Vig Károly (szerk.): Savaria - A Vas Megyei Múzeumok Értesítője 39. (Szombathely, 2017)
Természettudomány - Vig Károly: Hamuvá lett gyűjtemény. Kertész Kálmán születése 150. évfordulója alkalmából
VÍG Károly: HAMUVÁ LETT GYŰJTEMÉNY - KERTÉSZ KÁLMÁN SZÜLETÉSE 15О. ÉVFORDULÓJA ALKALMÁBÓL Kertész Kálmán tudományos és gyűjteményépítő tevékenysége nemzetközi léptékkel mérve is kiemelkedő volt, és az 1910-es évekre Budapest a nemzetközi dipterológiai kutatások központjává vált. A történelem azonban mindezt elsöpörte: az első világháborút követő összeomlás és gazdasági válság, majd Kertész korai halála a tudományos munkavégzést zárta le, az 1956-os tűzvész pedig magát a légygyűjteményt semmisítette meg: szinte a teljes kollekció, benne Thalhammer János és Kertész Kálmán anyaga hamuvá lett. Kiterjedt levelezése elégett a második világháborúban, ezért annak részleteiről, tartalmáról semmit sem tudunk. Évtizedek munkája kellett ahhoz, hogy a hatalmas hiátust a kutatók betömjék, de az elégett típuspéldányokat semmi sem tudta pótolni. Hihetetlen mélypontról indult újra a magyar dipterológia, amelynek jelenkori eredményei különösen értékesek a közelmúlt veszteségeinek fényében. Kertész Kálmán fennmaradt tudományos munkái, katalógusainak megjelent kötetei, gyűjteményének maradványai így is megőrzik úttörő munkásságának emlékét. Neve örök büszkesége marad a magyar zoológiának. kulcsszavak: Kertész Kálmán, Diptera, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, gyűjtemény, tudománytörténet Abstract A collection turned into ashes. On the occasion of Kálmán Kertész’s 150th birthday. Kálmán Besenyői Kertész (1867-1922), the leading dipterologist of his age, was born 150 years ago. In connection with the anniversary, in our article we expound his career, appraise his life’s work, and based on the documents investigated, we present in detail particulars of the animosity which blew up around his person as a result of the role he undertook during the Republic of Councils in Hungary. Kálmán Kertész had enrolled in the Medical Faculty at Budapest University of Science, but in the end he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy, where he also obtained a doctorate in 1894. Between 1890 and 1896 he was active as a trainee, or assistant lecturer alongside Tivadar Margó. He worked in the Department of Zoology of the Hungarian National Museum from 1896 until his death, where he was head of the Diptera Collection from 1912 and was director of the Department of Zoology in 1919 and 1921. He began his scientific career with the study of Ostracoda and Rotifera, then under the influence of Rezső Kohaut, he dealt with Diptera from 1894 until his death. He worked in the broad area of Diptera taxonomy, he published the most on the tropical materials of the “Notacantha” group, and the Sciomyzidae and Lauxaniidae fly families, describing several new genera and very many new species. In particular he worked on the Diptera of Formosa, several areas of the Oriental region, New Guinea and South America; he, however, undertook a significantly smaller role in exploring the Hungarian fauna. His catalogues made him world famous. In 1900-01 he even published world catalogues of the Tabanidae and Pipunculidae families in journal articles, then between 190s and 1907, with co-authors Mario Bezzi, Paul Stein, josef Bischof and Theodor Becker, he completed the catalogue of the Diptera of the Palaearctic region, edited it in its entirety and published it in Budapest. At that time he was already working on the world catalogue of Diptera, which he planned to publish in ten volumes and wrote alone. The first two volumes appeared in 1902 with the backing of the Hungarian National Museum. He had the following five volumes printed in Szeged at his own expense. The final three volumes were ready and waiting for typographic procedures, but they were not issued due to a lack of money. Besides his catalogues, 70 of his scientific papers appeared in Hungarian, German and English. The dipterologists of his age sent reprints of all their publications to Kertész, so the largest collection of dipterological reprints came into being in Budapest. Kertész established the Diptera Collection in the Hungarian Natural History Museum: in 1896 the collection still fit into seven boxes, before his death it numbered around 250,000 specimens. He collected from all regions of historical Hungary, on the confines of at least 150 localities; mostly in the vicinity of Gyón in Pest County. Besides in our country, he also collected in France, Italy, Germany and Moravia. Besides many minor collections, he also had the Pokorny’s Diptera collection purchased (10,000 specimens, with numerous types), as well as the smaller proportion of the flies collected by Hans Sauter on Formosa (Taiwan). At his request, indeed on the basis of his advice sent by letter, Lajos Bíró collected flies in New Guinea. He also utilised his extremely extensive international contacts to have the Diptera material in the Hungarian National Museum identified and described by the greatest dipterologists of his age. In this way the collection grew by a great many type specimens relative to its size, the number of these exceeding 2000. He took a number of study trips to Western Europe: he also 32
