Culture

An old world was vanishing forever. Two ethnographers of the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography, Edit Fél (1910-1988) and Tamás Hofer (1929), launched an extensive research programme in 1954, aiming to record the system and functional methods of the peasant lifestyle in the very last moment, before the expected consequences of the socialist reorganisation of agriculture. For two decades they carried out a complex investigation in Átány, a village in Heves county, the results of which were published abroad and became known worldwide. This legendary Átány research found only a moderate reception in Hungary, as the Hungarian scientific publishers of the day had refused to publish the monographs. The innovative and gradually developed method of the research - which was ahead of the perspective of Hungarian ethnographic investigations of that time - and the significant amount of accumulated research material had been presented to only a small group of experts. Consequently, the monumental picture of the vanishing peasant world, which was based on careful analysis and fine details, could not fulfil the role it had been designed to in contemporary Hungarian science and public thinking. The exhibition’s purpose is to provide an appetiser of this scientific enterprise, that is unique in its kind. Its sources contain objects and contemporary notes that were collected in Átány and which have not been exhibited before, and a selection from the abundant photo collection. The most important results and characteristics of the perspective, method and material collection are being introduced through the moments of a working day of a family from Átány. On the other hand, the structure and subject of the exhibition also enable the visitors to meet an ordinary day for a traditional peasant community, in accordance with the aims of Edit Fél and Tamás Hofer.


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