COURAGE

connecting collections

The bequest of Imre Baász is proof of the progressiveness of his thinking, the innovativeness of his artwork, and the dynamic cooperation in which he engaged in times of political, cultural, and intellectual oppression. In the 1980s, the progressive, radical creative work was detached from the capital Bucharest, which served as the perpetual center. In this reversed centrum–periphery relationship, the periphery offered more freedom, and it ensured security and the possibility of invisibility. An important example from Transylvania of the micro-groupings which promoted progressive ideas and Western European styles and methods is the MaMű Association of Târgu-Mureș, which actively encouraged the practice of concept art, mail art, action art, and abstract artistic language in general. Imre Baász, though never an official member of the MaMű, shared their artistic view and language, and his work in the town of Sfântu Gheorghe can be considered as the prolongation of the Association’s work.

This ad-hoc collection consists of the work of Binka Zhelyazkova, an emblematic Bulgarian cinema director, as it is preserved in the Bulgarian National Film Archive, plus related materials. Zhelyazkova was among the first generation of professional Bulgarian cinematographers and one of the first female directors not only in Bulgaria, but in general. The collections informs not only about the work of this notable director but gives also insight into the development of Bulgarian cinema throughout the entire period of state socialism.

This collection tells the sinuous story of the restoration to its former glory of the Black Church, a Gothic monument of the highest significance for the collective identity of the Saxon community in Transylvania. Launched by the local German-speaking elite during the 1930s, the restoration of the Black Church in Braşov was carried out during the communist period despite such politically driven adversities as the atheist system of values and the policy of so-called of “urban systematisation,” which envisaged the demolition of an important part of the architectural heritage of Romania.

The Brașov–Orașul Memorabil Collection gathers more than 4,500 scanned copies of personal and official photos illustrating the history of this Transylvanian city, everyday life in Romania under communism, the programme of so-called urban systematisation conducted during Ceaușescu’s regime, and the popular resistance to this arbitrary policy.