Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Faculty of Humanities, Institute of East Asian Studies

DEPARTMENT OF MONGOL AND INNER ASIAN STUDIES
1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 4/B, Hungary
Teaching activity related to Mongolian studies has been going onat Eötvös Loránd University from the 1870s under the guidanceof prominent scholars like József Budenz and Gábor Bálint ofSzentkatolna. The history of the Department, is inseparable fromthe academic interests of Lajos Ligeti, who founded theDepartment of Inner Asian Studies in 1938, his pupil andsuccessor György Kara, and later the latter’s pupil Ágnes Birtalan,
who has been the head of the Department since 2002.
Ligeti laid the greatest stress on philological research,
devoted great attention to the analysis of Middle Mongolian andpre-classical literary language. He published several 13–16thcentury Mongolian literary records in the volumes of Mongol
Nyelvemléktár and Monumenta Linguae Mongolicae. Ligeti setup the Research Group of Altaic Studies of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences in 1969. From among the Research Groupmembers, Alice Sárközi, Géza Bethlenfalvy, Zsolt Szilágyi havesubstantially contributed to teaching and research at theDepartment.
When Ligeti retired, György Kara took over the chair. Under
his guidance, philology-based research continued, and researchbecame increasingly diversified, the weight of Altaic, Tibetan andBuddhist researches increased in teaching. The research ofMongolian folk culture and dialects was initiated in 1991 and has
been in progress since then under the leadership of Alice Sárköziand Ágnes Birtalan. Upon the recommendation of the chair, thefaculty leadership endorsed Katalin Uray-Kıhalmi’s appointment
as guest professor, which greatly bolstered the Manchu andSiberian studies. The main research fields at present are:– Religion (shamanism, Buddhism and popular religion ofMongolian ethnic groups)– Mongolian language and culture (Khalkha, Oirat, Kalmyk,Buriat, etc.)– Traditional nomadic culture of Mongolian ethnic groups– Processing of the historical sources of the Manchu era andthe contemporary period
Mongolian studies and researches are based on traditional text
analytical philology and up-to-date fieldwork techniques. Lessons
cover Mongolian lingusitics, religious studies, traditional culture,folklore and history,. During the BA course students learn thelanguage (spoken and written Mongolian) and the bases of Inner
Asian philology and Mongolian studies. At the MA-level thestudents will be capable of independent research work. Greatemphasis is laid on the improvement of the students’ skills ofexpression both orally and in writing. Due to student exchange
programs four students and two researchers have chances
annually to study five months at the National University ofMongolia or other educational institutions in order to study in a
Mongolian milieu. PhD candidates can deepen their knowledge

at the doctoral program so as to be armed with all skills andknowledge for scholarship. During the operation of the Mongolian
major 75 students graduated, 17 PhD dissertations weredefended during the last decades, and several articles,
monographs, individual fieldworks, new carriers grew out fromthe scientific workshop of the Department.
The teaching and research work going on in our Deparment
was rewarded with a certificate of merit by the Mongolian
Academy of Sciences in 2010.
Apart from monographs published mainly in Hungarian and inEnglish, the Department is famous for its series: the Debter, theMonumenta, the Treasures of Mongolian Culture and TibetoMongolian Buddhism, and the DVD series of Traditional
Mongolian Culture.
Research Centre for Mongol Studies
For the official initiation of Ágnes Birtalan, the Research Centrefor Mongol Studies came into existence at the Department ofMongol and Inner Asian Studies in 2014 with the support of theGovernment of Mongolia (National Council for MongolianStudies), the Ministry of Education and Science of Mongolia(Foundation for the Promotion of Mongolian Studies), and theMongolian Embassy in Budapest. Ts. Elbegdorj, president ofMongolia opened the Research Centre ceremonially on 18thOctober with the donation of recent Mongolian publications,valuable computing devices, and a fund of 15 000 EUR for theoperation of the new centre. The scientific opening of the Centre
took place on 12th November during the visit of B. Enkhtüwshin,president of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences within theframework of a workshop. Under the guidance of Ágnes Birtalan
two young research fellows (Attila Rákos, Krisztina Teleki)
started to work in the centre to complete the following tasks inthe first six months:– Procession and publication of interviews recorded with oldmonks in cooperation with the Institute of History, Mongolian
Academy of Sciences– Procession and publication of previous fieldwork materials
related to the Khalkha, Oirad and Darkhad dialects– Developing a website for online publication possibilities(innerasia.hu, facebook.com/belsoazsia)– Organizing the international workshop “Mongolian Buddhism:Past, Present and Future” on 16–17th April, 2015
– In accordance with the Mongolian state policy developing an
online Mongolian language learning system for Mongols
living abroad, especially for children in order to aid thepreservation of their Mongolian identity– Assistance of the Department: participation in teaching,organizing scientific forums and other events.

Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities

INSTITUTE OF ETHNOLOGY1014 Budapest, Országház utca 30., Hungary
The Institute of Ethnology was founded by an order of the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on the 1st of January 1967. Theaim was to create better conditions for the development of ethnology in Hungary and to define the scope of this science as follows:ethnology should deal with the study of the way of life, material culture and folklore of the Hungarian people in its ethnic, historical and socialcontext and with regard to its European constituents, it has to investigate the rapid change of the contemporary peasantry as well as thegeneral laws of social evolution. The new Institute had to carry out investigations and co-ordinate research in Hungary on all these targets.
Today the Institute is integrated into the Research Centre for the Humanities of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Institute has four
departments: Department of Social Anthropology, Department of Historical Ethnography, Department of Non-European Studies andDepartment of Folklore (Folk Poetry and Narratives). The Archive and the Library serve as public collections.
International relations
The Institute has built up a network of relations with similar institutions abroad. It participated in some joint projects and represented Hungary
in the International Carpatho-Balkanian Committee. Research with American colleagues was allowed in the 1980s and Institute staff havebeen carrying out field-work among American Hungarians ever since.
A good relationship was formed with Finnish ethnological institutions for organising conferences and publishing their results. After 1990
closer contacts were formed between some scholars of among others the Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et Sociologie Comparative (Nanterre,France), the Max Planck Institute of Ethnology (Halle, Germany), the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing, China), the Mongolian
Academy of Sciences (Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar) and the Indiana University (Bloomington, USA) and some researchers of the Institute who
worked on common programs. Today the Institute maintains an institutional partnership with seven research centres in four countries.
From 2011 to 2014, the Institute takes part in the ETNOFOLK project, funded by the EU Structural Funds through the Central Europe
Programme, which integrates the central European countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Austria and Hungary) and aims topresent the Central European folk cultural heritage, providing possibilities to present and preserve it now and in the future. The proposed
project outcome will be an extensive web portal displaying samples of folk architecture, costumes, music, songs, customs, devotion, etc. inaudiovisual forms.

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