COURAGE

connecting collections

The exhibition was organized to coincide with the celebration of 25 years of Croatian independence, when various celebrations marked of the Great Jubilee on 12 September 1976, as well as the 1,040^th anniversary of the royal burial of Queen Helen in the oldest shrine at Our Lady's Isle (October 8, 976).

The exhibition of photographs of the Great Jubilee, the burial of Queen Helena and the concert of the Marian compositions symbolically launched the activities to promote the importance of early Croatian localities, "The Valley of Croatian Kings": Rižinica - remains of the oldest Benedictine monastery in Croatia, Our Lady's Isle with the oldest Marian shrine among the Croats and the mausoleum of Croatian kings and the Hollow Church - the Church of St. Peter and Moses, the coronation basilica of King Dimitar Zvonimir. The exhibition was opened on 7 October 2016.

The exhibition, designed by Ovidiu Taloş, was opened in Braşov on 8 October 2016. The exhibits were structured in two sections. One brought together large-scale reproductions of about 500 photographs, which were exhibited in the open-air in the park of the Faculty of Forestry, a place well-known as a pedestrian area for locals. The second section consisted of copies of around 100 photographs and was put on display at the Romanian Order of Architects–Braşov, Covasna, and Harghita Branch (Ordinul Arhitecţilor din România–Filiala Teritorială Braşov, Covasna, Harghita; OAR–BV–CV–HR), in the city’s old town. The exhibited pictures come from private photograph collections and the archives of several institutions. The reproductions illustrated various topics, such as the evolution of some areas in the old town at the beginning of the twentieth century, school-related activities in Braşov, leisure time in Braşov and its surroundings, and the city’s expansion during the twentieth century. A part of the exhibits depicted daily life under communism, notably school and patriotic work, as well as building of the new districts during the communist regime. The exhibition was organised under the aegis of OAR–BV–CV–HR, it was financed by the Braşov Municipality in partnership with the local newspaper Karpatenrundschau, which also offered numerous official photographs to be displayed.

The main actor in this event is Ildikó Kiss a retired teacher, who comes from Sânmărtin, Cluj county. She used to be a primary-school teacher in the villages of the Transylvanian Plain, and this is how she met Zoltán Kallós and later – as diaspora education is also provided –, she became a frequent guest at the Foundation as well. She proved to be a skilled and active person who had a fondness for singing and dancing and shared an interest in the same activities as those promoted by the Zoltán Kallós Foundation. Kiss sympathised with the Foundation and often visited the collection as well. In the summer of 2016 she brought up the idea of the donation. Her daughter lives in Toronto, Canada, so she spent most of her time there and in summer returned to her family home in Sânmărtin. She spent her time gardening but as time passed she found it more and more difficult to do this work around the house, so and she decided to settle down in Canada for good. For this reason she had to sell the house. Since she could not take her possessions with her and refused to let them go to waste, she entrusted to the Foundation the first room in the house, traditionally called in the peasant culture the “clean room” – the room that nobody uses, but that preserves the most precious belongings of the family.  After inspecting the house and documenting it with photos, the Foundation staff expressed their desire to include her assets in the collection. They disinfected the objects and the donation became part of the collection.

The ”clean room” kept its original state, preserving all that is representative for the period of the 1960s. This room contained the more important inherited objects holding both material and emotional value. The age of the items varies: some of them date back to the nineteenth century. At the same time there is a wide range of objects, each having its own story attached to it. The majority of the textiles were manufactured by the donor’s mother; these have visible dates on them, spanning from 1920 to 1935. However, there are also textiles woven by the maker of the donation herself. There are pieces of furniture that were produced by her father, and some were made as part of her dowry. The nightstand received as a gift from the manor – an item not typically found in a peasant clean room – counts as a curiosity. An ornate bed does not usually require a nightstand. It turned out that the family received a bed and a nightstand from the landlord in exchange for their work. As they were valuable, attractive,and representative, they found a place in the clean room, too. Beside the different wall-hangings, decorative wall plates, and pear-shaped jugs, mention must be made of the photos, which cover a large time span as well. There are drawings showing the great-grandparents as well as plenty of photos alluding to the donor’s childhood, all linked to the clean room. A great part of these became the property of the foundation as well. The museum personnel gathered and duly registered all materials pertaining to the history of the objects displayed in the clean room from Sânmărtin. By creating the exhibition room known as the “clean room” from Sânmărtin, housed in the extended museum building inaugurated in June, 2017, the Zoltán Kallós Ethnographic Collection has fulfilled the donor’s wish and enabled authentic display.

The most important event for the dissemination of the materials relating to this collection was the recent publication of the proceedings of the Third Congress of the MWU in a volume co-edited by the Moldovan researchers Vasile Bahnaru and Gheorghe Cojocaru. This publication, which appeared in 2016, collected a series of valuable texts concerning the Third Congress of the MWU, its broader implications for the local public sphere and the response of the authorities. Specifically, the editors made extensive use of the collections of the Mihail Kogălniceanu Museum of Romanian Literature (including the audio recording of the Congress proceedings) and a wide array of the periodical press from that era (e.g., the literary journals Nistru and Cultura and the official newspapers Moldova Socialistă and Sovetskaia Moldavia) in order to convey a complete picture of the event and its aftermath. They also used Fond 51 of the AOSPRM (The Fond of the Central Committee of the CPM), which holds the minutes of the Party meetings convened in December 1965 to discuss writers’ “subversive attitudes” and the appropriate counter-measures. This volume revived general public interest in the Third Congress of the MWU, serving as a significant complementary material to the documents stored in Fond P-2955 of the AOSPRM. The volume is available to a wide audience of potential readers and will hopefully have an impact on reassessing the role of Moldavian writers under Soviet rule.