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

Making of the open-air museum in Ópusztaszer It is indicative of the professionalization in Hungarian museum ethnology that when the ethnologist Antal Juhász began planning the open-air museum he could rely on a team of ethnographers all working under the auspices of the county museum system. Therefore, the open-air museum is a product of the teamwork of László Felföldi, Antal Juhász, János Juhász, József Lele jr., Vera Nagy and Ferenc Tóth, as Juhász lists in his brief article on the ethnological activities of Csongrád county museum.

23 The archaeologist Ottó Trogmayer, in one of his articles, recollects a personal request from Ferenc Erdei, the mastermind behind the whole park, to start excavations.

24 Unlike him, Antal Juhász and the rest of the team received their orders through more bureaucratic channels.

25 This also speaks of their role as the generation of mediators. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, open-air ethnographical museums were a later development in Hungary than in Scandinavia.

26 However, they had become a trend in the 1960s and 1970s. Naturally this had to do with the obvious changes in the physical character of the countryside: old buildings were disappearing as modern building techniques and co-operative farming were gaining ground. On the other hand, people had more chances to travel within the country and tourist attractions were in demand. The trend started with some local houses that were preserved on the spot. Then it became topical to build regional ethnographic open-air museums. Göcsej was the oldest, its building started in 1966. The construction of Szombathely began in 1968, and Nyíregyháza in 1971, which was also the year when the plan for the museum in Szenna was completed. Therefore Ópusztaszer, with a plan completed in 1973 and construction begun as late as 1979, was definitely the youngest in this trend.

27 Antal Juhász, who drew the plans for Ópusztaszer open-air ethnographical museum, has mentioned that it was an easy task in the respect that there were plenty of examples to follow. He was able to visit the above-mentioned older Hungarian museums and the central open-air museum in Szentendre a number of times. In addition, he told me about a Polish source of inspiration, Muzeum Budownictwa Ludowego directed by Jerzy Czajkowski. This Polish museum served as an example especially in its representation of the peasant lifestyle. It was not only the architecture and objects, but also the right kind of trees, vegetation and domestic animals that made the museum so special.

28 When the museum in Ópusztaszer was completed it was unique in Hungary in that it represented such communal localities of the single farmstead {tanya) country as a social club {olvasókör) and a school. Another typical -'Juhász 1989,298 24 Trogmayer 1995, 3 25 Juhász oral communication 9 May 2006 26 János Jankó's ethnographic village, which was erected for the millennium celebrations, was naturally a very early creation. It was however only a temporary construction. 27 Balassa 1987, 106 28 TYKL/spa/148/u:7