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Obituary: Tibor Bodrogi 
Éva V. Huseby-Darvas, University of Michigan  

 

Tibor Bodrogi, Director of the Ethnographic Research Institute of the Hungarian 

Academy of Sciences, and Professor of Ethnography at Eötvös Lóránt Tudományegyetem 

(ELTE), Budapest, and at Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetem (KLTE) Debrecen, died in Budapest 

on March 6, 1986, at the age of 62. A man of prodiglous activity and accomplishment, Bodrogi 

earned his doctorate in ethnography and archaeology at ELTE in Budapest. He later became 

museologist, then Director of the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum (1961-1968). Bodrogi 

translated to Hungarian numerous Western classics in anthropology (among others, Morgan, 

Frazer, and Birket-Smith) and conducted extensive ethnographic field research in Indonesia, 

New Guinea, and Oceania. During the early 1970s, he directed the first social anthropological 

team research project in Hungary, then edited and introduced the resulting study. (See Bodrogi, 

editor, Varsány: Studies For the Social Ethnography of a Northern Hungarian Village, 

Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978. Unfortunately published only in Hungarian, many of his 

major studies, particularly those exploring the relationship between society and folk art (Art of 

Northeast New Guinea, 1961; The Art of Oceania, 1959; The Art of Africa, 1967, 1968, 1969; 

The Art of Indonesia, 1971; The Birth of Societies, 1962; The Development of Crafts, 1961) were 

published in Hungarian, Romanian and, by Western publishing houses, in English, French, 

German, Italian, and Dutch. Bodrogi was Vice-President of the Hungarian Ethnographic 

Association, and member of a number of other Hungarian and international professional 

associations including the Council of Folkart in Hungary, the Societ'e des Oceanistes, the Pacific 

Arts Association, and the Societe Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore. Readers of the 

Newsletter are likely to remember him most fondly in his role as generous host. He consistently 

provided official support and personal kindness for the many of us who have visited Hungary. 

We thank him and we remember him.  

 


	Obituary: Tibor Bodrogi