Hajnal Ilonka

Ilonka Hajnal (Vrbas, 17 July 1936 – Piran, 11 February 2020)

Ilonka Hajnal (Ilona, Husar) was a long-time employee of the Maritime Museum Piran. She worked as a museum technician and conservator, but carried out a series of other jobs at the museum as well. As an employee of the Piran Maritime Museum she is known and appreciated by the majority of older Piran residents.

 

Ilonka was born on 17 July 1936 in Vrbas, where her youth was marked particularly by war. That is also the reason why she finished, apart from four years of primary school, only two grades of lower secondary school. As a thirteen-year-old girl she got a job in the Silk Fabric Factory Sava Kovačević in Vrbas. In 1956, she married carpenter Mihael Husar and a year later moved to Piran with him.

 

Ilonka became enamoured by Piran at first sight. She worked in a local kiosk for a few years, and in 1964 got a full-time job at the Piran City Museum, which was increasingly acquiring the character of a maritime museum. Four years earlier, her husband Mihael Husar got a job there as a carpenter and preparator. Ilonka drew well, a skill she had already acquired while attending a painting course in Vrbas. She helped her husband in the making of carvings and mosaic wood-work, as well as other duties in the museum. Her manual skills were soon noticed by Miroslav Pahor, historian and the head of the museum, who offered her a job. But as the museum required a conservator and restorer, Ilonka had to receive additional education. For few years, she attended restoration courses in Ljubljana, mostly in the autumn. In the restoration workshop of the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana she also gained, in 1965, knowledge in gilding, the restoration of decorative frames and paintings, stone monuments, and the protection of wooden objects. She advanced from assistant preparator to museum technician-conservator.

 

In the museum, she restored diverse artefacts made of different materials. Apart from simple conservation procedures carried out on ethnological artefacts made of wood, pottery, ceramics and metal, she also embarked on the restoration of more complex damages on works of art. In the restoration of furniture, ship models and some other objects, she worked with the museum's carpenter and modeller: until 1969 with her husband Mihael Husar, and then for several years with Leopold Belec. She also conserved and restored archaeological artefacts, with underwater finds requiring a special treatment. For this very purpose, she completed a course in the restoration of archaeological bronze and iron. Her work was very substantial and fruitful at the same time. Several museum artefacts have survived thanks to Ilonka to this very day. Here and there, she also took part in the uncovering and restoration of wall paintings.

 

Ilonka Hajnal also played an important part in the museum in the setting up of exhibitions, as well as in the making of museum posters, catalogues and various other printed materials. She drew diverse plans and, particularly, artefacts. She also participated at archaeological excavations led by Elica Boltin Tome, the Piran Museum’s archaeologist, by cleaning and drawing archaeological structures and objects. She completed a course in drawing archaeological artefacts in 1972 at the Ljubljana City Museum. Soon after getting a job at the museum, Miroslav Pahor invited her to join him in his field research. Together they conducted research into Slovenian mariners in various parts of Slovenia and all over Istria and Dalmatia, all the way to the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. Simultaneously, they also collected objects, documents and photographs from the mariners. However, they did not always make interviews together.

 

As told by Ilonka, Miroslav Pahor first taught her what to ask the mariners and how: "At first we walked together for me to see how he asked questions, later it was I who raised them. When he realized that I was doing well, we split. He went to one house, and I to another.” Although not all of them welcomed her into their houses due to distrust, she fascinated quite a few mariners with her charm and communicativeness. She most fondly remembered her visit to the Second Class Commodore Miroslav Štumberger (Šmarje pri Jelšah 1892 – Baošići 1983), who had converted his house at Baošići in the Bay of Kotor into a museum with maritime objects and details from the interior of the submarine Nebojša of the Royal Yugoslav Navy. Miroslav Štumberger, who was also an amateur painter, painted her as well. The highlight of Ilonka's research work with Miroslav Pahor was the research for the book Po jamborni poti – v mesto na peklu, which she signed as a co-author with Dr Miroslav Pahor.

 

Writing was in no way foreign to Ilonka, considering that she wrote few short stories in her free time, some of which were also published. She wrote in both Slovenian and her mother tongue, Hungarian.

 

Ilonka Hajnal was pensioned off in 1991, but continued to work for the Maritime Museum Piran after retirement. Furthermore, she restored objects for various individuals. In her last years, she also helped members of the Anbot Society in Piran with restoration.

 

 

Prepared by Bogdana Marinac

 

 

 

Sources and literature:

 

1. Špela Pahor, Srečanja v Piranu, Življenjske pripovedi prebivalcev Pirana, Piran: Mestna knjižnica Piran, 2007, str. 208-222.

 

2. Duška Žitko, Dobra volja je najbolja, Modelarska, preparatorska in konservatorsko-restavratorska dejavnost: Odprti k morju, 50. obletnica Pomorskega muzeja Piran, Piran, 2005, str. 96-97.

 

3. Karmen Kodarin, Ilonka Hajnal (1936–2020), v Obrazi slovenskih pokrajin, Kranj 2020.

 

4. Arhiv Pomorskega muzeja »Sergej Mašera« Piran, Personalne mape, Ilonka Husar, Mihael Husar.

 

5. Intervju z Ilonko Hajnal, made by Bogdana Marinac, 7.10.2004.