The award-winning Tiszazug Museum of Geography
Special prize of the ICOM Hungarian National Committee
MúzeumCafé 18.
Last year, in the framework of the ‘Museum of the Year’ competition, the Tiszazug Museum of Geography, with its visitor-friendly permanent exhibition installed in a newly renovated building and its outstanding museum education activities, was awarded a special prize by the Hungarian National Committee of the International Council of Museums. The Tiszazug Museum of Geography, located in the town of Tiszaföldvár, was established in 1956 by Lajos Varga, a geography and history teacher at the local secondary school. The school’s geographical instruments served as the basis of the collection, which was given the official status of county museum in 1963, its speciality being the history and natural science of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county. With this legal decision Hungary’s first designated geography museum was founded.
In 2008 plans were formulated and tender documents prepared for the permanent exhibition The World of the Tisza – Nature and Man in the Tiszazug. The exhibition received 20 million forints from the Ministry of Education and Culture and it opened in June 2009. The display relates not only to the immediate locality but also deals with the natural history of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county and the Central Tisza region, as well as the increasingly important subject of nature and environmental education. In the section entitled In the Depths of the Flatlands a magnifying system helps you understand the characteristic rock formations of the region and you can get to know the collection’s most significant part, palaeontological finds from the Tisza bed – bones of mammoths, huge deer, fleecy rhinoceros and ancient buffalo bear witness to the life of a world which long ago disappeared. The exhibition also covers the two significant types of characteristic hillocks found on the Great Plain, namely tells and burial mounds. The ‘Kossuth House’ in the museum’s courtyard houses the bulk of the collection. In 2011 there will be a new opening as the museum has been granted almost 84 million forints for the reconstruction of study rooms and stores for educational materials. There is the opportunity for local history walks in the town. At present there are three of us working in the institute, so we were very pleased when, on the initiative of the local secondary school, the museum was chosen as the location for the practical training of teachers’ assistants. With this a large number of volunteers began to help our work in the museum. The Culture – Experience tender resulted in the museum enjoying success and income never seen before. Ten educational institutes of eight villages and towns sent applications to the museum. 1133 pupils and forty-five teachers took part in the project, the total income of which surpassed two million forints. One of the great acknowledgements in connection with the museum occurs when the young people participating in our classes come back in the afternoon or at weekends on their own, or with a brother or sister, their family or a friend. We experience this appreciation day by day when the youngsters enthusiastically proclaim: “It’s good to go to a museum!”