Charles Kunszt

* Bonyhád, October 1, 1859 – † Pozsonyligetfalu, March 24, 1939 / ornithologist, Somorja cantor teacher ; ; He lost his mother when he was two years old. He began his studies at the elementary school of his native village, and then attended the local gymnasium for four years. Since he did not want to work in his father's uniform-making tailoring workshop, he took a job as a répétiteur for the children of General Mór Perczell in 1848 and with the income he earned, he graduated from the Evangelical Teacher Training College in Felsőlövő. Already as a student, he recognized birds not only by their appearance but also by their voice, and learned how to prepare and stuff birds and small mammals. After graduating from the teacher training college, he began his teaching career in Bácsfeketehegy in 1878. In 1880, he was sent to Somorja as a cantor teacher and taught there for 43 years. His wife, Paula Róth, was also from Bonyhád, and they had eight children. The versatile cantor teacher's taxidermy skills soon became famous, and animals intended for preparation were brought to his workshop from the surrounding area. János Lőrincz, a tinsmith from Somorja, also became his assistant, and he continued this activity for a while after Károly Kunszt moved away. Kunszt was also a passionate collector and hunter, and soon came into contact with the most prominent Hungarian ornithologists and hunters of the time. He also accepted foreign orders to supplement his modest teaching salary, so his name became known in Germany, but in many schools in the country, the birds and small mammals found in our country were illustrated in natural history lessons on the animals stuffed in his workshop. Although he conducted his ornithological and zoological observations as an amateur, professional researchers learned a lot from his observations and reports, and highly valued his selfless help. He became involved in the nutritional biology of birds, sending the stomach and beak contents of twenty species to the prominent ornithologist of the time, István Chernel (1865–1922). He regularly monitored bird migrations and reported on them in professional journals. He also contributed to research into the distribution of small mammals, and in Somorja he found the rat-headed vole, which was a relict species and a previously unknown subspecies (Microtus ratticeps méhelyi). After the change of empire in 1918, he tried to find a job at the MNM in Budapest, but did not get a job, so he returned to Somorja, where he retired in 1923. He also sent notes and articles about his observations to Hungary from Czechoslovakia, but he also tried to build professional relationships with Czech and Slovak colleagues. ; Many specimens of the animals stuffed in his workshop were transferred to the Slovak Museum of Local Lore and the Museum of Agriculture and Forestry in Bratislava, whose ornithological and hunting-related collections were largely founded with Kunszt's preparations. Some of these can be found today in the Slovak National Museum. Of course, the Csallóköz Museum in Somorja, established by Antal Khin (Vajka) between 1927 and 1929, mainly included his specimens, and the entire birdlife of Csallóköz was to be found there. After 1945, the majority of the zoological collection was transferred to the Department of Zoology of the Comenius University in Bratislava. Károly Kunszt settled in Pozsonyligetfalu in 1926, but continued to publish regularly in various professional journals (Aquila, Nimród, Kárpáti Vadász, Vadászlap, etc.) and wrote about bustards in the volume Naše poľovníctvo published in 1935. His direct colleagues and students continued Kunszt's research. The best known of them are Dezső Hegymeghy (1874–1849), who made observations in the area between Komárom and Nagymegyer, and later in the Győr area, as well as Tibor Szlávy (1886–1949) and Lajos Csiba (Tejfalu), who researched the birdlife of Csallóköz and Szigetköz.