Apor Éva, Ecsedy Ildikó (szerk.): Hungarian publications on Asia and Africa : 1950-1962 : A selected bibliography = Magyar szerzők Ázsiáról és Afrikáról : 1950-1962 : Válogatott bibliográfia

Előszó (Ligeti Lajos akadémikus, a Magyar UNESCO Bizottság Kelet—Nyugat Albizottságának elnöke)

the founder of the modern Tibetan studies, and Aurel Stein, whose research and explorations in Central Asia are of great value. Apart from research work, a great number of literary works of oriental peoples has been translated into Hungarian. At the same time, a wide range of popular literature emerged •concerning the Orient. Oriental studies in Hungary continued the work of the predecessors. As a result, during the last decades, a remarkable development has been taking place in the field of Mongolian and Manchu-Tungusian studies, which are bound up with the oriental aspects of the Hungarian prehistory, and sinology which has an important impact on studies concerning the history of the nomad peoples of Central Asia. Today, there is a lively and creative research activity in these fields. The same applies to Turkish and Iranian studies, Semitic philology as well as to indology and egyptologv. In other fields of oriental studies results are to be expected in the near future. Oriental studies, in the strict, scholarly sense, have been supported, from the very beginning, by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The activity of a great number of research workers employed in research institutes, university depart ments, and in museums, is still co-ordinated and administered by the Academy, mainly through its Committee of Oriental Studies. The Academy, in addition, as the supreme scientific body of the Hungarian People's Republic, gives considerable financial support to all kinds of research activities in Asian or African subject matter. Mention should be made of the permanent exhibitions of the Eastern-Asiatic Museum in Budapest, as well as of the work done by the Institute of Cultural Relations, by the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge, and particularly by the East

—West Committee of the Hungarian National Commission for UNESCO. These institutions have been steadily making efforts to familiarize the public with the life and problems 10