József Attila Museum, Makó

The József Attila Museum is the museum of the city of Makó, its collection area extends to the sixteen settlements of the Makó district.

History

Dr. Herrmann Antal, honorary chief archivist of Csanád County, sent a memorandum to County Governor Emil Purgly in 1924, in which he proposed the establishment of a county museum in order to save the national tradition. In his view, the county should create a general public cultural association, but he also requested a cultural house for the city.

In 1937, under the leadership of Imre Csepregi, the recently reorganized Csanád County Historical and Archaeological Society, as the legal successor of its predecessor, reclaimed from the main high school the objects kept as deposits. Gold, silver, nickel, bronze and copper coins thus came into its possession, but it also received several objects and documents that the high school had been collecting since 1903. All of these were stored in two large cabinets placed in the wing building of the county house. The finds of the newer excavations were transferred to the Antiquities Institute of the University of Szeged. This latter organization, by the way, undertook the preparation and restoration of the archaeological objects from Makó.

In January 1938, about 32,000 pengő was collected for the László Kelemen Memorial Fund; a heated debate arose in the city about whether to use it for a statue, a theater, a cultural house, or a museum. In the end they decided to allocate the entire amount to museum establishment, except for 50 pengő. With a Ministry of Interior permit, the 28,000 pengő statue fund of Lajos Návay could also be added to the money intended for the museum.

With the reintegration of Upper Hungary the DMKE dormitory became empty, because the institution was moved to Kassa. An opportunity arose to place the museum, library and archive here. According to the plans a agricultural department would also have been established in the museum, where the Makó onion, the Mezőhegyes stud farm and the Bánkút tobacco cultivation would have been presented; the 180 pictures owned by the state authority were intended as the basis of the fine arts collection; the Apátfalva folk costume and the county folk art memorabilia were to be displayed in an ethnographic section. The city council voted for the purchase of the building with 85 votes in favour and 1 against. The new facility was supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences book fund, the National Superintendent of Public Collections’ journal subscription and cash fund, and the Hungarian Natural Science Society material covering the flora of Csanád County.

In 1943, because of a shortage of space at the Institute of Antiquities, the collection stored with them was sent back to Makó, and it was placed in the museum furnished on June 15. The organization of the folklore department began with the furnishing of a room from Apátfalva. By December of that year nearly 2 800 museum objects were already on display, but the presentation of the documents and the coin collection to the public was postponed until after the Second World War. In September 1944, during the evacuation of the city, the more valuable part of the archaeological collection was packed into crates and shipped by rail. The train became a victim of American carpet bombing in the vicinity of Zalaegerszeg; the coin collection was looted by the Soviets during the unrestricted plundering authorized by their commander.

The National Center of Museums declared the collection of archaeological fragments that survived the war a museum in 1950, then appointed the last-year museum studies student Ernő Pesovár as full-time museum director. The institution thus created was named after József Attila; in 1951 it was moved into the romantic‑style noble manor at 4 Megyeház Street, which was renovated and altered in 1952 according to the plans of the Szeged Design Office, taking the museum function into account. In 1970 a floor‑addition was planned for the building, but when the foundation walls were opened it turned out that the interior load‑bearing walls were embedded in mud. For structural reasons the masonry had to be dismantled down to the floor level, and construction stood idle for almost a decade. Finally, in 1981 the manor was demolished and the new museum building that still stands today was erected in its place, designed by Mihály Vincze. The monotonous façade was given the building plastic of Imre Varga: a composition made from the coffin‑shaped trees of the Reformed old cemetery conveys the passage of time.

Since the 1960s the collection has continuously grown, the local history collection was created; the ethnographic collection, which presents folk costumes, painted furniture, agricultural and household tools and craft workshops to the public; the literary collection, whose most valuable items are József Attila’s manuscripts; the visual arts collection was established, based on works from the artist colonies of the 1920s, 1970s and 1980s, as well as a historical portrait gallery presenting distinguished state officials and rulers.

In 1979 the museum's literary exhibition space, the Espersit House, was completed; at the same time as the new main building was erected, the open-air museum buildings were created in the inner courtyard. In 1980 the onion house in Ópusztaszer National Historical Memorial Park was opened. Later the material exhibited in the József Attila Museum was expanded with a natural science, photographic, archival and historical documentation collection. The ground‑floor hall of the building hosted temporary exhibitions, and on the upper floor the permanent exhibition titled “Makó 700 years” was completed, which presents the city's history to the public. Visitors could learn about the settlement's founding, its development into a market town; the 1299 charter was exhibited, where the settlement is already mentioned as Makófalva; the exhibition covered the past centuries, and images of the 1970 flood closed it.