Néprajzi Múzeum

A century and a half ago, prominent developments took place in the field of Hungarian museum affairs. Partly on home soil, partly far from the country. At that time, Ferenc Pulszky was appointed head of the Hungárián National Museum. During the 1869-1872 parliamentary term, he was not only an influential personality within the ruling party and a member of parliament, but also the speaker of the finance committee of the House of Representatives. Partly as museum director, partly due to his political weight, he worked hand in hand with his childhood friend, the Minister of Religion and Education József Eötvös, to bring the National Museum under the supervision of the Hungarian Parliament, both legally and financially. In the budget debate about this, Eötvös (1976a: 93) gave a speech in which he basically set a new direction fór the future operations of the National Museum. During the following years, Pulszky created a modern museum structure divided into departments which nőt only determined the internál structure of the National Museum, but also the nature of other museums developing from its departments. In parallel, events that significantly impacted Hungárián museums were taking place in distant parts of the world, in Ceylon [Sri Lanka], China, Japan and Southeast Asia. At that time, the frigate Donau of the navy of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy sailed around the world so that the delegation it was earrying could conclude diplomatic and trade agreements with three East Asian and four South American countries on behalf of Emperor and King, Franz Joseph. Collecting scientific objects and knowledge was integral to such trips for centuries. Until that time, however, Hungary had not had an opportunity to participate insuch expeditions alone due to its political position. This situation changed thanks to the dualistic political system created in 1867 as a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, i.e. the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was then that the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Department of the Hungárián Academy of Sciences and the president of the academy, József Eötvös, seized the first opportunity that presented itself. As minister of religion and education, i.e. culture of the first Hungarian government after the Compromise, he arranged for Hungarian scientists to participate in and possibly collect during the expedition. Eötvös not only won the right for Hungarian scientific participation in the face of the government in Vienna. His role was also outstanding because, aside from the traditional focus on natural history, he initiated collection of “ethnological” objects and Information as part of the agenda. Although the acquisition scope of the Hungárián National Museum, founded in 1802, was basically limited to Hungary, the natural Sciences already began to stretch this framework by the 1830s due to their universal nature.1 Thus, even though only occasionally, cultural goods from outside Europe came into the museum’s collections, mainly as gifts. They primarily consisted of coins, bút alsó, from time to time, included Egyptian antiquities. The dividing line between the acceptance of such assemblages was basically determined by whether the ereators of the objeets in question were classified as “natural” or “cultural” peoples or from past civilizations, and whether the objeets were offered as gifts or as items for purchase. Following such antecedents, József Eötvös’ instructions to János Xántus were delivered in November 1868. According to him, Xántus should “increase the natural history, ethnographic and bibliographic collections of the Hungarian National Museum, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Hungarian University of Science”.2 This was a clear sign of the change in the way cultural policy leaders envisioned the future of Hungarian public collections following the Compromise. In this request addressed to Xántus, a government off icer for the f irst time issued instructions to co

