Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Upper Tisza region (Regional Units of Open Air Museum. Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1980)

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION Foreword The Open Air Museum of Hungary was inaugurated with its first exhibition in 1974; the first group of furnished buildings, that of the Upper Tisza Region, was completed in 1977. The museum in Szentendre is the central Ethnographical Open Air Museum in Hungary which, together with similar institutions in various counties belonging to local museum organisations (such as the „Göcsej" Museum of Zalaegerszeg, the Village Museum of Szombathely, the Village Museum of Nyíregyháza-Sóstó and that of Szenna, County Somogy) seek to record and exhibit the material culture of Hungary's peoples in the 18th and 19th centuries, its villages and country towns, the methods of production and consumation, indeed the whole style of life as manifest in its culture. The museum began its activity within the frame of the Ethnographical Museum of Budapest in 1966, where the research projects and the organisation was begun, but it has functioned independently since 1972. Being a central organisation, the field of research comprises the whole country. Besides the Upper Tisza Region, another nine regional groups are being planned comprising altogether 250 architectural items; each regional group is selected according to the social and economic factors prevailing, thus endeavouring to give visual demonstration to spectators of the popular architecture and domestic interiors of Hungary. Constructing the Upper Tisza Region exhibit was in many respects a pioneer task. Whilst drawing up the plans, and during the period of erecting the houses, fundamental questions had to be solved, for what was being prepared was not a museum of architecture, but an ethnographical museum, where buildings and furnishings together are meant to give a total impression of the style of life. There were debates on such problems as the question of emp3