Saint Peter
The new exhibition of the Slovak National Museum – Museum of the Culture of Hungarians in Slovakia, titled Under Saint Peter’s Umbrella, at the Kálmán Mikszáth Memorial House in Sklabina, was opened on May 29. The central theme of the exhibition is love for the homeland and the many motifs inspired by the Polovci people, which became the foundation of Mikszáth’s literary work.
The Kálmán Mikszáth Memorial House is located in his birthplace, the village of Sklabina, where the writer lived from 1853 and spent more than twenty years of his life, ten of which were in the house now turned into a memorial. The atmosphere of the house and its former family environment is an added value that visitors won’t find anywhere else—making this exhibition truly unique. In Mikszáth’s time, Sklabina was a bilingual village where both Slovak and Hungarian were spoken. This richness and diversity are reflected in many of his works, as Mikszáth was intimately familiar with both cultures. The renovated exhibition aims to highlight this aspect.
The renovation was preceded by extensive research by Dr. Mihály Praznovszky, Dr. Anna Kovácsová, and Gabriella Jarábik. In addition to artifacts from the artistic collection of the Museum of the Culture of Hungarians in Slovakia and other Slovak museums, the exhibition will also feature photographic documents from Hungarian institutions. The creators included seven other authentic locations in the village in the new exhibition concept, which are part of the narrative in Mikszáth’s short story collection The Good Polovci.
The visualization and implementation of the exhibition were the result of work by the creative studios TRIKK and MNUcreative from Dunajská Streda (László Gocoň, Gergely Németh, Kálmán Tarr, and Zoltán Németh). In the visuals, the creative team focused on playfulness, colorfulness, and clarity achieved through graphics, interactive elements, and exhibition tools.
