Éva Schmidt's biography

She began her university studies in 1967 at the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University, where she acquired a degree in English, ethnography and Finno-Ugric studies in 1973. In the meantime, she spent two academic years in Leningrad with a state scholarship from the autumn of 1969. The official site of her studies was the Finno-Ugric Department of the Leningrad university, but she also attended Mansi and Khanty classes at the Institute for Northern Peoples operating at the Herzen Pedagogical College. She befriended Ob-Ugric students studying there, and through talking to them, she acquired conversation skills in several Khanty dialects. In addition, she frequently consulted Nikolaj Ivanovič Terëskin, a linguist of Khanty origin and researcher at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

In January 1970, she near-miraculously managed to get to Western Siberia. In Soviet times, foreign researchers could only meet language relatives at large university and academy centers, they could not travel to the field. However, as a scholarship student, Éva Schmidt could slip through amidst the boundary poles, and she spent the winter holidays by the Ob river, in Tugijani village, with the family of a fellow student. This Ob Khanty family also adopted her as a daughter, and the first village she visited became a permanent reference point, the center of the Ob-Ugric world for Éva Schmidt. This was when she collected her first materials in the field. In the following year, she managed to return to Siberia, this time to Khanty-Mansijsk. In the meantime, she aimed to read all the materials in Ob-Ugric subjects and in Khanty language. Based on her knowledge of the literature and her firsthand experiences, she prepared her thesis for the Finno-Ugric major (The reflection of language development and language innovation in the literary language of the Middle Ob and Kazym dalects). This work undoubtedly exceeded the level of an average thesis.

In the mid-1980s, together with the ethnographic researcher , Éva Schmidt outlined the plan of an ethnic education and documentation center to be founded on the Khanty language territory. The plan was realized much later, in the early 1990s, as a result of favorable political changes and Éva Schmidt’s persistent work. The Northern Khanty Folklore Archive was created in Belojarskij, an industrial town in Lower Kazym, with Hungarian and local funding. After the difficulties of the initial years, actual work started at the institution in 1995. Five more archives were soon created all over the Ob region, in order to save the dialects and traditions on the verge of vanishing. The Belojarskij institution received substantial support from Hungarian government organizations, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Hungarian and Russian private companies from the time of its founding. Donations were collected and forwarded to their destination personally by Éva Schmidt, once each year when she returned home for her winter holiday. On these occasions, she held numerous talks on the state of the Ob-Ugric languages and culture. She also presented regular written reports about the work completed and her academic plans.

The profile of the folklore archive encompasses everything that is related to Khanty culture. This includes the organization and documentation of community celebrations (bear ceremony, offering ceremonies), field collections (in addition to folklore materials, collecting any kind of ethnographic, genealogical, local history and linguistic information), database collection and archiving. Edited, subtitled audiovisual materials were also made for educational purposes and upon the request of the local and regional radio and television broadcasters. Éva Schmidt taught her colleagues the use of technical equipment, and to type the texts into the computer in diacritic cyrillic script. Some of the materials were also translated into Russian. The building of an amateur collectors’ network began among people interested in tradition, and professional guidance in this field was also the responsibility of the archive. The education of middle and young generations who broke away from traditions also began. Several of them relearned the method of prose storytelling and creating personal songs, as well as some parts of the bear ceremony repertoire – these were also performed at the community events. It may seem to be a minor detail, but it is actually a significant fact that the working language of the archive was Khanty – it was almost the only workplace in the wide Ob region where employees could use their mother tongue.

In order to establish formal Khanty philology, Éva Schmidt made contracts with different local academic institutions, and following sufficient fieldwork, she transcribed the hero songs collected by Reguly and Pápay in diacritic cyrillic script, added comments in Khanty and had them read to video. She added detailed indexes to 19th century collections, from which late descendants could gather information about the kinds of songs and stories that would be told in their village a hundred years before. She also spread the new collections among the relatives. She translated hero songs from Mansi to Khanty language when necessary, contributing to the revival of the cult of certain idol spirits and the strengthening of a sense of Ob-Ugric identity. She went on collection trips each summer. She survived many adventures and vicissitudes while she reached the last representatives of dialects on the verge of extinction in a boat or on foot, on trackless roads. Old people recognised in her the person who treats their intellectual treasures with due respect, and so they opened up and entrusted her with their heritage.

Éva Schmidt, who dealt with oral tradition as a folklorist, also lived her academic life in the spoken word: she casually drew out the overwhelming amount of knowledge accumulated in her mind at any time. She held conference talks in Hungarian, Russian, English or Khanty with impressive confidence. As an expert and consultant, she selflessly shared her knowledge with anyone, translated texts sparing no effort or time, whether it was a folk poetry anthology, a scientific TV or radio show for the public, or an ethnographic documentary.