Kultúrával a Szocializmusért Látogasd a Múzeumokat!

With culture for Socialism. Visit the museums!

The Hungarian National Museum has its origins in 1802, when Count Ferenc Széchényi established the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. The collection quickly expanded, and in 1807 the Hungarian Parliament passed legislation on what had by then become a new institution, called the Hungarian National Museum, and asked the Hungarian nation to support it with donations. From this starting-point, an impressive network of museums developed in Hungary before the Second World War. These museums lacked consistent financing, however, and some of the smaller ones struggled. The post-war communist takeover in Hungary – as well as in the other countries that fell under Soviet control – included a complete centralisation and command of cultural institutions. According to Soviet ideology, museums were a highly effective means of providing communist education to the working class and promoting communist ideas and the communist world view. Textbooks of Soviet museology were quickly translated from Russian and their recommendations implemented. The Soviet approach to museum organisation, arrangement and management contained a mix of progressive ideas, such as the importance given to the audience’s development and the increased professionalisation of museum activity – including the provision of guidelines for collection organisation and conservation. However, the museums’ narratives were completely politicised, always serving the needs of the newly established dictatorship. A powerful visualisation of the communist takeover in the cultural sphere can be seen in this poster: the red five-pointed star depicted on top of the entrance to the Hungarian National Museum. Symbolically, Hungary’s most important museum institution, which had begun as an aristocratic initiative in the 19th century, had become ‘red’ – and with it, the rest of the country’s museums and cultural institutions.