Per omnia saecula saeculorum
There are special – perhaps sacred – places where time feels almost tangible, almost as though it can be touched by the human heart. Places where all you need to do is quiet your mind and stand still, and through this alone, the grip of transience begins to ease. Then, the restlessness calms, the storms of the soul subside, and the light of the setting sun, like a special grace, shines even into the starless depths. Yes, there are such places (and there are such moments) where and when we can almost directly experience the joyful, strengthening, and healing power of the essence of existence…
(Excerpt from Imre Harangozó’s diary entry. Manuscript – 5 August 2024, Gelence)
1. Motivation
Imre Harangozó was born on 29 September 1965, on the feast day of St. Michael, in Gyula. His ancestors were part of the community established by migrants from Szeged, who founded the town of Újkígyós. The Harangozó line has been a continuous family in the town since 1816, spanning six generations. Through his paternal grandmother, he is also descended from Ferdinánd Jeszenszky (1818–1901), an autobiographer of noble descent from Upper Hungary. From the early 19th century until the mid-20th century, Harangozó grew up as the only child of Imre Harangozó (1940–2003) and Julianna Szél (1940) in the Catholic community of Újkígyós, where tobacco farming was the main occupation. His father worked as a middle manager in agriculture, and his mother worked as a commercial employee in Újkígyós. His religious devotion was strengthened not only by his family but even more by the traditional practices of the Catholic, endogamous community of Újkígyós. Although he spent his childhood years under the political regime of János Kádár, this did not deter him from practising his faith. Between the ages of 6 and 14, he regularly served as an altar boy. He completed his primary education in Újkígyós, where his history teacher, István Tóth, and his upper-grade class teacher, Erzsébet Körmendi, had a significant influence on him. He also fondly recalls the knowledgeable priests of the town, including church musician Dénes Takácsy, who baptised him, and, more significantly, Mihály Gyenes – Father Miska, a Piarist monk and mathematician – who accompanied him throughout his childhood.
Imre Harangozó recalls his primary school years in Újkígyós in the 1970s: “The classroom became a place for Mass on weekends. They opened a door, and there was the altar. I loved taking down the Lenin portrait and replacing it with the image of the Virgin Mary – it’s hard to describe how much I enjoyed it!”
Between 1979 and 1981, he attended the Munkácsy Mihály Vocational Training School and Secondary School in Gyula, where he graduated with a qualification in agricultural machinery repair. He completed his secondary school education in 1985 through correspondence, while working as a mechanic at the Aranykalász Agricultural Cooperative in Újkígyós. He continued his studies at the Teacher Training College in Debrecen (now: Debrecen Reformed Theological University), where he earned his qualification as a Primary School Teacher in 1988. In 2002, he obtained a qualification in Catholic religious education from the Faculty of Theology at Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, and in 2011, he completed his Master’s degree in religious education at Gál Ferenc University in Szeged.
From 1988, he worked as a teacher at the Szabadkígyós Primary School. Unbeknownst to him, he was being followed by a ‘file’ containing reports from the secret service about him. He later found out that this was the reason he was not offered a teaching position in his hometown of Újkígyós. In 1990, he was drafted into the military. After two weeks of compulsory military service in Várpalota, he chose the non-military civil service option when the law allowing it came into effect. He spent two years carrying out public service duties without a salary, first at a retirement home in Békéscsaba, then, with the help of Father Sándor Szigeti, he assisted in establishing the Szent Erzsébet Nursing Home in Újkígyós. After completing this service, he taught at the Roman Catholic Parish in Újkígyós and Szabadkígyós. In 2008, he became the religion teacher for Catholicism at the Szeberényi Gusztáv Adolf Evangelical Lutheran Secondary Grammar School in Békéscsaba. Since 2023, he has served as a methodological advisor at the Hungarian Institute for Popular Culture, Makoldi Sándor Centre.
In 1990, he married Erzsébet Csortán (1968), an early childhood educator and religion teacher in mental health, from Gyergyóremete. They have two children: Katalin Harangozó (1993), an art historian, and Imre Harangozó (1996), a graphic designer.
