COURAGE

connecting collections

The Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation was founded in 1773, when the collection of Nikolaus von Himsel (1729–1764) was donated to the City of Riga. It is the oldest museum in the Baltic States. The present name was given to it in 1964. Until 1940, the museum was supervised and funded by the City of Riga. In 1940, the Soviet occupying regime nationalised the museum, and since then it has been under the supervision of the state. As a result of the Baltic German exodus, the evacuation of collections to German-occupied territories, and the exclusion of objects that were ideologically unacceptable to the Soviet authorities, the museum lost part of its collection. During the Soviet period, despite ideological constraints, the staff of the museum managed to preserve and acquire much material evidence about the pre-Soviet culture of Riga and Latvia, which only from the end of the 1980s could be openly displayed in museum exhibitions.

The Museum of the River Daugava was established in 1969, but the exhibition opened to visitors in 1977. During the construction of the Riga hydroelectric station in 1966-1976, intensive archeological research was carried out in the river valley that was to be flooded, and the idea arose to create a museum to preserve the unique archaeological, historical and ethnographic history of the region. Until 1993, the museum was called the Dole History Museum. In the first decades of its existence, it was a branch of the Turaida Museum Reserve, but since 1996 it has been under the municipality of Salaspils. The museum collection concentrates on the history of the River Daugava and its surroundings, from prehistoric times to the present day. The collection of the Museum consists of more than 51,000 items.

The Muzsikás Folk Ensemble is a Hungarian folk music group. It formed in 1973. As a result of its versatility, the group can play many genres of music, from folk and world music to classical, jazz, Celtic and klezmer. Muzsikás combines classical Hungarian music of the twentieth century with traditional folk music at its concerts. In 2008, the group received the prestigious WOMEX Award for World Music.

Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle) was founded in 1877 at the initiative of the Hungarian National Fine Arts Association. The exhibition hall on Heroes’ Square in Budapest was erected in 1896 for the millennium celebrations.

Today, Műcsarnok exhibits curated shows of works by leading Hungarian and international contemporary artists, mediating and representing modern artistic tendencies, while not maintaining a permanent collection.

The institution operates as Műcsarnok Non-profit Ltd. since 2000. In 2013, the Hungarian Government donated the building to the Hungarian Academy of Arts.