Völgységi Múzeum

The Völgységi Museum opened on April 1, 1987 in Bonyhád. The institution, a regional museum handling the historical and ethnographic memories of Völgység, is maintained by the Bonyhád city municipality and is under the professional supervision of the Szekszárd Wosinsky Mór County Museum. Since 2010, the museum’s exhibition spaces have included the Firefighters Museum (Bonyhád, Szabadság Square 12), which opened on May 25, 1985, and the Perczel Memorial Room in the Perczel manor (Bonyhád, Perczel Mór Street 44), handed over on June 16, 2021. The museum’s permanent exhibition was renewed in 2017; the exhibition titled “House and Man in Völgység” presents the lifestyle of Völgység inhabitants through interiors. In addition to the traditions of the Székelys, Upper Hungarian (Felvidéki) Hungarians and the German community, it recalls the history of the Apponyi family, as well as the enamel industry, blacksmith workshops and the material culture of the 1950s. In the display about 1956, the personal identification card of the Bonyhád hero of the revolution, the sixteen‑year‑old apprentice Jenő Szakács, pierced by a bullet, is shown, testifying to his death. Visitors can learn about reconstructions of Völgység’s medieval castles through 3D films. A model of the Bonyhád Gothic church presents the church sanctuary with a large‑size drapery. A model of the Apponyi Castle in Lengyeltóti and of the characteristic German Fachwerk houses has also been made. The museum welcomes visitors with continuously updated programmes, temporary exhibitions, popular‑science lectures, and craft and tradition‑preserving workshops.

The main building of the Völgységi Museum houses the Nunkovits‑Honig House, which has been under monument protection since 1958 (IVO 4097). The former community house still retains its exterior, which was acquired in the 1880s. In 2015 the building’s western façade underwent a complete renovation.

History of the museum

Bonyhád, a market town at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries, after its resettlement, became the rapidly developing centre of Völgység, where the region’s wealthier nobles built residential houses and manors. The Nunkovits family, co‑owners of the Perczel‑Börzsöny estate, also owned property on Piac Square. The family members were owners and county officials in Tolna and Baranya counties at the end of the 18th century. Their multi‑storey residential house, built in the late 18th century in a classicising late Baroque style, still displays on its façade an oval medallion with the Nunkovits coat of arms. In 1904 the estate and the building were purchased by Albert Honig, a businessman from Budapest. In 1945 the Settlement Office, and later the Central Cooperative of Völgység Settlers, made it their headquarters. After the 1952 nationalisation, the building was used as a residential house until the establishment of the Völgységi Museum.

From April 1, 1987 the Béri Balog Adám Museum in Szekszárd served as an exhibition venue; today it operates as an independent regional museum with its own collection under the maintenance of the Municipality of Bonyhád.

The permanent exhibition

Völgység is the most fragmented part of the Transdanubian Hills with valleys, lying north of Mecsek and west of Sárköz. Its centre is the Bonyhádi valley in the eastern part of the region.

In the early 18th century Hungarians and Serbs sparsely populated the area. Resettlement began in the 1710s by landowners who granted privileges to German settlers coming from the Pfalz, Hesse, and Fulda regions. By the 1740s the settlement network had solidified, and the Silesian Jewish community that arrived mainly at that time did not alter it. The Hungarians were Catholics and Reformed, the Germans were also Lutherans, and the Serbs were Eastern Orthodox. The collection of objects from five religions is unique.

The museum presents this unique cultural unit of Bonyhád and its surroundings.

The exhibition “House and Man in Völgység”, opened in 2015, seeks to portray the lifestyle of the Völgység people through interiors. In ten rooms, more than a thousand objects, photographs, and models give a glimpse of Völgység’s history from the 13th century to the 20th century through displays on lifestyle, industry and technology, and folklore. In addition to the traditions of the Székely, Upper Hungarian, and German communities, it recalls the Apponyi family, the enamel industry, blacksmith workshops, and, among other things, the material culture of the 1950s. In the panel about 1956, the torn personal ID of the Bonyhád hero of the revolution, 16‑year‑old apprentice Jenő Szakács, is shown, bearing witness to his death. Separate rooms in the exhibition present the histories of the city’s two defining companies: the Bonyhád shoe factory and the enamel factory.

The most valuable part of the Apponyi salon is the romantic Neo‑Baroque salon garland from the mid‑19th century belonging to the Lengyel Apponyi family. The pianino was made at the Vienna workshop of Kaspar Lorenz. The only aristocratic family of Völgység belonged to that current of the Hungarian aristocracy that, like the Széchenyys, the Eszterházys, the Festetics, did much for the flourishing of Hungarian culture. Their most prominent figures are the statesman Count Albert Apponyi and the collector, bibliophile and patron Count Sándor Apponyi. The Apponyi family coat of arms, the decorated Hungarian costume, fits well into the vaulted room. The model of the Apponyi castle is tangible.

A Upper Hungarian Hungarian living room from Udvar, dating from 1930, is complemented by a women's costume. Upper Hungarian Hungarian fate is presented in vitrines from the Treaty of Trianon to the Paris peace treaty (1920–1947). The Hungarian national flag from Tardoskedd, the Teleki‑type Carte Rouge (red map), and three Hungarian newsreel sound films authenticate their history.