In which of Hungary’s museums and with what kind of exhibitions might it be possible to appropriately commemorate the great historical anniversaries being marked in 2014?
MúzeumCafé 39.
Archaeologist István Gedai, former director of the Hungarian National Museum and vice-president of the National Memorial Site Commemorative Committee, believes anniversaries provide us with the opportunity to recall significant historical events as well as personalities.
Historian László Csorba, director of the Hungarian National Museum, is glad the question is raised, since it makes it obvious that museums have tasks in connection with great historical anniversaries. The two truly important anniversaries in 2014 – the centenary of the start of World War I and the 70th anniversary of the annihilation of the majority of Hungarian Jews – concern past events which provide meaning for our time.
Szilvia Peremiczky, director of the Hungarian Jewish Museum, thinks that the issues of the First World War and its consequences, plus the living burden of the Shoah and the injunction of ‘Never again!’ – emphasised in connection with the Holocaust – constitute a categorical imperative for us to commemorate with the obligation of encouraging remembrance.
According to Róbert Hermann, deputy scientific director of the Military History Institute and Museum, the First World War was a highlighted theme of Hungarian public commemorations in the interwar period. He believes it would be a mistake to have done with the anniversary with just one major central event. In practice, there is no large national public collection which would not be able to stage a relevant exhibition using its own material. Moreover, the Great War didn’t involve only the capital, but the whole of Hungary. Recalling the Great War could generate a new type of culture of remembrance (or localise it afresh).