Tatars and Turks in the Museum of Ethnography

The Europe-collection of the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest contains around 600 objects collected in Bulgaria. More than half of these were completely unrecorded until 2023, except for the fact that most of them were collected from Tatars and a few Turkish objects. In 2022-2023 we started to process this collection with Vivien Zatykó. 55 objects registered as Tatar women's shawls were known to be collected by István Györffy. The remaining 300 or so shawls were later transferred to the Museum of Ethnography in 1926, after the dissolution of the Oriental Academy and its associated Oriental Museum, but were not inventoried until much later, in 1965-68, so a great deal of information about them had been lost by then.

During the archival data collection, 450 photographs, also taken by Györffy, came to our attention a decade and a half after the objects were collected. The photographs were inventoried later, at the same time as the objects, and so they too remain undocumented.

During our trips to Bulgaria (2023, 2024, 2025), we wanted to clarify the circumstances of the material collections, their history, and how they are interpreted and framed by the members of the community of origin. We wanted the artefacts and photographs to be able to speak in the voices of our Tatar and Turkish partners in the land of their origin. Our fieldwork focused on their narratives, from which we can draw a cross-section of the history of the objects and photographs.  

During our research we also tried to uncover István Györffy's motivations and his research in Bulgaria. Györffy's interest in ethnic groups of Turkish origin stemmed from personal motivation. Györffy was born in Karcag (Hungary), the "capital" of Kunság, whose folk culture was distinctly influenced by the Kun population, which had been settled there in the 13th century. He sought parallels to the Hungarian Kun heritage in the Tatar communities along the Danube and in the surrounding multi-ethnic areas, and as a result of this work he published a number of writings on farming, animal husbandry, architecture and traditional costume. In these he meticulously pointed out elements of oriental origin, and his sources were largely drawn from his experiences in Dobruja and Deliorman.  

One of our objectives was to make our collections visible and accessible to the resource community in some way. The first step was a travelling exhibition of objects and photographs from the places of origin of our fieldwork in the Tatar and Turkic communities of north-eastern Bulgaria, in southern Dobruja and in the mainly Turkic Deliormán.

The charts present the stages and results of this research so far.  

The first stop of the travelling exhibition is Vetovo, which is now the home of one of the largest Tatar communities in Bulgaria, and we have visited it several times. It is also home to a significant Turkish community. The day we'd chosen for the presentation is a special one for the Tatars. This particular date is  the 18th of May, a day that combines several important events and celebrations in their culture. On the other hand, 18 May commemorates the hundreds of thousands of Tatars deported from Crimea, as the ancestors of the Tatars living here came to Bulgaria from Crimea in the second half of the 19th century. The deportations also affected the relatives of the families living here, as the descendants are still accounted and Crimea is considered a kind of ancestral homeland.

The occasion come together at the Tepres Festival, which will take place from 16-18 May 2025.

The exhibition will also travel to other locations, in Ruse, Glodzevo, Carev brod, Sumen, Razgrad, Dobrich and further venues are also under organization.

Author: Gabriella Paréj

muzeológus

Európa-gyűjtemény