Representing Which Past? Bicentennial reflections on museums in ninteenth-century Hungary

In 2002, Hungary celebrated the bicentennial of the foundation of its National Museum. As the initial, universal collections branched off into a range of specific museums during the later 19th century, this development characterised the successes and failures of the whole of the “museum idea” in this Central European country of a belated but rapid modernisation. The astounding number of museums in Hungary – founded primarily in the half-century preceding the Great War – betrayed considerable diversity in their focus upon universal vs. national values, as much as upon a didactic vs. a scholarly mission. Much of this variety has been forgotten, although quite a few of its benefits are worth reviving today