Agria 41. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2005)

Kósa László: Heves megye élő népművészete

László Kosa Living Folk Art in Heves County Having entered the 21st century it is worth reassessing our attitudes towards folk culture as a living cultural heritage while at the same time considering its position within national culture as a whole. There has been interest in folk culture within the field of Hungarian cultural history for more than two centuries now, during which time numerous prominent figures and thinkers in Hungary's cultural life have made their own contributions to the subject. People's attitude towards folk culture has frequently been compromised by ideological considerations, something that has seriously hampered attempts at evaluating folk art in general. Interest in folk art, however, has managed to continue to this very day, albeit in varying degrees depending on the period in question. The artists and craftsmen of today, however, are continuing what is a considerable cultural inheritance. The position and importance of folk culture in the national culture has not been a cause for argument for a number of years now. It is now taught in schools, and has found a place in mass communications, publishing and the performing arts. The spiritual crisis currently existing within contemporary Hungarian society is getting ever deeper, with the points of reference necessary for the formation of opinions diminishing gradually. Yet the creation of new values cannot be satisfactory without protecting the old, in the same way that sticking to old values would be inconceivable without introducing the new. 63 artists and craftsmen working within 17 different disciplines were represented at the Heves County Living Folk Art exhibition, whose work has appeared at major exhibitions abroad.

1 1 Given at the opening of the temporary exhibition Heves County Living Folk Art at Eger's István Dobó Castle Museum on 8

th October 2004. 299