The Death Sentence of a Museum? by Bori Mohácsi

I was meant to write my next post about community archaeology, but something happened very recently that made me livid, and I simply had to react – and since I’ve been writing a blog post, here it goes. I know, the title is rather dramatic, but it is, in fact, quite close to becoming a reality.


The Museum
The Hungarian Natural History Museum was a part of the Hungarian National Museum ever since its founding by Count Ferenc Széchenyi in 1802. It housed the botanical, paleontological, geological and later on, the anthropological collection of the National Museum, and by the end of the century, it had to be separated since it threatened to outgrow the building.

For almost 100 years exhibitions were set up separately in various parts of the city, while the museologists were trying to protect the collections from two world wars and a revolution as well (semi-successfully). Finally, in 1994, the Hungarian Parliament decided to give the Natural History Museum a new building, more precisely, several ones: the campus of the old military academy, the Ludovica. The plan was to renovate the complex and give a permanent home for all of the collections by the end of the 2000s, so they started moving them in from separate premises while opening their first exhibit in 1996, “Man and Nature in Hungary”, which was seen by the author as a kindergartener.


And then what happened?

Even the official about page of the museum is addressing – although in a rather contained manner – the problem at hand: Unfortunately – as a result of changes in political decisions concerning the museum – other collections were not able to be moved to this location but rather remained in separate premises. To find a permanent place for all the collections and exhibitions is now the biggest problem the museum has to face.

The main entrance of the museum today

It’s true: there have been several changes since the late 1990s, however, the biggest one is fairly recent: in 2012, a newly founded university was moved in the main building of the former Ludovica Academy: the National University of Public Service. The intention was clear: to expand the university while making the museum move to a yet unknown location. Thus, the university is expanding ever since, they even started building an additional campus around the premises, while the museum, its collections and exhibitions share the old campus with it (mainly the manege, part of the main building and the renovated underground building complex). It used to be surreal as a researcher: looking for the small doorman’s table of the museum next to the shiny, new reception of the university to let us underground to the Anthropological Collection.


Ok, but what is going on now?

Another move, it seems. But this one is not like the others: this is planned to be permanent, and also very likely to be lethal to the collection. Moreover, downright impossible, as it is to an undisclosed (i.e. not even built) location in (drumroll) Debrecen.

Of course, this doesn’t say much to my fellow colleagues who are not from Hungary, so: Debrecen is the second-largest city in the country with more than 200,000 residents (compared to Budapest’s 1,750,000), circa 222 kms from the capital, close to the Romanian border. Why there? No clue. Some say it’s the city council’s loyalty to the government, but we do not know that for sure.

It's boxing day for these guys soon

What we do know, however, is the following: the government issued a non-public edict in January, that by the end of the year the museum has to move all of its collections and exhibitions out of the Ludovica premises. By then, of course, the Debrecen complex will not even be started, so the more than 10 million pieces of individual artefacts, 450 thousand volumes of the library, 8,000 pieces of archive photos, 1,500 pieces of archived documentation, furniture, technology, laboratories, etc. will have to be placed in a temporary warehouse. Which will already have been pre-packed by the 171 people working there. Sounds feasible, doesn’t it?

Even if, due to some kind of a miracle, the moving could be done, doing it in such a hurry would permanently damage some of the collection. The greatest danger is posed to the most delicate material, such as the 264 mummies from the 18–19th century excavated in the White Temple of Vác.

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This is the part when I should say something comforting, but I won't, because I can’t. This is a problem often faced by professionals in cultural heritage who work in countries where politics has a top-down approach to everything: they have to improvise in the most absurd conditions in survival mode, trying to protect irreplaceable artefacts and heritage sites – in an eternal mood of justified fury against politicians. I have no answers for this now, but maybe, just maybe, that’s why I’m studying cultural heritage now, so maybe one day I will.