Mosonvár County Museum

THE BUILDING OF THE MOSONVÁR COUNTY MUSEUM

The collection of the Mosonváry Historical and Antiquarian Society was originally housed in the large hall of the Magyaróvári town hall, and from 1887 it was housed in one of the ground-floor rooms of the Vár County Church. After the construction of the new county hall, in 1892, the exhibition opened in the large, beautiful hall on the second floor and in the smaller room connected to it.
However, the existing two halls proved to be increasingly cramped for the ever-growing collection. Therefore, the leaders of the Historical and Archaeological Society made every effort to find a solution for the final and appropriate location of the museum. Their plans succeeded in winning over the Moson Vár County Council, which, in its 1904 decision, stated that a building had to be erected on the site of the museum. The majority of the construction costs, which amounted to 40,000 crowns, were covered by the city county, while the remaining 10,000 crowns were financed by state aid.


The Association entrusted the design of the museum building to Béla Hőnel, a Hungarian architect. The architecture of the period was dominated by historicism, which drew its design from the formal repertoire of historical styles. Hőnel also created in this spirit, and in his first plans he referred to the Romantic era. He was also inspired by the most significant medieval monument of Vár County, the Lébény church: in his plan prepared in 1904, we can recognize the abbey church by its double-towered facade. The judge The committee finally decided on the plans for a classicist, colonnaded building, which was extensively revised and expanded and was put into operation.

The construction began in March 1910 on a plot donated by the city, and the Mosonvár County Museum was ready by October 1, 1912. The collection was moved from the county hall premises to the new, spacious, free-standing museum building in the spring of the following year.

Archaeological exhibition

The earliest human culture in our area appeared about 8-9 thousand years ago, during the Neolithic period. The carriers of this culture spread the knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry not only on the Danube, but also in the areas of Europe to the north and west of us. The modern people lived in villages consisting of log houses, and decorated their clay pots with engravings and later with painting. The careful design and beauty of their ceramics and polished stone tools still attract attention today. The basic shapes of Neolithic pottery vessels persist into the Bronze Age. The unique prehistoric find that has survived and can still be found today is the copper orb. clay circle (rhyton), which probably served ritual purposes.


Thanks to one of the museum's founders, Sötér &Agost, we can get to know the Bronze Age Gaeta culture, which covers a large area and is named after its first site. The prehistoric period lasted for a long time. The period ends with the immigration and settlement of a people already known by name, the Celts. The first disc-shaped vessels can be attributed to the Celts, and the wider spread of iron and the appearance of the first coins.

Mosonmagyaróvár and its surroundings belonged to the Roman Empire as part of the province of Pannonia from the beginning of our era. On the Mosoni slope, along with the Romans, cities built of bricks and stone, as well as urban and rural villas that met the demands of luxury, appeared. The cremation cemeteries of the early period were replaced by skeletal burials at the end of the Roman period. The research of the Roman Empire's border, the limes, was also given great importance, as the fortified border line (the chain of fortresses with the limes) touches our territory along its length. Historically, Moson County has three major Roman military camps and settlements - Oroszvár (Gerulata), Mosonmagyaróvár (Ad Flexum), Lébény (Quadrata) - and also included.

The rather short Hunnic rule following Roman rule is represented by a number of ancient finds. A Germanic nobleman of the Hunnic "international aristocracy" rested in a richly decorated tomb discovered in Lébény. The museum was excavated from the Lombard cemetery in Bezenye by Emperor Henry VI. The 14th century Germanic runic fibula pair made it known worldwide, but the unique finds from the Lombard princely tomb in Mosonszentjános are also of great significance.

The Lombards were replaced by the Avars, who, like the Huns, came from Asia, and whose ancient legacy can be found in the Mosoni Valley and the Hansa. The earliest memory of the era records the moment of settlement with its ancient features of a lodging settlement organized around a herdsman's hut. Spectacular finds have also been collected from later Avar burial excavations. The men's weapons, tools and clothing (primarily the ornate ouvlaghs) recall the world of the eastern steppes. The appearance of the culture of the Avar period is aided by the depiction of the former Central Asian Turks and Irani nobles. wall paintings.

