Sándor Márai Memorial Room reopened and enhanced by a sightseeing tour (Part 1)

Residents of Košice and its visitors have the opportunity to revisit places connected to the world-renowned author Sándor Márai, a native of Košice. The memorial room was closed during the summer months because of the ongoing reconstruction works and the overall revitalization of the object. It was not reopened until late October when vice mayor Renáta Lenártová and Ján Sudzina, director of non-profit organization Košice 2013, have symbolically cut the ribbon. The course of the project is described by project manager Flóra Ondová Reiter.

Who exactly was Sándor Márai?

By his own name Sándor Grosschmid, born in 1900 in Košice. Here he was raised, which had a big influence on his work. He has authored several publications that were published in more than 50 languages and brought fame to his name and to the city of Košice. His work is being compared to the work of Thomas Mann and was awarded the highest hungarian art accolade – The Kossuth prize.

His work is both of artistic and cultural as well as of historical value. By reading it, you can get a precise idea of the society he lived in and of the places he visited. Otto von Habsburg, referring to his work, said: „One even does not have to come to Košice, but through Márai’s work he will be perfectly familiar with the atmosphere and the location of Bankov, Anička and the St. Elisabeth Cathedral.“

How did the project start?

The beginning of the Sándor Márai memorial room is connected with the era of mayor Rudolf Schuster, who in the late 90s administered its establishment. The problematic part was the marketing of the exposition, as the room was not perceived as one of the main priorities of the city tourism and therefore somehow not significantly promoted. After Košice received the title European Capital of Culture 2013, the cultural revival of the city caused an idea for a project to revitalize the memorial room and remind the famous author, native of Košice, to its citizens and tourists.

Who is participating in the project?

The official name of the project is "creation and promotion of a common product on Sándor Márai". Works on the project began already in 2008-2009, when we began the process under the operational programme Cross-Border Cooperation Hungary –Slovakia 2007-2013, hence using EU funds. It is part of a wider conceived project KULTOUR, which focuses on promoting regional tourism in border regions and support of development of joint thematic units aimed on history and presence in the EU.

Lead partner in this case is a non-profit organization, Košice 2013, and the cross-border partner is Sandor Petőfi Literary Museum in Budapest. Employee of the museum, Tibor Meszaros being the curator of the project, his local consultant is Zoltan Balassa. The European Regional Development Fund contributes on the project with total 126 557,66€. The project is further supported by budgets of Slovak Republic and Hungary by 154 000€. Supervisory authority is the Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development.

What are the project’s results?

We have multiple outputs from the project. The priority output is the revitalization of the Memorial Room itself, were the theme is presented by modern means now. You may find modern technological devices such as a touchscreen, a video projector, illuminated information panels and a large screen presentation. Part of the exposition is a documentary film about Márai, which deals both with his work and life. Another output is a website available at www.sandormarai.eu which describes the progress on the project.

We have also prepared a brochure for visitors and a map outlining the Memorial Route that consists of 9 places in Košice and 6 in Budapest which somehow influenced the author’s work. Each of the mentioned outputs is available in 4 languages (Slovak, Hungarian, English and German), about to be joined by more translations in the future.

Were there any surprises?

During the revitalization we had an opportunity to thoroughly examine Márai’s life in Košice, where he had overall 3 adresses during his life. A great surprise for us was when we found out, that his birthplace still exists, although it was assumed to be demolished.

Here is part 2 of the interview...