Ladies and gentlemen,
let me introduce you to the collection items
documenting Romani culture in the Regional Museum here in Prešov.
I would like to start by telling you
that the basic activity of the museum is to create a collection fund.
The building of a collection fund dedicated to Roma culture
was not carried out on the basis of scientific research activities,
but it has responded and it is responding to stimuli from the external environment.
The predominant part of the collection items devoted to Roma culture
can be found in the ethnographic collection of the Regional Museum.
These are objects that document the way of life of the Roma in our territory.
For the needs of this conference, I systematically divided the collection items
for daily necessities, then it is a photographic document,
works of art depicting this ethnicity and needs devoting to crafts.
Among the items of daily use I include clothing and clothing parts.
Then it's home textiles, musical instruments and jewelry.
In this picture you can see the ceremonial chain of Vaida.
It is a very rare collection item owned by the Regional Museum in Prešov.
This Vaida's ceremonial chain belonged to Vaida of Rožkovany,
i.e. the Sabinov district,
It consists of four chains.
Then there are the medallion, the old coins.
In the middle you can see that medallion,
which was awarded in the past to veterans of the First World War for bravery.
Then there are the coins depicting František Jozef.
Then there is the amulet of the Virgin Mary and the amulet with its initials.
This item is very significant and very important in our Regional Museum.
Another collection item owned by the Regional Museum is men's clothing.
it belonged to members of the music of a Romani ensemble
Romano Kendice in years 1955 - 1960.
Other collection items that enrich the fund
are the products of Romani women from Prešov.
These are various blankets, collars, handkerchiefs,
which have been created by the perforated embroidery technique, drawn-work.
Music, dance, is actually part of the cultural identity of the Romani ethnic group.
Even in the museum's collections you will find handmade violins.
These are specifically two pieces of maple wood
decorated at the edge by a line marquetry of ebony wood.
The violin was made by a Roma from Prešov, Duda, in 1960.
Now I would go to that photographic material,
which is also very important in the Regional Museum,
because it comes from the most important collector of gypsy folklore,
Romani folklore, here in eastern Slovakia, by Jozef Kolarčík Fintický,
who lived in the years 1899 - 1961.
He researched this question mainly here in eastern Slovakia.
Also in Ukraine, Hungary, Romania.
The fact that he studied this ethnicity is also evidenced by two hundred negatives on glass plates,
which are located in the museum.
And it is actually a legacy of this great ethnographer.
These negatives preserve the visual evidence of the way of life
traditional crafts of this ethnic group.
During his research, he visited more than 300 families, 350 families.
In 2014, the regional museum organized a traveling exhibition
entitled Gypsies in a photograph of Jozef Kolarčík Fintický.
There are these photographs from the period 1930-1960.
They capture such a golden era of nomadic life of the then Gypsies.
I use this term because even on the panels that are in the museum,
this ethnic group is named like this.
These photographs then capture also the Roma from Drienov.
Actually, here are these panels.
And in particular, one shot captures the production of adobes,
which are unfired bricks.
There was a clay mining in Drienov
and this is probably what led to the formation of these bricks.
In addition, in the photos of Jozef Kolarčík you can find
also life documented in the village of Petrovany.
Then the surrounding villages.
And together with it, also musicians are depicted on these photographs.
They are mainly musicians from Terňa, or from the defunct village of Močarmany,
which was annexed to the village of Petrovany in 1965.
The second such traveling exhibition,
which you can borrow again at the Regional Museum in Prešov,
is the exhibition Endless Journey.
The exhibition again discusses the life of this ethnic group
in the 1930s and 1940s in the Carpathian Basin.
In the introductory part you will find history and then there is the photo-documentation part.
It represents nomadic Roma, but also settlers,
with their distinctive way of life and traditional crafts.
I mentioned that there are also works of art in the regional museum.
However, these are not in the collection ethnographic fund,
but it's in the art history.
So my art history colleague could answer that for you.
The last category I created,
are items that deal with crafts.
In the first place, unlike the rest of the population, the Roma were characterized
not only by a different way of life but also by job,
that they had chosen out of necessity many times.
They have mastered some crafts at a very high level
as evidenced by the products found in the regional museum.
The first such craft you will find
at that traveling exhibition is Romani blacksmithing.
Romani blacksmiths produced mainly nails, chains, fittings, horseshoes, axes.
But also parts of agricultural equipment.
Another craft that you will already find in the ethnographic exposition of the regional museum,
there is then trough making and basketry.
The boom of trough making occurred in the 1980s
after the arrival of Romanian, Romani trough makers from Subcarpathian Russia.
And just these were who settled here in the most eastern part of eastern Slovakia.
I said that the next craft that is on display again is basketry.
You can also find some of the willow products in this exhibition.
I was talking about trough making.
And just in the photograph of Jozef Kolarčík
you can find this trough making recorded.
And trough making was an exclusively male business in the past.
This photo shows also a little girl helping her father.
I believe that the collections in the regional museum have appealed to you
and you like to come and see them with your students, but also with your family members.
Thank you.