The Symbol of Civil Autonomy and Patronage: The City Museum of Pressburg (1868–1918)

There are stories forgotten and lost from collective consciousness. A sterling example of this is one of the oldest museums in Hungary´s history, the City Museum of Pressburg (Pozsony, Prešporok, today Bratislava) founded in 1868. There have been many authors, especially Slovak museologists, endeavouring to write the history of this museum. But their attempts, because of the disappearance of the German and Hungarian cultural and language codes, and also due to the Slovak nation-building program, have turned out to be rather ambiguous. This study also offers an analysis of the negative aspects of the Slovak publications, and it presents theses dedicated to the service of politics of memory. On the other side, it also pays attention to the paradigm shift of Slovak museology performing numerous positive signals after 1989. On the basis of the so far fundamentally overlooked archival materials held in Bratislava and Budapest, the author also analyses the motivating factors and circumstances of the museum´s foundation, its development in the era of dualism, and its relationship with the State General Inspectorate of Museums and Libraries. He also pays attention to the operation of its custodians (József Könyöki, Ágost Helmár) and their concepts of institution-building and collection enlargement.