Estók János szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 2005-2007 (Budapest, 2007)

GYŰJTEMÉNYEK - Csorna Zsigmond: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Munkaeszköz-történeti Archívuma és tudományos jelentősége a kutatásban

Munkaeszköz-történeti Archívumának, a magyar agráriumnak, a digitalizált múzeumi nyilvántartásnak, és az alapító Balassa Ivánnak, valamint az Archívum akkori munkatársainak, Csorna Zsigmondnak és Pál Edithnek. The Tool-historical Archive at the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture and its scientific importance in the research ZSIGMOND CSOMA The Tool-historical Archive of the Agricultural Museum was founded by Iván Balassa (1917-2002) who was an agrarian-historian, museum specialist and ethnographer as well as the deputy-manager of the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture. This is the best-known and scientifically most elaborated museum public collection which has served as a topic for several articles and studies, and by using the material of which a lot of exhibitions and scientific studies were written. The aim of its establishment was to create a collection which serves both scientific research and the tasks of public education. Thus in the Tool-historical Archive two large collection sections were distinguished, the description cards and photos of agricultural tools preserved in Hungarian museums (both ethnographical and archaeological objects) as well as the collection of iconographies from the earliest depictions to our time. The subject matter of the Tool-historical Archive embraces the whole area of the agricultural tools in a thematic and professional division from the archaeological times to these days. The research is supported by subject register, geographical and iconographical collection author- and subject index. The research service is bilingual, Hungarian and German, but an English- and Russian-speaking guide and a Hungarian-German-speaking subject register are also available. The number of the inventoried items to be researched (description cards marked with photo film negative numbers on them) is 106,000 pieces. The collecting process being similarly considerable was stopped because of today's financial and collection-enriching problems which unfortunately hindered the enrichment of the collection. In Hungary the regular collection and research of tools - even if sometimes for the sake of its decoration - was started by János Xántus as a member of an eastern Asian market research expedition in the years 1869-1870, later he continued the process of collecting the objects on behalf of József Eötvös. It was also János Xántus who collected the first larger ethnographical material by means of Flóris Romer in 1873 for the Vienna World Exhibition. Later exhibitions (the national one in 1885 and the millenary one in 1896) motivated the further collection work, the end-result of which was Ottó Hermann's tool-collection. The millenary exhibition of 1896 was an important possibility for the introduction of the national-ethnic minorities of the country, especially for the agrarian entrepreneurs of the Monarchy who published the picture advertisement, innovative depiction of several tools in their catalogue, so they could call the attention to their participation and economic significance. The scientific standard of tool-research and the number of publications were decreased until WW2, since then, however, the tool-research was begun again by means of collection guides which lasted until the democratic transformation.