magyar Nyelv Kézikönyvtára/(The Handbook Library of the Hungarian Language) Szilágyi, Miklós: Paraszti hagyomány és kényszermodernizáció – Közelítések a néprajzi változásvizsgálathoz (Peasant tradition and forced modernisation – Approaches to the examination of changes in ethnography). Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology, 2009: 199 pp. Bali, János and Tünde Turai (eds.): Élet/út/írások. Szilágyi Miklós tiszteletére (Life/Path/Writings. Festschrift for Miklós Szilágyi). Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology and ELTE BTK Néprajzi Intézet, 2009: 433 pp. Andrásfalvy, Bertalan and Gábor Vargyas : Antropogén ökológiai változások a Kárpát-medencében. A Kárpát-medence felszínének változása a földhasználat és az életmód változásának következtében. (Anthropogenic ecological changes in the Carpathian Basin. Alterations in the topography of the Carpathian Basin as a result of changes in land use and lifestyle). Editor’s consultants: Judit Farkas and Gábor Máté. Budapest, L’Harmattan – PTE Néprajz – Kulturális Antropológia Tanszék. 2009: 346 pp. Farbaky, Péter and Réka Kiss (ed.): Kálvin hagyománya. Református kulturális örökség a Duna mentén (Calvinist tradition. Reform Church Cultural Heritage along the Danube). Exhibition catalogue. Budapest, Budapest Historical Museum, 2009. 472 pp. Berta, Péter: Materialising ethnicity: Commodity fetishism and the symbolic re-creation of
objects among the Gabor Roma (Romania). Social Anthropology, 2009. 17(2): 184-197.

Sántha, István: “?” The Knowledge, Practices and Strategies of the Young
People in a South Siberian Evenki Village. Guest editor Aimar Ventsel, Folklore 41.
Generation P in the Tundra: Youth in Siberia. Tartu 2009:163-189.
Balogh, Balázs: Egy férfigeneráció sorsa Tápon a téeszesítéstől napjainkig. (The fate of a
male generation from collectivisation in the 1950s to the present day). In Mihály Hoppál
(editor-in-chief) and Péter Berta (ed.): Ethno-lore. Yearbook XXVI of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology. Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology, 2009,
289-326.
Borsos, Balázs: A Magyar Néprajzi Atlasz virtuális 11. kötete. Néprajzi, földrajzi és
nyelvjárási tagolódási térképek (The 11th virtual volume of the Hungarian Atlas of Ethnology.
Ethnological, geographical and dialect maps). In Mihály Hoppál (editor-in-chief) and Péter
Berta (ed.) Ethno-lore. Yearbook XXVI of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of
Ethnology. Budapest, MTA Institute of Ethnology, 265-287.
Szilágyi, Zsolt: Is the Post-Communist Transition Over? Economic and Social Factors
Influencing the Mongolian Democratisation Process. In Krisztián Csaplár-Degovics, Miklós
Mitrovits and Csaba Zahorán (eds.): 1989: Revolution, Transition and Political Change. The
Post-Communist Transformation in Eastern Europe. Ed.: OEZ-Berlin Verlag 2009. 109-134.
Turai, Tünde: Towards nuclear family? In Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux and Ioan Bolovan
(eds): Families in Europe between the 19th and the 21st Centuries. From the Traditional
Model to Contemporary. Cluj-Napoca: PACS, 2009: 155-166.
20. Hoppál Mihály – Somfai Kara Dávid – Sipos János: Ominaan – A Revitalized Daur
Shamanic Ritual from Hailar. Shaman, 2009. 17: 141-169.

Source: http://www.etnologia.mta.hu/images/inst/2009_jelentes_en.pdf