Magyari Márta szerk.: A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 2008-2009 (2010)

TUDOMÁNYTÖRTÉNET - Mező Szilveszter: Félúton Alaszka és Tűzföld között - Gondolatforgácsok Venezuela földrajzi megismerésének történetéhez Balázs Dénes (1924-1994) három dél-amerikai utazása kapcsán

260 MEZŐ SZILVESZTER Szilveszter Mező Fragments from the Vestibule of Geography Studies on the history of science 2. HALFWAY BETWEEN ALASKA AND TIERRA DEL FUEGO Scraps of thought on the history of the geographical exploration of Venezuela with reference to Dénes Balázs's (1924-1994) three journeys to South America Parti The role of hungarian geographers, explorers and other technical writers in making Venezuela known in Hungary Part 2 A geographer from Debrecen in the land of the waikas, tepuisandoilbirds Dénes Balázs's journeys in Venezuela In the last issue of the museum yearbook the author, a geographer by profession, dealt with the details of Dénes Balázs's 1984 expedition in Uruguay. The present study is also about his expeditions, this time the ones in another South American country, Venezuela, which the globetrotter-geographer visited three times during his travels. He first entered Simon Bolivar's homeland in 1969, when he did speleological research on the cavernous limestone plateau of the Cumanái mountains and the mountainous area of Los Morros. His second journey to Venezuela took place in 1977. On that occasion he explored the lesser known jungle areas of the rivers Caura and Upper Orinoco. Apart from making complex geographical observations, he mainly studied the special lifestyle and unique material culture of the Waika indians in the heart of the jungle. His third - and last - journey took place in 1984, when he did geographical fieldwork in one of the local ranges of the Andes, in the subalpine region of the over 5000-metre-high Cordillera de Mérida. In orderto correctly evaluate Dénes Balázs's role in gaining knowledge about and acquainting the public with Venezuela's geography, one needs to be aware of the work of his predecessors. Therefore the first part of the study is about the work of geographers, travellers and other experts who had travelled to Venezuela before Dénes Balázs. The first on the long list is the botanist Tádé Henke, who had travelled to the Orinoco ten years before Humboldt in 1788. The summary of the literature on the subject ends with the description of the work of the ethnographer Lajos Boglár, who travelled to Venezuela in 1968, a year earlier than Dénes Balázs. Between the presentations of Tádé Henke's and Lajos Boglár's activities there is a lot of mention of geographers, scientific explorers and „adventurers", who, even though they had different approaches to science, all shared the passion for discovering Venezuela. The second part of the book is dedicated entirely to Dénes Balázs's journeys to Venezuela. Dénes Balázs, who was born 85 years ago and had very strong ties to the „civis-city", played such an important role in learning about Venezuela and sharing the knowledge he gained that it is absolutely justified and necessary to devote an entire study to his fieldwork there.