Hungarian Legal Ethnography in Light of the Oeuvre of Ernő Tárkány Szücs

Abstract

Ernő Tárkány Szücs (1921–1984) was a researcher who created a synthesis of Hungarian legal ethnography, a mediator of his results for European legal ethnographic research, and his scientific work is still an essential part of Hungarian research history. During the most intensive period (1939–1948) of Hungarian legal folklore research — which was delayed compared to European legal customs research — he became a lawyer and a researcher of Hungarian legal ethnography along with legal history professor György Bónis from Kolozsvár (nowdays Cluj-Napoca). Although in the next phase of his life (1950–1975), during the decades of socialism in Hungary, as a practicing lawyer, he could not professionally engage in legal ethnographic research, when he finally had the opportunity to do so in 1975 in the Ethnographic Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he presented a series of results of Hungarian legal ethnography. One of the most important of these was the publication of a monograph (Tárkány Szücs 1981), which is still considered to be the fundamental work of Hungarian legal ethnography, the conceptual and methodological foundation of the research field, the summary of research findings and at the same time its legitimation. Although the institutionalization of legal ethnographic research had not yet taken place at that time, Hungarian ethnography recognized Ernő Tárkány Szücs's research on legal folk customs as a “one-man” research field. During his research career, Tárkány Szücs continued to take an active role in international scientific life. He always considered it his task to make the findings of European legal ethnography known throughout Hungary, as well as to publish the findings of Hungarian legal ethnographic research in international scientific forums. The 2021 jubilee professional programs and publications of the Tárkány Szücs Ernő Legal Cultural Historical and Legal Ethnographical Research Group — an interdisciplinary research workshop established in 2011 with the aim of processing and enriching his research legacy and publications — were an opportunity to publish new research findings and formulate the ongoing tasks of Hungarian legal ethnography, beyond the evaluation of his research career and Hungarian legal ethnography from the dogmatic and methodological perspective.