Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum Közleményei 3. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1985)

Vargha László (1904—1984) - FILEP ANTAL: Vargha László tudományos munkássága

seiner Pensionierung, Dozent am Lehrtuhl für Baugeschichte war), schuf er eine Schule, er hatte stets Architekten, Ethnographen und Kunsthistoriker unter seinen Schülern. Von Bedeutung ist jener Teil seiner Tätigkeit, der sich auf den Schutz und die Erforschung der Volkskunstdenkmäler erstreckt. Bei der Begründung und dem Beginn der Praxis in Ungarn spielte er eine Pionierrolle. Auf seine Initiative wurden die Topographien der Kunstdenkmäler mit ethnographischem Material ergänzt. Vargha war der Urheber der Organisierung und des Baus von ethnographischen Freilichtmuseen und vermittelte die diesbezüglichen internationalen Erfahrungen und Ergebnisse. Er führte seine praktischen, experimentellen Arbeiten vor, die auch als methodisches Richtmaß dienen konnten und der Herausgestaltung der ungarischen Praxis zu Erfahrungen verhalfen. Von 1940 bis 1947 arbeitete er beim zentralen Aufsichtsorgan des ungarischen Museumswesens. Zwischen 1947 und 1949 war er Generaldirektor des Ethnographischen Museums in Budapest, danach bekleidete er bis 1952 das Amt des Direktors des Hermann-Otto-Museums in Miskolc. Auf diesem Posten war er einer der Erneuerer und Theoretiker der ungarischen museologischen Organisierung und Praxis. Später, als er bereits an der Universität unterrichtete, befaßte er sich auch theoretisch weiterhin mit dem Problem der Planung und des Baus von Museen. Antal Filep: THE SCIENTIFIC WOR László Vargha was the leading figure in research on Hungarian folk architecture between 1940 and 1984. This study attempts to sum the main lines of his research and his findings that led to the revival of Hungarian research in this field. The author first considers the intellectual background from which Vargha began his career. Both his parents were teachers descended from craftsmen and agricultural workers and in part from the lesser nobility, and maintained close family ties. The family's progressive social views influenced László Vargha's views in his youth. He turned his attention at an early age to the Scandinavian and Finnish architecture and decorative arts of the early decades of this century and to their roots in folk art. After matriculating, he enrolled in the architecture faculty of the Budapest University of Technology and later continued his studies in the arts faculty of the Péter Pázmány University. He studied not only ethnography but also archaeology and art history and gained a thorough grounding in literature and linguistics. He was closely acquainted with contemporary Hungarian art and its European links. He maintained his interest in this direction right up to his death. Another factor influencing his intellectual orientation was that in the generally conservative university atmosphere of Hungary in the twenties and thirties he formed a life-long friendship with a number of members of the left wing of the Miklós Bartha Society, one of the most open youth groups, which broadened his social horizons and turned his attention towards the problems of the village. OF LÁSZLÓ VARGHA After long experimentation, it was in 1936 following a study trip to Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Poland that he decided to shape definitively his approach, methods and objectives. On the basis of his impressions in the Ulkó Museo and the Skansen he published his first study in 1937 in Ethnographia (the leading Hungarian ethnographical publication). From 1938 he worked with István Györffy, the first Budapest professor of ethnography. He earned his doctorate in 1940 with a dissertation on the architecture of the farmhouses outside Karcag. In 1943 he published an architectural study of settlements in the Nagykunság and neighbouring areas. He began extremely extensive collecting in the entire area inhabited by ethnic Hungarians. He worked in Czechoslovakia and Romania. His collecting work covered a number of areas in Western Transdanubia, the Balaton hills, the region between the Danube and Tisza Rivers and Eastern Hungary. He made regular visits to areas of Northern Hungary, from Nógrád and Hont to Torna, Abaúj and Zemplén and he also collected extensively in the north-east in the Bereg and Szatmár regions. In his research on peasant architecture, László Vargha placed great emphasis on detailed and authenticated recording in precise technical drawings, something that had not been the practice earlier in either ethnographic or architectural research into Hungarian peasant architecture. In place of the earlier research into types and the attempt to reconstruct archetypes, he investigated the stock of buildings, right down to individual units (covering the questions of material, structure, fjorm and decorative elements as a whole),