In 2003, his work was recognised by the Hungarian Ethnographical Society, which awarded him the Sebestyén Gyula Memorial Medal. In 2019, he received the Erdélyi Zsuzsanna Award from the Hungarian Academy of Arts. On 20 August 2022, President of Hungary Katalin Novák awarded him the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in recognition of his wide-ranging work in preserving and passing on the culture of the Carpathian Basin.
2. The Ethnographer
During his years at the Teacher Training College in Debrecen (1984–1988), Harangozó found himself in an intellectual environment and created a community that would significantly shape his research goals and career. His first field trips to Transylvania and the Partium (Arad, Brașov, Lipova, Măriaradna, Oradea, Sfântu Gheorghe, Timișoara) took place in 1983–1984. As a college student, he often travelled to Transylvania for two- or three-week periods. Among his first ethnographic collections were details of the repertoire of singer György Varga Szabó from Felszeg, which he later published. He built relationships with his informants easily, not with the detached attitude of an outsider researcher, but with a desire to understand and empathise. It was during this time that he met Zoltán Kallós, with whom he developed a ‘fatherly-mentorly’ relationship that lasted until the ethnographer’s death. In the 1980s, Harangozó also played a mediating role between Hungarians living abroad and those in the homeland. His trips to Transylvania led him to realise that it was also worthwhile to collect data in his own region, Békés County. The work related to tobacco farming in Újkígyós created opportunities for storytelling, and he began to collect in the footsteps of Lajos Kálmány and József Locskay. It was during this period that he first became interested in folk prayers. His professional and friendly relationships with Bálint Csergő, József Gazda, Klára Gazda, and András Seres provided him with a strong affirmation, not only strengthening his chosen path but also influencing his collections in Hungary and Upper Hungary in Slovakia.
“These were not true introductions, but more like a kind of rediscovery. The conversations that formed out of this were like homecomings.”
In his fieldwork, he did not apply the classic ethnographic methods. Trusting in providence, he had many successful collecting trips.
“I realised that I should collect what they know. But to collect, I need to know what they know. Naturally, my knowledge will expand as I collect. The way the ‘fieldworker’ works, approaching informants, is not my way!”
During his ethnographic trips in Upper Hungary in the 1980s, Harangozó was supported by Mária Jókai, and more recently, he developed a close professional and personal friendship with Vilmos Ladóczki. He soon realised the significant differences in the situation of Hungarians in the territories lost after the Treaty of Trianon, and how nationalist ideologies, which changed over time, turned people against each other.
“I found my answer in the fact that from Nedec Castle to Keve Castle, and from Gyimesbükk (Ghimeș-Făget) to Őrisziget (Siget in der Wart), this is my home. This is my homeland, the Carpathian Basin. It may be called Slovakia, Ukraine, or Romania in some cases, but this is my homeland.”
At the Teacher Training College in Debrecen, he studied under Sándor Makoldi, who followed the folk psychology approach of Gábor Lükő, which strengthened Harangozó’s commitment to ethnography. He also attended free university courses organised by Péter Gyöngy and his colleagues at the Kossuth Lajos University in Debrecen (now: University of Debrecen), where he listened to lecturers such as Bertalan Andrásfalvy, Marcell Jankovics, András Kelemen, Imre Makovecz, Ottó Mezei, József Molnár V., and Gábor Pap, among others. One of the defining cultural organisations in Debrecen at the time was the Varjúvár Dance House and the Varjúvár Association, where Harangozó and his friends tried to organise an intellectual workshop before the official founding of the group. The Varjúvár community included, among others, András Békési, Erika Bujdosó, Zsigmond Gyönyörű, György Gyulai, Erika Juhász, Péter Kálmán, Csilla Pályi, Ottó Rőmer, Sarolta Salamon, Judit Sződi, András Takács, Valéria Tóth, and Balázs Zágorhidi Czigány. During his university years, he also organised lectures in the dormitory under the cover of Hungarian Young Communist League (KISZ) events, which attracted significant interest and operated on the borderline of tolerated and prohibited events. Among the speakers were Gábor Barna, Bencze Lászlóné Dr. Judit Mező, Péter Halász, and Sándor Makoldi. During these events, Ilona Budai, Irén Lovász, and Katalin Szvorák also performed.
