Mikó Castle – changes of fortune
A new period for the Csiki Sekler Museum
MúzeumCafé 17.
The exhibition Egyptian Art at the Time of the Pharaohs comprising items held by the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts was to close on 7 February, but due to its great popularity was extended. A few years ago the idea of staging such a display in the Csíki Basin in Transylvania might have seemed rather odd given the lack of funds, expertise, infrastructure and means of presentation. There is no significant Egyptian collection in Transylvania, though the holdings of the Bruckenthal collection in Sibiu and the Museum of Transylvanian History in Cluj-Napoca include certain interesting and valuable items. Now more than 120 objects from the Fine Arts Museum have been displayed with success in Csíkszereda. Was this because of Egyptian art or the good reputation generated in recent years by the exhibitions of the local Csíki Sekler Museum? A bit of both. A new period began for the Csíki Sekler Museum in 2007 with its exhibition Munkácsy Paintings in Transylvania, or more precisely four years earlier when Zsolt Gyarmati became the institution’s director. The museum’s building – the oldest in Csíkszereda and commonly known as Mikó Castle – was established by the fortress builder Ferenc Hídvégi Mikó, an experienced diplomat and an outstanding personality of Transylvania’s political life in the early 17th century. During the 1661 Turkish-Tatar invasion, the fortress was seriously damaged, its valuable parts being covered by ruins. They remained below ground level when the castle was rebuilt at the command of the Austrian general Stephan Steinville between 1713 and 1716. The spectacular building, fortified with a large turret at each of its four corners and a surrounding outer wall, was used by the military for centuries. In 1970, after major restoration, it became the Csíki Sekler Museum. The history of the institution stretches back to the last third of the 19th century and the activities of the Csíki Sekler Museum Association. In the 1920s the ethnographer Péter Domokos Pál – with the guidance of the Zsögöd artist Imre Nagy and the teacher Géza Vámszer – collected many materials, which survived World War II in buildings belonging to the Catholic Church in Csíksomlyó. These and other items accumulated by the Catholic secondary school passed into the possession of the institution. The Csíki Sekler Museum gained an independent legal identity in 1990. “A change of attitude occurred and a new type of management was established,” says Zsolt Gyarmati, reflecting on the development of the early years. “While we aimed to address the cultural needs of the local population, we also endeavoured to become an active participant in the tourist market of Sekler Land and Transylvania.” The institute is mostly known for its rich folk history collection, but it also holds the Csíksomlyó Franciscan monastery’s old library containing more than 120 incunabula, as well as items from János Kájoni’s printshop. All this demands intensive restoration activity. Among the museums 35 employees there are 15 specialists, but the funding provided by the town is insufficient and thus the museum has to get involved with new undertakings. Mikó Castle used to have 13,000 visitors a year – not including the music festivals and other events organised in its large courtyard – now the annual figure is 70,000. What started that was the great success of the 2007 Munkácsy exhibition, based on works from the American collection of Imre Pákh, the Hungarian National Gallery and the Munkácsy Museum in Békéscsaba. The display attracted 70,000 visitors. The museum’s exhibition space was refashioned for the exhibition, with all infrastructural requirements being put in place. An exhibition put together by the Hungarian National Museum about the 13th-century Mongol invasion pulled in 36,000 people. The latest success is the Egyptian exhibition, which drew 33,000 visitors. Csíkszereda, incidentally, has a population of 42,000.