null Visit to the Open-Air Museum of Ethnography and the Central Directorate of the Hungarian Country Houses in Szentendre

In the framework of the investigation on the enforcement of nationality cultural rights, especially on the nationality content of museums, on 19 July and 5 August 2024, the staff of the Minority Ombudsman visited the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum maintained by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation and the Central Directorate of the Hungarian Country Houses belonging to the museum in Szentendre.

During their visit to the Open-Air Museum of Ethnography on 19 July, they held talks with Tamás Szegedy-Kloska, Head of the Scientific Secretariat, Petra Bánsági-Pénzes, Head of the Collections Department, and Szilvia Prikler, Acting Director of the Regional Museum Directorate.

The Szentendre Open-Air Ethnographic Museum, founded in 1967, was created to present the folk architecture, housing culture, lifestyle, material and spiritual memories of the people of the Hungarian-speaking region in the context of old settlement forms, with original, relocated buildings and authentic objects. Visitors will be able to view the museum's exhibits in groups of village-like buildings, known as landscape units. Within each landscape unit, the buildings are part of the traditional order of a peasant village, with church, communal and economic buildings that were once part of the traditional village landscape. The dwellings and farm buildings are representative of the type of dwelling and outbuildings historically established in a landscape.

 

Both the core and auxiliary collections of the Open Air Museum of Ethnography contain nationality material, to varying degrees depending on the collection unit. The museum exhibits the folk architecture, housing culture and lifestyle of several nationalities from Hungary and beyond its borders, including the German, Slovak, Ruthenian, Croatian, Armenian, Bukovinian Szekler and Moldavian Csángó. The second phase of the Transylvanian Landscape Unit, planned for 2025-2026, will include the construction of a Romanian and Roma house, whose objects and documents will also be part of the collection.

Over the past 40 years, the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum has become one of the most successful national museums in Hungary thanks to its exhibitions, its service infrastructure, its programmes and its professional and scientific achievements.

At the end of the professional meeting, the staff visited the North Hungarian region of the Open Air Ethnographic Museum with houses of the Ruthenian, Slovak and Roma nationalities.

In view of the significant number of country houses of the Hungarian nationalities, in particular the German and Slovak nationalities, in Hungary, the Minority Ombudsman considered it important that her staff should consult separately with the Central Directorate of Hungarian Country Houses of the Open Air Museum of Ethnography.

On 5 August 2024, the Minority Ombudsman's staff met with Szilvia Prikler, ethnographic museologist and acting director of the Directorate of Country Houses, Noémi Fancsalszki, ethnographic museologist and Márton Dombovári, country house consultant.

During the visit, the staff of the Directorate for Country Houses provided detailed information on the main tasks of the Central Directorate of Hungarian Country Houses established on 1 April 2017 and the current situation of the country houses in Hungary. An important task of the Directorate is to provide professional assistance to the managers and maintainers of Hungarian country houses in Hungary and abroad, to organise training courses, to carry out scientific activities and to operate a network of advisors and mentors. They are public collections in their own right, incorporating elements of museology, community building, folk heritage protection and maintenance.

During the professional meeting, the participants discussed, among other things, the possibilities of clarifying and supplementing the current databases of the country houses and the elements of the registers of the collection materials concerning the nationalities of the country, the challenges of running the country houses, as well as the resources, funding opportunities and professional needs essential for their maintenance.

The professional assistance and coordination role of the Directorate for Country Houses is of particular importance for the preservation of the cultural assets and values of the national minority communities in the country. We thank the staff for having made possible the meaningful professional discussions, and wish them continued success in their work.