Paper short abstract:

In my paper I explore the controversial career of József Faragó, a leading Hungarian folklorist in Romania in the Socialist era.

Paper long abstract:

In my paper I examine the controversial career of József Faragó (Brasov, 1922 – Cluj, 2004), a Hungarian folklorist in Romania, mainly through his manuscripts, printed works, ego-documents, interviews, and secret police files preserved in public archives. After the Second World War, hardly any Hungarian ethnographers remained in Transylvania, and for political reasons, the supply of experts in the study of Hungarian folk culture was completely cut off for a long time. As a consequence, for decades one person represented folklore studies in Transylvania in an almost completely dominant way. His perception is controversial both in Transylvania and in Hungary. He published many articles and volumes and did a great deal for folklore research, yet, many of his contemporaries felt that he did so in a way that he suppressed them. He could not be criticized, nor did anyone try to, because in many cases the archives were not accessible to other potential researchers only for him, therefore his data and professional claims could not be verified until the change of regime. In my paper, I will also briefly show how Faragó's oeuvre fits into broader tendencies, and how Hungarian folkloristics in Transylvania has been able to emerge from his shadow.