Town Hall Historical Building | The Museum History
The effort of the collectors, mostly individuals, aimed to gather and expose the
artifacts of the rich history of both town and region, resulted to the intents
of establishing a museum in Nová Baňa after the end of the World War II. On
August 8th, 1952, the Nová Baňa District Council adopted the formal decision to
establish the Museum. The private collection of antiquities of Anton Solčiansky,
the local shoemaker, became the base of the Museum collections. Anton Solčiansky
became the first administrator of the District Museum. The objects related to
the town history, stored in the former Town Archive, were also included to these
collections.
Some rooms inside the Town Hall historic building were given to the Museum. The
area of Nová Baňa District became the scope of the Museum interest. The first
years of activity were chaotic. The collections were stored in an area of 69 m2
approximately, with neither registration of any kind nor chronological
arrangement. According to some oral histories, Mr. Solčiansky is assumed having
sold some part of the collections before he left the Museum.
The bootmaker Anton Emanuel and after him, the tailor Vojtech Rudzan became the
following Museum administrators. The last one worked till 1972. Since the Museum
up to that date had no professional employee, no appropriate attention was paid
to the protection and processing of the collections. At least, the employee
tried to store the existing exhibits chronologically. The annual visit rate
achieved between 100 and 700 persons.
1972 was the breakthrough year, when further purposeful and qualitatively new
activity started with the arrival of Mr. Alexander Zrebený. After two years of
preparations, the following permanent expositions were made available to the
public: Feudal History, Exposition of Folk Art, paintings of local fellows Karol
and Eugen Dodeks and the Room of Revolutionary Traditions.
In this time, the Museum collections contained 1,600 items approximately. The
Museum prepared between 3 and 4 temporary exhibitions per year and some lectures.
The Museum Director developed extensive scientific and research activities. He
published the outcomes in many articles and studies, developed a brochure on
Nová Baňa, edited a picture book “Nová Baňa and Surroundings” as well as the
book “History of Brehy” and the complex monograph “History of Nová Baňa”, issued
after his death in 1986.
In 1988, Nová Baňa's Town Museum became the base for the Museum of Local History
with scope for the former district of Žiar nad Hronom. Mr. Gejza Trgina became
the Museum manager. Also the number of employees increased and the work on
preparation of new permanent expositions has started. A preservation workshop
has been established. After several changes of the founder after 1989, the
Museum reports to Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region today. Ms. Katarína
Konečná became the Museum Director in 1999.
During the last 30 years, the volume of Museum collections increased almost
tenfold. The Museum has also a specialized library open to public as well as a
large photo archive. Besides the permanent expositions, the Museum offers
between 10 and 12 temporary expositions per year to the public. Their
specialization differs very much from case to case. For the interested people,
the Museum organizes lectures with films, open teaching classes inside the
expositions and interesting traditional and non traditional cultural events.
Today, the Museum is documenting and featuring mainly the Pre-Historic Age,
history of mining, glass making and the craftsmanship as well as the folk
artifacts, town history, its cultural monuments, important personalities and
events. The research is aimed to the urban and rural population life within
central part of the Hron river valley, from Žiar basin to the valley central
part southernmost point downstream Hronský Beňadik.