The understanding of culture and community based on Gábor Lükő’s philosophy of folk psychology, which examines the workings of the folk soul, continues the tradition of Sándor Karácsony’s social-psychological pedagogy. Alongside the official foundations laid by Gyula Ortutay in ethnography, this perspective has become somewhat peripheral. Imre Harangozó has become an organic follower of this school, having met Gábor Lükő in the mid-1980s. He regarded him as his mentor and maintained a close relationship with him until Lükő’s death.
Imre Harangozó’s nearly four-decade-long career as a collector and researcher is best reflected in his thoughts on the approach, methodology, and subject of his research: “This is a living, vibrant culture with an internal logic. Today, the European man lives in a fragmented world, yet this is a unified culture. It can only be viewed with a unified perspective, not with prejudice. Of course, differences must be distinguished, but we must see the unity in it, the fact that this is a common homeland, a common cultural phenomenon. The tool of science is research, which focuses on the folk soul, the common folk soul, the thing that connects us. Politics has often turned culture into a tool of nationalism, even influencing science. The school, represented by Sándor Karácsony, Lükő Gábor, Dénes Kövendi, and Sándor Makoldi, protests against this, yet they have been labelled as nationalists.”
“Today, we always measure things by quantity and external approaches! The internal logic was completely different. It regulated nothing but whether the community accepted it. If the community accepted it, then it was ours. Today, we engage in aesthetic debates. It’s meaningless. If the community accepts it, then my aesthetic approach is completely irrelevant. We should be thinking about what inner motivation the community has that leads them to accept this!” “Intellectuals always think ideologically. The peasant community, the traditional community, does not. It thinks pragmatically, sensibly. The old people aimed to make something useful from everything, to the last detail.”
Imre Harangozó conducted post-collecting and change studies in Transylvania and Western Moldavia, following the paths of Gábor Lükő and Zoltán Kallós.
In 1990, his first book, Radna fényes csillaga (lit. The Shining Star of Radna), based on his thesis, was published in two editions. It focused on the Marian pilgrimage in Máriaradna (Radna) and the pilgrimage of the people from Újkígyós, and was dedicated to the memory of Sándor Bálint. Later research revealed a biographical connection: the vow cross in Máriaradna was erected in 1857 by Anna Szabó, a fifth-generation ancestor of Imre Harangozó.
After several unsuccessful attempts, he first visited Western Moldavia in 1990 for a collecting trip, during which he gathered material from Ilona Jánó, a ‘deadseer’ from Lészped. In 1992, Zsuzsanna Erdélyi presented Harangozó’s book “Anyám, anyám, szép Szűz Márjám…” Régi imádságok és ráolvasások moldvai magyaroktól (lit. “My Mother, My Beautiful Virgin Mary…” Old Prayers and Incantations from Moldovan Hungarians), the first thematic selection on this topic in Western Moldavian ethnography publications. It was one of the first publications of the Ipolyi Arnold Community College.
“Zsuzsanna Erdélyi welcomed me as if I were her son. Perhaps the greatest honour of my life was when, on her 80th birthday, she mentioned me in an interview as someone continuing her work. She mentioned me, the peasant boy from Újkígyós, the simple mechanic’s son, among those carrying on her legacy!”
In 2019, Imre Harangozó received the Erdélyi Zsuzsanna Award from the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
As a researcher collecting across the Carpathian Basin, his interests are wide-ranging. He is the author of about 30 volumes and has published numerous articles in professional and popularising journals, not only on sacred ethnography but also on material culture. His 2010 work Transzcendens trambulin. Korunk felfogása és a moldvai csángók hagyományai az utolsó átmenet rítusrendjével kapcsolatban (lit. Transcendent Trampoline: Our Understanding and the Traditions of the Moldavian Csángós in the Last Transition Rituals) is current in its approach, examining contemporary reflections and parallel timelines. This book highlights not only the vertical movement of the human soul between the sacred and profane spaces, but also contrasts modern culture’s relationship with death with the archaic worldview of Western Moldavian women.
In 2023, Imre Harangozó delivered his academic induction speech at the Hungarian Academy of Arts, focusing on the analysis of a special category of pastoral life objects: the rühzsírtartó (a type of shepherd’s container). The unique feature of this object type is that one side depicts the Hungarian coat of arms, and the other side depicts a shepherd. In his dissertation, Harangozó examined the relationship between sacred and profane time.
