Location

• Budapest Miklós tér 1, Hungary 1033
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Languages

• Hungarian

Website

• http://www.kia.hu/konyvtar/bodor/bodor.htm

Name of collection

• Inheritance of Ferenc Bodor - 'Nomad Dossiers'

Provenance and cultural activities

• The librarian and architecture and applied-art critic Ferenc Bodor thought that preserving and promoting folk culture was very important in a society that maintained a controversial relationship with traditional national culture. On the one hand, the socialist system supported folk culture; but on the other hand, the system tried to change or reform it according to its ideology of modernization. Beginning in the 1960s, official ideology had become pragmatic and Hungary opened up toward elements of Western mass-culture. Bodor thought that in this way the Communists promoted individualization rather than the rise of collective communities. Contrary to this, a social need was created primarily among the urban young generation for the forms of traditional folk communities, for rediscovering folk art identified with the vanishing peasant lifestyle. From the end of the 1960s, the “Nomadic Generation” proclaimed that only the pure folk style could preserve real values. The dance-house movement and the Studio of Young Folk Artists were thus formed. These communities attempted to integrate folk culture into the culture of modern urban life as well. The authorities could not handle this movement and thus did not support it.

  Ferenc Bodor, contrary to the official cultural policy, from the very beginning supported the this aspiration manifested among young people. Bodor was one of the organizers of the Studio of Young Folk Artists. He edited a well-known document book about the studio and the dance-house movement entitled Nomadic Generation, which was published by the Institute of Popular Education in 1981. Bodor collected material regarding the movement as well, but his collection concerned more than the “nomadic generation”—it reflected his multi-faceted interests as well. He was familiar with the coffee houses and wood architecture and archived Hungarian photographs, folk music and rock and roll. Bodor’s passion for collecting and preserving was well-known; he thought that all objects, writings or pictures provided important documentation of their age. In the 1960s, Bodor became aware of his Székely origin and his family traditions, thus prompting him to deal with Hungarian folk culture in Transylvania. He collected treasures of Hungarian culture in this region that communist industrialization could not destroy. With this, Bodor attempted to call attention to the values of Hungarian folklore, but this was indirectly incompatible with official Hungarian cultural and national policy.

  Ferenc Bodor’s heirs donated his legacy (“nomadic newspapers and photos”) to the Library of the Cultural Innovation Foundation in March 1996. (The reason for this was probably that Bodor sympathized with the Studio of Young Folk Artists that had created this library.) The library, which is located in the Óbuda district of Budapest, was established and supported for a while by the Information Institute of Public Education (in the beginning: Information and Methodological Center of Folk Art and Public Education) that had originally emerged from the Studio of Young Folk Artists.

Description of content

• Ferenc Bodor’s legacy is preserved in 18 boxes, which contain approximately 1,800 photos (photographs, slides, negatives etc.), more than 700 printed documents (newspapers, cut-out articles, invitation cards, leaflets, tickets, program guides, catalogues and posters) and 370 pages of typed manuscripts. Most of the written materials are in Hungarian, while less is in English or German. The collection is kept, arranged and digitalized at the Library of the Cultural Innovation Foundation.

  The periodicals regarding the “Nomadic Generation” are kept in five boxes, although article clippings are preserved in many other boxes too. There are writings about young people from the periodicals Képes Ifjúság (Illustrated Youth) and Magyar Ifjúság (Hungarian Youth), from national newspapers such as Magyar Hírlap (Hungarian Gazette), Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation), Népszava (People’s Word) and Esti Hírlap (Evening Newspaper) and from cultural periodicals such as Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature), Hitel (Credit), Kritika (Critique), Valóság (Reality) and Tiszatáj (Tisza Region). There are writings from Hungarian-language newspapers that appeared outside Hungary such as Romániai Magyar Szó (Romanian Hungarian Word) published in Bucharest, Romania, and Új Symposion (New Symposium) published in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Most of the newspapers and cutouts are about the dance-house movement, folk art and the conservation of monuments. There are also some copied pages from books such as the Emlékkönyv Kodály Zoltán hatvanadik születésnapjára (Memorial Book for the 60th Anniversary of Zoltán Kodály), Könnyűzenéről “csak fiataloknak.” Kézikönyv művelődési házak és ifjúsági klubok részére (On Popular Music That Is “Only for Youth”: Handbook for Cultural Houses and Youth Clubs), etc. Bodor filled many boxes with leaflets, posters and programs regarding events in which he was interested (lectures, folk festivals, garage sales, concerts, dance houses, etc.). The typed manuscripts in the collection are important sources and appear mostly in the fifth and eleventh boxes. Most parts are about Ferenc Bodor’s published or planned books (for example, handwritten manuscripts of Nomád Nemzedék (Nomadic Generation), A Malonyai-hagyaték ( (The Legacy of Malonyai) and an introduction for a planned second Nomadic Generation, etc.). There are also some manuscripts by other authors, including those from Ferenc Kiss and Ferenc Sebő about the dance-house movement. 

