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188 GÁBOR MÁTÉ about by the understanding of the difference between the perception and recognition of the landscape. The landscape has become a research topic in ethnography and cultural anthropology, for filled with cultural phenomena and the values ascribed to it, the landscape shows various patterns as a mediating medium. (On the limits of mapping groups and landscapes in Hungarian ethnography, see Máté 2019). Ethnic, religious, political and power relations and intentions cover a landscape like a subtle membrane. During an empirical study, an anthropologist not only reads, but much rather "hears" the diverse resonances of different groups in the landscape (“ us” and “ them”). Csaba Mészáros" study discusses the changes in the a/aas, the symbolic landscape of the Sakha in Yakutia and its connections to diverse age groups, political and economic contexts. In the taiga dominated by redwood, alaas is a meadow, hayfield or pond. Used earlier for cultivation, by today these places have acquired additional meanings, while they lost some of their significance. It was not only the local political elites which tried to attach this landscape to themselves as an ethnic symbol, using diverse power techniques. Its interpretation and use also reflect the ambivalence of their relationship with the Russians (Mészaros 2008). A change of perspectives can be witnessed in the work of Julie Cruikshank, who directed the focus of research to a lifeless natural element, the glacier. She presents the glaciers from a variety of possible and equivalent perspectives in her book. North American Indian (Athapaskan, Tlingit) groups describe the ice rivers as feeling and hearing “beings” who respond to the environment. Travelers write about them differently and natural scientists also approach them from a different angle. The ontological perspective of each group is different, but none of their interpretations can claim exclusive validity, for none can encompass the totality (Cruikshank 2005). The subjective attitude to, and evaluation of, a landscape can be found in Sandor Békési’s work about the Ferté. Békési wrote about the changing evaluation of the “Majestic mire” in different ages. From “anonymity” and a scorned place, it has risen to the status of a popular tourist destination and a carrier of natural values. At the same time, besides the touristic and aesthetic discourse, there was also a profit-oriented and technocratic conception of the landscape, and the attitudes were further diversified by the new border (drawn by the Treaty of Trianon) (Békési 2009: 201-202). The study also demonstrates that a landscape is not always the outcome of the “peaceful” symbiosis of human beings and nature; it is also the cumulative result of conflicts between rival social groups and powerful interference (Békési 2009: 186). By way of a conclusion, we contend that if the landscape is a “scholarly extract” of the “multi-rhythmic life of the world” and if we accept its hypothetical character, then the outcome of the research work depends largely on the window through which the phenomenon is observed, what light illumines the landscape for us to have a mental image of it. After all, the different scholarly disciplines, no matter how exact they may appear, recreate in their workshops the world which is manifested in matter or shaped by thoughts.