The original audio recordings of Imre Harangozó’s collections are preserved not only in his own archive but also in the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
3. The Photographer
The ethnographic collector’s photographic work is primarily characterised not by technical proficiency but by an inner vision that goes beyond mere documentation of the present. He has dedicated his camera to exploring the folk soul, capturing portraits, daily life rituals, and holiday customs. He has a significant personal photo collection of Szék weddings, Western Moldavian mourning rituals, and pilgrimages to Csíksomlyó and the Palóc pilgrimage in Upper Hungary. His photographs have been published both as illustrations for his ethnographic collections and in independent photo exhibitions. He frequently travelled to the world of the shepherds of the Great Plain with photographer László Kunkovács, with whom he shares a close friendship. Despite all this, Imre Harangozó has stated:
“I never liked taking photographs because the camera itself and photography make you an outsider.”
He has presented his photographs in over a hundred temporary exhibitions. Some of the venues (not an exhaustive list) include: Kájoni János County Library in Miercurea Ciuc (Csíkszereda), Hungarian Culture Foundation in Budapest, Móra Ferenc Museum in Szeged, Munkácsy Mihály Museum in Békéscsaba, Sárrét Museum in Szeghalom, and the Ópusztaszer National Historical Memorial Park.
Imre Harangozó has served as the ethnographic expert for numerous films, collaborating with directors and editors such as György Halmy, László Martinides, and Balázs Simon. In 1993, he worked with Péter Pál Tóth, József Molnár V., and Péter Gál to shoot Nem vagyunk mi árvák (lit. We Are Not Orphans), a film about the pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó.
4. The Educator
Between 1988 and 2023, Imre Harangozó worked as a teacher and religious educator, first in an official capacity at the Szabadkígyós Primary School and later at the Evangelical High School in Békéscsaba. In his pedagogy, he systematically followed the educational methods grounded in the social-psychological foundations of Sándor Karácsony, which he also applied in his research and ethnographic collections.
He has made education and upbringing his vocation and believes:
“There is only one path: to motivate our students, both spiritually and mentally, and the teacher’s personal credibility. The best motivation is by setting an example.”
“It is not the multitude that performs miracles, but the strength of the soul! – as Dániel Berzsenyi teaches us. Yes, we should focus on the power of the soul and dedication!”
By avoiding formality, he has created an organic culture based on shared thinking, collaboration, and an outlook that transcends national boundaries, which he also considers fundamental in his pedagogy. He is convinced that a community has the same emotional effects and characteristics as an individual! Citing Gábor Lükő, he believes that a community has its own collective psyche. Its soul has forms and manifestations. Sándor Karácsony draws attention to the inner emotional effects and the unique content characteristic of each group.
“As a religious educator, I often made the children sit around the altar of the Újkígyós church. In absolute silence. We sat there, thirty of us. I would tell them, ‘Pay attention to each other, tune into each other!’ Finding the inner vibration – that gives the rhythm. If the rhythm works, everything works.”
During his ethnographic research, Harangozó consciously applied the well-known and widely practised methods of knowledge transmission, and even promoted them in his didactic lectures.
“Today, the whole world revolves around cognitive consciousness. But cognitive consciousness doesn’t exist without the emotional network. This is the school’s fundamental issue. Our ancient school system was about having knowledge, and if you were interested, you would learn it. Come with me, pay attention to me, and one day it will rub off on you. Through imitation, attention, and interest. What is the key? Motivation.”
As a religious educator, Harangozó teaches that we should dare to entrust ourselves to the grace of Providence! Actively, he encourages what he learned from Father Miska (Mihály Gyenes) during his catechism lessons: “Be everything to everyone!”
The theme of Providence’s determinism recurs throughout Imre Harangozó’s life. One of the most beautiful examples of this is his reflection:
“Things are somehow directed from above. This is not a Protestant understanding of determinism, but I am sure that Providence deeply intervenes in our lives, and the task and quality of a person is to recognise this and to live with it. I consider my birth on St. Michael’s Day as part of this group of phenomena. I have also spent years as a marriage witness, and as a researcher, I’ve looked into some aspects of this role, as St. Michael, the wedding witness for the dead. He is the one who will guide us on the other side, just as the master of ceremonies (vőfély) guides the young couple to the church and the wedding. He will guide us throughout our lives, until death.”
