An extension of the homeland
Konrad Sutarski, retired director of the Museum and Archive of the Polish Community in Hungary
MúzeumCafé 44.
The Museum and Archive of the Polish Community in Hungary was established in 1998 on the initiative of Konrad Sutarski. The museum’s field of interest is specific focussing on the thousand-year-old historical connections between Poles and Hungarians, and the history of Poles in Hungary. Konrad Sutarski was the institute’s director from its foundation until 2013 and this year he received the Ferenc Móra Prize, Hungary’s highest award in museology, in recognition of his work. MúzeumCafé spoke with him about the institute, the Polish community in Hungary and his literary activities. Konrad Sutarski graduated in mechanical engineering from the Poznan University of Technology in 1958, but in 1956 he was already involved with the then new cultural whirlwind of literary life. He married a Hungarian and for three years they lived in Poland before moving to Hungary in 1965, since when he has remained in Hungary. He pursued his professional technical career for 20 years, then a change occurred in 1990. He abandoned his engineering work and on the recommendation of Poland’s cultural minister he became the director of the Polish Cultural and Information Centre in Budapest. In his new position he began to take an interest in Hungary’s Polish community. Previously the socialist state didn’t pay attention to the Polish minority. Its members’ cultural identity wasn’t regarded as important in itself, nor as of interest to Hungarians. Hungary’s Central Polish Minority Self-Government set up the Museum and Archive of the Polish Community in Hungary and Konrad Sutarski was involved in its foundation. The museum opened in its present form in 2006, since when it has housed the exhibition 1000 Years of Polish-Hungarian Relations.