Domán exhibition

Domán exhibition
Welcome to the Domán exhibition, where you can see a selection from the veterinarian Imre Domán’s ethnographic collection, which was established in Szarvas in the second half of the 20th century.

In the course of his 40-year-long career, Domán received a significant number of disused farming tools, furniture and other artifacts of ethnographic value from the peasants of Szarvas. The exhibition provides an insight into this rich collection of about 2,500 objects. You can see the characteristic tools used in the living room, the kitchen, and the pantry of a Szarvas peasant house. The farming equipment and tools for animal husbandry vividly evoke the everyday life of the peasants who once lived here, while the herders’ garments and their herding tools introduce you to the organization and operation of herding communities on the Great Hungarian Plain. The exhibition also presents an ornate Hungarian mantle called a cifraszűr, a bullwhip, and a herdsman's crook, as well as the branding iron used for numbering and marking animals.

The exhibition cart leads you to a show on the horsekeeping people known as the Vlax Romani, who were engaged in horse trading and travelled around in covered wagons. In the corridor, an interactive Roma, or Gypsy, cartomancy game will give you an insight into the ancient customs and traditions of the Gypsies. The methods of horsekeeping and of making a living from and for the horses passed down from generation to generation among the Gypsies. Doing his veterinary job, Dr. Domán came into direct contact with the Gypsy people of Szarvas, who lived in rather poor conditions, oftentimes in miserable sheds called putris. He managed to acquire the Romani, or Gypsy, language over time and learned much about the methods the Gypsies used to cure their sick horses. The tools used in veterinary medicine are considered an outstanding part of the collection.