Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)
Diána RADVÁNYI: Changes in the Critical Reception of Haban Ceramics: A Brief History of Research with a Discussion of Some Prominent Viewpoints
as regions were assigned to different countries for political reasons, a need arose not only for Haban ceramics but for its history, often without any regard for facts. Moreover, in his opinion, there were two reasons for the so-called hundred years’ Haban war. "... first, there was a language barrier between the Czech literature and the corresponding Hungarian writings on the subject; second, the Czech and Slovak authors sincerely believed that along with the territories ceded to them by the Trianon Peace Treaty after the First World War, the history of the area was also among the spoils, and while the Hungarians objected to this, their protests were usually in the Hungarian language, which no one else understood anyway.”19 His statements may indeed be hyperbolic, but it is true that only the work of recent decades demonstrates international collaboration among scholars. In 2010, a four-year inter-institutional research program funded by OTKA (the Hungarian Science Research Fund) was launched involving the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts, the Hungarian National Museum, the Museum of Ethnography and the Geochemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Although focused on material found in Hungary, this project also aimed to establish international scholarly cooperation. A result of this, for example, was the 2015 edition of Acta Eth- nographica Hungarica, which was dedicated in its entirety to the Habans. This volume included studies by an international set of authors and dealt with Haban collections in all the relevant countries. Its subtitle— Hutterite, Haban Culture in Central Europe—also emphasizes how the latest research has taken a complex approach to examining the history of the Habans, ranging from their role in their own period to the attitude of collectors and museums to Haban objects. An examination of Haban motifs and workshops The Haban material has yet to be organized; further study is also needed to assess the location of the ceramists’ settlements and to perhaps identify ‘workshops’. The history of the migration of the Habans and the places they settled have been established, and therefore the space and time in which many pieces with dates or deci3. Hexagonal jar, dated 1680. Faience, Haban workshop, Upper Hungary. Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, inv. no.: 21809 29