The Museum of Ethnography and its exotic collections. The Department of Ethnography of the Hungarian National Museum was founded in 1872, a year before the establishment of the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin and three years before the creation of the k.u.k. Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum in Vienna. In terms of its foundation date alone, the department from which the Museum of Ethnography eventually developed did not lag behind similar Western European museums at the moment of its birth. The sad fact is that compared to major European museums, the Museum of Ethnography was at an insurmountable disadvantage from the moment it was born since it had but a single collection at the time, namely the one on which its creation was based. The Hungarian National Museum was founded exactly seven decades earlier, in 1802, from the private collection of Count Ferenc Széchényi, whose collecting activity did not extend to Hungarian peasant culture or the culture of non-European peoples. The latter can perhaps be attributed to the fact that royal collections resembling the ones in Western Europe did not evolve in Hungary, a country which for long centuries was part of the Habsburg Empire, while the emergence of aristocratic and other collections was seriously inhibited by the more modest wealth of the country’s elite, as well as by the lack of independent trade relations and overseas colonies owing to the subordination to Vienna and, even more importantly, the apparent lack of interest in the collection of artefacts from overseas regions. Even the Fejérváry Collection, one of the most outstanding private collections in Hungary created in the early 19th century, included but a handful of oriental pieces, and no more than a few American and African artefacts (BINCSIK 2005; GYARMATI 2005b). Even these items were taken out of Hungary when Ferenc Pulszky, the later director of the Hungarian National Museum, sold the collection he had inherited during his émigré years in London following the crushing of the 1848–1849 Revolution and War of Independence (GIBSON–WRIGHT 1988). The fate of Antal Reguly’s Siberian collection assembled between 1843 and 1846, during his research of the prehistory of the ancient Hungarians, is a sad illustration of this situation. Reguly’s ethnographic and archaeological artefacts arrived to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1847.[1] The collection was displayed to the public and then taken to the Hungarian National Museum, where it remained packed in the crates in the museum’s corridors (JANKÓ 1902a:338; BALASSA 1954:50). One part of this collection became dispersed (PÁPAI 1890:117– 118) or perished. The Department of Ethnography eventually received and inventoried 58 items, of which no more than 42 can be identified today following the transfers to other museums and the deaccessions (KODOLÁNYI 1959:301).

Chairs in the Museum: Character, Habit, Function. Beyond its aesthetic dimension, museum presentation—the act of placing artefacts in exhibition spaces to create interpretation—testifies first and foremost to how researchers and curators view culture, the museum, and the artefact as concepts. To display—to translate thoughts into spatial and visual language—is to render all of the above visible within the realm they occupy. In the end, many different qualities are achievable: hierarchic and glorifying; satiated with prima donna allure; dazzling and awe-inspiring; or, alternately, close and reserved; democratic; provocative of conversation and debate; or anything in-between. If the intent of organisers is to construct visual character, to render the exhibition dramaturgy readable by those who come to view it; and if visitors are at the same time curious enough—are open to connecting thought and spectacle to motion—then the narrative approach, where intellectual reception is enhanced through active, spatial thinking, will bring out the appropriate ‘reading’. The result is the creation of a dynamic exhibition in which creators, users, and artefacts all take part as operative players. At such an event, the dramaturgy, rhetoric, and roles created by museum staff set the stage for communal thought with museum users. The creators and curators of Chair Pairs made a conscious effort to set an exhibition stage that was active and changeable, while supplementing visual character and spatial arrangement with plasticity, and sight with touch and smell. Of course, this manifested differently with the museum pieces themselves than it did with the objects produced specifically for the exhibition or the elements of the surrounding installation. The result was an exhibition that was not only an installation, but also a workshop, platform, and forum—an experiment in the framework of genre and form. Its points of departure in creative thinking were 1) the act of sitting, 2) the furnishings that facilitate that, and 3) the way such objects are used and produced. The domain of ethnography as presented in museums focuses heavily on everyday life, including periods of both activity and passivity. In many cases, the activities involved are so completely evident as to be virtually invisible. So it is with sitting, an act that can be performed in myriad ways. We sit to rest, for a moment or hours; we sit to feel more comfortable; we sit to reach things better; we sit because it is less strenuous than squatting. We sit at table, at the window, at bedside, at circle, at the udder. Preferred heights vary from person to person: some like to sit close to the ground, others up high, where they can swing their feet. Anything goes, really. And for each such practice one finds a seating solution ready to serve, as Chair Pairs revealed to those who tread its floors with open eyes. In a museum, one explores the act of sitting by examining the furniture that enables it: form, function, material, technology, design, construction, colour scheme, and decoration in every variation. At the Museum of Ethnography, analytical work on the topic of the chair culminating in an exhibition is not without precedent. In 1999, when the institution had just published its catalogue for The Chair, an exhibition that had explored and analysed the Furniture and Lighting Collection’s various seating accommodations, it was at the same time opening its doors on Have a Seat!, an event that began as an exhibition of chairs, but expanded from there into the broader, more exciting domains of the symbolic relationship between object and society (nation, community, individual) and its translation into exhibition language. For me, the latter of these was the first exhibition I had encountered where I grasped the fascination scientific historical processes can hold not only for researchers, but for visitors, as well. The trick is to explain them in a way that is simultaneously analytical and c

