Skanzen (Szentendre)

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Skanzen (actually: Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum - Ethnographic Open Air Museum, see Skansen ) is the largest farm museum in Hungary. It is located to the west of the Danube town of Szentendre on the foothills of the Pilis Mountains, which is part of the Danube Eipel National Park, in Pest County , around 24 kilometers north of Budapest .

Basic concept

Aerial view of the Western Transdanubia region.
Homestead from the western Balaton region.
Windmill from the Great Plain.
In the highland village.
Northern Hungarian cave dwelling.
South Transdanubian homestead.

The museum was founded on February 1, 1967 as the Village Museum Department of the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest . As a result, those responsible steadily expanded the collections on the originally 46 hectare site near Szentendre. Today Skanzen occupies 60 hectares. In 1972 the open-air museum became an independent state museum and in 1981 also a scientific research institute. The concept is to buy significant and meaningful farmsteads and village houses including valuable regionally typical churches, chapels and early industrial production facilities at the places of origin, to dismantle them and to professionally rebuild them in the museum. This creates artificial, yet homogeneous-looking village assemblies for all major regions of Old Hungary, as existed before the First World War. Essential objects and buildings that are important for a museum documentation, but cannot be obtained from the place of origin, can be seen as reconstructions on a 1: 1 scale. Most of the buildings document Hungarian life from the 18th to the middle of the 20th century.

The previously existing village compilations come from the following regions:

The following regional concepts are still planned:

  • Central Tisza region
  • Transylvania
  • other formerly Hungarian areas
  • Village landscape in the 20th century

Part of the concept of the museum experts is to make all courtyards appear inside as if the residents were still living in them. Therefore, most of the rooms have been furnished with typical regional furnishings. Museum employees are present in several buildings, some in old costumes, to introduce interested visitors to the historical worlds. Typical self-explanatory scenes from rural life were set up in some houses. Such a wedding to which Hungarian music is played or baking scenes that show the visitor what is going on with video material. The farm wing of a former Hungarian-German homestead from Hidas in southern Transdanubia has served as a documentation center for the expulsion of the largest Hungarian minority, the Germans, from 1946 onwards since 2012. But the fate of other minorities after 1945 and the escape of many Hungarians at the time is also illustrated by documents, photos and Video installations where those affected can have their say, tangible. The replica of a Hungarian freight wagon represents the unworthy fate of the displaced. Many Hungarian Germans were deprived of their rights by the Hungarian government, expropriated and deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor .

In a historic bakery from the Great Plain, which was operated in Izsák from 1940 to 1998, traditional baked goods can be purchased. From the same region, but from Jászárokszállás near Jászberény - an area shaped by a Hungarian minority - comes a former Csárdá and post office, which has now been reopened as an inn. Hungarian wines are served in a historic cellar of a merchant's house from Mád in the northern highlands.

The museum also has a large ethnographic study center, which is the terminus of the railway line running through the museum. In the center of the museum area is one of the largest excavated Roman villas ( Villa Rustica ) in Hungary. The Villa Rustica Szentendre-Skanzen , which was researched between 1973 and 1975 and whose foundations were restored and preserved until 1984, was not originally part of the museum's concept and was only subsequently integrated into the complex after its discovery.

In addition to Villa Rustica, an open-air stage - the amphitheater - was set up for around 800 people. Folklore performances, concerts or theater performances can take place there.

Museum train

The museum entrance - a replica of the Mezőhegyes train station.
The two diesel railcars.

After the turn of the millennium, the planning and construction of the largest museum railway in Europe running on standard gauge began. For this purpose, the historic Hungarian diesel multiple units of the MÁV series BCmot 390 from the 1920s, which was last on the road as a traditional train of the Szentes depot , was acquired and historically professionally refurbished. In 1932, the tried and tested motor by the inventor György Jendrassik (1898–1954), which is widely used in Hungary, was installed in the Ganz-Danubius machine factory. Since 2009, the train has been connecting the various museum regions at five stops over 2.2 kilometers and can be accessed via platforms designed for the disabled. In the course of the construction of the railway, a replica of the Mezőhegyes train station from the Great Plain in Skanzen was built and also inaugurated in 2009. Since then, it has formed the new entrance area to the museum.

A rebuilt mighty granary of a manor in Northern Hungary also serves as a documentation area for the development of the railway in Hungary, with which the modernization of the country began.

Religious testimonies

The reformed church of Mánd with the bell tower from Nemesborzova.

In the open-air museum, four churches can be viewed today, some of which are of great cultural and historical importance and were re-blessed after their reconstruction. These include the Greek Catholic wooden church from Mándok and the originally late Gothic reformed church from Mánd in the upper Tisza region, next to which a bell tower from the neighboring village of Nemesborzova was built in the museum. In addition to these unique pieces , a typical village church from Óbudavár in the Bakony Lake Balaton region and a St. Anna chapel from the Lesser Plain can be visited. It is possible to hold weddings and services in the churches. In addition to the churches, several wayside shrines and a calvary have been rebuilt on the museum grounds.

In addition, various depictions of the cemetery of the different Christian denominations with their regional characteristics testify to the beliefs and thoughts of the rural population.

literature

Miklós Cseri, Endre Füzes (Ed.): Hungarian Open Air Museum Szentendre. Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, Szentendre 1997, ISBN 963-7376-34-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Miklós Cseri, Endre Füzes (ed.): Hungarian Open Air Museum Szentendre. Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, Szentendre 1997, p. 7.
  2. ↑ a b Miklós Cseri (Ed.): About Skanzen. In: Skanzen. Hungarian open air museum. Museum plan 2012. (leaflet) Hungarian Open Air Museum, Szentendre.
  3. ↑ a b c d Miklós Cseri, Endre Füzes (ed.): Hungarian Open Air Museum Szentendre. Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, Szentendre 1997, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Miklós Cseri (ed.): New permanent exhibition: In the drive of history. In: Skanzen. Hungarian open air museum. Museum plan 2012. (leaflet) Hungarian Open Air Museum, Szentendre.
  5. ^ Judit Topál: Tower models from the Roman villa in Szentendre. In: Studia comitatensia. Régészeti tanulmányok Pest megyéből. No. 17. Pest Megyei Múzeumok Igazgatósága. Budapest 1985. p. 312.
  6. ↑ Miklós Cseri, Endre Füzes (ed.): Hungarian Open Air Museum Szentendre. Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, Szentendre 1997, p. 171.
  7. ↑ Miklós Cseri, Endre Füzes (ed.): Hungarian Open Air Museum Szentendre. Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, Szentendre 1997, pp. 38-41.
  8. ↑ Miklós Cseri, Endre Füzes (ed.): Hungarian Open Air Museum Szentendre. Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, Szentendre 1997, pp. 175-178.

Web links

Commons : Szentendrei Néprajzi Múzeum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 41 ′ 38 ″  N , 19 ° 2 ′ 54 ″  E