Tribeč Museum - Topolčany

Establishment of the museum

The museum in Topoľčany was founded only in 1961. In addition to the mentioned activities of the patriotic circle, the discovery of a part of the jaws contributed to its final origin.

and the tusk of a mastodont, which members of the patriotic circle led by Ernest Opluštil discovered in 1960 in Kuzmice. The Municipal National Committee in Topoľčany set aside a room in its premises in the town hall, where this unique find was stored and preserved. After the allocation of additional space, the museum finally ended on March 1, 1961 under the name of the District Museum of Homeland Studies

in Topoľčany it was officially established. Vladimír Kedrovič became the first director of the museum, who also served as a historian. Of the other scientific disciplines, only the natural sciences were occupied, where two experts worked for a short time. The allocated space in the town hall was enough only for work equipment

and depositories, exhibition space was missing. At the date of the museum's founding, the collection consisted of more than 5,000 objects, among which archaeological finds predominated. Insufficient spatial conditions, the absence of professional staff for individual scientific disciplines and, in a sense, non-conceptual management work have caused the museum to stagnate for several years. Also the activity of the patriotic circle

has weakened over the years. The most significant results of the museum's work in this period can be considered only the construction of the Room of Revolutionary Traditions in Uhrovec in 1962 focused on the content of the partisan brigade Ján Žižka, the opening of the Rudolf Jašík Memorial Room in Partizánsky in 1963, but especially the reconstruction of Ľ. Stura in Uhrovec.

Exposure activity

In Topoľčany, the first permanent exposition of the museum was opened in 1964 and its content was anthropology. Due to the composition of the collection, the exposition did not capture the patriotic character of the museum, nor the long-term efforts of the patriotic workers to date. The exhibition was to be visited by an exotic exhibit - a 3,500-year-old mummy from Egypt, which was donated to the Topoľčany Museum by the Hrdlička Museum in Prague (in 1985, the mummy became part of the exhibition at the then Museum of Social Development in Bratislava).

It was not until 1970 that the museum received additional premises and funds from MsNV for their adaptation. Thanks to this, the museum staff was able to reinstall the anthropological exposition and realize a patriotically broader conceived exposition, which was made available to the public on May 12, 1971. The exposition presented part of the collections from archeology, paleontology and mineralogy. A small exposition from the history of the labor movement also became a part of the patriotic exposition

in the Topoľčiansky district.

In 1974, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the SNP, the museum opened an exhibition of partisan armaments and equipment in bunkers on Jankov Vřšek. Due to repeated thefts and the impossibility of ensuring the protection of objects, the exhibition was canceled in 1991. In 1977, after acquiring premises in the renovated Workers 'House in Topoľčany, the museum opened an exhibition dedicated to the history of the workers' movement in the district, which was abolished in 1990.

Since the establishment of the museum, the existing anthropological exposition in 1985 was replaced by an ethnographic exposition, which presented the issue of traditional folk culture of the region in a relatively small space, especially agriculture and folk clothing and textiles.

The original patriotic exposition, which had existed unchanged for twenty years, was abolished at the end of 1990. In a short time, it was replaced by a new patriotic exhibition From the Museum's Collections, opened on April 23, 1991 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the museum's founding. The exhibition presented a selection of the most interesting objects from archeology, history, ethnography, zoology, botany, geology, mineralogy and paleontology, while some collections, e.g. numismatic, brewing, a collection of contemporary folk art or a collection of zoological preparations were made available to the public for the first time in the history of the museum. From January 1964 to the end of September 2002, the birth house of Ľ. Stura

in Uhrovec, since 1996 bearing the name Rodný dom of Ľudovít Štúr and Alexander Dubček. The first exhibition was opened here in 1965 on the occasion of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ľ. Štúra was re-installed in 1977. After the reconstruction of other parts of the house, the museum opened the Memorial Room of Alexander Dubček here in 1995, who was also born in this house. After the creation of higher territorial units by an administrative decision, the birth house passed into the ownership of the Trenčín self-governing region, under the administration of the Trenčín Museum.

in Trencin.

Scientific research activity

The scientific research activity of the museum staff in the first years after the founding of the museum was minimal, which was mainly a manifestation of insufficient staffing, but also a weakening activity of the patriotic circle.

The first comprehensive ethnographic, botanical and archaeological research was carried out by museum staff in 1972 in the villages of the Slatinská Valley. Partial results of this research were published in the first (and only) issue of the journal Správy Vlastivedného múzea in Topoľčany. Also in the following period, the research activity focused mainly on the northern part of the then Topoľčiansky district.

and more or less had the character of short-term surveys. Obtained material

it was mostly not processed, resp. published. At the end of the 1970s, research activities became more professional on the basis of the arrival of experts from individual scientific disciplines. The results of their scientific research activities were published by experts in the form of studies in separate publications and in professional periodicals, but above all in the form of popular-science contributions intended for a wide range of readers.

