The struggle and glory of the Nógrád History Museum
MúzeumCafé 12.
All in all, 61 visitors paid for full-price entrance tickets to the Nógrád History Museum in Salgótarján last year. In addition a further 4,485 visitors viewed the exhibitions either free or with various discounts. Teachers, students, people with disabilities and those entitled to discounts for other reasons, as well as guests to vernissages represented the majority. The representatives of the funding body, the county authority, all agreed irrespective of party affiliation – the situation was catastrophic. But from a different perspective there is still some hope. The predecessor of the Nógrád History Museum was founded in a largish village house in 1959, exactly fifty years ago, under the title Labour Movement Museum. Items relating to the movement as well as those of industrial and mining history were moved to a then ultra-modern building in 1980. It was rarely empty until the 1989-90 changes – those who did not visit on their own initiative were taken by their schools, offices or factories. Yet, the political changes altered the situation. The ideological content was now less popular and the museum became unsure about its own identity. Although it was renamed a History Museum, the management primarily looked for new opportunities in the arts. In the 1970s the institution had been presented with the Mihályfi Collection of 800 works of art, including paintings by Gyula Derkovits, Lajos Gulácsy, László Mednyánszky and József Rippl-Rónai. Dr. Éva Szirácsik, the museum’s new director appointed last December says: “The Nógrád History Museum is trying to find its way.” Now a new project is underway – a Labour Movement Exhibition. Already the title makes quite a few residents shiver in this otherwise traditional working-class town.