SZABADSÁGHARC 1848–1849

Collection catalogue [Relics Museum Arad] (bevezető)

Gyula Kedves : Introduction

Once upon a time, there was a museum. It was established on the initiative of the local population, and it increased the cultural significance of the town. The ravages of history may have caused damage to, but could not destroy, the collections of the onetime Museum of Relics in Arad. And now, as a result of the cooperation of Romanian and Hungarian museums, the cultural relics have now been published in the form of a catalogue.

It is about time for such a publication, because the Palace of Culture in Arad, which was built to accommodate the museum, has merely housed the relics that were collected at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but have not been available to the public for many decades now. It is now time to issue the catalogue of this collection because only the photographs of the material of the, as it was then called, National Museum of Relics of the War of Independence were featured in an album published on the 50^th anniversary of the fight for freedom in 1898, but no systematic catalogue has yet been produced.¹ Edited by Mór Jókai, Sándor Bródy and Viktor Rákosi, the massive volume titled Eighteen forty-eight, subtitled The Illustrated History of the 1848-1849 Hungarian War of Independence – Pictures, Documents, Manuscripts, Relics, Noteworthy Prints, Proclamations, Works of Art portrayed several relics that have not been published since then, such as three huge pipes of General Damjanich; a cigar holder carved by General Ágoston Pikéty during his imprisonment in Arad; General Richard Guyon's field cap; Colonel Count Gusztáv Hadik's belt of a cavalry officer of the National Guards; or Vilmos Lázár's silk scarf that covered his eyes when he was executed. Turning the pages of the book, it is obvious that even in the beginning the aim was not to simply set up a collection of relics similar to others, but to establish a scientifically organised public collection. A proof of that was a large-scale map drafted by the eminent local history teacher Albert Laukó, entitled The Main Military Roads of the 1848-1849 War of lndependence, which also formed part of the collection and was reproduced in the book. Significant shortcomings of the volume, however, were the many errors and inaccurate definitions in the generally rather short item descriptions.²

This present catalogue is meant to be a register of the collections of the onetime Museum of Relics that are still preserved in Arad. The presentation, the detailed descriptions and the documentation of the items is a result of three years of joint activity. During this cooperation, a database was built that contains all the material that is presently available from the onetime collection in the Complexul Muzeal Arad, supplemented by quality digital photographs. The primary aim of the catalogue is to draw attention to this invaluable cultural heritage, which has been surrounded by legend rather than by exact knowledge. The size of the catalogue, when compared with the size of the collection, does not make it possible to give a thorough historical and professional analysis of the material, particularly in the more specialised fields (art history, technical history, numismatics). In many cases, that would require further research. Nevertheless, the Hungarian-Romanian working group that carried out the cataloguing trust there will be an opportunity for that in the future, and that several studies, albums, thorough descriptions and analyses of the collection parts will follow. Three museums joined forces to catalogue the collection that had been hidden for decades, not only from the public, but from researchers too. This scientific enterprise was guided by the Hungarian Military History Institute and Museum, and also involved the Ferenc Móra Museum in Szeged and the Complexul Muzeal Arad, with the cooperation of members of Szeged University and the Hungarian National Museum.

The two-volume catalogue organises the monumental collection into groups. It is no exaggeration to state that the collection of the Museum of Relics in Arad is one of the largest collections of the memorabilia of the 1848-1849 Revolution and War of Independence in existence. It can well be compared to the similar material in the collections of the Hungarian National Museum and the Hungarian Military History Museum. It came into existence in a unique – one might say extraordinary – way, as a result of which a specialised museum was instituted at the beginning of the 20^th century, in accord with the most modern notions and requirements of the then new discipline: museology. No other public collection dedicated to the collecting and displaying of the relics of the 1848-1849 War of Independence, has since been set up.

The origins of the collection can be traced back to 1881, when the Kölcsey Association was founded on the initiative of bank clerk Miklós Lukácsy, who served as an officer in Arad during the War of Independence at the age of 19. The Association then played a significant role in the cultural and public life of the town, which lies on the banks of the River Maros, for four decades.³ The first president of the Association was Károly Tabajdi, Lord Lieutenant of Arad County. If not as president, subsequent Lords Lieutenants at least supported the Association. The first secretary was Sándor Márki, who soon became a renowned history professor. He was followed by László Dömötör. Both of them encouraged Lukácsy's endeavours to collect the memorabilia of the 1848-1849 War of Independence, as a part of their planned museum activities. For the Association's primary aim was to establish a museum, which fell into line with the nationwide popular aspiration of the last quarter of the 19^th century according to which each town and county, conscious of the importance of culture, should have its own museum. At that time the Kölcsey Association aimed at the institution of a museum that would have introduced the history of the region in a detailed way, primarily based on the results of the archaeological excavations carried out in Pankota since the 1860s. Therefore, during the recent cataloguing of the museum artefacts the members of the working group also found items such as mediaeval cannonballs, barrels of wall guns and weapon parts.⁴ By 1887 the Association's 34 exhibits already included four relics from 1848-1849: the vest of Lieutenant General Erno Kiss who was executed in Arad; two bayonets; and the central piece of a Hungarian military flag; in addition, in the inventory of the 335-piece numismatic collection, there were three banknotes issued during the War of Independence.⁵

