Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 20. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2007)

PALÁDI-KOVÁCS ATTILA: Erdély és a Partium néprajzi kutatásáról

ABOUT THE ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN TRANSYLVANIA AND IN THE PARTIUM This survey was written partly as an evaluation of the results and partly with the purpose of serving as a possible guiding for further research. It has four units of subjects. Its first part inserts the works written in the last decades into the history of ethnographical research in the 20th century. It sums up the succeeding most important periods of Transylvania's ethnologic, folklore research between 1930 and 2000. It draws our attention to the fact that important ethnographic essays and compendia were written about this significant European region already between the two world wars. The works of Károly VISKI, Zoltán SZOLÁDY and Béla GUNDA from Hungary should be highlighted: they outlined the ethnographic character and place of this culture-province on continent's the ethnographic map. Transylvanian traditions, alive till today - especially remarkable in the field of architecture, cooking, folk music, folk dance and folk poetry - are witnesses of the cohabitation of several nations (Hungarian, German, Romanian) and of different ethnic groups and diasporas (like Ruthenians, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Bulgarians, Gypsies, etc) and are "deposits" of ancient times. The re-organised Hungarian research between 1955 and 1970 concentrated mainly on the research and publication of textual folklore and folk music. The ethnologic, folkloristic research was enriched in the years 1970-80 in subjects (collection of folk dance and dance houses) and the possibilities of publication were extended too. The decade 1990-2000 was a real landmark. A number of new institutions were created (university chair, Kriza Ethnographic Society, Folklore Institute of the Academy, cultural anthropology workshop) and the society as well as publishing houses supported the ethnologic, folkloristic research. Due to the new workshops and groups of researchers, the Hungarian ethnographic research in Romania was decentralized. Research of ethnicity gained importance and the study of the traditions of different ethnic groups (like Gypsies, Saxons) became possible. The exploration of the region Moldova and of the Hungarian Catholic folk traditions in Moldova gathered momentum and new areas and zones within Transylvania were discovered for the ethnology. The majority of the Hungarian researchers in Transylvania insisted on carrying on with the original subject of ethnography, the exploration of the cultural heritage and of the communal life and traditions. Since the meaning of these efforts is given by the progress of time, not the synchronic but the diachronic approach will decide the methods of documentation and interpretation. However, the extension of the ethnologic research's subjects has the consequence in Transylvania too that researchers pay attention to the petty-bourgeois (craftsmen and traders), the groups of factory workers and to the town-people. The survey suggests current, concrete research tasks: a comprehensive ethnographic bibliography about the region, the evaluation of big archives from the point of view of the region, creation of databases per subject, collective field-research in the micro-regions, which are considered as "terra incognita", support of neglected subjects, organisation of historic-ethnologic conferences with the involvement of other scientific disciplines, the plan of a compendium to present the "Transylvanian heritage" in a comprehensive way, the need of cross-cultural studies, etc. Finally, the author states that the "Hungarian heritage in Transylvania" deserves special attention - as do the Romanian and the Saxon heritage - and its research is worth of the European Union's efficient support. It would be important that the valuable cultural heritage and folk art of Transylvania is present at exhibitions in Europe's big cultural centres.