Reisz T. Csaba: Magyarország általános térképének elkészítése a 19. század első évtizedében - Lipszky János és segítői térképészeti vállalkozásának ismertetése (Budapest, 2002)
IDEGEN NYELVŰ ÖSSZEFOGLALÓK - The Making of Hungary’s First General Map in the first Decade of the 19th Century. The Cartographic Enterprise of János Lipszky
about each phase of the undertaking. Several Hungarian publications also reported about the map and advertised it for sale once it was completed. Between the 1840’s and the 1950’s, numerous shorter or longer studies were published about the makings of the map. GYÖRGY GyuRIKOVITS, a personal acquaintance of Lipszky, wrote the first biography in 1847; as this work later became forgotten, the Appendix of the present book contains its text. Later, LÁSZLÓ JANOVSZKY published a Hungarian-language biography based on Lipszky’s memoirs (1892), which became the basis of all subsequent Lipszky-biographies. GYULA ETHEY also wrote a smaller piece in 1933, which did not receive much attention later. LAJOS GLASER only dedicated a short article to the Bogdanich-expedition; the importance of his work is that he also relied on archival sources. It was FERENC Fodor who authored the most important work on cartographic history for long, titled Magfar térképírás (Hungarian Map-writing) in 1952—1954. Although it is outdated in many aspects and data, it has become a principal source for all researchers of the topic. Subsequently, literature in the region divides into several streams: Hungarian authors entirely ignore and do not use the findings of Slovakian and Austrian researchers, while these latter also rely on a small selection of Hungarian literature. Following decades-long silence, LÁSZLÓ CSENDES revived János Lipszky’s activities in a 1982 study. Regrettably, his study became the foundation of the topic although he had questioned both Lipszky’s military talents as well as his cartographic significance; almost all of Csendes’s findings are inaccurate. LAJOS BAR- THA corrected these inaccuracies in the following year, which led researchers on the correct path by citing ample data from contemporary literature. It is regrettable that this excellent study has had slim impact on researches carried out in this field. Renewed cartographic research in the 1990’s contributed numerous new findings to the topic, particularly the monographic summary of the field, The History of Hungarian Surveying and Cartography. The most recent summary of the topic may be found in the 1998 Lipszky commemorative conference papers, published in winter 2001. Research carried out by Czech and Slovakian researchers is inescapable when researching János Lipszky’s cartographic activities. As Lipszky’s collateral relatives live in Slovakia, and Lipszky’s bequest (although it suffered significant losses) is to be found primarily in archives in Slovakia, Czech and Slovakian researchers (JURAJ FOJTÍK, Karel KUHAR, LUBOMIr VILIAM PRIKRYL and lastly and most import- andy, MILAN SláMIS) who relied on sources available in these archives succeeded at publishing numerous unique data in their articles. Austrian literature generally dealt with cartography in the Habsburg Empire, and perceived its main function as presenting maps drawn of territories belonging to the former Empire in the framework of Austrian cartography. Consequently, it also contributed data about Hungarian cartography to this research. The truly 432
