Dreams full of hope following a difficult past
The past, present and future of the Hungarian Olympic and Sport Museum
MúzeumCafé 42.
The Sport Museum dates from the 1920s, though there were collections and displays of objects relating to sport in the 19th century. Nevertheless, after the 1920 Trianon Treaty cultural policy increased its impact on domestic sport and physical education. It was then that the myth of Hungary as a sporting power was born, the formulation of which was helped by László Siklóssy’s three-volume, 1000 Years of Hungarian Sport, which he began writing at the time. In the same period, instigated by the Hungarian National Museum a wave of collecting began, in the course of which the museum asked the public and various clubs to donate to, or deposit with the museum objects, awards, trophies and equipment connected with sport. The initiative resulted in unexpected success and in 1926 from the collected items the National Museum organised a wide-ranging – to date the most comprehensive – exhibition about the history of sport. The display lasted only a few weeks, but its impact pointed to the future, since in effect it was then that the demand to create a Sport Museum took off. Lajos Szabó, the museum’s current director, adds that the idea had actually been conceived earlier in the mind of Alajos Szokolyi, who after the first modern Olympics urged the establishment of an Olympics museum. A rich collection relating to Hungary’s turn-of-the-century sport came into his possession, which he offered for the National Museum. Afterwards, trusting in the establishment of a sport museum, he deposited all the material with the National Museum. After the exhibition, all the displayed items – together with Szokolyi’s collection – came into the management of the Physical Education College, to be used for educational and decorative purposes until the establishment of a museum.