The Bethlen Palace in Berehove: a note on the suspended survey
Our editorial office – as well as the public of Berehove and Transcarpathia – closely followed the course of the online survey regarding the fate of the Bethlen Palace in Berehove. However, to everyone’s surprise (or maybe we weren’t so surprised after all), the survey was unexpectedly cancelled by its initiators, but more on that later. First the background.
The building, which once housed the Berehove Vocational Lyceum of the Service Sector and the Local History Museum of the Berehove district, recently has been in such a bad condition that the sidewalk under the palace walls had to be closed due to falling bricks and plaster. The reason for this is that during the last two decades, since the lyceum was combined with the former vocational school that trained light industry workers on Mukachivska Street, and moved into its premises, the remarkable building of the 17th century has been almost empty. The ownership of the building belonged to the Kyiv ministry for a long time, but a few years ago it was transferred to the Transcarpathian Regional Council. By its status, the building is an architectural monument of national importance and has the purpose of an educational institution, and according to the current legislation, neither changing its purpose nor selling it is allowed. The deterioration of the condition of the building was considered by a special commission, which included representatives of all parties of the regional council. The commission decided by consensus that this building should be put up for a concession tender while preserving its functions. That is, its reconstruction must comply with the norms of preservation of historical monuments and it must continue to serve educational purposes in the future.
At its last meeting, the Transcarpathian Regional Council decided to put the reconstruction of the Bethlen Palace up for tender in accordance with current legislation and on reasonable terms. The procedure for this indicates that in the near future the commission will develop the terms of the competition, which will be discussed and approved by the Transcarpathian Regional Council, after which the competition will be announced, and based on the materials submitted for the competition, the regional council will decide who will be allowed to use the building in exchange for covering the costs of repair and restoration works.
The Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education can apply for the competition as well, as the museum can be used to house its research centers and showcase their results, as well as to host the institution’s various educational and research programs. But the competition has not yet been announced, so it is not known what conditions the regional council will put forward. (Here it should be noted that any initiatives of the institute until now – see the former courthouse in the city center, the former school No. 2, the the Perenyi Palace and many others – have been successful both for Berehove and for all of Transcarpathia).
Since the beginning of the war, the volunteer center „Everyone Can Help” („Кожен може допомогти”) has been operating in the Bethlen Palace, whose leader launched a public opinion survey on Facebook to ask voters whether they want the Bethlen Palace to be transferred to the Rakoczi Institute. The survey was launched and readers could express their opinion on the question by voting „YES” or „NO”. „YES” votes meant support for the institute, and „NO” votes meant that the voter did not want the institution to function under the institute’s management in the future.
Voting began and many people shared the post and voted on the issue. Our editorial team monitored the voting process and reached the point where, in the afternoon of October 5, 74% of the votes were in favor of the Rakoczi Institute. However, the process was interrupted at this point, as the head of the organization stopped the voting and deleted the entire post.
The author of the post listed several reasons, one of which was that the poll was not representative, as not only residents of Berehove voted, and not only those associated with the volunteer organization. The comments under the post (most of which were also deleted at the time) showed that this reason could not be justified, since the building is a monument of national importance, the property of the region, and its fate is decided by the Transcarpathian Regional Council, so in fact this issue can concern anyone. So why should residents of Transcarpathia, who care about one of the oldest buildings of the historical past (built in 1629 – ed.), regardless of their place of residence, even if they have already left the country, or just those who care, who knows and appreciates the historical past of Berehove, not vote in an open online survey regarding the fate of the building, which is one of the oldest structures in the town. In terms of representativeness, the number of „yes” votes before the post was removed was about 1,300.
The question arises whether all those who voted „no” were residents of Berehove or maybe residents of Transcarpathia, that is, can the leader of the group know everyone? One of the comments (currently deleted) welcomes the fact that the Transcarpathian Regional Council has finally been paying attention to the building, which deserves a better fate, and is trying to resolve its maintenance in accordance with the current legislation, since there is neither money nor opportunity for this in the regional budget. The question also arises, if this is a real estate object of national importance owned by the region, and its repair can be implemented on the basis of such a long procedure, then under what conditions and on what legal basis can a public organization operate in this building, and which institutions allowed it to move into it without a decision of the owner, that is, the regional council?
The initiators of the vote removed the survey for interesting reasons, which can easily be called obscene, offensive and unfounded. The volunteer leader expresses his own opinion, which includes incitement, handing out money, deliberate bribery of voters, clearly pointing to posts in Hungarian. Does this then mean that a Transcarpathian Hungarian can no longer participate in the (at first glance innocent) manifestation of will that concerns them? Or, if they can, they will be insulted – with Nazi epithets added to complete the picture.
Dear Reader, this is where we would like to finish writing this article, and we leave the rest of the thoughts to your discretion!