A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Ethnographica 6. (Szeged, 2008)
Hanneleena Hieta: Ethnographer s and three realities - how agency and institutional tradition intertwine in the museum setting
large enough it needs to be systematized. This second generation she calls the trustees. In this case one can already speak about bona fide professionals if the museums in question have been able to hire curators. The third generation of museum professionals is already more distant from the two earlier generations, both temporally as well as mentally. For these people the museum is a workplace and their work is based on theoretical knowledge. These people Sjöberg-Pietarinen calls the mediators. 9 When we compare these generations and their required capacities, it becomes obvious that the individual capacities (see above on Weber) are more decisive in the generation of the collectors. The generation of trustees probably formulates the thought patterns which become institutionalized and, finally, the generation of the mediators adjusts to the existing institutional structure (see above on Marx). I would venture to suggest along the lines of Berger and Luckmann that the institutionalization of the museum as a social structure has become ever more objectified by the arrival of the third generation, the mediators. Hungarian Generations When we focus more closely on the generations of Hungarian ethnographermuseum professionals we can see certain similarities with the generations defined by Sjöberg-Pietarinen. In fact, László Kósa, who has written the history of Hungarian ethnology (néprajz), has himself explicitly made use of the term "generation" in his treatment of ethnographers of material culture. 10 It seems likely that the first steps of institutionalization of Hungarian ethnographical museum-thought were taken in the organization of the Ethnographical museum and its permanent exhibition on Csillag Street in 1898 11 as well as in Zsigmond Bátky's guidebook on ethnographical collection (1906) 12 . In addition to these, as Miklós Szilágyi has demonstrated, the institutionalized view on museum practice was successfully imported to the provinces first by establishing courses on museum practice for laymen, secondly through the provincial visits of the advisors from the central authority of public collections (a Közgyűjtemények Országos Főfelügyelősége) and, thirdly through the publication of Néprajzi Értesítő, the periodical of the Ethnographical Museum. 1 ' We can follow these parallel steps of institutionalization in the Szeged city museum. The role of the collector generation's personal taste is obvious. János Reizner was not interested in ethnographic objects and therefore they did not form a part of the original plan for the museum. It was only the directorship of István Tömörkény which witnessed the advent of ethnographic collections. 15 The collection was a well-organized operation from its very beginning. The museum received a state 9 Sjöberg-Pietarinen 1997, 6-7 1(1 Kósa 2001, pass im. 11 Szemkeö 1997, 66-67; Gráfik 2002, 14. 12 Bátky 1992 13 Szilágyi 1990, passim l4 Fári 1999, 12-13. 15 Lengyel 1999, 15; Juhász 1999, 19.
