Recommencement without Prospects
Recommencement without Prospects

The Transylvanian Museum Society between 1944 and 1950

Author(s): János Kristóf Murádin
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, History, Social Sciences, Cultural history
Published by: Scientia Kiadó
Keywords: Transylvanian Museum Society;Cluj;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;
Summary/Abstract: My lecture deals with a most controversial period in the life of a Hungarian academic-scientific institute from Transylvania. The Transylvanian Museum Society (TMS) was founded in 1859, based on the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and it was the most important scientific institute for the Hungarians living in the region. Its life of ups and downs seems to reflect the destiny of the separated nation. This comparison becomes distinct most strikingly in the events of the period between 1944 and 1950, which was the period of narrow opportunities and of increasingly limited scopes for action both in the history of the TMS and the life of the Hungarians living in Transylvania. Many people have written and expressed their opinions about the TMS in many ways, but one thing is certain: the importance and defining role in the Hungarian cultural life of this scientific institution has never been disputed. This might be the reason why in 1944 the new Romanian power occupying Northern Transylvania, in the shade of the Soviet arms, aimed at making impossible, putting an end to, and winding up the leading institutional structure of the Hungarians and among them, the TMS seated in Kolozsvár. In my lecture, I am trying to present this silent and continuous battle going on behind the scenes between the scientific institution and the state. First of all, I am trying to outline the steadily regenerated TMS – a scientific institution trying to meet the political-ideological expectations of the period – in the continuously changing transition period following the war. At the same time, I will follow with stressed attention the scientific work, the bringing out of publications, creating a historic past, and organising educational and scientific series of lectures carried out within the TMS, marking the end of an era.

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