The Szeged School of Ethnology

Barna, Gábor (2004) The Szeged School of Ethnology. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 49 (3-4). pp. 211-227. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

As the discipline began to create its institutional frame after precedents reaching back to the 18th–19th centuries, the first university department of ethnography in Hungary was established in 1929 in the Franz Joseph University of Szeged. Its first professor was the folklorist Sándor Solymossy (1864–1945). After his retirement the chair was not filled in Szeged from 1934 to 1947; ethnography and folkloristics were taught by scholars with the status of privatdozent. In the 1940s many of the leading representatives of ethnography in Hungary in the 20th century habilitated here: Gyula Ortutay, István Tálasi, Béla Gunda and others. In 1947 Sándor Bálint (1904–1980) was appointed to the reorganised chair of ethnography. The totalitarian dictatorship of socialism tolerated ethnography which it regarded as a national science. The Szeged department was not developed. In 1965 Sándor Bálint was condemned in a show trial and forced to retire. Development of the department and the teaching of ethnography did not begin until the time of the change of political system (1989–1990). Full-time training in ethnography, folkloristics and cultural anthropology has been given since 1992/1993. A special field of teaching and research in the department is ethnology of religion. The Szeged Department of Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology now issues a series of publications, organises regular conferences and conducts an extensive exchange of students and teachers.

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