Cultural Heritage and Restorer in the changing World [antikvár]

The Hungarian National Museum, since they have always considered the protection of historical objects and monuments one of their basic tasks, have undertaken to continue a tradition developed in many years, that is the organization of international conferences. The seminars held in Veszprém have been known, appreciated and visited by a whole generation of conservators since 1976. The S^*^ International Conservator Seminar had been organized after these antecedents in the town of Sárospatak. The number of participants was somewhat lower than earlier due to several but mainly financial reasons, and because of the political changes that occurred in the region, conferences in Hungary are not the occasions of bringing together the East and the West any more. As a result of this, those who still came here, did so for pure professional interest indeed. As expressed in the title of the Conference identifying the objectives and main topics of the discussions: "The Cultural Heritage and the Conservator in a Changing World", we made efforts to deal with not strictly professional issues only but with the World around us that is imminent to our artefacts and cultural heritage and to our everyday existence as well. It is not enough any more that the conservator confines himself by the walls of his workshop and restores an object nicely but he has to look after its environment including storage, display, transport etc. as well. And it also may be necessary that copies are available if the danger exists that the object might suffer damages. Thus, as a matter of course, the decaying condition of our natural and built environment, and the importance and sometimes inadequate chance of its protection have been addressed as well. It was a pleasure to see that the health protection of conservators is getting more and more important as well. Unfortunately, the senseless devastation of war is no fiction in our region but something threatening all of us. We heard agonizing reports about the human, moral and cultural losses caused by the war in the territory of the former Jugoslavia on the round table discussion conducted by the Institute of Cultural Heritage in Switzerland. At listening to these reports on troubles and tragedies, that go much beyond the borders of a country or a nation, we appreciated particularly that the ARCH Foundation and its lady president, Francesca von Habsburg and the general secretary, Dr. Eric Chr.V Henriksen personally paid so much attention and generosity to the elaboration of modes of rendering assistance to us. This good feeling was enhanced by the report of Mr. James Emson, managing director of CBE, in which he expressed the hope of reclaiming objects of art lost or stolen in various ways. He analysed comprehensively and with great understanding the importance of the protection of the cultural heritage of national minorities, and the tasks originating from that. Through the diversified and often very enjoyable description of their work carried out in all sorts of restoration and conservation, the colleagues proved 15