©2011 magyarmuzeumok.hu Minden jog fenntartva.

Commerce or consumer culture?

The exhibition on the history of trade has been extended by new objects in the Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism. Beautiful objects, interiors with ambience, interactivity. Nevertheless, Marianna Berényi is still slightly uneasy. Read on to see why.

A good merchant is the benefactor of the world. Two centuries of Hungarian trade is the title given to the exhibition whose second part opened in January 2014 in this museum on the northern border of the city centre. Following a ten year hiatus, visitors can, now again, walk along the history of Hungarian trade and retail including 19th century markets and fairs, grocery stores with their obligate coffee grinders and modern department stores.

The exhibition features two old Hungarian films. The first one called Fűszer és csemege (Spices and delicacies an idiomatic phrase in Hungarian for shops selling precisely the items the name suggests) was produced in 1939. The dramatic plot takes place in Aladár Puskás’s shop, which seems to be a byword for what we would call today a customer driven business: wide range of quality goods, eager assistants, problem solving skills at their best – the shop is always crammed with customers, the till chiming with no end. Only the heir of Aladár Puskás is unhappy since he would rather see himself and his future as a landlord in rural upper middle class. The old man’s right hand, Márton Mácsik, the obvious antagonist, however, sees his chance for social ascendancy through the shop. When the old owner suffers a stroke, the shop swiftly turns from paradise on earth into a snake pit and, not much unexpectedly, only love can make things right finally. The other film is a massive blockbuster from 1953: Állami áruház (″State department store″, referring to the period after the Second World War when larger retail outlets were nationalised) mixing romance and music. It instantly became a classic with its gags, songs and brilliant acting. In the socialist department store, as at almost all the workplaces in this period, the departments are competing to reach the centrally imposed sales targets, progressivists and conservatives are fighting and love is in the air. Fate strikes when the radio station Voice of America announces that 100 HUF banknotes will be withdrawn next day. Hysterical stockpiling ensues, but, once again not much unexpectedly, the socialist economy triumphs and black-marketers are unmasked.

Only one and an half decades separate the two films, but they seem to take place in two different universes. Both films reflect the eras they were made in: they illustrate the best practices customers could expect in those years, they depict what the stores looked like then and set the standards for good and bad shop assistants. However, both films successfully hide the controversies of those years. In 1939 a substantial part of the shopkeepers were not lamenting on how to find the best heir for their business: many of them were fighting for their one and only source of family income. In May 1939 the Hungarian Parliament passed the ″Second Jewish Law″ reducing Jewish activities in the economic as well as in the political life of the country. This was the beginning of a very special period when consumption became the synonym of fighting for survival. The 1950’s were not a smooth period either: despite, for that matter, an unrestrained day out near the river, these years meant drastic restrictions in consumption, and, for many, destitution.

Displaying these two films in the Museum of Trade and Tourism seems to be crucial since they do not only depict the retail practice of those eras, but it also reveals what the museum would like to share with its visitors, and what it thinks of its own role and tasks. The dilemma for the curators was whether to offer a space for their visitors to experience shopping in different historical periods or to offer the chance to observe how consumer behaviour and consumption patterns have changed until today. The decision is consistent: the curators stepped behind the counter. Original objects, shop furniture, even original stock are used to create the idyllic retail venue and the visitors are put into the role of the customer. Carefree consumption is not put off by unexpected shortages, economic crises, poverty, dismissive staff, only nationalisation and inflation seem to affect this otherwise unperturbed world.

The museum of retail and trade

The motto of the exhibition also offers some food for thought, quoting Mór Gellért on the opening ceremony of the Museum of Trade in Brussels in 1906: ″This museum has the same role in the science of trade as geological, mineral or anatomical museums have in general science. Its duty is to supply the means by which business can be studied in practice.″ The title „a good merchant is the benefactor of the world” is not self-serving, the exhibition does examine what is necessary for a retailer the make our everyday life better. The museum deploys an impressive array of interactive equipment: besides using original furniture, photos and demonstration props interactivity is an attempt to stimulate visitor memories.

The fist room evokes the world of markets and fairs where clues for old units of measurement known from tales and historical novels are on display. Visitors are invited to open drawers and repack them to compare whether a bushel is bigger or a peck (if you happen to be worried about this, it is the bushel) and several items can be touched and occasionally even pictures talk to us. Anyone intrigued by the difference between a costermonger and a clerk should proceed straight to the second room, where loads of information is provided on shop assistant training, bookkeeping and fundamental knowledge of stock too. We also receive insight in the inner life of a Hungarian trading company, and, through the shop manager’s office, enter a grocery store. Parents can learn the origin of the word ″bolt″ (shop in Hungarian), marvel at the old photographs and be enlightened on the tricks of selling petroleum or coffee, while their offspring can become store clerks and try themselves in wrapping goods in the shop which originally served its clientele in Pilisszentlászló (a village 20 km north-west of Budapest) in the 1930s.

Leaving this section the visitor is out on a street from the early 20th century walking among shop-windows and advertising columns, even the city’s first neon sign is there to beam on passers-by. Proceed through the room of industrial and commercial fairs to reach the latest addition to the exhibition: the world of department stores where stocks are replaced by an abundance of objects. Some of the smaller shops do not only feature the original furniture, but also inform on the history of the families who owned them for several decades. Through the fashion stores and a little further down via the world of ironmongery and stationery finally the stage comes where dramatic changes of the century are revealed. Co-operatives (first in a voluntary form), nationalisation (anything but voluntary, and this way, traumatic indeed), and hyperinflation lead the way to a more settled period when the retail sector was dominantly state owned. And this is also the period most of the visitors can easily relate to through their memories: the coffee grinder in the corner shop, the plastic basket, the world of state owned department store chains all evoke memories which invisibly intertwine with what is given to us by the exhibition. What drags us out of this nostalgia is the brave new world of the shopping malls and even the triumphant online business.

The museum of consumption?

Having navigated through the last two hundred years of retail history, the obvious question arises: what if this exhibition did not only depict retail and trade, but it attempted to see things from the consumer’s perspective? What if it drew the picture of Hungarian consumerism with the help of objects and saw consumption as part of everyday life which is and was a suitable means to create belonging to a certain social stratum? Is it possible at all to express social criticism through such a narrative? The first exhibition of retail and trade opened in 1886 in Hungary, but it did not live long. In 1966 the Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism was founded and in 1970 its collection was supplemented by retail objects and documents. The collection is presently housed in Óbuda in a building whose size is hardly sufficient for the present collection. The official mission of the museum is diverse, but does not touch on consumer culture and society. Not a rarity if one looks around the Hungarian museum landscape. However, social criticism and not shying away from examining social and cultural conflicts is increasingly part of the museum practice. Still, in Hungary, we seem to have to wait a little more for an exhibition which offers a mirror to the customer to finally see the consumer too.