After a three-month reconstruction on the former family home of historical Slovak figure Milan Rastislav Štefánik in Košariská (Myjavská district) it opens today with a special exhibition.
The museum had been closed for renovations since April 22, 2014, and its reopening event coincides with the 134th anniversary of Štefánik’s birth, as the Director of the Slovak National Museum (SNM) Alena Petráková explained. “To the reconstructed home of Milan Rastislav Štefánik returns an exhibit which presents Štefánik as both a positive and negative individual, who was able to suffer but also to love, being an admirer of beauty and the heavenly sky, a connoisseur of art and fiction, but also a scientist, traveller, soldier, and political diplomat. Through a collection of nearly 200 subjects on display, visitors are taken back to the environment in which Štefánik lived; in a society in which they moved into historical events which left a long trail”, closed Petráková. According to the director, the variety and diversity of personal effects on display demonstrated his diverse tastes and desires for life, representing him as a lover and collector of beautiful things which he brought from his travels around the world, including Tahiti, Japan, Africa, and New Zealand. The exhibition also presents Štefánik as a fan of fiction and science through the books amassed in its library. From today, visitors can view personal items such as Štefánik’s sea chest, binoculars, travel iron, general’s cap, and articles from the site of the plane crash in which he died.
