Postai és Távközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány Évkönyve, 1996
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
Personal contacts with colleagues abroad received much greater emphasis than in previous years. In April we received a delegation of three persons from the Slovakian Post, who are preparing to set up the Slovakian Postal Museum. In the same month, the 13-strong presiding committee of the IATM met at the Radio and Television Museum in Diósd. Mr and Mrs Gottfried North paid a special visit to the exhibitions in Andrássy út and at the Telephone Museum. Seven staff members made a five-day study trip to Germany in June. They visited the Thurn-Taxis Museum in Regensburg, the postal museums in Nuremberg and Frankfurt, and the technical museums in Mannheim and Speyer. There they were shown the collections and stores by the curators and staff, viewed all the exhibitions, and exchanged views and experience. In July, Dr Lothar Suhling, Curator of the Mannheim Technical Museum, was a guest of the Telephone Museum. In September, Mrs Gergely Kovács attended the IATM Conference as usual, held this year in Speyer. Another study trip was held in October, when visits were paid to the postal museums at Nuremberg and Frankfurt, the main purpose being to see the new exhibition at Frankfurt, entitled Der Brief (The Letter). After an interval of some years, a Futics Competition was held for the professional museum staff working at the Foundation’s museums. After two rounds of competition (written and oral), the first prize was awarded to Erzsébet Angyal, the librarian at the Stamp Museum. Ibolya Bartók: The Gervay Memorial Day A memorial day marking the centenary of the death of Mihály Gervay, Hungary’s first postmaster-general, was held on April 15,1996. It was arranged by the Foundation of the Postal and Telecommunications Museums, in conjunction with the Postal and Banking Secondary School in Budapest. The school, by the way, adopted the name Mihály Gervay at the beginning of the 1996-7 school year. Wreaths were laid on Gervay’s grave in Farkasrét Cemetery. This was followed by a contest for groups of first-year students at the school, entitled ‘Who Knows Most about Mihály Gervay?’, held in the Postal Museum and the adjacent PKI Conference Hall. Lectures were delivered at a memorial meeting by Dr Kálmán Sebestyén (‘Gervay and the Nagyvárad Postal Directorate’), Dr Miklós Kamody (‘Gervay’s Struggle with the Opponents of Independence’), Dr László Molnár (‘Gervay and the Decades after the Compromise’), Mrs Gergely Kovács (‘Forebears and Descendants’), and Kristóf Balázs (‘The Man, the Leader and the Example’). István Kurucz, Chairman of the Trustees of Foundation of the Postal and Telecommunications Museums, presented Gervay plaques, for outstanding contributions to historical research and expanding the collections at the Foundation’s museums, and announced the results of the morning contest. The memorial day ended with a literary and musical recital in the Gala Room of the Postal Museum that evoked the memory of Gervay and his times. This was given by the Lyra Foundation, the Arts Harmony Society, and students of the secondary school. The lectures were heard by a large audience, and made a big contribution to fostering the memory of Mihály Gervay. The texts appear in the Hungarian section. 307
