This will be the 19th Night of Museums and this one will have a special feel to it as it’s going to be the first in-person event taking place in a long time.

On the weekend that is the closest to Midsummer night, museums will open their doors to the public once more and await visitors with concerts, guided tours, interactive events, family programs and other curiosities.

Compared to previous years, the armbands will be available at a lower price starting on June 12th and can be purchased at the ticket offices of the participating museums or on the jegymester.hu website. However the discounted tickets (1500 HUF for adults and 800 HUF for children) will not be usable on public transport this year.

Make sure to be considerate of others and adhere to COVID safety measures! The organizers pay extra attention to this in all the museums and we ask visitors to do the same.

From the Organisers:

"This year, the “Night of Museums” will take place on Saturday, June 26, 2021. This will be the 19th occasion that museums open their doors wide on the Saturday closest to Midsummer Night, the shortest night of the year. 

This year's event will be a special occasion! After all, the „Night of Museums” this year will be the first cultural event of national significance following the pandemic and post-pandemic reopening.

The breeze of freedom will blow that night so you can move out again, go to a museum, admire works of art live, study technical achievements or discoveries in the natural sciences, experience the silence of a gallery, absorb the spirituality and conceptuality of encounters with old times.

And it will also be a breeze of liberation, for humanity has overcome something that has struck our peaceful life as an unexpected surprise two years ago, and with its horrible scenes has subverted our world, which we once thought was safe and unshakable.

Thanks to our doctors, nurses, researchers, and to the successful vaccination programmes around the world, today we can declare our victory.

Humanity has won, and we can again be liberated to enjoy the cultural and artistic works as well as wonders of scientific achievements that make our world so rich.

This is an occasion for the following paragraphs of our poet Jenő Komjáthy's poem “Rebirth”:

„I am not the same who I was yesterday,
Every taste of my body and soul is renewed:
I was dying in sorrow a year ago,
Today I live with my spirits high.

I broke behind myself the bridge,
leading to a desired beach,
and there I left silently, fascinated
the enraged troops of my blind pursuers.

I was still tormented in dust yesterday,
But today I am so changed, with my renewed life!
I was still a cowardly child yesterday,
Today, like a giant, I am besieging the sky.

(…)
I am free! I shook off the dust,
sluggishly attached to my proud soul!
I aparted cleanly, selflessly,
Without burning in the fire of Life.”

The poem is topical also because the central idea of this year's “Night of Museums” is “the turning point”. After months of the pandemic behind closed gates, the long-awaited reopening can also create a new opportunity for cultural institutions to renew, to reinterpret, to embark boldly on new paths.

Let us leave behind the grey clothes of our fears and the brown gowns of our sorrows, and experience this freedom, let us take a deep breath of it!"

List of participating museums available here.

More:
muzej.hu/en