Medieval time travel in a small Palots town
MúzeumCafé 48.
There was a place with some ten thousand residents in northern Hungary, which in 1984 had just officially regained its town status. There was an ambitious county museum director, Mihály Praznovszky, who decided to establish the county’s fourth museum. There was an inspector in the field of natural sciences, Tibor Kecskeméti, who pestered the county museum director for years in the interest of appointing a museum professional focussing on natural science. And finally there was a determined young man full of naivety who attacked the task and was betting his life on setting up a new museum. In addition, the town had much to offer in terms of heritage and treasures, which provided the possibility of establishing a collection and museum. What were those treasures, which together made it possible to set up a museum? In the 1960 and 1970s excavations uncovered significant medieval edifices: an early medieval Benedictine, later Cistercian monastery, a medieval glass works, a so-called schoolmaster’s house and a hexagonal chapel. Even a far larger town could be proud of so many monuments. Locally-born graphic artist Kálmán Csohány donated a contemporary art collection. In the 1970s Nándor Pintér compiled a local history collection, of which an exhibition was held between 1980 and 1983. Both collections had adventurous stories, having had no permanent home for a long time. From the start the museum has regarded museum education as important. Moreover, archaeological excavations have always been linked with research summer schools in which secondary school students have participated. The four permanent exhibitions resulted in the first national recognition – in 2000 the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage and the Pulszky Society acknowledged the Museum of Pásztó with the special prize of the Museum of the Year awards.