  The legacy includes many color slides (showing monuments in southern Poland and Transylvania, landscapes, people, dance-house meetings etc.). There is some color film, for example, of pictures from the book Erdélyi református templomok (Calvinist Churches in Transylvania) by László Debreczeni. The collection also includes hundreds of photographs. It contains the photo material from the book Nomad Generation, many photos of dance houses, folk art camps, exhibitions and festivals. There are also some group photos and portraits. There are also many ethnographic photos in the collection. The Library of the Cultural Innovation Foundation digitalized some of the images, though many photos depict unknown people or places. The library requests that on-line users help to identify pictures that are available on the internet

Content

• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): 100-499
• photos: 1000-
• publications (books, newspapers, articles, press clippings): 500-999

Operator(s)

• Library of Cultural Innovation Foundation

Owner(s)

• Bodor, Ferenc
• Library of Cultural Innovation Foundation

Stakeholder(s) of the collection

• Varga E., Árpád

Geographical scope of recent operation

• regional

Topics

• folk culture (e.g. folk dance movements)
• national movements (patriotic opposition)
• youth culture

Founder(s)

• Bodor, Ferenc

Date of founding

• 1996

Place of founding

• Budapest Miklós tér 1, Hungary
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Creator(s) of content

• Bodor, Ferenc
• Kallós, Zoltán
• Muzsikás Folk Ensemble
• Sebő, Ferenc
• Téka Band

Collector(s)

• Bodor, Ferenc

Supporters

• National Cultural Fund of Hungary

Important events in the history of the collection

• Acquisition of the collection 'Nomad Dossiers' by the Library of Cultural Innovation Foundation (1996)

Featured items

• Dance House in the Metropolitan Cultural House, 1974. Photo
• Young folk artist's camp, Fadd-Dombori, 1972. Photo

Access type

• all closed to the public

Publications

• Városkapu. Bodor Ferenc válogatott írásai. [City Gate. The Selected Writings of Ferenc Bodor] Válogatta és szerkesztette [edited and selected by] Katalin Bodor, with Eszter Götz. Magyar Iparművészeti Egyetem, Budapest, 2001.

Author(s) of this page

• Pál, Zoltán

References

Nomád Nemzedék. Ifjúság és népművészet Magyarországon 1970–1980. [Nomadic Generation. Youth and Folk Art in Hungary 1970–1980.] Szerk. [Edited by] Bodor Ferenc. Tervezte [Designed by] Albert Zsuzsanna. Népművelési Intézet, Budapest, 1981.

Városkapu. Bodor Ferenc válogatott írásai. [City Gate. The Selected Writings of Ferenc Bodor] Válogatta és szerkesztette [edited and selected by] Katalin Bodor, with Eszter Götz. Magyar Iparművészeti Egyetem, Budapest, 2001.

Az utolsó interjú Bodor Ferenccel [The Last Interview with Ferenc Bodor] Országépítő 5. (1994. 3.) 60–62.

Virt Dezső: Bodor Ferenc emlékezete [Remembering to Ferenc Bodor] Országépítő 10. (1999. 2.) 47–48.

Vadas József: Bodor Ferenc – Pesti presszók. [Ferenc Bodor – Coffee Houses in Pest] Kritika 31. (1993) 5. 47.

G. E.: Bodor Ferenc (1941–1994). Beszélő 5. (1994. november 3.)

Lugosi Lugo László: Csőtészta. Túlvilági beszélgetés Bodor Ferenccel. [Macaroni. Transcendent Talking with Ferenc Bodor] Népszabadság, 1994. május 10. 22.

Klaniczay Gábor: 1980. Beszélő 9. (1998. december.) 65–72.

Csordás Lajos: Volt egy bál [There was a Ball]. Népszabadság, 2008. április 22.

Zeke Gyula: Eszpresszók Budapesten V. [Coffee Houses in Budapest] (1971–1992). Budapest 8. (2011. 12.) 22–23.