5. The Public Figure
Imre Harangozó’s work in organising free university lectures during his years at university laid the groundwork for his later involvement in the renewed community college movement following the regime change. In 1991, together with his friends, primarily local educators, he founded the Ipolyi Arnold Community College Association in Újkígyós, which he continues to lead. The life and work of the association’s namesake, Bishop Arnold Ipolyi, a folk collector and one of the great polymaths of the 19th century, served as an example for the association’s goals.
“It is my opinion that a community college is where adult people, voluntarily and motivated from within, search for answers to life’s questions based on their own interests. It is free education in every sense, regardless of how many people are involved or what organisational form they choose.”
The first Csángó meeting in Hungary was organised by the Community College on 22–24 October 1992 at Wenckheim Castle in Ókígyós. A series of lectures on Hungarian ethnicity was organised, with speakers including Bertalan Andrásfalvy, Sándor Bosnyák, István Pál Demény, Zsuzsanna Erdélyi, József Gazda, Klára Gazda, Marcell Jankovics, Zoltán Kallós, Dénes Kiss, István Kiszely, István Kocsis, József Molnár V., Gábor Pap, György Szemadám, and Ottó Zombori. With the help of volunteers, they also set out to conduct ethnographic field research and archival work. Community-building and strengthening were key goals, and they organised camps and trips to Hungarian communities beyond the borders. They published historical, cultural-historical, and ethnographic books. Over the decades, however, the community’s internal dynamics diminished. The Community College still operates today, albeit with fewer programs, primarily in the form of exhibitions and lectures.
Regarding the organisational difficulties, Imre Harangozó commented: “The biggest problem in today’s world is that quality must constantly be accounted for by quantity.”
Harangozó’s other public service began in parallel with his work at the Community College in 1991. Together with his wife, Erzsébet Csortán, an early childhood educator, he founded a private kindergarten in Újkígyós. They accredited their developed educational program based on folk traditions. This initiative operated for ten years, initially as a private business, then for another five years under church administration. The deteriorating condition of the building and the declining number of preschool-age children led to the institution’s closure.
Imre Harangozó’s public involvement over the past four decades has included hundreds of scientific and popularising lectures, organising exhibitions, and serving as an ethnographic expert for television and radio programs. He regularly gives lectures across the Carpathian Basin at the request of civil organisations, churches, and cultural institutions. Since March 2017, he has been a regular speaker on the Heti néprajz (lit. Weekly Ethnography) series of the Kossuth Radio program Hajnal-Táj, which explores contemporary folk, religious, and festive traditions. He frequently gives interviews in national and local media, primarily on religious ethnography, and is often a guest on the Duna and Duna World channels, Hír7, and Csaba TV. He has also appeared on Kossuth Radio, Catholic Radio, Mária Radio, and Europa Radio. Harangozó was a featured expert in the series Hagyaték (lit. Legacy), which aired 74 episodes on public media channels and was produced by Dextramedia Kft.
He is a member of the Hungarian Ethnographical Society and the Lakatos Demeter Association. Since 2003, he has been the chairman of the Újkígyós Foundation for Public Welfare. Since 2021, he has been a public member, and since 2023, a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
6. The Art Collector
Imre Harangozó’s passion for collecting became evident at an early age: “A huge pit was dug to make bricks for a new house. The incredible ceramic pieces that were thrown into the pit from the attic of the old house – I actually mourned them! But what could a six-year-old do about it?” He collected his first ethnographic items – tools related to tobacco farming – from the attic of his grandparents’ house and set up a ‘small museum’ in the barn, where he cleaned and labelled the objects. At the age of ten, he started collecting old coins and medals, laying the foundation for his current numismatic collection. When he was 20, he obtained his first ‘rühzsírtartó’ (a type of container used by shepherds), which he traded for a radio tape recorder. The current relevance of certain ethnographic objects holds particular attraction for him as a collector.
