H. Szilasi Ágota - Várkonyi Péter - Bujdosné Pap Györgyi - Császi Irén (szerk.): Agria 51. (Az egri Dobó István Vármúzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2018)
Petercsák Tivadar: A muzeológus és múzeumszervező Bakó Ferenc
S. Fekete Ágnes 1997 Bakó Ferenc bibliográfiája. In: AGRIA XXXIII. Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve = Annales Musei Agriensis, Dobó István Vármúzeum, Eger, 697-716. Tivadar Petercsák FERENC BAKÓ, MUSEOLOGIST AND MUSEUM CURATOR Ferenc (Heizer) Bakó was born on 28 August 1917 in Nagyvárad. His family moved to Eger in 1920. After finishing the Cistercian school, he went on to study history and geography at Pázmány Péter University, where he graduated in 1942 as a secondary school teacher of these subjects. During his studies he spent his internship at the Ethnographic Museum, which qualified him to work in museums. On returning from a US prisoner-of-war camp, he worked at the general secretariat of the Hungarian National Museum, then gained the necessary expertise as a museologist in the Ethnographic Museum. This lead to him being appointed “assistant museum caretaker” in Sárospatak on 1 July 1950 and commissioned with the establishment ofthe Rákóczi Museum. It was in this “one-man museum” that he launched the restoration ofthe castle and opened the first permanent exhibition in the castles keep to show what life was like here in the 17th century. Ferenc Bakó acquired the first pieces of the collections, continuously adding to the weapons collection and the castles furniture on display. He collected a large number of ethnographical artifacts, the most important pieces of which include the Sárospatak potteries, as well as objects of folk crafts, farming, herding and rural households. During his research he visited 33 villages and took close to two thousand photos. In December 1952 Bakó returned to Eger, where he was appointed director of the Dobó István Museum, located in the Buttler House. Following in his predecessors’ footsteps, he was charged with the professional organisation of the town's and the county’s museology-related activities. In 1958 he played a crucial role in moving the museum into the castle and renaming it Dobó István Castle Museum. One permanent exhibition was opened after another (Gallery, Ethnography and Natural Science exhibitions, history of Eger Castle). For many years Ferenc Bakó was the only ethnographer in the county, so apart from his directorial duties, he collected objects and kept inventories himself He collected several thousand artefacts, including those of handicrafts, folk pottery, wine-growing, traditional costumes and shepherd art carving. He established the museum warehouses and created the conditions for restoration works. His activities led to the creation of specialised archives, including the Visonta and Palóc archives, related to individual research projects. Ha laid the foundations of the museum’s photo archive, adding to it over twelve thousand of his own photographs and slides. Of his many exhibitions, the most notables include the Hungarian Folk Art Exhibitions organised in 1974 in Holland and in 1978 in Canada. In 1962 the Heves County Museum Organisation was founded, managed by the county council. Ferenc Bakó was the director of the organisation until his retirement in 1979. This period saw the establishment of the Mátra Museum in Gyöngyös, the Hatvány Lajos Museum in Hatvan, as well as a number of exhibition venues and a network of traditional country houses, carefully selected according to scientific criteria. He surrounded himself with the right colleagues, who, under his guidance, elevated the Heves County museums to highly esteemed scientific, cultural and educational institutions with considerable professional achievements.
