Scientists, researchers, collectors

József Hála's collected volume undertakes to present the research history of Hungarian ethnography and folkloristics (including ethnographic museology as part of it) in a more thorough, accurate and authentic way than before. After all, the author did not only re-read the "main works" revered as classics of Hungarian ethnography, but also searched for all sources that could be linked to several scientists who still inspire today (among others, Arnold Ipolyi, Ottó Herman, János Jankó, Lajos Katona, Antal Herrmann) and their works. . In the scope of his investigation, he also included registers hiding biographical facts, private letters reporting on the many difficulties of the collection and research conditions, the reasons for the development of antipathy towards fellow researchers and/or rivals, and contemporary press reports. In contrast to other summaries of Hungarian ethnography that require scientific history, in József Hála's articles he does not only deal with guiding ideas and program broadcasts, but draws attention to those who voluntarily undertook practical research work on the initiatives of personalities recognized and accepted as "leaders" based on the principle of authority, and in this way they also had an impact on the discipline, precisely because of this, without getting to know them, our picture of the scientific history of Hungarian ethnography would be incomplete. Although unspoken, the author also warns of an unavoidable task in the history of science: to what extent did the 19th and 20th centuries become richer? the approach and method of Hungarian ethnography emerging in the 19th century as a result of the fact that once upon a time the distinguished and anonymous predecessors interpreted it differently than we do, and what can be considered a "relative" scientific discipline that can therefore be cultivated together with a similar approach?