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

Kakucs Lajos: Adatok a bánsági néprajzkutatás történetéhez

Data to the History of Ethnology in the Banat To our satisfaction, more and more ethnographical studies on Transylvania and the Banat have been written in recent years. Ethnographic research and the collection projects in the multiethnic Banat started in the late nineteenth century. However, ethnographic data can also be found in much older sources. Ethnographic studies can be divided into two periods: one lasting from the strengthening of the Viennese royal power to the mid-nineteenth century and the other lasting from the late nineteenth century to present date. The typical sources of the first period beside accounts by foreign travellers were descriptions and reports recorded on the imperial administration's order. These are mostly descriptions of traditions and folk poems, while the second period focused on studying everyday tools and outfits as well. The earliest ethnographic source was a folk song collection from the late seventeenth century compiled by Mihai Halics who was born in Caransebes. From the early eighteenth century records of the lives of ethnic groups in the Banat have grown in number especially in official and military documents. Two of the richest among these are the descriptions of Jakob Ehrler from 1774 and Francesco Griselini from 1780, which provide the reader with a true account of everyday life phenomena in the Banat. In the first decades of the nineteenth century several Romanian researchers collected folk poetry pieces, and the processing of the folk song heritage of Serbian villages in the Banat commenced. After the defeat of the 1848 Hungarian revolution, the interest in folklore rose, which was due to the Romanian and partly the Hungarian press. In order to co-ordinate the research projects the Southern Hungarian Historical and Archaeological Association [Délmagyarországi Történelmi és Régészeti Társulat](later under the name of the Southern Hungarian Historical and Archaeological Museum Association [Délmagyarországi Történelmi és Régészeti Múzeumtársulat]) was established in Timisoara in 1872. For decades this was the central institution for researches on the ethnography of the Banat. Collecting ethnographic objects was also initiated by the association. In 1904 a permanent ethnographic collection opened in Timisoara and in 1908 art teacher and ethnographer Károly Cs. Sebestyén compiled a detailed plan for the foundation of a permanent ethnographic museum, which, however, was not realised because of the outbreak of World War One. The complete text of the study can be found in this study's appendix. 44