The Farmer and His World
from 18. 12. 2024 to 31. 1. 2026
For the people inhabiting the territory of Slovakia, agriculture has long been the main occupation. At its core, it was about securing food, but the consequences of this activity manifested in the appearance of the surrounding landscape, human settlements, and also influenced the way of life of farmers. The material, social, and spiritual expressions of this way of life, the relationship to nature, the organization of the family and community, as well as the value orientations of people—these were all significantly influenced by the agricultural foundation of life. In historical and socio-economic conditions, agrarian culture and lifestyle represent the optimal use of people, land, and agricultural tools. It formed a harmonious connection between work, consumption, and experience.
Agrarian culture, which reflected the world of farmers, and its scientific study are presented by the Slovak National Museum in cooperation with the Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the exhibition The Farmer and His World. The exhibition project develops this theme in two directions. The first aims to present the world of the farmer through a period farmer's homestead from the 1920s and 1930s, which was the fundamental social space for the life of the farming family. The exhibition features the dwelling of a middle-class farming family from the Turiec region in a 1:1 scale, depicting a household consisting of a room, a pantry, a storage room, and a black kitchen. Next to the house is a barn for displaying three-dimensional objects from agrarian culture. The collection items are divided into typological collections, such as hoes, plowing, harvesting, and threshing tools, and more. Photographs by prominent photographers and ethnographers (such as Karol Plicka, Pavol Sochán, Ján Dérer, and others) complement the description of the agricultural work that kept farmers occupied from early spring to winter. Children were also involved in household and agricultural work from an early age. Their tasks and responsibilities can be discovered by even the youngest visitors, for whom interesting activities are prepared.
The second line of the exhibition presents the historical development of scientific interest in the work of the farmer, his culture, and the contemporary cultural-historical circumstances that conditioned it. Visitors will be introduced to prominent figures of Slovak science and literature, who brought not only an artistic portrayal of traditional farming culture but also valuable ethnographic and historical insights, laying the foundation for contemporary ethnography as a scientific discipline with its counterpart in Slovak museology. The exhibition follows and clearly documents this developmental line through period objects, publications, expressed thoughts, and opinions of contemporary representatives. In addition to the countryside, intellectual interest in the world of the farmer also came from urban environments. One of the characteristic representatives was Turčiansky Sv. Martin, where significant cultural and scientific institutions, such as the Slovak Museum Society, Matica slovenská, and the Slovak National Museum, were based. A large-scale photograph of the town, text-image panels, and authentic furnishings from a study will draw visitors into the life of a Martin intellectual from the 1920s and 1930s.
