Historical Hungary in the Carpathian Basin, the geographic center of Europe, has been receptive to influences coming from all directions, and it was characterized by complexity in the cultural-geographic sense. Numerous phenomena have had their northernmost or southernmost, easternmost or westernmost areas of distribution here. The overlapping distribution areas present a particularly dense structure and concurrence of certain phenomena. In many areas of folk culture, complex interactions and common cultural elements can be observed. The folk art of the various landscapes preserved and combined a number of historical, stylistic and ethnic influences. The regional and local variations of cultural elements preserved the imprints of many prior (European/Eurasian) historical, ethnic and stylistic influences as inclusions. Folk culture, while adopting European influences, preserved many oriental elements, which the nomadic ancestors of the Hungarians brought with them to the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries from the Proto-Turkic peoples of the Steppes. About 350 years after the Hungarian conquest, the oriental peoples (Cumanians and Jász) arriving on the Hungarian Great Plain with the last wave of steppe migration in the 13th century strengthened the survival of oriental elements in the medieval Hungarian kingdom. Some elements of this archaic knowledge and tangible heritage persisted for a long time in animal husbandry, horse culture (e.g., oriental saddle), warfare, leather processing (the so-called “Hungarian style” of hide tanning with alum), textiles, clothing, music and dance (leaping and instrumental dances), and in folklore. Some pre-Christian beliefs (e.g., táltos belief, dual soul belief) and certain folklore genres, such as nursery rhymes, dirges, ritual songs (e.g., regölés), or some folktale types and motifs (sky-high tree, Fehérlófia/Son of the White Mare) persisted until the 20th century. The basic melodic repertoire of the pentatonic Hungarian folk music is also a peculiar ethnic characteristic whose parallels should not be sought in the immediate European surroundings, but farther east, among the Steppe peoples and in Central Asia.Allow me to give you some more details in my presentation on the history of Hungarian Ethnography, on the scientific profile of our academic institute, on the Asia-related research and cooperation projects we have, and on the history, scientific ideas, and purposes behind the joint scientific journal we launched with the CASS Institute of Ethnic Literature.The structure of the Institute of Ethnology aptly represents the colorful traditions of the long-established discipline of Hungarian ethnographic and folklore studies.Disciplined ethnographic description and interest in folklore studies reach back to the first decades of the 19th century in Hungary. From the second half of the 19th century, there was an increasing amount of scholarly attention directed at peasant culture. Hungary is also in an exceptional position in that here, in Central and Eastern Europe, near Germany, on a strong positivist basis and amidst the so-called Volkskunde-type (studying one’s own culture) national sciences, ethnography, musicology and museology have been institutionalized quite early, in the second half of the 19th century. This scholarship looking back on at least 130-150 years of history began, and continued for many decades, at a time when folk culture still functioned as an organic whole, as a system, and the phenomena could still be observed. Institutionalization of the discipline occurred early on and in congruence with the main wave of the rise of European ethnography and anthropology. The Hungarian Ethnographical Society was established in 1889 and is one of the oldest continuously functioning scientific societies in Europe. The periodical of the association, the Ethnographia, has been continuously published since 1890. Systematic ethnographic museology dates back to the 1890s, along with the birth of ethno-musicology of the grand generation of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. The pre-World-War I kingdom of Hungary had a multi-ethnic population with 50% Hungarian and 50% non-Hungarian inhabitants, among which at least 22 co-habiting ethnicities constituted various social, religious and regional sub-groups. From the very beginning, Hungarian scholarship, in line with the makeup of the country, developed a keen interest in inter-ethnic studies and avoided ethno-centric focus. Besides the Central-European (the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy before 1920) focus, Hungarian scholars were motivated to study the origins and migrations of the nomadic ancestors of the Hungarians, which from the last decades of the 18th century has led them to a wide range of research areas from the Volga region to Siberia, from the Urals to the Altai, from the Caucasus to China or Mongolia. The ambition to trace the Hungarian language, culture and kin-folks cultivated an ethnology based on comparative methods and also enriched museum collections with invaluable objects and data, such as the unique shamanism collection of Vilmos Diószegi. The more than 120 years of research brought together rich collections and archives. The archived knowledge that captured the peasant life, the exemplarily documented, organized and analyzed object, image, sound and film collections are exceptionally rich even in international comparison. There have been internationally recognized achievements in certain fields, such as the folk music research conducted by Béla