From Sisi’s Glove to Stalin’s Ear

Celebrating the 220th anniversary of the Hungarian National Museum, this summer exhibition focuses on key moments in Hungarian history. On display will be two historical relics in particular. One is the glove of the Empress Elisabeth, known and revered here as Sisi. The wife of Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef was wearing the garment when she was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist by Lake Geneva on 10 September 1898. The other unusual artefact is a fragment of the left ear from the statue of Stalin that was toppled over and broken up during the 1956 Uprising. In addition to these, the holdings of the museum's storehouse were expanded to include the royal seal of Ferdinand V in Hungarian and the farewell letter of General József Nagysándor, one of the 13 executed by the Austrians at Arad in 1849.