Collecting activity

From the very beginning, the museum's collecting activities were adversely affected by the lack of suitable depositories. Until 1980, the collection items were stored in the damp cellars of the museum and in two rooms of the house intended for sanitation. In 1980, MsNV assigned the building a building on Pribinova Street, where they found a place to work.

for some museologists and depositories for subjects from history, ethnography, archeology and botany. As this building was also located in the remediation zone, at the beginning of 1986 the workers, together with the collections, had to move again. The working museum acquired premises for the location in the building of the Topoľčany Winter Stadium, the collection items were moved outside the town of Topoľčany, to the building of the former school in Malé Bedzany. Part of the expanding collection and part of the staff

the following year it was placed in a family house in Tovarníky, which the museum acquired in 1986 through a purchase into its ownership. Frequent removal of collection items and placement in climatically unsuitable areas has in many cases led to their permanent damage. The absence of areas suitable for areas also marked the content of the collection, as larger items were not acquired due to lack of space. During 1999 and 2000, the collections were moved to the current headquarters of the museum.

Exhibition activity

Like the collection activities, the museum's exhibition activities were practical

since its foundation marked by the lack of its own presentation space.

Until the opening of the Social House in Topoľčany in 1981, the museum staff installed exhibitions in shop windows, in the corridors of offices, schools or

in the cultural houses of the municipalities of the Topoľčiansky district. For this reason, panel-type exhibitions prevailed, where the content consisted of text

and photographic material. The content focus of these exhibitions resulted from the political and social situation at the time. The predominant topics of the exhibitions were the workers' movement, the establishment of the JRD, the national liberation movement and the SNP, the history of the Communist Party, etc.

Since 1981, the museumists have used the exhibition cubicles of the Social House in Topoľčany to present their collections. The realization of exhibitions in these spaces also represented only a certain temporary, without adequate exhibition furniture and adequate protection of collection objects. Another negative was the relatively short duration of exhibitions, which did not correspond to the amount of professional work and financial resources. Despite these problems, the museum staff prepared about 5-6 exhibitions a year. Most of them were focused on political anniversaries, but exhibitions of a "non-political" focus, prepared from an ethnographic or natural history fund, also appeared more frequently.

The breakthrough in the museum's exhibition activities was the year 1991. In that year, after the opening of the new patriotic exposition, the ethnographic exposition was canceled.

Short-term exhibitions prepared from our own collections began to be held on its premises, as well as exhibitions taken over from other museums.

Moving the museum

The successful start of the museum's exposition-exhibition activities was interrupted in 1994 by the commencement of reconstruction work at the town hall, the former seat of the museum, and its relocation to the medical center in the Juh housing estate in Topoľčany. Even after certain modifications in this building, it was possible to place only a study and a library, the collections were concentrated in three buildings located in the villages around Topoľčany. One room with an area of about 50 m2 was used for the museum's exhibition purposes.

In an effort not to lose contact with visitors, especially schoolchildren, even in these not the most favorable conditions, the museum, albeit in a greatly reduced form, continued its exhibition activities.

The new seat of the museum

The museum's subsistence in temporary confined spaces outside the city center ended in April 1999, when the museum moved to a partially renovated building of the former district court, later a children's house, built in 1895. Thanks to the hospitality of the then deputies and mayor Ing. Pavel Segeš, the museum thus acquired one of the few preserved historical buildings in Topoľčany for a thirty-year lease, where for the first time it has concentrated administrative

and presentation spaces, as well as the entire collection.

Presentation activities

After moving the museum to its current headquarters on Krušovská Street, a new stage of the museum's presentation activities began. Three different spaces have been set aside for exposition-exhibition activities, which enable the simultaneous installation of three exhibitions of different sizes. The first exhibition was installed in the new building almost simultaneously with the completion of the museum's relocation. In recent years, in organizing presentation activities, the Tribeč Museum cooperates not only with museums but also with civic associations and companies (exhibition Scientific Toy, 100 years of railways, brewing ...), individuals (presentation of private collections of entomologists, exhibitions of artists, collectors ...), schools (presentation of works by pupils of art schools, vocational schools ...), district archives, towns and villages (heraldic symbols, anniversaries of towns and cities). Collectibles from the museum's collection also formed part of exhibitions organized by other organizations, e.g. District Topoľčany exhibits - Bratislava 1995, Salon of museums - Bratislava 1994, Nitra 1995, Expotour Slovakia Žilina - 1999, Exdrink drinks - Trenčín 1998, 1999, From the history of beer brewing - Bohemia 2000, 2001, Journey through history - Martin 2000, Bratislava and Košice 2001 , Nostalgia - Bratislava 2001, Holiday in the countryside - Nitra 2003, 2004 etc. Since 2002, in addition to classical exhibitions, the museum has also been preparing exhibitions, an integral part of which are animation, creative workshops, knowledge or art competitions. Exhibitions with an environmental focus - Life in the Forest, Animals in Fairy Tales and Life in Water were prepared in this form.

and its surroundings, and the archeological-historical exhibition Day at the Old Slavs. Exhibitions, during which visitors can actively participate in the story in order to test their manual skills and knowledge, are well received by the target group of visitors - kindergarten children, elementary school students and high school students. Since 1990, the offer of events in the field of museum communication includes relatively rarely used interactive forms of presentation and access to collection items - lectures, knowledge quizzes, art competitions, open hours, field trips, creative workshops, etc. A substantial share of presentation activities in the museum's business plan has been evident since 1999, to which the spatial possibilities in the new building have also contributed. Until now, the absence of separate spaces makes it possible to organize individual types of cultural and educational programs directly in the museum. If necessary or depending on the presented topic, these activities are also performed directly in the exhibition space.