Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 50. (Budapest 1958)
Boros, I.: The quinquagenary Annales
The Quinquagenary Annales Not by the number of years but by the number of its volumes, our Annales arrived at a notable anniversary: we publish now its fiftieth volume. In the life of a scientific periodical this is an occasion of jubilee even if its publication happens in the absence of world wars. It is the more so otherwise, since, surviving the convulsions and destructions of two world wars, it steps the fiftieth time before the world as a manifest documentation of the vitality of Hungarian science, of the creative power of the recent generation of Hungarian naturalists yet also as the veneration of valuable traditions. That is, it might really refer to its seventy-fifth occasion of publication, since its first 25 volumes were the periodicals of the natural history departments of the National Museum, issued under the name „Természetrajzi Füzetek'''' from 1877 on. Under its present title, it was first published in 1903, yet its purposes remained the same as by ivhich it was originally launched. And ever since then, and during more than 50 years, it also tried to live up to the same purpose, the identical vocation set to it by the original intentions: the furtherance and reporting of scientific research work done on the zoological, botanical, mineralogical, paleontological and recently anthropological materials kept in the natural history departments of the National Museum. Never falling out of step with the speedy development of several scientific disciplines attained in this our present century, it served science with fidelity, and, as is our sincere hope, it also effectively promoted scientific research. In the first 25 years, from 1903 to 1928, 559 papers of 12 377 pages were published in it. (Cf.: Ann. Hist. Nat. Mus. Nat. Hung. V. XV. 1928). In the other 25 years cycle, from 1929 to 1957, it set forth 525 papers of 8 886 pages, of which 299 were zoological, 100 botanical, 34 mineralogical-petrographical, 66 paleontological, 19 anthropological and 7 museological. Discounting therefore the data of the present volume, it published 1084 papers on 21 263 pages. Together with our home institutions, more than 1 000 learned societies exhange their own periodicals and publications for it from all parts of the world, which circumstance, if we may so express it, is a sure indication not only of the cordial reception but also the esteem of our Annals. And this raises the hope in the editors that their periodical will also have a future, the same as it has a past. This ivill stimulate them to concentrate all their efforts, to work further on this future beside the zealous study of their sciences, and to ensure this future, also by the Annals, as effectively as possible by a still broader extension and an even stricter uniting of international relationships for the advance of understanding among the peoples of the world.
