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

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

(about the problems of the iconic signs: Eco 172). On the level of phenomena a photography is the model of objectiveness and fidelity to the reality, that is to say the most perfect icon, but if we want to understand the meaning of family photographs we have to dig deeper. The family photographer and the spectator of the photos are using the photos as a reference to the events in order to intensify the thoughts, associations and the memories of the given event. In this sense the photographs - as iconic representations of the events are involved in the whole experience when they are watched and explained by the members of the family: „. . . the family viewer employs the photography both as a literal reference to the events depicted and as a stimulant to thoughts, assosiations and memories related to the events. In this sense, as family members view and interpret their photographs, the iconic reference encodes the „totality" of the experience. . ." (Musello 1980:39). The meaning or rather the sense of the photographs cannot be found in the superficial similarity, the iconic characteristics of the photo-sign. It is better to express the „possible meaning-universe" created by the photos form the aspect of the person using this sign. Referring to the photographs, too it is valid that „the semiotic systems simultaneously produce the world and are produced by it" Baer 1984:2). Sol Worth, a classic in the research of the visual communication who died early emphasized that one of the tasks of the „ethnographical semiotics" is to make us understand the „symbolical visual environment" surrounding us (Gross 1980:18). Photographs as objects and signs are embedded in the visual environment. For instance some of the photographs of American-Hungarians is framed and exhibited on the wall or put on the top of a furniture in the corner of the living room in order to be seen by everyone. These photos show the members of the family living far away, the children and grandchildren. The dead husband (or wife), parents, and even grandparents can be found together accompanied by candles and the cross. These photographs and objects in this unnatural position and order remind one of a home-altar. In many places the photo of the ancestors, the first emigrants with the pictures of the descendents can be seen, closing the series with the ones of great-grandchildren, so the collection of the photographs acts as the altar of the family's history (photo 11). As the American sociologist of Hungarian origin claimed: „More than any other object in the home, photos serve the purpose of preserving the memory of personal ties. Because photos bear the actual image of a departed kin, they can acquire an almost mytical indentification with the deceased person. In most cultures around the world the memory of ancestors is preserved in one form or other. . . In our time photos seem to fulfill this function by maintaining a tennous immortality to beloved persons and by providing an identity, a context of belongingness, to one's descendants" (Csikszentmihályi-Rochberg-Halton 1981:69). In 1975 Karin Becker-Ohrn said about the relation of the family photographs and family history: „. . . photos are an important link with the past. . . a way of communicating with the past" (Becker-Ohrn 1975:31). The photos which are the signs of the past pass on the knowledge presenting the events and persons which are far from us in space and time widening the cultural memory. „Memories and photographs have always been closely associated. . . they remind people of their past. . . Memories of individual pasts are integrated into what Halbwachs refers to as a collective memory. . . Family photographs make past situations visible once more for those who took part in them and do this in the same way for everyone concerned. By means of photographs the subjective experience of each member of the family is objectified into common property. Hence, photographs constitute unmistakable evidence in the negotiation process of how their own past should be seen" (Boerdam-Oosterbaan 1980:116). Most of the visited families said that they wanted to preserve the main events of