Kunt Ernő szerk.: Kép-hagyomány – Nép-hagyomány (Miskolc, 1990)

I. RÉSZTANULMÁNYOK - Hoppál Mihály: Az amerikai magyar kivándorlók családi fényképeiről

FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE AMERICANHUNGARIANS MIHÁLY HOPPAL The present paper intends to contribute to the ethnographic studies of family photography and of the American-Hungarians. This type of work, however is not without precedents (c. p. Becker-Ohrn 1975, Bianco-Anguili eds. 1980). Though scholars preferred to study the usage of mother tongue of the emigrants, nevertheless the research of the visual facts is not less important either. Ernő Kunt claimed that „the photos in use must be paid attention in order to examine the different social strata. This way not only their life style but also their living conditions are revealed" (Kunt 1982:49). These photos also indicate the set of values acknowledged by the photographers and the owners of the photos (about the changes of the Hungarian set of values v. s. Hoppál-Szecskő 1987). Others, for instance two Dutch authors examined the family photography as a sociological phenomenon (Boerdam-Oosterbaan 1980). It was said to be such a social behaviour type, the purpose of which is to record people's life. Therefore in our days photographs act as a visual history of a family, with this aspect we shall deal later in details, substituting the former oral narratives on family life. They represent a modern form of the folklore. It is obvious that taking photos is a type of mass activity which is not accidently compared with some phenomena of the folklore especially in the Anglo-Saxon Anthropological literature. It is considered a form of the manifestation reflecting the characteristic contemporary culture, and describing each community and their features. Thus two aspects of the photos can be examined - on the one hand: what can be seen on the photos, on the other: the social context in which the photos are used (Boerdam-Oosterbaan 1980:96). I mean the circumstances of taking the photographs then the explanation given for them transforming the reality into a myth which constitutes the integrant part of the family's folklore. The stories connected to each photo are spreading from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation like the classical folklore of the old times (the anthropological and folklore approach of the family photographs see Titus 1976, Hirsch 1981, Kotkin 1984:22). Community Background The research project and the community - who took the photos - must be introduced briefly before showing the corpus of the family photos to be examined. In 1979 the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the American Council of Learned Societies established a committee with the aim of working out the plans of a joint research on the different fields of social sciences. Besides literature, history, sociology and linguistics, ethnography became one of the fields of research. After four yeas of preparation, in the first half of 1984 three anthropologists travelled to the United States to examine the identity presevation of the Hungarians living in Indiana.