Vikár, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, László Lajtha and their students, the folk dance research hallmarked by György Martin, the folkloristic personality research connected to Gyula Ortutay and his disciples, the exploration of the world of complex object groups defined by Edit Fél and Tamás Hofer (e.g., monographs about the Reformed village of Átány), or the study of the history of objects and ethnographic museology. The amount of material collected is also outstanding.The Museum of Ethnography in Budapest owns the largest textile collection in Europe, the second largest ceramics collection in the world, and its Papua New Guinea collection competes with that of the British Museum. The Open-Air Ethnographic Museum in Szentendre is one of the leading skanzens of Europe, not only in its size and number of buildings but also in its fresh, flexible methodology and ambitious development plan. Generations of ethno-musicologists recorded, transcribed, analyzed and systematized hundreds of thousands of tunes, the richest ever-collected musical tradition of people. In the last 70 years, they worked hand-in-hand with ethno-choreologists and dance ethnologists, collecting the enormously rich dance material of the Carpathian basin’s multiethnic dance traditions. The volume of the Hungarian vocal and instrumental music repertoire systematically arranged by melodic type (with about 300,000 collected and 150,000 recorded melodies) is also globally unique.In parallel with scholarly interest, folk art has also been the focus of art and public interest from time to time. The discovery of folk art was an important inspiration in the creation of a national culture. The phenomena of “folklorism” are specific products of the convergence of “rurality” and “urbanity,” which indicate the way in which the middle and upper layers of non-peasant society have created an image of the peasantry and its culture that is significantly different from theirs. In the course of building a nation and creating a modern ethno-national culture in the 19-20th centuries, some of the elements of the newly discovered peasant art, hitherto terra incognita, were selected, adapted, stylized and incorporated into the inventory of national culture. The newly contextualized, reinterpreted motif/form/theme/subjet received a specific added meaning, symbolic content, and became part of the expression of the national self-image. The image of the countryside sought after and presented by the elite, by artists, scholars and tourists, and the market processes that emerged due to such interest had repercussions in the society of the communities that created the culture, shaping their art and home craft industry.The HAS RCH Institute of Ethnology is the core institution of Hungarian ethnography, the workplace for the largest number of qualified ethnographic researchers. (Out of the 45 research fellows 42 have PhD degree.) Staff members cooperate with domestic and foreign academic institutions, initiate joint projects, contribute to the operation of the institutional setup of domestic ethnography, to the management of professional bodies, scientific qualification procedures, and undergraduate and post-graduate training in the scientific field. Manuals and book series, a regular annual yearbook of the institute called Ethno-Lore, as well as regular academic events provide the ground for discussing and publishing new research findings. All of the above enable this academic organisation to produce great comprehensive summaries of the field under its auspices. This considerable scientific potential - indispensable for great professional endeavours - also represents a competitive capacity on the international level among leading foreign institutions within the discipline. Ethnographic research has an outreach dimension, plays a key role in determining intangible cultural heritage, developing national, regional and local identities, and in making vernacular culture a cornerstone and building block of modern national and global culture.The Institute of Ethnology was founded by the order of the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on 1 January 1967. The institute became a member of a network of institutions created for the purposes of concentrated research by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It was intended to establish better conditions for the development of ethnology, ethnography and folklore in Hungary and to define the scope of the discipline. It was agreed that the institute should deal with the society, lifestyle, material culture and folklore of the Hungarian people in ethnic, historical and social dimensions and with regard to the wider European and Eurasian context. Both the rapid transformation of the contemporary agrarian society and the general trends of social evolution were to be studied using this approach. The new institute was to conduct and coordinate all research in Hungary with these purposes. Missions included the publication of results, participation in international research, and representation of Hungarian ethnography in international organizations.The historical approach of studying culture - material culture in particular - was developed and accompanied by a focus on the socio-economic context. Some coordination of research was carried out by the Ethnographic Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Hungarian ethnography and folklore were thus able to maintain their international relations.Initially, the institute included a Department of Material Culture and a Department of Folklore. The setup was