Postal Museum and affiliates facing financial problems
MúzeumCafé 20.
Perhaps one day someone will research the dark years of Hungarian museology at the time of the early 1990s, when in the course of privatisation the collections of numerous enterprises were dispersed, or simply turned up at recycling centres. Some items managed to find their way to museums, while others are still in the possession of former factory managers, but not a day passes when an item originating from a factory museum doesn’t turn up at the Ecseri flea market. The Postal Museum wasn’t threatened by this danger, though when the Hungarian Post was divided up, items formerly in its exclusive ownership had to be reorganised. In 1990 the Hungarian Post, Hungarian Telecommunications Company and Hungarian Transmitting Company established what is today called the Telecommunications Museum Foundation, whose primary task is to maintain the Postal Museum and the Stamp Museum. Since then a lot of water has flown under the bridge: the Telecommunications Company became Hungarian Telekom and the Transmitting Company became Antenna Hungária. In place of the state, two foreign companies took over their rights and obligations. Although the Postal Museum’s home page politely asserts that “since 1990 the founders have fulfilled their obligations in line with the foundation document in an exemplary manner”, the reality is that director László Egervári’s diagram shows columns representing income rising every year until 2008, when a change occurred. Since then support has been falling radically, such that this year it was less than half that of the previous two years. According to Mr. Egervári, last year Antenna Hungária’s French owner simply ceased financing the foundation. Similar issues arose in 1890 over dissolution of the museum. Thus 2010 has been the 120th anniversary of the institution’s foundation.