Hrabal’s cottage in Kersk opened extraordinarily, dozens of people were waiting in line
Around 09:30, half an hour before the opening, about 60 people stood in front of the cottage. An hour later, there were about 200 of them in line. They were waiting on the property and on the driveway.
“Interest is quite great. There are quite a lot of those people, “said Jan Vinduška, director of the Elbe Museum. The cottage is open until 16:00 on Saturdays.
The building is still in the condition in which it was abandoned by previous owners. At the end of March 2024, an exhibition should open in it, which will commemorate the writer’s life and work and his relationship to the recreational settlement of Kersko, which is part of the village of Hradištko in the Nymburk region.
At the special opening, visitors can view several pieces of original furniture from the writer’s estate, which were not known until recently. Representatives of the museum found him while taking over the cottage in the garage. “We lived in the belief that all material things are in our collections or we have lent them in the museum, but the opposite was true,” said Vinduška.
On the ground floor of the cottage are cabinets, chests and a table that show photos of the original interior. On the first floor of the so-called vechtrovna is a library with dozens of Hrabal’s books.
The Central Bohemian Region bought the cottage at the end of last year for 9.9 million crowns. Thanks to negotiations reduced the original price of almost 12 million and signed a memorandum with the Ministry of Culture on cooperation in the operation of the future exhibition. The Elbe Museum will take care of it for the region, which includes the Museum of National History in Nymburk, which has long managed the permanent exhibition of Bohumil Hrabal.
Part of the Nymburk exhibition, especially the objects coming directly from the cottage, will return to the original space in Kersk. Among the exhibits on display could be, for example, Hrabal’s typewriters, storage heaters and a bicycle. The museums want to decide on the form of the exhibition in the cottage, exactly the time period in which they style, including the representatives.
Bohumil Hrabal (1914 to 1997) made building modifications to the cottage between 1967 and 1970, and had the upper floor with the studio added. He wrote most of his books here, especially in the 1970s. Before his death, he donated the building to his neighbor’s son, who built a bathroom and kitchen here and owned the building until last year. For the time being, the region will only open the cottage to the public on exceptional occasions, this year during the traditional summer event Hrabalovo Kersko.