Frantisek Rehor In 1999 we are marking the centenary of the death of a man whose name is today known to only a small group of scholars; and yet, in his own time, in the 19th century, he was instrumental in familiarizing the Czech public at large with the life and culture of the Ukrainian population of eastern Galicia. His manifold activities earned him the repute of a moving spirit behind the development of Czecho-Ukrainian relations in the 1880s and ´90s. František Rehor was born in the village of Stezery near Hradec Králové, in eastern Bohemia, on 16 December, 1857. It was also in Hradec Králové that he completed his secondary-school studies. At the age of twenty he moved with his parents to eastern Galicia (in the west of the present-day Ukraine) which was then, like his native Bohemian Countries, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father leased a farm there, at Volkov near Lvov. While helping his parents to look after the farm, František keenly observed the local scene. Apart from the language, which he readily learned, he was interested in the spiritual and material culture of the inhabitants of eastern Galicia, above all of the Ukrainians, who were then referred to as Ruthenes. He travelled extensively in the regions of Lvov, Kolomyje, Pokutie and Podolie, studying the life of the autochthonous Ukrainian ethnic groups - Hutsuls, Bojkas, Lemkas and Ruthenes - as well as of the local Jews. The fact that Rehor spent almost 15 years of his life in Galicia enabled him not only to become assimilated with the local population, but also to obtain a thorough knowledge of every aspect of their life. Rehor´s formidable observing talent, coupled with dilligence and steadfastness with which he recorded and subsequently published his findings, offered the Czech public a rare opportunity to get to know lands and peoples about which Czech media of the time furnished only sporadic information. Not only was Rehor an excellent observer; his active interest in Ukrainian culture and his contacts with prominent Ukrainian intellectuals also significantly contributed to a process in which Czechs and Ukrainians increased their knowledge of each other. Among other things, he initiated and co-organized tours of several hundred Ukrainians from Galicia to the Prague Jubilee Exhibition of 1891, and subsequently, to the Bohemo-Slavic Ethnographic Exhibition of 1895. František Rehor´s work was characterized by precision and a systematic approach in the pursuit of his goal of drawing up a comprehensive survey of eastern Galician folk culture. However, frail health and untimely death prevented him from seeing the fulfilment of his aspirations. Even so, he left behind a body of articles and essays whose complete list would cover many pages. He was a regular contributor to numerous periodicals, including notably Svetozor, Zlatá Praha, Osveta, Kvety, Národní listy, Hlas Národa, Slovanský sborník, Casopis ceského musea, Lumír, Vesna, Zábavní listy, and many others. In their pages, he published articles on various geographical and general ethnographic subjects, such as Horstvo, vodstvo a podnebí rusínské Halice (The Mountains, Waters and Climate of the Ruthenian Galicia, 1883); Procházka rusínskou vesnicí (A Walk around a Ruthenian Village, 1884); Pokutí (1887); Z cest po halicské Rusi (Travels in the Galician Ruthenia, 1894); Ze Zarohyzna do Stanislavova (From Zarohyzno to Stanislavovo, 1897); and dozens of others. In his writings, Rehor would very often deal with traditional rites and customs, as documented by such essays as, for instance, Z hajilek rusínských devcat (Rutnenian Girls´ Lullabys, 1889); and Kalendárík z národního zivota Bojkuv. Príspevek k rusínskému národopisu halických Karpat (A Pocket Calendar from the National Life of the Boikas. Contribution to the Ruthenian Ethnography of the Galician Carpathians, 1895); and with family rituals, as in Rusínské námluvy v Halici (The Ruthenian Courting Ritual in Galicia, 1888); Zasnoubení a ohlášky u Rusínu (The Engagement and Banns of the Ruthenians in Galicia, 1891); Rusínská svatba z okolí Lvova (Ruthenian Wedding Ceremony in the Region of Lvov, 1895); Svatba Lemku v Karpatech (The Wedding Ceremony among the Carpathian Lemkas, 1897); and Na rusínských krtinách (The Ruthenian Baptism Ceremony, 1887). Rehor´s interest was not limited to strictly ethnographic material, as is evidenced e.g. by his extensive collection entitled Z ethnografického prírodopisu Halicské Rusi (An Ethnographic Survey of the Natural History of Galician Ruthenia, 1889), dealing with names of birds in the province´s various dialects and their applications in a wide variety of folk art genres; or by the article, Mosaika z lidových podání halicko-rusínských (A Mosaic of Folk Expressions of the Galician Ruthenes, 1894). Rehor´s detailed first-hand knowledge of the field of his work found its way into the corresponding entries which he contributed to the authoritative Czech encyclopaedia of the time, Otto´s Thesaurus. Its editors put him in charge of supplying the encyclopaedia´s entire section on the