Mohacs: Museum Kanizsai Dorottya

The drive from Pécs back to Mohács was uneventful and we arrived shortly before 12:30p. Once we entered the city, I kept an eye out for restaurants and cafes … someplace where we could have lunch and then go for a wander around town. No luck. Everything was closed. In fact, the entire town felt deserted. So, we decided to head back to the Rinda with everyone else and have lunch there.

Sustenance ✔️. Time to get back out for a wander around Mohács. At least get some exercise.

As luck would have it, we turned a corner on one of the streets and found ourselves standing in front of the Museum Kanizsai Dorottya. And it was open for another hour. Paying the admission — senior rate ~$2.60pp — we began a whirlwind tour of what turned out to be a gem of a museum. So glad we didn’t miss it … even if the reflections on the glass display cases made photographing the beautiful exhibits very difficult to impossible at times.

Founded in 1923, the museum is named for an exceptional female figure in Hungarian History … Dorottya, the Lady of Siklós Castle. During the 1526 Battle of Mohács, she is known to have joined the priests and serfs to bury the dead in mass graves. Married to a government official second only in rank to the Hungarian king, she was one of the most influential women of her time. The brochure we received explained that she “… raised and married off the poorer noble girls in her court, donated estates, founded churches, and helped the needy.”

The primary focus of the museum is historical and ethnographic research of the Mohács area. As the only South Slavic institution in Hungary, the artifacts in its collections serve to preserve the cultural heritage of the Croatians, Serbs, and Slovenes in the country. The museum was initially intended to be a way of commemorating the tragic Battle of Mohács. However, when Roman and Migration Period artifacts were found nearby, the purpose of the museum grew.

The best word to describe the collection is eclectic … sculptures to wood carvings; to Ottoman household items and weapons; to folk costumes and textiles; to pottery pieces and archival photographs; to musical instruments and wedding flags; to jewelry and embroidery samples; to traditional furnishings and burial items; to a Visual Treasury that includes pieces of the Mohács black and glazed pottery, as well as painted dowry chests, dressers, and wardrobes; and so much more.

There was even a display of busó masks and full-sized mannequins representing the busójárás … aka busó walking or march of the monsters. Held at the end of February, the busójárás is a six-day carnival that celebrates the end of winter. The much anticipated festivities at Mohács are, in fact, inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Here’s how this masked carnival is described on the UNESCO website: ”… named for the busós, frightening-looking costumed people (traditionally men) wearing wooden masks and big woolly cloaks. The festival is multifaceted, including a children’s costume contest, a display of the art of mask carvers and other craftspeople, the arrival of more than 500 busós in rowboats on the Danube for a march through the city alongside horse-drawn or motorized fantasy vehicles, the burning of a coffin symbolizing winter on a bonfire in the central square, and feasts and music throughout the city. The tradition originated with the Croatian minority in Mohács, but today the busó is a general emblem of the city and a commemoration of the great events of its history. …”

“With a southern heart and a thousand colours.” Those words, on the cover of the brochure we were given when we purchased our admission, are the perfect description for the museum. Whirlwind visit or not, the museum provided us with a glimpse into the cultural traditions of Mohács and the region. We were so engrossed in the exhibits that the staff had to literally come and find us so that they could close up shop.

By 4:30p we were back on the Rinda doing the usual end of touring things … napping for Mui; downloading and sharing photos for me.

We got a surprise during the briefing today … which was delayed until Rinda left its berth at 7:00p. Looks like what was to have been an afternoon tour in Vukovar, Croatia is now a morning tour. The ship will then cruise to Ilok where we will have a couple of hours on our own to explore the town while we wait for the all-day tour participants to return to the ship. Sounds like a good plan!

(Unfortunately, the captions that go with the photos are, in many cases, too long to include in full in the footprint.) Czytaj więcej