Hungary

• Museum and Archive of the Polish Community in Hungary

Museum and Archive of the Polish Community in Hungary
Állomás u. 10/B
1102 Budapest
Hungary

 

Creation and short history
The Museum and Archive of Polish Community in Hungary is the first cultural institution of the Polish community in Hungary. It was founded in 1998 by the Central Self-government of the Polish Minority in Hungary. This is an institution created in 1995 in accordance with the Hungarian Act of 1993 on the rights of national and ethnic minorities. This Act gave special rights to thirteen minority groups living in Hungary, including the opportunity for each group to create local minority self-governments and central self-government functioning as a central body for a given minority empowered for example to represent it in contacts with the Hungarian authorities. The Self-government of Polish Minority collaborates with a few independent central and local Polish community organisations created in accordance with the law on associations. The Self-government of the Polish Minority is a founding and supervisory body for the Museum and Archive of Polish Community in Hungary. Content-related supervision over the activity of the museum and archive is exercised by the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest.
 

Description of the collection
The Museum and Archive of Polish Community in Hungary at present has a museum collection related to two thematic categories: history of the Polish community in Hungary and the history of Polish-Hungarian relations, as well as an archival department specialising mostly in gathering materials on Polish community organisations in Hungary. The museum collection was created mostly from permanent and long-term deposits lent by the Hungarian National Museum, Museum and Institute of Military History in Budapest and Regional Museum of Herman Otto in Miskolc (capital of the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén district, a strong centre of Polish community). Museum and Archive of Polish Community has two branches in this district – one, the so-called “Derenk Memorial House” in a Polish village Andrástanya and the second of a symbolic character – ruins of Derenk itself. In the Museum’s historical collection there is, for example, the only in Hungary copy of a coronation coat from the end of 11th century of Władysław III of Varna, King of Hungary, grandson on the distaff side of Mieszko II, and in the ethnographic collection an ornamental peasant table from 19th century of an unusual construction and decorations, characteristic for Polish furniture from Beskidy region. The Museum and Archive of Polish Community in Hungary intends to acquire currently scattered, in private hands or storages of archives and museums, items and documents often rare and valuable.

Collaboration with the Head Office of State Archives
The collaboration with the Head Office of State Archives to date consisted mainly in offering advice and consultancy on recording and describing of the collection. The Museum and Archive of Polish Community in Hungary due to its legal status is treated in the same way as other museums in Hungary and is subject to the Hungarian Ministry of Culture. This means that it has to use inventorying aids and databases used by this kind of institutions in Hungary, hence it cannot benefit from computer databases used in Polish state archives. The Museum’s authorities are however interested in obtaining professional archival help from Poland. In 2009 they suggested organisation of a visit in Budapest during which the collection would be analysed.


Plan for future works
Due to the mainly museum character of the institution and its participation in organisational and legal structures of Hungarian cultural institutions possible help would consist mostly in offering advice by state archives from Poland. Helpful for closer assessment of the post’s needs in this respect might be a short visit to the Museum in Budapest.
 

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