Dr. Kubassek János: Cholnoky Jenő természetábrázoló művészete (Érd, 2002)
Dr. János Kubassek: Jenő Cholnoky - a Hungarian geographer and artist - The researcher of Lake Balaton - An university professor in Transylvania
isations, settlement pattern etc. His oral exams were considered by his students as professional discussions rather than mere tests of their knowledge. 1905 was a turning point in his life. He had applied for the professorship of the Department of Geography in Budapest. Cholnoky did not get the post, and this greatly disappointed him. The job was awarded to a less talented colleague (Géza Czirbusz), who had more influential supporters. Cholnoky did not give up his commitment to Iiis subject and he undertook to head the Department of Geography in Kolozsvár, in Transylvania, in the eastern part of Hungary (now Cluj in Romania) . He demonstrated that - through extremely hard and painstaking work - it was possible to raise the standard of geographic research to the level of leading European universities even in a small provincial city in Hungary. In these fourteen years Cholnoky took lots of pictures and slides in the mountains of Transylvania and drew numerous block profiles to illustrate the landforms to his students. He was interesting in everything, but particularly liked taking pictures of the glacial forms, the landslides and karstic lands in the Carpathian Mountains. He personally coloured all his slides by hand in his leisure time. An international congress of geologists was held in Stockholm in I9IO. The organisers - including the world famous polar explorer, Otto Nordenskjöld and Gerhard De Geer invited Cholnoky to attend. Their decision showed that the marked professional gulf between Cholnoky and Czirbusz was viewed more realistically and objectively in Sweden than in the Hungarian ministry. Cholnoky gave an account of his research in and around Lake Balaton and the Great Hungarian Plain in front of a recognised international audience. His paper already showed the evolution of a new scientific approach, the method of applied regional geography. Then Cholnoky had the opportunity to visit the distant islands of Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean. There he studied the various landforms of these frozen and barren wastes. He was the first professional Hungarian geographer who attempted to explain the geographical phenomena beyond the Arctic Circle. Cholnoky also made comparisons between the economic life of Sweden and Hungary. xr
