Bereczki Ibolya - Sári Zsolt: Ház és Ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 28-29. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2017)

BODÓ SÁNDOR: Magyar múzeumok az első világháború idején

Sándor Bodó

HUNGARIAN MUSEUMS DURING WORLD WAR I

In the second half of the 19th century the colleagues of the Hungarian National Museum established in 1802, provided definitive assistance for forming the network of museums in the provinces of Hungarry. Flóris Römer, Ferenc Pulszky and József Hampel were actively involved in establishing and running about ninety museums operated by counties, towns or the church. From 1874 and especially from 1897 to 1922 the National General Inspectorate of Museums and Libraries and Pulszky as the Inspector General of museums in Hungary provided professional support and state subsidies for the development of museum collections and for raising professional standards of museum buildings and interiors.

Naturally, state subsidies provided for the operation of museums was set back by WWI. Significant activities were not being carried out in the collections, though inspectorial counselling and visits took place in museums operating with a reduced number of colleagues, because of military conscription. The most important tasks were to take war precautions and to review losses. Although the country was afflicted by ‘metal requisition’ and ‘gold for iron’ movements, which however developed museum collections with historically important items (e.g. old church bells, tin jugs, old household objects etc.) The reduction in the budget led the culture ministry to make a so called reorganizational plan in 1915. In accordance with this plan the state wished to concentrate its restricted resources on supporting a limited number of collections of major importance.

Now, the task of the cultural government was to support those provincial museums and libraries that were situated in towns with university or college, or the ones that were worthy of development because of the natural or historical significance of the region. So the nearly ninety institutes were classified into four categories. The first category included the institutes for culture of Arad, Debrecen, Kassa, Pécs, Pozsony, Sepsiszentgyörgy, Szeged, Szombathely, Temesvár and Marosvásárhely. These institutes were supported morally and financially to the greatest possible extent by the state.

In spite of the precautions taken, several museums suffered losses on account of the events of the war. For example, the artefacts of the Szekler National Museum, the evangelic church in Brassó-Bolgárszeg and the Barcaság Museum suffered losses, but atrocities were committed against several other museums, too.

Also the Hungarian National Museum was affected by the compulsory handing in of metals. Although the museum could keep its church bells of historic significance, but it had to pay for it with the copper plating of its roofing. In the autumn of 1919 the Romanian occupation troops invading the museum wanted to transport to Romania a significant amount of artefacts originating from Transylvania. The commandeering of art treasures was prevented by the courageous behaviour of the leaders of the museum and the decisive action of the American General Harry Hill Bandholz the member of the Entente mission.

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