Gecse Annabella et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 18. (Szolnok, 2009)

Néprajz - Hála József: A mester és két tanítványa. Adatok Hermann Ottó, Finta Sándor és Lambrecht Kálmán kapcsolatához

Néprajz

József Hála

A teacher and his two students

On the relationship between Ottó Herman, Sándor Finta, and Kálmán Lambrecht

Natural-historian Ottó Herman (1835-1914) visited the Great Plain several times from the early 1870’s onwards to carry out his natural philosophy studies. His first station studying the lives of herders was Túrkeve. According to his diary, in August 1893, he first met the offspring of one of the best-known Túrkeve herder dynasties Miklós Finta, oxherd and wrangler, from whom he collected several valuable objects and data. The second time he visited Ecsegpuszta was in June 1895 accompanied by artist István Nécsey, who took photos of the various herder structures. Upon Herman’s suggestion, at the 1896 Millennium Exhibition Finta’s cabin was displayed, and the public could also view the wrangler himself in his traditional attire.

After being expelled from school, Sándor Finta, aged nine, was taken to Milós Finta so that “Hungary’s strictest but most famous account wrangler” would make a herder of him. The chronicle of the three years spent in the lowland

at his uncle was later recorded in his memoir A Herdboy of Hungary (New York, London, 1932) while the sculptor was living in America. In this volume, he described his relationship with the natural-historian, however, he did not lack the tools of humour, and sometimes mockery when describing Herman, or depicting him in his drawings. Around 1940, it was one of the most popular books in America.

However, A Herdboy of Hungary met adverse criticism at home in the beginning. According to an other Herman student, the illustrious palaeontologist and ethnographer, Kálmán Lambrecht, Finta’s soul was pervaded by the spirit of “Americanism”. He described the volume as the book of ungratefulness in the columns of the newspaper Budapesti Hírlap, and stated that “it draws a false and distorted picture of the Hungarian landscape, its inhabitants, the plain, and the herders”. He did not have a favourable opinion on Finta’s caricatures either.

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