János Arany Museum

Known as the János Arany Museum, a local history museum in Nagykőrös, at 19 Ceglédi Road. Its permanent exhibitions preserve, alongside documents of János Arany’s years in Nagykőrös, the city’s history and local folklore material. The museum’s sponsor has been the municipal government of Nagykőrös since 1 January 2013, and the institution operates as a sub‑institution of the Nagykőrös János Arany Cultural Center, Library and Museum Collection under the name János Arany Public Museum Collection.

Background

The memories of János Arany’s teaching in Nagykőrös, manuscripts of his works and letters began to be regularly collected in 1910 and were placed in the high school building. The foundations of the City Museum were laid in 1928 by Mayor Dr. Dezső Kázmér, who created a foundation and offered the city his library as well as his antiquities and plant collections. The collections were kept hidden from the public, as there was no independent exhibition space available at that time.

Between 1950 and 1972

The city museum was actually established in 1950. Independently, in 1957, on the 400th anniversary of the Nagykőrös János Arany High School, the János Arany Memorial Museum opened as part of a national celebration. The museum’s director, Dr. László Törös, was a scholarly researcher, whose dedicated work is praised by the collection still visible today, and whose merit was the creation of the Nagykőrös Arany cult.

After 1972

In 1972 a full‑time head was appointed to lead the city museum; two years later the two museums were merged, and the material of the Arany Memorial Museum also received space in the city museum building. A permanent exhibition combining selected material from the collections was opened to the public in 1978. Afterwards the museum operated within the organizational framework of the Pest County Museums Directorate. The institution’s sponsor has been the municipal government of Nagykőrös since 1 January 2013, and the institution operates as a sub‑institution of the Nagykőrös János Arany Cultural Center under the name János Arany Public Museum Collection.

Building

It is located at 19 Ceglédi Road in Nagykőrös.

The museum building was once a hussar barracks, built in classicist style between 1836 and 1838. During the 1848-49 war of independence, the walls of the much larger, multi‑building complex housed a home guard hussar regiment. Afterwards it was used as a men’s home for nearly a hundred years. After 1945 the building complex proved unnecessary. When in 1950 the museum collection was also placed here, several parts of the building – including a 200 m stable – were demolished. In 1992 a foundation was established for the museum’s purposes and for the partial restoration of the former hussar barracks. In front of the main building the so‑called Great Teacher Statue group was erected. The sculpture by Imre Varga commemorates the teachers of the Nagykőrös gymnasium, seven of whom – including, of course, János Arany – became academicians.

Collections, Exhibitions

Among the museum’s collections, the archaeological, ethnographic and literary‑historical collections stand out, the most valuable part of the latter being, of course, the Arany manuscripts. One famous archaeological find is the Avar‑period princely sword, which is a highlight of the permanent exhibition. The folk‑art collection of carved wooden staffs from Protestant cemeteries is displayed as a separate section of the permanent exhibition, on the rear corridor. The collections are complemented by a specialist library and a photo archive.

The permanent exhibition presents the archaeological, historical, ethnographic and literary‑historical memories and documents of Nagykőrös and its immediate surroundings. The most beautiful piece of jewelry from the centuries after the Hungarian conquest is a gilded circular‑cross that was found in the ruins of a temple near Ludas. During the Turkish occupation Kőrös remained on the ground, and thereafter the settlement in the Great Plain gradually developed into a market town.

The tools for agriculture from the 18th–19th centuries made by local master craftsmen, various displayed tools for garden management. János Arany was a teacher at the city's long‑standing Reformed high school for nine years (1851–1860); his memories of his stay here, manuscripts, small study room and other relics can be seen in separate vitrines. The exhibition ends with local documents of the great historical changes of the 20th century.

Industrial‑historical period exhibition

At the beginning of May 2008 the museum opened an exhibition titled “Once there was a canning factory in Nagykőrös…”.

which presented the history of the once famous Kőrös factory that permanently closed in 2007. In the first room the first half‑century of the factory that existed for 111 years was shown, in the second room the memories of the post‑1945 period were displayed. The factory, which grew out of the Gschwindt distillery, provided a secure livelihood for many Kőrös families and from the 1970s it was already one of the country's leading canning factories. In 1969, to document the factory’s history, a museum was established, and as part of this the models of the production equipment were also made. When the factory ceased, together with the models the entire industrial‑historical material was taken over by the János Arany Museum. The exhibition, which was open for one year, gave a selection from this collection.

In the 2010s

After the county museum organization system was centrally abolished on 1 January 2013, the institution came under the management of the Nagykőrös city municipality and the museum was attached to the cultural centre. In the meantime “the museum’s collection warehouse that seemed ownerless was robbed”. Later the complete transformation of the museum began, during which the former permanent exhibition was also dismantled. The transformation was realized with a state subsidy of 900 million forints. According to Dr. László Ferenc Novák, former museum director and former president of the János Arany Society, the renewed institution places emphasis on the attraction and only partially fulfills a museum’s fundamental purpose.