G=?iso-8859-1?Q?=E1bor_?=Bereczki in memoriam

[Johanna Laakso]

Dear Colleagues,

just reported by László Honti: Gábor Bereczki, professor emeritus and one of the Grand Old Men of Finno-Ugrian studies in Hungary, passed away this morning, shortly after his 84th birthday.

Gábor Bereczki, born in Békés on March 28, 1928, studied in Budapest, Bucharest and Leningrad; in Leningrad he defended his candidate's dissertation on the Finno-Ugric elements in the Mari language and also worked for some time. He also had close contacts to Estonia and the University of Tartu; perhaps most of his productive years, however, he spent in Budapest, where he taught at the ELTE university, leading the Finno-Ugric department from 1973 to 1986. From 1986 to 1997 he was Professor of Finno-Ugric studies at the University of Udine, Italy; after his retirement he spent most of his time in his "second homeland" Estonia.

Gábor Bereczki was one of the leading experts of the Mari language, which he knew profoundly not only theoretically but also from his long periods of fieldwork among the Mari. Beside linguistic fieldwork, he also recorded the folklore of the Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples of the Volga region together with the ethnomusicologist Béla Vikár. Bereczki had a wide and deep knowledge of and interest in language contact phenomena, also in historical settings, and his ideas of (pre)historical language contacts in the Volga region will continue to inspire future generations of historical and contact linguists. He was also a man of literary talent; he translated numerous classics of Estonian and Finnish literature into Hungarian, and his memoirs of his fieldwork trips, "A Névától az Urálig" (1994), full of esprit and humor, are a must-read for all Finno-Ugrists.

In my student days in the 1980s, I was fortunate to learn to know Gábor Bereczki as a teacher and learn to appreciate not only his profound expertise but also his amicable personality and great sense of humour. I am sure that the whole URA-LIST community joins in my most sincere condolences to his family and all his friends, colleagues and former students who now miss this great Finno-Ugrist.

Johanna Laakso 
--
Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso
Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)
Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7
A-1090 Wien
johanna.laakso at univie.ac.at • http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/
Project ELDIA: http://www.eldia-project.org/ 




Välitetty viesti alkaa:

> 
> Kedves Kollégák!
> 
> Most kaptam a hírt, hogy Bereczki Gábor ma hajnalban meghalt nem sokkal 84. életévének betöltését követ‘en (1928. március 24-én született).
> 
> Honti László

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