Műtárgyvédelem, 2009 (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum)
Járó Márta: Bevezető: születésnapi köszöntő helyett : in memoriam Éri István : szabálytalan nekrológ
Introduction Instead of birthday congratulations In memóriám István Eri (Irregular necrology) “Eri wants to see youf’The young man, fresh out of university and only a few days in the institute, gathers his thoughts: his moment has arrived; the director will charge him with the first very important work of his life. He enters the director’s office and does not believe his ears. “Will you please bring a broom” — the instruction sounds. He does not understand it, nevertheless returns in a few moments with a broom in the hand. “Will you please remove the cobwebs from the ceiling - there and there, and you see there hang a few more over there.” A couple of weeks later he finds it natural to take this time a spatula when the staff of the Museum Conservation and Methodological Centre is summoned for a big cleaning after painting. The colleagues are crawling on the knees in a line scraping paint dots from the floor and laughing until tears are flowing down their cheeks. István Eri is kneeling in the middle of the line with a spatula in his hands. The director will soon become Boss, simply Boss and not “Comrade” or “Sir”. In the spring of 2009, many people from many places congratulated István Eri on his birthday, listing his merits and speaking with appreciation about his work. Eight months later we had to take leave of him. It was unbelievable. There were so many things he had not told us, so many things to which he had not called our attention, and so many thing he had not taught us. Beside him, we always felt like schoolchildren, and this was how he “treated” us. He was a teacher forever: he wanted to teach his colleagues everything he knew. He dictated and demanded a terrific pace; only the start of working hours was strictly determined in 8 am. Acquiring knowledge and passing it over, training oneself and training others: this was what he expected from each colleague and he was always the first to set an example. It was compulsory to visit excavations to understand how archaeological materials “came to surface”, to read literature to know how other people worked, to write studies so that others could learn what we knew. We had to learn languages so that we could translate the important results and make them available in Hungary. He quickly reviewed all the Hungarian and foreign publications that had arrived in the library (he could read extremely fast and noticed the tiniest mistake) and sent them to colleagues with a notice “Mr/Ms So-and-so should see it”. Later he naturally checked if we had read it. Learning foreign languages was also important to be able to communicate, to go abroad (when it was allowed) and learn there, and to receive foreigners in Hungary. We had to organise national and international 7