completed by the establishment of the Department of Social Anthropology in 1969. With these divisions, the institute was able to cover all the fields of ethnography. Some rearrangements took place in the 1980s to reflect the changes, growth and shifts of interest in research. The Department of Material Culture was renamed the Department of Historical Ethnography (1982). A Department of Non-European Studies was also set up (1986). The institute as a whole has maintained its efforts to carry out research in all fields of the discipline.The institute has been integrated into the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 2012. It has four departments:Department of Social AnthropologyDepartment of Historical AnthropologyDepartment of FolkloreDepartment of Non-European StudiesThe Archives and the Library are collections in the public domain.Important key objective of HAS RCH Institute of Ethnology is: Tradition and modernisation, cultural conditioning and ideologies, religious features, perception of land and environment - field studies and ethnological studies in Siberia and in Central and South-East Asia.In the frame of this commitment, one of the priority research projects of the Institute of Ethnology is the Digitization and preservation of rare historical sources on Mongolia written in the 19th and early 20th centuries (British Library 2017-2019). The aim of the proposed programme is the digitization of more than 3000 rare, unpublished and endangered historical documents kept in the Mongolian Academy of Sciences (MAS), the National Library of Mongolia, and in private collections. The documents were written mostly in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. The majority of them are type-written documents in Uyghur Mongolian script, but manuscripts and reports of foreign researchers are also available. The main purpose of the project is to preserve these materials and make them accessible to academia internationally.Another important research project is The Political and Societal Role of Mongolian Chief Lamas and Their Church from the Beginning until Today - OTKA grant project (2014-2018). The aim of the research programme is to process the history of Mongolian Buddhism from the date of its becoming the major religion until today, using modern research methods and new findings. Studying and summarising the history and role of Buddhism in Mongolian society shows how Buddhism has initially become the mainstream religion among the nomads of Inner Asia and then gradually a factor organising the state. And, with the study of its current role, it can be revealed how the church behaves in the contemporary modernisation conflicts based on the historical tradition associated with it, and what role it plays and has played in the development of the modern Mongolian state and society.Besides the extended field research in Hungary and in the Carpathian Basin, let me mention the Fields of the ethnology research projects.The length of the fieldwork and the long-term isolation of the researcher in the case of non-European ethnological research projects frequently result in the field becoming home to the scholar in question. Sometimes intimate friendships formed between the researchers and the research subjects in the field which has become home to the researchers.Domestic research of ethnology has always been strongly oriented towards the ancient history of the Hungarians. This orientation created Orientalist interests in ethnography, which has been inherited and continued by the institute. Key research areas - such as the Eastern foreground of the Ural Mountain, the Caucasus, South Siberia, Inner Asia, China - have occupied a central position in the national ethnographic interest for almost two centuries.Beside this strongly marked direction, our institute also explored realms less known in domestic ethnographic research: our scientists conducted fieldwork research projects in East Africa, Vietnam, the United States of America, North-East Siberia and Korea. In the course of these efforts, researchers made serious attempts to abandon the approach in which the culture and society of a community was only seen in the light of the early Oriental connections of the Hungarians.The collective of the institute held a two-day workshop in 2016 and 2017 on the topic of fieldwork, the central concept and fundamental principle of ethnography, ethnology and cultural anthropology. Lectures of these meetings were developed into essays and published in the 2016 and 2017 volumes of the institute’s yearbook, Ethno-Lore.The institute has cooperation projects in place within the framework of bilateral agreements with the academic institutions and research workshops of eight different countries: China, Bulgaria, Poland, Mongolia, Russia-Yakutia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.The purpose of the Khi-Land project called Landscape Archaeological and Historical Research Studies in the Northern Borderland of the Khitan Liao Empire is to learn about the fortified settlements of Mongolia and their surroundings with the application of non-destructive archaeological procedures and the research methodology of landscape archaeology. The project is a joint programme organised by the HAS Research Centre for the Humanities and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences Institute of History and Archaeology, in which a key role is played by a Senior Research Fellow of our institute, Zsolt Szilágyi.The institute publishes the journal Studies on Cultures Along the Silk Road in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Humanities