• Title of the project: Károly Tagányi’s (1856-1924) programme on collecting living legal customs and the significance of his legacy in the history of science
  • Duration of the project: December 1, 2019 – May 31, 2025
  • Principal investigator: Szabina Bognár, Department of Social Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
  • Project type: OTKA FK
  • Funding organization: National Research, Development and Innovation Office
  • Project number: FK 132220  

The primary objective of the project is the digitization, publication, and processing of the manuscript chapters of the collection of legal customs of historian-archivist and ethnographer Károly Tagányi. At the same time, the research group undertakes a comprehensive exploration of the Tagányi legacy, both in terms of manuscripts, correspondence, and publications, and the Tagányi library, exploring the possibilities of digitization and publication.

The project focuses on the exploration and processing of sources found in various repositories (e.g., Manuscripts Archive of the National Széchényi Library, Museum of Ethnography Ethnological Archives, HAS Library and Information Centre, Eötvös Loránd University Library, National Archives of Hungary, Hungarian National Museum, State Archives of Nitra). In exploring the manuscript legacy, the researchers involved in the interdisciplinary research – each with outstanding research experience in their respective disciplines – seek to synthesize the results on a common theoretical and methodological basis.

Members of the research group have presented papers at 21 Hungarian and 19 international conferences. The research group (co-)organized 3 international conferences. In the last four years, 5 books and 33 papers have been published, 11 of them in foreign languages. The publications are accessible free of charge under Open Access standards at http://jogineprajz.abtk.hu/taganyi.

A user-friendly database has also been created, where the complete published legacy of Károly Tagányi is available (265 searchable pdfs, 5497 pages in total, sorted by publication date). The database of digitized manuscripts is only accessible to participating researchers for the duration of the research project (the closed website currently contains some 4,200 folios of digitized manuscript documents). As per the research plan, work will begin on the manuscript of a major Tagányi volume.

The reinterpretation of the results of late 19th-century collections of legal customs is taking place across Europe, and the exploration of the Tagányi legacy fits into this discourse. Close international cooperation also facilitates the mapping of the results of 19th-century collecting in Hungary. The publication of the 2022 thematic issue of Acta Ethnographica Hungarica (Volume 67, Issue 1) on legal ethnography marked an important milestone in the international recognition of the research group.