New ancient material appears after the Hungarian conquest. The new public cemeteries of the 10th-11th centuries represent the customs and clothing of pagan Hungary. The first Hungarian coin (new Lancea Regis type) unearthed from the cemetery in Lébény indicates the state organization of St. Stephen. In the early Middle Ages, the Spanish castle of Moson played a significant economic and military role as the "gateway" (porta Regni) of the Hungarian Kingdom. King Solomon stayed in the castle several times, but several other Hungarian rulers also visited it. In the 13th century, the Tatar invasion (1241-42) and then II. After the attack of the Czech King Ottokar (1271), the building lost its military significance, and the castle of Ovár, built by the master Konrád of Győr, which was more suitable for the requirements of the time, became the economic and administrative center of the area. The settlement that developed next to the castle received extensive royal privileges from Queen Elizabeth in 1354.


Ethnographic exhibition

The ethnographic hall displays images from the peasant world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, providing a glimpse into the region’s past. The exhibition shows two rooms of the farmhouse, the pantry, which was used for storage and sometimes as a sleeping place, and the clean room. The pantry was used to display the tools for baking and food storage, as well as for hemp processing. In contrast to the pantry, the clean room was a prominent room in the house, used exclusively by the family on festive occasions, which is illustrated by the table setting in the exhibition according to Christmas traditions. In addition to the most valuable furniture and possessions found in the household, the icons of saints and, in later times, family portraits were also housed here.


Detail from the folk exhibition

Opposite the room that recreates the furnishings of the house, there are beautiful representations of the three most significant nationalities of the county, the Hungarians, the Germans and the Visitors can see the costumes of the Croatian ethnic group, each depicted in a traditional life situation. The German couple is in church decoration, the Hungarian couple from Szigetkóz is practicing a folk custom with a bride and groom, and the Croatian couple is in a costume related to the Easter holiday. with a folk custom, in a cemetery setting.


Local history exhibition

The town of Moson and Magyaróvár and the settlements of the former Moson Vár County have undergone a different development path in the past centuries, the rich and varied material heritage of which is presented in the exhibition. We would like to know what the drumhead was for? Who used the initiation? How did they play the Poch game? These strange, long-forgotten objects come to life along with many others. Through them, the weekdays, work and struggles of the people who lived here come to life, as do the great moments of history. Because history has often taken its toll on this land. The era of the Turkish Wars is brought to life by a model of the fortress with its weapons and broad bastions of Magyaróvár. The local events of the 1848/49 revolution and the fight for freedom, as well as the victorious Battle of Mosoni, are brought to life by contemporary documents and relics. The shocking relics of the barrage of gunfire during the 1956 revolution stand as a reminder of the patriotism of the people of Mosonmagyarovar.


Bicycles

The letters of selection, council minutes and seals, especially those awaiting execution, are all part of the history of the country. The shameful pile of ruins is a reminder of the mismanagement of the settlements and a witness to the courageous struggle with which the citizens of Magyaróvár tried to protect their rights against the city's landlords. And although their struggle was unsuccessful, the agricultural town continued to grow and became an important commercial and economic center, as well as a cultural center. The artefacts of the guilds' organizational life, the tools of the former workshops, are reminders of the craftsmanship of the master craftsmen. The tall cylindrical millstones next to the hand-held grindstones not only emphasize the importance of the milling industry in the economic life of the town, but also the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, it became a symbol of industrialization, as did the famous agricultural machinery factory of Ede Kühlhne.

The foundations of cultural flourishing were laid by the famous schools: the Piarist Gymnasium (1739) and the Economic Academy (1818) founded by the Archduchy, which was the first agricultural higher education institution in Europe. The broad vision and culture of the teachers of these two institutions is indicated by the fact that the Mosonmegye County Historical and Archaeological Society, which brought the museum to life, also defined the following in its foundation (1882): played a role.

The first printing press was founded in Magyaróvár by the Protestant preacher Gál Huszár in 1558, but it only operated for a short time. The next one was established 300 years later by Sándor Czéh (1836), who was not only a printer but also a publisher. He is also the founder of the first and for a long time the only lending library in Moson Vár County. His printing equipment and his richly illustrated publications, which satisfy the most demanding requirements, are a great example of his intellectual and professional ambition.

János Szále (1810-1870) was a special highlight of the culture of the city and Vác County during the Reform Era. As a nobleman and Vác County official, he also painted as an amateur. He painted the landscapes of his narrow homeland in the genre of landscape painting, which was still rare in Hungary at that time.
The bourgeois world of the 19th and 20th centuries, the nostalgic atmosphere of the "happy peacetimes", the props of the clubs organizing the sparkling social life, and the objects that commemorate everyday life, from the ball fan to the velocipede, are captured by Antal Kumpf's photographs.