Imre Harangozó’s ethnographic collection is currently a private collection. The over thirty years of collecting, which have resulted in tens of thousands of items, represent invaluable cultural heritage. The collection is mainly composed of wooden, textile, and ceramic objects from the 18th to the 20th century. The ceramic collection is characterised by Transylvanian plates, jugs from Baranya (a county in Hungary), holy water pitchers from Upper Hungary, and pottery from southern Hungarian craft centres. The wooden collection consists mainly of chests, washboards, mangles, and razor boxes, but it also includes notable items made from horn, especially the ‘rühzsírtartó’ cups. The largest part of the collection is textiles, which includes valuable pieces from the Great Plain, Partium, and various regions of Transylvania, with particularly notable items from Western Moldavia.
In his roughly twenty-thousand-volume specialised library, there are religious publications and prayer books of particular value. One of the most cherished items is a copy of Pál Péter Domokos’s A Moldvai Magyarság (lit. The Hungarians of Western Moldavia), third edition (1941), which the author dedicated to him in 1981, and Péter Halász adopted him as his son. Imre Harangozó’s connection with Péter Halász is not only professional but also personal, as they regard each other as ‘keresztkoma’ [familial bond created through the baptism ceremony].
In building his collection of artefacts, Harangozó prefers to purchase items from secondary ownership, maintaining objectivity in his acquisitions. He rarely buys directly from the primary users. He maintains regular business relations with Gypsy traders. The desire to own these objects has transformed into a true passion in his life. He personally cleans or arranges the restoration of these objects, forming a personal connection with them, and sometimes offers them for exchange.
His private collection is open for research, and various ethnographic topics are regularly processed by interested parties using his collection as source material. The documentation and cataloguing of the collection are still pending. A small but unique portion of this vast collection is available for public viewing in a permanent exhibition at the Ipolyi Arnold Community College in Újkígyós.
7. The Writer and Poet
Imre Harangozó’s interest in the humanities, particularly literature and history, became evident early on. Among his early attempts as a child and adolescent, he wrote an epic at the age of 13, inspired by János Arany, about the Battle of Nándorfehérvár. At the age of 14, he wrote a poem of mourning on the occasion of his grandfather’s death. In the early 1980s, he became involved with the Lombrágó rock band, composed of young people from Békéscsaba and Újkígyós, who regularly performed in the area. His involvement in their performances, which centred on progressive, high-quality rock music with a focus on lyrics, led to the inclusion of some of his own written texts in their programs. In 2018, his book Szabadlélek. Harminckét év versszerű szövegei (lit. Free Spirit. Thirty-Two Years of Poetic Writings) was published. His poems most often address the fateful questions of the historical homeland, written with a devout spirit. His poems and writings have been published in literary and cultural magazines, including Búvópatak, Székelyföld, Palócföld, and Polisz. During his public appearances, he regularly recites his own poetry and literary essays, alongside works of other authors. In recent years, he has repeatedly concluded his scientific and popularising lectures with a recitation of Lajos Magyari’s Lázár Mihály üzenete (lit. The Message of Mihály Lázár), which has become an emblematic conclusion to his talks.
At the end of the career profile of Imre Harangozó, let his own poem appear, titled Úton vagyok (lit. I Have Set Out), which was published as the introduction to the first volume of the Erdélyi Zsuzsanna Memorial Series in 2022:
“Útnak indultam
Útnak indultam vagy harmincöt éve,
Mert esendő és feledésre ítélt szavak csábítottak,
Hívogatott szúrágta nyereg és omló vakolat,
Rajta valami fakuló freskó-darab
Útnak indultam és úton vagyok,
És látom, hogy az útnak nem lesz egyhamar vége,
Csak, ha új színben pompázik a leomlott szent,
S arcáról ragyog majd a Teremtő Béke”
2014. augusztus 13.
“I Have Set Out
I have set out, some thirty-five years ago,
For words, fragile and doomed to be forgotten,
The gnawed saddle and crumbling plaster called to me,
On it, some faded piece of fresco.
I have set out, and I am on my way,
And I see that this road will not end soon,
Only when the fallen saint shines in new colours,
And His Peace will shine from His face.”
13 August 2014.
[2024]