A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Ethnographica 3. (Szeged, 2001)

Juhász Antal 65 éves

Ethnographer of the Southern Hungarian Plain A Tribute to 65-year-old Antal Juhász Antal Juhász, professor of ethnology at the University of Szeged was born in Szeged; his life and career also revolve around Szeged. He was Sándor Bálint'

s student at the University of Szeged and worked for the Ferenc Móra Museum for over thirty years. He was interested in studying the area of Szeged in the geographical sense: the historical borders of Szeged and the Bánság and Kiskunság sand region populated by expatriates from Szeged, the population emitting town. As museologist he collected and inventoried objects, arranged storerooms, directed object revision projects, organised exhibitions, wrote studies and held countless number of lectures. He was an exceptionally diligent contributor to Hungarian ethnologic museology. His permanent studies will always be remembered just like the design plan and realisation of the ethnographic village of the Ópusztaszer National Historical Memorial Park. He still closely co-operates with the Ópusztaszer Institution. In 1991 he became the head of the Ethnology Department at the Attila József University of Arts and Sciences (today the University of Szeged). In 1995 he was awarded the title of university professor. Under his leadership the Ethnology Department of the University of Szeged together with its fellow departments from Debrecen and Pécs became the penultimate institution for training researchers and teachers of ethnology. Many conferences and series of books testify the operations of a scientific workshop that he has formed with his colleagues. He has achieved ever-lasting merits in editing locally published monographs about the village and the town written by several authors as well as high professional quality studies that have contributed to the monographs increasing in number from the 1970s. At his younger age he was keen to study the activities of town craftsmen and village handicraft specialists. His findings were published in series of studies, which explains why he was the author of many chapters of the handbook entitled Hungarian Ethnologic Handicrafts (Magyar Néprajz Kézművesség), which summarises the achievements of Hungarian ethnology. An important part of his professional work is the study of folk architecture. He played a key role in collecting data about the folk memorial monuments in a 1970s' nation-wide project. He compiled his research findings on architecture in his academic dissertation for candidature (unfortunately so far unpublished) and in his series of studies. His work on studying the manor farms is of outstanding importance. His research work highlighted the estate arrangement, the village society and social life, the village population and the matters of village densificaiton. His writings on these subjects modified and specified the village image that had previously been prevailing in Hungarian Ethnology. The study of the population of the manor farm border parts is partly connected to the large-scale research project studying migration, which was launched in the mid1980s and employing several specialists. In his academic doctorate dissertation Antal Juhász is summarising the findings of the giant project that studied the settlement ethnologic, population historical and agrarian ethnologic matters of the sand region between the rivers Danube and Tisza. Antal Juhász is an ethnographer who is open and can easily engage in conversation with his talking partners. His written works prove his good stylistic sense. He places great emphasis on ethnographic photography and in his studies the photos are regarded as informative documents. 13