Veres László - Viga Gyula szerk.: A Herman Ottó Múzeum műkincsei (Miskolc, 1999)

A HERMAN OTTÓ MÚZEUM 1899-1999

Middle and Late Bronze Age from Gelej were investigated. Already before the Second World War the building of the museum was overcrowded. There were no appropriate storage rooms and place for temporary exhibitions. By the end of the 1960s this overcrowdedness became unbearable. At that time the government promised to build a new museum building, but this project was not attained. In 1973 the period of the rise of the museum started. By the second half of the 1980s the Herman Ottó Museum became one of the most significant public collections of the country. From the point of view of its professional-scientific activity the county museum organization occupied one of the first places in the range of the museums (starting from the last places in this range). In this period the conditions for a modern museum activity were formed. In 1973 the public collection got a new building in which the archaeological collection, the library, offices and archives were situated. As a result, it became possible to reorganize the ancient building of the museum where the necessary restorer workshops, permanent and temporary exhibition rooms were formed. The number of museologists jumped from 7 up to 21. The structure of departments based on the collections was formed. It was not changed until 1990, when it was widened by new scientific departments: natural history, history of literature, research of visual culture. The development of the Herman Ottó Museum after 1973 can be esteemed judging from the increase of the collections and scientific publishing work. The Archaeological Department on the first hand conducted the research of Mediaeval administrative centers and the seats of clan leaders. Large scale excavations were conducted in Abaújvár and Sály-Lator. The members of the Ethnographical Department were engaged in a regular collection activity in the four regions of the county: South Gömör, middle part of the Zemplén Mountains, basin of river Bodrog and Mezőség in South Borsod. They were studying the rural way of life and its changes. The specialists of the Historical Department collected the objects of the Socialist period, interior set of flats representing the way of life of the urban social layers and products of the manufacturai industry that could be considered the predecessor of the large industrial plants. The art historians of the Department of Fine Arts collected the objects of art of the county and tried to get the most outstanding pieces for the museum. In 1976 their storages were enriched by a collection of an outstanding significance. Sándor Petró, a famous physicist of Miskolc donated almost 500 works of fine art to the museum. This collection was appropriate for the representation of the 19—20th century of the Hungarian painting.