Vilma House

The Vilma House in the municipality of Somogyszob is a folk house located at 24 Luther Street. It received its name after its last resident, Vilma Puskás. The maintenance of the house is carried out by the Vilma House Foundation.

History

Somogyszob's first brick peasant house, built in 1839 by the affluent Puskás family. The originally thatched three‑storey house had two ground‑floor rooms and a smoke kitchen. The kitchen contains a six‑bread oven. In the 1960s it was the focus of folklorists, who then carried out a complete survey of the then‑still intact porch. Dr. Edit Kerecsényi already formulated in 1967 in her paper the need to protect and rescue the Vilma House, the economic buildings, the apiary, the cellar, and the well house. The layout of the house was not altered, only the thatch roof was replaced with tiles in the 1960s. The buildings in the house courtyard were destroyed over time, and only the apiary was moved to the Somogyszob portal of the Szennai Open Air Museum. After the death of the house’s last resident, Vilma Puskás, the house received national monument protection in 1982 and became municipal property. In 2001, with significant financial support from the Cultural Heritage Protection Office’s monument restoration program and the cooperation of the Vilma House Foundation created to operate the house, it was renovated and handed over to the public on September 6, 2003. The property, together with the buildings on it, belongs to the local government; the collection, furnishings and other movable assets belong to the Foundation, which ensures their care. The overwhelming majority of tasks are performed free of charge by community members, the “vilmások”.

The furnishing of the house and the courtyard was largely realized from donations of local residents. The furnace was transferred to the site from Kálvin Street – from the Long Gate, the auxiliary building constructed with timber framing was moved from the parish, the woven reed came from the nearby settlement of Háromfa. A beehive was also installed at the gate. In 2009 the heritage inventory was carried out, and the place was officially declared a museum exhibition site. The monument and its gate, as part of the folk-house network, are on the World Heritage tentative list.

In 2014 another large auxiliary building was erected at the rear of the courtyard, which includes a kitchen with a furnace and a room that, among other things, provides space for craft workshops, as well as a blacksmith's workshop. In 2017‑18 the roof terrace of the auxiliary building was built, where an exhibition was later installed. In 2018 a shed was also built, where agricultural tools were placed, and then another covered area was created, housing the carpentry‑cooperage workshop and the viticulture collection.

In 2021 the former Vincze family estate’s 140‑year‑old cellar house was donated to the foundation by its current owner. The cellar house was built around the 1880s by a Somogyszob family on the Segesd vineyard estate. It is a so‑called “talpas” house: the supporting beams are reinforced within the surrounding wooden beams. The wall was built with timber‑frame technique from planks, plastered on the outside with mud and whitewashed. The roof beams are thick, and the doors are solid, made of good‑quality wood. The threshing house was originally thatched, and a barn also stood beside it. This was demolished when the cellar roof was replaced with tiles. The building was dismantled plank by plank and rebuilt at the gate of Vilma House.

Events

In the years following the handover of the folk house, the traditional Vilma Day is held every year on the first Saturday of September, a cultural event for the inhabitants of the settlement and its surroundings. Over the years the event has hosted numerous artists and performers connected to folk art, tradition preservation, and the local community. The guest list has been enriched by singer Kamilla Dévai Nagy, the Regélők Choir, folk‑artist János Kegye, bagpiper Tamás Czigány, tárogató player Sándor Szabó and actor György Hunyadkürti, as well as several amateur folk‑dance groups and teachers from the Nagyatád music school. Within the framework of the event the year's Vilma awards are presented – usually to three awardees – who have contributed significantly to the Foundation and the folk house during the past period, either through their work or other contributions.

The house was built by an old Reformed family, therefore the regular programs include the Good Friday white mourning, during which, according to the old, almost forgotten custom, everything was covered with the old mourning colour, white, instead of coloured and patterned tablecloths.

In a similarly tradition‑preserving way the Easter meadow program is held at the porch, about which Dr. Jankovits Tihamér, former parish priest of Somogyszob, wrote: “Easter meadow, on Easter day and the afternoon of the next day the youth go out to the manor meadow to play ball. The whole village is there, the elders as spectators, the youth as participants. I have only seen this custom here. Everyone brought treats, jam, pastry, kuglóf, wine, pálinka. Many brought apples as Easter gifts for their godchild and handed them over here. The young people sprinkled water, only with water, threw eggs, danced circle dances, played circle games, the last couple ran forward, ‘don’t look back, the wolf is coming.’ At that time one could also meet people. The elders talked, offered each other refreshments.” The referenced manor meadow has since been built over, therefore during the revival of the tradition the first two occasions were held at another location, and finally the gathering was held in the courtyard of the Vilma House.

The traditions also include the Bread Festival, during which every year on August 20 the women bake bread in the oven, and after the afternoon service at 5 p.m. at the Vilma House, following the bread blessing, the attendees are treated to fresh buttered bread (homemade bread, homemade butter). In 2021 the House contributed to the “Bread of the Hungarians” event by baking bread, where the local community offered more than twenty‑three sacks, that is eleven and a half maunds of wheat for collection.