eastern Galicia part of Ukraine, which Rehor duly covered with over 100 exhaustive entries encompassing the region´s history, local geography, and traditional culture. In 1890 Rehor moved back to Bohemia. After a stay in the town of Roznov pod Radhoštem, and subsequently in his birthplace, Stezery, he once again returned to Galicia, where he spent two years, from 1891 - 1893, with his sister´s family near Zidaczov. Dating from that period is the largest part of his collection of photographs. In November 1893 Rehor settled permanently in Prague, where he obtained, with the assistance of Vojta Náprstek, a job at the Municipal Library. Modest though his salary was, he managed to save enough money not only to carry on his field research in Galicia, but also to buy books and build up a collection. To be sure, for all of his travels he received financial support from the Náprsteks, a form of patronage which he returned in kind, by handing over most of his collections to their museum. This is documented among other things by Rehor´s letter to a friend, the Ukrainian author Ivan Franko, of 22 January, 1894, saying: "Whenever, torn by discontent, I found myself most out of tune and sorrow rattles within my surprisingly small heart, I get up and go to see the Náprsteks." Hard of hearing and suffering from grave lung disease, František Rehor died prematurely at the age of 42, in Prague, on 6 October, 1899. He left behind a legacy consisting of not only articles and essays, but also a large body of archival material (currently kept by the Literary Archives of the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague), and two extensive collections of books. He bequeathed several hundred Czech books to Prosvita cultural society in Lvov, and several hundred Ukrainian volumes to the library of Prague´s Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Apart from written documentary material from Galicia, however, František Rehor had brought and sent to this country huge quantities of three-dimensional objects, including folk household articles, clothes, jewellery, glassware, ceramics, metal artifacts, weapons, woodwork, toys, Easter eggs, and implements used in folk magic and healing practices. He collected and purchased these items, subsequently sending them all to the Náprstek Museum, where his endeavours contributed the essential share in the building of a comprehensive permanent exhibition documenting the life of the Ruthenian Ukrainian people of eastern Galicia. Today, this unique collection is deposited at the Ethnography Department of the National Museum, along with items which Rehor collected and sent to the Náprsteks during his stay in the town of Roznov, while undergoing medical treatment there. The Náprstek Museum has preserved to this day part of Rehor´s correspondence sent to the Náprsteks, and above all, a unique collection of photographs. He bought some of them, but the majority are of his own making. Rehor documented and in 1880 sent to Prague a series of 137 pictures taken by photographer J. Dutkiewicz from the town of Kolomya. These feature a gallery of types illustrating the province´s various ethnic groups, regions, occupations and social classes, with traditional costumes and accessories. Even though these are mostly studio portraits, they do provide eloquent documentary evidence of the region´s wealth and diversity. For their part, a good many of the 553 photos taken by Rehor himself clearly betray an amateur photographer. That notwithstanding, they cover a wide range of genres. In 1897 custodian of the Náprstek Library S. Kodym compiled a catalogue of this photograph collection, dividing it into thematic sections including "buildings; cemeteries -chapels - columns and crosses; miscellaneous rural facilities; marketplace; field and farm work; various occupations and equipment; occasional scenes; distractions and games of youth and children; costumes: types and localities." A keen observer, Rehor was capable of capturing in his photographs the immediacy and inimitability of each moment thus documented. His photographs are pasted on cardboard and are more often than not accompanied by detailed descriptions, occasionally including a sketch on the back side. Anyhow, the collection´s uniqueness stems not solely from its textual accompaniment; it is due to an equal degree to its age, its finely preserved condition, and of course the fact that it documents life in a part of Europe which has since gone through long periods of misfortune resulting in huge and irretrievable losses of ethnographic material. Thus Rehor´s collection can still today serve as a valid source of information for ethnographers and anthropologists, as well as attesting to 19th-century technological achievement in general and the period photographic reproduction techniques in particular. Above all, though, it is a tangible memento of many years of hard work carried out by a man whose name ought to be remembered even beyond the narrow context of anniversary celebrations.
Milena Secká, PhD
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