The decision to focus on the collecting of the relics of the fight for freedom was brought about due to two factors. Firstly, the commemorative events on the 40^th anniversary of the execution of the martyrs of the War of Independence in Arad reflected such a wide public need for the preservation of the heroes' memory that it could not be ignored. Secondly, the inauguration of the impressive Liberty Statue the following year (1890) caught nationwide attention and irrevocably made Arad the centre for remembrance of the War of Independence in the opinion of a majority of the people. The working conditions were created, too. The initiators, Lukácsy, Márki and Dömötör, were joined by three others who played an outstanding role in the establishment of the Museum of Relics in Arad. In 1888 a Museum Committee was formed within the Association, with delegates from both the county and the town. Consequently, the relics that had been preserved in the county hall were acquired by the collection, such as the parts of the banknote printing machine that had been stored there since August 1849. On 21 May 1891 this committee was transformed into a "Museum Committee for the War of Independence" with the aim of instituting the Museum of Relics.⁶ The financial basis for that was secured by a generous offer of Mihály Zichy, and was due to the exceptional organising skills of Árpád Varjassy, head of the Museum Committee. The prominent artist Zichy, who worked as the court painter of the Russian Tsar, produced two allegorical works in Saint Petersburg. The one entitled The Past represented the suppressed Hungarian War of Independence, the other entitled The Present symbolised the rise of the nation as a result of the political compromise in 1867. He donated the engravings to the Association for the purpose of reproduction and sale of prints and offered all the income therefrom for the establishment of the Museum of Relics. The works sold in surprisingly great numbers, the purchasers knowing that they were contributing to the cause of the Museum.⁷

1891 can be considered as the year the Museum of Relics in Arad was born, but before it became a real museum open to the public, Henrik Lévay had to be won over to be its patron. The onetime 2^nd lieutenant of the rifles, who had risen to become a businessman with a considerable fortune, a Baron and a Member of the Upper House, not only provided financial support but also used his business connections to make fundraising nationwide and more effective.⁸ The first visitors entered the temporary exhibition hall on 6 October 1892, while the official opening ceremony took place on 15 March 1893. On the first day the exhibition had 500 visitors, which indicated great interest, and the collection developed rapidly. From 1903 the government also took part in the funding by granting an annual allowance of 600 Crowns and Varjassy, by then the President of the Kölcsey Association, requested that a curator be employed. In the meantime the collection grew out of its temporary premises and therefore in 1909 the town of Arad decided on the construction of the Palace of Culture that accommodated the Museum of Relics from 1913. The collection remained undisturbed even after the town came under Romanian authority, and when the Museum was officially taken over by the Romanians, they recorded 3.916 relics in the collection.⁹ During the socialist regime, the items were displayed in an exhibition introducing revolutionary movements, but Ceausescu's dictatorship consigned almost all of them into the depths of the storage vaults.¹⁰ A new and limited opportunity came in the mid-1990s to carry out research in the collection, which was stored in rather unfavourable circumstances, when exhibitions were being prepared in Hungary for the 150^th anniversary of the War of Independence.¹¹

The two volumes of the catalogue present the collection of the onetime Museum of Relics in Arad (including artefacts and documents obtained during the later activity of the museum) in groups formed during the cataloguing process. The first volume contains the artefacts, with special emphasis on the relics of the martyrs and the leading figures of the War of Independence. It should be mentioned at this point that the collectors in Arad were prone to the usual pitfalls of collecting relics. The scientific examination of the artefacts made it obvious that certain items could not have belonged to the persons to whom they were linked, while others actually were made much later than previously believed (e.g. one of the sabres of General Leiningen, Inv. Nr. 1129). Nevertheless, it should be emphasised that the Museum of Relics in Arad, notwithstanding its name (National Museum of Relics of the War of Independence) was much more than just a selection of relics and the collection includes several special and valuable items other than relics.

Such a special item is a bayonet, made in a Hungarian workshop, that could be fixed on a double-barrelled gun, which embodies the creativity of provisional weapon manufacturing. The impressively large number of French infantry guns in the collection also gives the weapon historian food for thought and begs further research. There are outstanding items among the uniforms and military equipment too, such as the pieces of equipment of Hussar Major Gyula Hruby, a lesser known martyr of the War of Independence. The caps of General Richard Guyon and the Polish martyr, Lieutenant Colonel Miaczyslaw Woroniecki exemplify the unregulated clothing of the Hungarian officers of the War of Independence, whereas the hussar dolmans and officers' tunics reflect a well-organised, significant regular army. The existence of a Hungarian pharmacist officer's tunic in the collection is sensational, as it has been previously unknown that there were pharmacists in the officers corps of the Hungarian Defence Forces.¹² The fact that Hungarian military flags were cut into pieces after the War of Independence is confirmed by a piece of the 49^th Battalion's flag in the collection. Interestingly, another piece of the same flag was obtained by the Military History Museum, just like a third one, which had been to America and then in 1989 was returned by the grandson of the battalion commander. The only complete and undamaged hussar saddle known to exist today is another outstandingly important artefact of the Hungarian fight for freedom. The collection of almost fifty seals, which even contains a "poet's" signet, also serves as a valuable historical source.

