Éva Pócs (born 1936) is a Hungarian

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

and

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

Education and academic career

Éva Pócs was born in 1936. She is the younger sister of botanist

Tamás Pócs Tamás Pócs (born 6 August 1933) is a Széchenyi Prize-winning Hungarian botanist, ecologist, and college professor, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include the taxonomy (biology), taxonomy and distribu ...

(born 1936). She began her career at the

Néprajzi Múzeum The Museum of Ethnography ( hu, Néprajzi Múzeum) is a national museum in Budapest, Hungary. History It was founded as the Ethnographic Department of the Hungarian National Museum in 1872. Its first director was John Xantus de Vesey. It form ...

where she was an intern between 1959 and 1960. On gaining her first degree in 1960 in Hungarian Folklore, Museology, and Secondary School Teaching from

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University ( hu, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, ELTE) is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in Hung ...

(ELTE), she joined the curatorial staff of the in

Szolnok Szolnok (; also known by other alternative names) is the county seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county in central Hungary. A city with county rights, it is located on the banks of the Tisza river, in the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, wh ...

. Between 1965 and 1968 Pócs worked as a graduate researcher (aspirantúra) in the Department of Folklore at ELTE. Following her studies at ELTE, Pócs joined the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...

(MTA Néprajzi Kutatóintézete), where she was a fellow between 1968 and 1989, and then as Head of department for the Institute of Ethnography from 1990 until she took partial retirement in 2001. She received her PhD degree in Ethnology (Folklore) in 1982 and her

DSc DSC may refer to: Academia * Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) * District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India * Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine Educational institutions * Dalton State Col ...

in 1998. During her time at MTA Néprajzi Kutatóintézete, Pócs also lectured for the

University of Szeged , mottoeng = Truth. Bravery. Freedom. , established = , type = Public research university , founder = Emperor Franz Joseph I , affiliation = European University Association, Science Without Borders, Confucius Institute , budget = US$220 m ...

between 1991 and 1999. Following her partial retirement in 2001, she continued to work as a senior research fellow at MTA Néprajzi Kutatóintézete. Between 1999 and 2007 she was Professor of Cultural Anthropology at

Janus Pannonius University In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus ( ; la, Ianvs ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Ja ...

(PTE) in

Pécs Pécs ( , ; hr, Pečuh; german: Fünfkirchen, ; also known by other #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the countr ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, and since 2008 she has been Professor Emeritus. Pócs has lectured at many European universities, including

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. She is an author of several books dealing with supernatural beliefs and patterns of communication in early modern Europe.

Awards

Pócs has received a number of awards and scholarships over her career. * 1972: Jankó János prize (Hungarian Ethnographic Society) * 1995: Pro Scientia prize and medal * 1995: István Györffy medal (Hungarian Ethnographic Society) * 1998: "Year of Outstanding Intellectual Creation" prize (University of Pécs) * 2000: Jenő Szűcs Prize (

Soros Foundation Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a st ...

) * 2002: Gyula Ortutay medal (Hungarian Ethnographic Society) * 2003: "Year of Outstanding Intellectual Creation" prize (University of Pécs) * 2004:

Herder Prize The Herder Prize (german: Gottfried-von-Herder-Preis), named after the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), was a prestigious international prize awarded every year from 1964 to 2006 to scholars and artists from Central and Sout ...

* 2009: Honorary membership of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) Pócs is a past president of the Folklore Section of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society^hu (a post currently held by Dániel Bárth).

Publications

Her publications in English include: *''Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-Eastern and Central Europe'' (1989) *'' Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age'' (1999) *(co-author) ''Communicating With The Spirits'' (2005) *(editor) ''Witchcraft, Mythologies and Persecution'', with Gabor Klaniczay. *(editor) ''Christian Demonology And Popular Mythology : Demons, Spirits, Witches'', with Gabor Klaniczay. ''Fairies and Witches'' was deemed an "important monograph" on the subject of the link between folklore on fairies and belief in witches, by

Hilda Ellis Davidson Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson (born Hilda Roderick Ellis; 1 October 1914 – 12 January 2006) was an English folklorist. She was a scholar at the University of Cambridge and The Folklore Society, and specialized in the study of Celtic and Ge ...

, especially as it covered the folklore in regions such as Hungary and Southwestern Europe whose language are "Europe not normally accessible" to many readers.

References

External links

Listing at the Hungarian Academy of Science

Hungarian Doctoral Council - Profile
* *
Works of Éva Pócs
in the Kriza János Ethnographic Society's Text Collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Pocs, Eva 1936 births Living people Hungarian anthropologists Hungarian ethnographers Hungarian women anthropologists Herder Prize recipients