Institute of Minority Literatures.The New Silk Road (the Belt and Road Initiative, BRI), which was announced in 2013, links the Far East with Central Asia and Europe not only economically but also culturally. The planned new routes, the railway network, and the fiber optic digital communication will bring these cultures even closer together. Our goal is to maintain a close scientific collaboration, establish a modern connection as tight as these fiber optic cables represent.Created in the spirit of the Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative is built specifically and explicitly upon the mutual acceptance of one another. As President Xin Jinping put it, everyone has the right to their own social organization, their own culture, their own scientific thinking, their own values. We must accept each other the way we are, and connect these countries, connect peoples and economies. In terms of economic goals, this large-scale project is about to create conditions for navigation, construct railways, airports, develope road networks, construct bridges, and in general, connect the peoples along the old Silk Road.One hundred years ago, it took months, even years, to reach a remote area in order to get to know the people there and their culture, but today such a journey takes only a few hours, sometimes even just minutes. However, this speed can also make us superficial. To truly understand each other, it is important that we develop scientific cooperation and communication.The Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and especially the Institute of Ethnology at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the HAS, have done a great deal to bring these distant cultures closer together, particularly as the oriental roots of the Hungarians are indisputable. Since the establishment of our institute, many have studied oriental cultures, as evidenced by the work of Vilmos Diószegi and others. In recent decades, there has been a close scientific collaboration between the HAS and the Chinese Academy of Social Science and the Institute of Ethnic Literature. This is demonstrated by annual fieldwork, exchanges of researchers, joint publications and a joint journal.It would be great if more researchers would come to Hungary for an extended research program. Folklore research is of paramount importance to us, as it is in the Institute of Ethnic Literature. In addition, the work of our Ethnological Research Group focuses on Asia and especially China, along with the bordering regions of Inner Asia.The collections of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (such as the Library) hold an unmatched database that should be researched locally. We will provide all the assistance in this.We would also like to assume a significant role in the work of the CASS Silk Road Cultural Research Center. We would like to make our scientific relationships closer not only with the Institute of Ethnic Literature but also with the National Institute of International Strategy and other CASS institutions.Today, in a broader sense, the term Silk Road is understood as the entirety of land and sea trade routes connecting the Far East with Europe, which have retained their significance as a cultural mediator up until the spread of railway lines and steamships.The cultural aspects of the Silk Road, the dynamics of the connections between the Far East and Europe, have been placed in other contexts in modern times. Mutual interest has become typical in the field of social and cultural sciences. The opportunity to learn from each other, the desire to exchange research experiences and scientific achievements was the impetus behind establishing the journal Studies on Cultures along the Silk Road. The backdrop of the journal’s creation was the fact that the Institute of Ethnic Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has maintained excellent research relations with the Institute of Ethnology at the Research Center for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Our ethnographic examination of non-European cultures and societies has been strong in the international context, and our institute is home to the only such workshop in Hungary. Due to Hungarian prehistory and other aspects in our scientific history, our ethnological research has mainly focused on Asia. Our scientific relations with China, Mongolia, Russia (Yakutia), with the countries of Inner Asia, but also Vietnam and Japan have greatly intensified. In addition to their scientific studies, our researchers also support and mediate other kinds of cultural and diplomatic relations through their contacts and language proficiency - they are the modern-day travellers of the cultural and scientific caravan on the 21st century modern Silk Road. The common aspiration of the Chinese and Hungarian Academy of Sciences is for the journal to reflect the cultural diversity that characterizes the countries of the Silk Road. The great Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, said: The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Just like the first step on the thousands of kilometers long Silk Road required the greatest determination, so was the first step in our initiative, the first issue of the journal, preceded by great preparations. However, all that goodwill and commitment has paid off: our journey on the 21st century scientific caravan route has commenced - we published the first issue of Studies on Cultures along the Silk Road. May the Spirit of the Silk Road - with respect for each other’s cultures - accompany our mission.