Stories from Trate
Home for the Mentally Defective Trate Guidebook
The purpose of the book Home for the Mentally Defective (in Slovenian Dom za duševno defektne) is to raise people's awareness of the difficult living and working conditions in the Home for the Mentally and Nervously Ill at Trrate (1949-2004). With the book we try to contribute to the elimination of the notions of the afterthought of the mass of insane people behind the institution's walls, who are treated as different, objects, children... We want readers to see in them people who, as a society, we have systemically mistreated.
The book is a critique of total institutions, which, unfortunately, are not history, but are still very much alive today. Like the exhibition Endless Lawns of Madness, the guidebook offers a glimpse into the bowels of an institution ruled by power, rules and schedules, edicts, medication... and a hard life that is not worth living.
The guidebook is also an invitation to the Museum of Madness, a self-contained venue that has come into being and survived thanks to the commitment of the heritage community to ensure that the very last historical layers of the medieval Cmurek Castle - which have the pejorative label of madhouse in society - are not erased and lost forever, and to preserve the memory of the people who lived and worked in this institution.
The book is so far available only in Slovenian. The foreword to the book, written by Prosper Wanner, sociologist, member of the residents’ cooperative Hôtel du Nord in Marseilles (France) and of the European Faro Convention Network, is available here.
The book is available for purchase at the Museum of Madness in Trate.
Text by Sonja Bezjak
Accompanying texts by Prosper Wanner, Darja Farasin
Publisher: Museum of Madness, Trate
ISBN: 978-961-93918-9-1
Specification: paperback, 21 × 13 cm, 80 pages
The book is published with the support of:
A book on Cmurek Castle
Igor Sapač's pocketbook on Cmurek Castle provides an in-depth exploration of one of the oldest surviving medieval castles in Slovenia. Its strategic location on a cliff above the Mura River, along which the border line has been drawn since 1919, makes the castle a unique cultural monument in the wider area. Cmurek Castle was built around 1140 by Burkhard and his wife Judith as the centre of a landed manor and named after them. Today, the extensive castle complex is still recognisable for its high-medieval architectural design and its finely carved artistic elements. Among the early medieval reconstructions of the castle into a Renaissance noble residence of the Stubenberg family, the completed monumental arcaded inner courtyard stands out. The castle, which for centuries had been inextricably linked to its immediate surroundings, was marked in the 20th century by the existence of a closed social welfare institution, or 'lunatic asylum'. Since 2013, thanks to the individuals united in the heritage community of the Museum of Madness, Trate has once again become a recognisable centre of border coexistence.
Author: Igor Sapač
Publisher: ZRC Publishing House
Co-publishers: the France Stele Institute of Art History and the Museum of Madness, Trate
ISBN: 978-961-05-0779-6
Specification: paperback, 21 × 13 cm, 136 pages
The book was published with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
Prispevki k biografiji Terezije Mostler [Contributions to the biography of Terezija Mostler]
This radio programme (in Slovenian) provides a brief insight into the pioneering days of Slovenian photography. But not just any photography, but an art and craft led by a woman's hand. Slovenian women photographers, as it is seen in the world, are much less known in history than their colleagues, although there are a number of women among the pioneers. Marko Radmilovič will talk to Sonja Bezjak about the unusual fate of Terezija Mostler from Trate, one of the first Slovenian women photographers, on the programme "Sledi časa"
You can listen to the radio programme Sledi časa from the RTV Slovenia archive.
Prepared by: Marko Radmilovič, 4. 9. 2022
Documentary film Muzej norosti
The documentary film Museum of Madness (in slo. Muzej norosti) can be viewed in the national RTV Slovenia archive RTV Slovenia archive.
“Cmurek Castle, on the Austrian border, is home to the Museum of Madness, housed in a former madhouse. Halfway between Vienna and Trieste, this place that doesn't exist has attracted ethnologists, writers and music groups with its unusual stories. The Mura River, which divides the two provinces, is both a border between nations and a linguistic boundary. We also set our own borders: between the 'normal' and others who have been labelled 'crazy', 'disturbed', 'defective', 'maladjusted'.” (Source: RTV Slovenia)
Scriptwriter, director and editor: Amir Muratović
Director of photography: Bernard Perme
Music by Ana Kravanja and Samo Kutin
Tell us your story
Since 2013, we have been building the Museum of Madness in the Cmurek Castle in Trate, on the Slovenian-Austrian border.
We have placed it in what was once a large institution called the Hrastovec - Trate Asylum for the Mentally and Neurologically Ill, which was closed by the state in 2004 with the assurance that people would be moved back into the community to be supported to live a decent life.
The museum collects material to show visitors what life was like in such an institution on the edge of the country. We have already collected some of the material and presented it in an exhibition. What is missing are the testimonies of the people who lived in this institution in Trate. We have lost all trace of the people who left here in 2004. We would like to hear their stories, record their memories and present them in the museum as a reminder and a reminder. If you know anything about the institution in Trate, please help us to collect stories about life and work in the institution in Trate. We are also interested in stories from other institutions in Slovenia and beyond. Email us at info@muzejnorosti.eu or call us on 00386 70 433 219.
Utrinki s Trat