The title of the first temporary exhibition opened in the new building of the Museum of Ethnography refers to the former temporary headquarters of the institution and the experience of arrival. In the past ten years, the presented artefacts have come into focus in connection with museum background work, restoration, material testing, and research. A significant part of them rarely or never left the warehouse, but in the temporary exhibition celebrating the move to a new home, they are included together with the museum’s most popular pieces. The material is organized around twenty ethnographic/anthropological and museological concepts, a few key concepts of the discipline, comparing distant objects in space and time. The summary texts speak in the voice of the curators: they provide a subjective interpretation and an explanation of the classification. The object inscriptions combine the historical traditions and new viewpoints of the examination of material culture, also revealing the workshop secrets of the invisible, multi-actor museum work. Detailed object histories, research background, individual interest, method and style – a variety of contexts drawn by thirty museologists. The previous stages of the institution’s 150-year history are flashed by a selection compiled from archival footage: all the locations where the ever-growing collection was kept, researched and presented.Apart from the photos and videos, we can get to know the new buildings, the storage center that houses the collection and the main building that ensures the operation of the museum with the help of the designers’ thoughts and drawings. The catalog follows the structure and concept of the exhibition, inviting a new approach to ethnographic objects. It evokes the atmosphere of the exhibition space, reproduces its contents, and its freshly taken photos of objects often allow us to see more: they show the many fine details of the objects up close, the different possibilities and methods of processing and decorating wood, metal, textiles, ceramics, and paper. The photographs, videos, animations, songs and texts not only convey knowledge about traditional cultures, but also convey the expanding perception of the ethnographic object and ethnographic research.

The research findings summarised in the present volume are explicitly related to the methodological and museological processes that are discernibly shaping the nature ofethnographical museology – including, ofcourse, open-air ethnographical museology – as an integral part of the transformation currently taking place in the museum sphere as a whole. This transformation, which entails a fundamental changein the global role of museums and their methodological renewal, can be observed both internationally and in Hungary. The author has worked for the best part of the last three decades in the museum field and has acquired a wealth of experience with respect to the role played by museums in Hungary, and museums of ethnography in particular, as well as developments in museological theory and practice. The individual chapters of the present book analyse the important points of contention in contemporary ethnographic museology. They deal with the past, present and future of the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre and the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. The thorough going explorations, case studies and theory-oriented analyses to be found in the individual thematic sections address the distinctive and topical questions of 21st-century ethnographic museology. They analyse the relationship between cultural anthropology and ethnographic museology, the role of the modern social museum, and the opportunities for the museumbased research of material culture. In a certain sense, the volume can be regarded as a report primarily on the problems affecting museums and collections at the beginningof the 21st century. I trust that the information to be found in this work will be of use to museum professionals, ethnographers, anthropologists, social scientistsand university students, but also to members of the wider public who are interested in the transformation of museums.

A Néprajzi Értesítő legújabb száma a „Mi újság?” – Az európai néprajzi múzeumok vezető szakembereinek konferenciáján elhangzott előadások alapján készült tanulmányokat adja közre. A konferencián 22 előadás hangzott el, melyet 16 európai ország néprajzi múzeumából érkezett szakember tartott meg, Minden konferencia szekciót kerekasztal beszélgetés követett, ahol kérdések, hozzászólások segítségével elemezték az elhangzottakat. A szervezők olyan intézmények vezetőit hívták meg, ahol hasonlóan a budapesti Néprajzi Múzeumhoz az intézményben generális átalakulási folyamatok zajlanak vagy éppen kezdődtek meg.

