Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 100. (Budapest 2008)

Korsós, Z.: History of the Herpetological Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum

drawings (probably copied from MÉHELY's) (Fig. 19), cut-out pictures from the original MÉHELY-papers and newspaper articles. All this demonstrates well the size of the mass of information about snakes one could assemble in those days. So the golden years of the museum's Herpetological Collection and of the Hungarian herpetology were the years during MÉHELY'S scientific activity (1896-1915), thanks to the coincidence of some (social, economical, and personal) factors, too. But MÉHELY's museum activity was not free of arguments. As seen in LAJOS SOÓS' description, MÉHELY was hard to tolerate as a boss and as a direct colleague. A tragedy of Hungarian herpetology was that another exceptionally talented researcher, ISTVÁN BOLKAY was starting his career just about the same time, and MÉHELY's personality and their disagreements made it impossible for the younger zoologist to remain at the museum. ISTVÁN BOLKAY (1887-1930) was born into a carpenter's family in Rimaszombat (= Rimavská Sobota, now in Slovakia) and got his teacher's degree, and later his doctorate in 1909 at the Pázmány Péter University in Budapest (Fig. 20). In the summer of 1909 he established a life-long friendship with GÉZA GYULA FEJÉRVÁRY (who was 7 years younger than him, and who later also became a famous herpetologist) in Switzerland, where they conducted many collecting excursions. BOLKAY, after writing his dissertation about anuran amphibians, was immediately taken to the museum to work with MÉHELY as an unpaid trainee (1909-1911). The talented, young researcher's individual notions and methods lead to arguments with his boss, who did not tolerate without a word that his subaltern did not fit in his methods and thoughts. The opposition grew to such a level that MÉHELY removed his young colleague from the museum, which had a fatal effect on BOLKAY'S career. BOLKAY was mainly unemployed between 1911 and 1913, or had jobs far from herpetology to maintain his life. In 1913 he got a job at the side of JENŐ VÁNGEL at the Budapest Teachers' College's Biological Faculty. In these years he published several papers about Hungarian amphibian-reptile fossils, on the distribution of the Snake-eyed Skink in Southeast Hungary or about the osteology of the family Ranidae, which had great effect on later works in herpetology. After World War I broke out, he joined the army and fought on the Serbian and Russian fronts. In 1918, he was appointed the assistant of Balkan Research Institute in Sarajevo, but by the end of this year, he came back to Budapest. In the November of 1919, he moved to Bosnia-Herzegovina at the invitation of the new Yugoslavian government, and got employed in the Bosnian-Herzegovinan State Museum in Sarajevo. He worked there until his death, but maintained his Hungarian citizenship. In this period, his otherwise insufficient salary was lowered to one-third, and he often had to print his own publications because of the low budget of the museum. His despair was deepened by the fact that he was bound to an English lady by strong feelings but he could not even think about marriage, because of the lack of money. After eleven years, when he would have to confess to the new Yugoslavian state on 17. Aug. 1930, he got so bitter because of his bleak future that he shot himself in his workroom. He was only 43 years old (BOROS & DELY 1969).