World War I on Maps: Wartime Weekdays

Second part of our thematic exhibition series, presenting maps of World War I, aims at presenting civilian and military materials published and used during the war, as well as novelties of the world disaster, such as defense technology development, mass involvement and the involvement of the hinterland in total war. The title also refers to this concept; on the one hand, presented works include colorful, spectacular, propagandistic materials for those left at home and, on the other hand, unique military-topographic maps with handwritten entries will also be shown. A special display cabinet is dedicated to the topic of prisoners of war and military hospitals, and to the aftermath of World War I.

The exhibition is made more complete by materials borrowed from the Library’s rich WWI collections, including period posters, photographs and small prints. On top of that, unique and rare maps, not to be seen elsewhere, only in foreign collections, are also presented.

Due to its size and presented materials, the chamber exhibition will not show you the entire military history of the war, or a wide range of non-governmental organizations. Instead, it will highlight relatively less known details of the period, details in which personal materials play a major role. From map works enriched by notes of the original owners, we can get to know what they were interested in, whether they followed up the events or not, and how accurate the information they had acquired was. In addition to all this, visitors will have an insight into the map edition of neutral countries. As a matter of fact, everyone was interested in the development of WWI, and the most viable means to present front lines and military movements has been and will be the map.

Curator: Botond Samu

The exhibition will be open between September 30, 2016 and March 31, 2017 in the corridor adjacent to the Map Collection. Visitors are welcome during the opening hours of the collection: Tuesday to Friday, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and on Saturday, from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Visitors who do not own a Reader Pass to NSZL are admitted to all of our current chamber exhibitions for a flat fee of HUF 400.