Hírközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány, Évkönyv, 2008
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
István Kurucz Preface Another year has gone by, significant events have taken place, new studies have been written and we have produced a new Yearbook. I admit that I was deeply moved by my meeting with the past in László Jakab ’s description of how the exhibition warehouse at Miskolc came about. His writing took me back to my own youth, my work in telecommunications, and, as chairman of the board, to my concern for artefacts collected over a century but never displayed. I was moved by the joy of a dream come true when I saw our treasures collected in one place. Our progress can be monitored through the yearbooks which describe our work at the museums in the nearly two decades since the foundation was established. Even more impressive are the new exhibition sites opened in various parts of the country, the updated old ones, and the new artefacts in our collections. Museums always have future plans. At the same time, we have to recognize that the expansion to date was made possible by the kind efforts of our founders. So, it surprised no one that the minister of education and culture awarded certificates of recognition to the heads of our founder organizations - Christopher Mattheisen, dr. György Csáki, dr. Pál Szabó and dr. Géza László - for their support of Hungarian culture, including the new Miskolc exhibition warehouse. I firmly believe that their efforts guarantee our future. Continuing to thumb through the Yearbook, we get a glimpse of the day-to-day activity of the museums. It was certainly not a day-to-day event for us when Piroska Farkas Krizsák, director of the Postal Museum and Mrs. János Solymosi, director of the Stamp Museum retired. Albeit, we may at times forget some of their efforts, the museums themselves, the studies they wrote, and their publications including the Yearbooks, will remind us. We all wish them many healthy years to enjoy their well-deserved retirement. Authors Ildikó Makkai-Várkonyi and András Bálint Kapi have reported to us on the memorial meeting marking the anniversary of 1867, the year the Hungarian post office became independent. They offer a succinct yet detailed review of the past 140 years. Their study even tells us the names of the postal service’s last carriage driver and of his horse! Ibolya Bartók has also focused on this 140-year period of history. Her intricate research- based effort at describing the people at the helm of the post office is exactly what we have come to expect of her. Her collection of portraits fill a gap in our history, for she offers us a description of the era these people lived in that goes beyond a simple review of operations at the institution. Her story ends in 1944, when - she writes - “we came to the end of an era with the boundary marked by World War II, a demarcation line that also outlined the subsequent period of national and postal reconstruction, which will be the foundation of a next chapter. ” We can hardly wait to see that new chapter! This was not Ibolya Bartók’s first research project. We feel her sensitivity, expertise and joy in presenting her findings. Let me prove this by quoting from her study Great Predecessors: Dr. Vilmos Hennyey. The person she describes is no small figure. “The Postal Museum relied primarily on Hennyey. When seeking missing data or when a year was in doubt, we would tell one another to look it up in Hennyey, check it in Hennyey, by 212
