A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2014., Új folyam 1. (Szeged, 2014)
Előszó - Foreword
FOREWORD The Móra Ferenc Museum’s yearbook series launched in 1956 was a part of the process where bigger, regionally influential museums started publishing yearbooks of mixed content, covering all of the museums' fields of research. In the 1960s as a result of the county organization's creation the work being done in the museum's workshop became more spectacular; thus, in 1965 the Móra Ferenc Museum expanded its portfolio to include independent yearbooks with monographic needs as well. The first of such volumes was the Móra Ferenc Museum’s yearbook Nr. 1964-65/2. The last volume of the series containing various studies from the fields of archeology, history, ethnography, history of art and literature and natural science was published in 1992 in yearbook Nr. 1991-92/1. By the first decade of the 20th century the research undertaken in the museum-in terms of significance and quality-outgrew the boundaries of yearbooks that were mainly regional or only published the results of basic research of local significance. Cooperation with the University of Szeged and the newly established connection with the international scientific "circulation" broadened the publishing horizon. In the beginning of the 90s the museum’s leadership made a decision that instead of publishing volumes of mixed content, they would focus on thematic volumes that concentrate on the accomplishments of individual fields of science, thus eliminating the need to condense content as it was in the case of mixed volumes. Five separate series were published in 1995 under the cumulative title of "A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve" (Yearbook of the Móra Ferenc Museum). The correctness of this decision is justified by the amount of published material in these volumes. By 2012 these series were already published in several volumes: the Studia Archaeologica (Archeological studies) got 12, the Studia Historica (Historical studies) got 14, the Studia Ethnographica (Ethnographic studies) managed 7, while both the Studia Naturalia (Studies in natural sciences) and the Studia Historiae Literarum et Artium (Studies in the history of literature and art) series got published in 5 volumes. The growing intensity of archeological excavations is evidenced by the Monographia Archaelogica and the Monumenta Archaeologica volumes that were published as the last part of the yearbook series. These thematic publications-that are voluminous and content-rich on their own-expanded both the institution’s national and international exchanges. In the second decade of the new millennium we are at a crossroads again. After fifty years the Móra Ferenc Museum was repossessed by the city of Szeged and the number of its professional, scientific employees dwindled. It seems that in order to publish the result of our research in an up-to-date, yearly fashion, we shall have to turn to publishing volumes of mixed content again. Per the requirements of modern museology the contents of the publications were supplemented with topics discussing the questions of public relations or museum education and communication. This book, the reading of which we wholeheartedly recommend to our readers, is the first volume of the resurrected 1956 series. Szeged, August, 2014. Fogas Ottó Director 10