There are exceptionally significant items in the collection of artefacts too, such as the last hand-bell of the Parliament; the undamaged ornamented tobacco bag of Sándor Petőfi; and a most interesting group of tools that Hugó Rákóczy-Parcsetich, Major of the National Guards, used during his imprisonment in Arad Castle to make portraits and souvenirs, at which he was a past master. The collection of graphics also contains a complete series of the portraits he made of the most important commanders of the Hungarian army who just avoided execution. But those are already included in the second volume, together with documents, prints and photographs.

The models of monuments and statues in the art collection are of great historical value. They provide information as to what the original version of the Liberty Statue in Arad, sculpted by Adolf Huszár, would have looked like; reveal the appearance of the monument of the War of Independence that was planned to be erected on Kossuth Square in Budapest; and show how the monument in Branyiszkó, which was destroyed in 1919, looked. Unfortunately, the plaster models are heavily damaged.

Among the photographs the daguerreotypes are of outstanding importance, especially the ones portraying officers, as they are a source of invaluable knowledge concerning the military uniforms of the period.

The correspondence between Royal and then National Commissioner Sebő Vukovics and the counties of Southern Hungary contains a lot of useful information regarding the Serbian uprising. From the point of view of historical research, the most significant documents are the orderly books of the 95^th and the 204^th Battalions, and that of a battalion of III Corps. The diary and the personal notes of poet Gyula Sárosi are also special sources. The history of the revolutions in Vienna is surprisingly well documented by various prints.

The editors of this catalogue made every effort to present the unique and rather heterogeneous collection of relics in its entity to the public. The various approaches of the authors (curators, historians, archivists, an art historian and a photo historian) have resulted in descriptions differing in style and in the quantity of information. The diversity of the collections is therefore reflected by the diversity of the authors' writing methods.

The size of the two volumes of the catalogue proved to be insufficient to include all the information the authors had gathered in the course of the project. Consequently, measurement data, provenance details, biographical data and bibliographical references have been omitted from most descriptions and the volumes are bereft of indices. The length of item descriptions was also limited and only include information essential for the identification of artefacts and documents. In the case of documents and prints only basic data have been published in the catalogue, because a separate volume entitled 'Collection of Documents' has already been issued including a selection of the most significant documents.

The artefacts and documents have been organised into groups. Within each group the item descriptions follow the structure below:

Weapons organised into subgroups
1. Inventory number
2. Name and date
3. Description
4. Measurements

Symbols and commemorative items in the order of inventory numbers
1. Inventory number
2. Name
3. Description

Numismatics, in a unique structure, with an introduction, names and subgroups

Orders, decorations and medals
1. Inventory number
2. Name
3. Description
4. Measurements
5. Comments

Works of art organised into subgroups
1. Inventory number
2. Artist and title
3. Caption, signature
4. Material, technique
5. Further details

Photographs in the order of inventory numbers, with an introduction
1. Inventory number
2. Name
3. Description
4. Inscription
5. Place and date of the taking of picture, technique, measurements
6. Framing

Manuscripts and prints in chronological order
1. Place and date of writing/issue
2. Title
3. Dimensions, technique, printing office, language
4. Inventory number
5. Initials of author(s)

The catalogue is illustrated by digital photographs and scans. Most of the artefacts and documents had not been conserved or restored before publication.

Acknowledgements

During the studying and cataloguing of the collection of the onetime Museum of Relics in Arad the colleagues of both the Romanian and Hungarian museums rendered significant help. It is the pleasure of the editor, who was also the scientific coordinator of the programme, to thank József Bartha, Natalia Dascal, Felicia Oarcea, Delia Kelemen, Luminita Padorean and Adriana Pantazi (Complexul Muzeal Arad) for their invaluable assistance in the cataloguing process; Mrs. László Kerekes (MoD Military History Institute and Museum), Attila Császár (Móra Ferenc Museum), Emanuela Bundea, Florin Hornoiu, Florin Marginean, Adelina Stoenescu (Complexul Muzeal Arad), Beatrix Lendvai and Krisztina Rotár (in Szeged), and Dr. Sándor Pálfi (in Pécska) for their precious technical support; as well as the conservers: Georghe Petrisor, Grigore Chesa, loan Paul Colta, Calina Comarnescu, Michai Martin, Alina Mladin, Radu Tunaru (Complexul Muzeal Arad) and Mrs. Éva Katkó (Móra Ferenc Museum) for their careful preparatory work. Special thanks are due to the project manager, Imre Oláh.

KATALÓGUS		TARTALOM