A Néprajzi Értesítő 101. évfolyama angol nyelvű kötet, amelyben az elmúlt 10 év során megjelent, elsősorban a Néprajzi Múzeum gyűjteményi anyagával foglalkozó vagy abból kiinduló tanulmányok kaptak helyet. Célja, hogy a nemzetközi tudományosság számára könnyebben hozzáférhetővé tegye az intézményben folyó tudományos feldolgozó munkát, és képet adjon a gyűjteményi anyag és az interpretációs lehetőségek sokrétűségéről. Olyan kötetet adunk közre, amelyben megjelenik a magyar és nemzetközi anyag, a tárgyi és archívumi gyűjteményi feldolgozás, a kiállítás, a tudománytörténet, az intézményi szerepvállalás. A válogatás a Néprajzi Múzeum gyűjteményének különböző korszakait, történeti és kortárs perspektíváit villantja fel oly módon, hogy egyszerre reagál az intézmény korszakokon átívelő legfontosabb kutatási tematikáira és az önreflexív elemeket is hangsúlyozó elemzésekre.

Báró Eötvös József, a kiegyezés utáni első magyar kormány vallás- és közoktatásügyi minisztere, egyszersmind a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia elnöke 1868 végén látszólag minden különösebb előzmény nélkül, azzal az utasítással rendelte Xántust Jánost az Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia kelet-ázsiai expedíciójához, hogy a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum és más hazai tudományos intézetek számára természetrajzi, ’népismei’, numizmatikai és könyvészeti gyűjtést végezzen. Noha a megbízás váratlannak tűnt, a megbízott személyének kiválasztása távolról sem volt az. Xántus János a szabadságharc leverését követően a magyar honvédsereg 24 éves tüzértisztjeként osztrák fogságból szökött meg, hogy egy londoni kitérőt követően az Egyesült Államokba emigráljon. Gyarmati János A gyűjtés rabszolgája című monográfiája magyar, osztrák és amerikai levéltári forrásokra támaszkodva az ő sorsát követi nyomon. Bemutatja, ahogy évtizedes amerikai tartózkodása során Xántus lelkes amatőrből elhivatott és felkészült természetrajzi gyűjtővé vált, aki százezernyi állattal és növénnyel gyarapította a washingtoni Smithsonian Intézet és a Philadelphiai Természettudományi Akadémia gyűjteményeit, miközben hazájáról sem feledkezett meg: több mint hétezer állatot juttatott a Nemzeti Múzeum számára. Ilyen előzményeket követően vált a pesti Állatkert első igazgatójává, majd adta fel ezt a posztot azért, hogy teljesítse Eötvös megbízását. A kötet második része az osztrák–magyar kelet-ázsiai expedíció létrejöttének okait, előzményeit és lefolyását tekinti át. Nyomon követi Xántus csaknem kétéves gyűjtőútját, bemutatja az expedíció magyar és osztrák résztvevői között szakításig mélyülő ellentéteket, Xántus immár önállóan végrehajtott borneói és ceyloni gyűjtőútját. Áttekinti Xántus Kelet-Ázsiából hazahozott több mint 155 000 darabot számláló gyűjteményét, az abból készített első kiállítását, a Nemzeti Múzeum Néprajzi Osztályának 1872-es megalapítását és Xántus magyarországi néprajzi gyűjtését. Rávilágít a hazai néprajzi és iparművészeti muzeológia születése körüli érdekellentétekre, eltérő fejlődési pályákra. A kötet utolsó része Xántusnak a Néprajzi Osztály élén eltöltött negyedszázadát foglalja össze, megvilágítja a „tespedés és tengődés érájának” hátterét, végül azokat az éveket, amikor a múzeum Xántus vezetése alatt a fellendülés útjára lépett, amelyet azonban már nélküle járt be.