Folia historica 23/1

I. Tanulmányok - Körmöczi Katalin: Országgyűlések a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum épületében

The interior furniture of the Museum palace had not yet been complete in 1848. The walls of the banquet hall were covered with splendid imitation marble, the boarding, however, was oilcloth stretched out on rough plank and the balustrades in the front of the gallery were made of painted board. Neither were the chairs of the banquet hall suitable for the purpose or the place. From the middle of the 1850s, the complement of the furniture still required started on social initiative and by the agency of charitable women's associations. The first parquetry of the banquet hall and the dome hall was laid in 1 860. In the expectation of gaining the assistance that would have secured the conditions of the institution's operation, in 1848 and 1861 Ágoston Kubinyi appealed to the Parliament with his writing that analysed the situation of the Museum. After twelve years of absolutism, which followed the 1848-1849 revolution and war of independence in Hungary, the convocation of the Parliament in 1861, the acceptance of Pest as its scene and the banquet hall of the National Museum as the chamber of the House, was considered a principled, political and strategic achievement and a compromise, as well. Emperor Franz Joseph I convoked the Parliament to 6 April 1 861 to the royal palace in Buda, not at all with the purpose of recognising the articles and achievements of the revolution of 1848. The matter of the scene of the Parliament gave expression to the question of recognising or disclaiming the articles of 1848. The thought of building a temporary Parliament building had also been brought up, but it was in want of seriousness, not least for lack of time. The dimensions of the Museum's banquet hall had proved to be tight for the accommodation of the House. Although one of the motives of choosing the scene was to keep off great numbers of audience, two temporary galleries were erected on the two sides of the door for the seating of twenty journalists. Subsequent to the dissolution of the Parliament in 1861, the wish of Hungarian political public opinion was the establishment of a lasting constitutional parliamentary system. As a precondition to this, the building of the Houses of Parliament was put on the agenda repeatedly. Eventually, the eclectic building of the so-called Old House in Sándor (Bródy Sándor) Street had been finished in less than a year between 1865 and 1866, according to the plans of Miklós Ybl. Thus, the House of Commons of the 1865-1868 Parliament met in the Museum between December 1865 and April 1866, while the sessions of the Upper House were held in the banquet hall of the county hall. In April 1866, the comfortless banquet hall of the Museum was made convenient for the Upper House, the expenses of which amounted to 12,000 forints. Seats were arranged in a semicircular arch, on an ascending ground level, the chair of the president and its necessary surroundings having been situated in front of the main entrance. The Hungarian Parliament moved from the Museum on 2 October 1902 finally. The former chamber was reconstructed in the 1920s, so that it could function as a museum banquet hall again. Fordította: Sallay Gergely Pál 54