Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 100. (Budapest 2008)

Matskási, I. ; Vásárhelyi, T.: Celebrating the 100th volume of the Hungarian Natural History Museum’s yearbook

It is not surprising that each continent and place of research - be it a museum, university or an independent research institute - sought after and honoured this periodical so much. Actually, the yearbook of the Museum did have a professional and spiritual predecessor: the Természetrajzi Füzetek (Natural History Booklets), a journal established in 1877. To appreciate the real significance of both this epoch-making enterprise in Hungary and the ever-changing role of the journal, it is well worth evoking what the founders had in mind. It was OTTÓ HERMAN

1 who - in co-operation with GÉZA HORVÁTH and JÁNOS KÁROLI - decided to launch a Hungarian natural history journal in 1872. This decision was translated into deeds 5 years later when HERMAN joined the Zoological Department of the National Museum. He was the founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the journal for ten years to come. The following words meet the eyes on the cover of the first issue: "Natural History Booklets taken from the realm of zoology, botany, mineralogy and geology. A quarterly journal published by the Hungarian National Museum. The translations or abstracts of the Hungarian papers are published in the Revue..." Similarly to the ones in the foreign language section, the words here read, as follows: "Die Auktorén sind der Wissenschaft gegenüber verantwortlich" - i.e. the authors are accountable to nothing or nobody else but Science. In his opening announcement the editor discusses the background and why and how it became possible to launch the journal, and highlights the following two aims: "We must be governed by the following main principle: Regardless of what we write, it should be understood not only by an élite club of professionals, but by any refined Hungarian."

2 "Our representation abroad is not satisfactory. Our exoticism

3 has kept us outside the scope of the immense circulation of civilised people's intellectual achievements, and the opinion formed about us was rather characteristic of how strangers would be looked upon..., we shall make no delay, however, as time is flying and unless it is blind to our esteem, we will be crushed irretrievably. 1 OTTÓ HERMAN ( 1835-1914) a self-educated zoologist and ethnographer, a key figure of 19

TH century Hungarian natural history, a founder of the Hungarian technical jargon. The source referred here, as is the case with other Editors' characterisation: BODO & VIGA (2002). 2 Previously, the intelligentsia had used Latin and German in Hungary, Hungarian became the official language just 33 years before, in 1844. Belonging to the Finno-Ugric Language Family, Hungarian was a unique language in the Indo-European environment.