On Saturday April 24 at noon, the awaited opening of the International Poster Exhibition „Crops for the State! Agriculture and the Countryside in the 1950s Propaganda Poster of Central and Eastern Europe” finally took place. The guests of the opening were representatives of the local authorities and of foreign museums, to whose collections exhibited posters belong: National Museum of Agriculture in Prague, Moravian Museum in Brno, Museum of Hungarian Agriculture and Museum of Agriculture in Wandlitz. After a short folkloristic interlude, performed by Children’s Ensemble “Szreniawa”, both the hosts and guests took their turns to speak. The Szreniawa Museum Director, Dr. Jan Maćkowiak, spoke about the genesis and idea of the exhibition, and about long-term queries and work that were necessary to realize it. A short lecture of a historian of the 1950s in the Central and Eastern European agriculture and the countryside was given by Professor Stanisław Jankowiak from Adam Mickiewicz University. Finally, the authors of the exhibition, Hanna Ignatowicz and Urszula Siekacz, gave the public a direct introduction to the topical division of the exhibition and began guiding the visitors.

The opening of the exhibition in its maternal museum is over, but for both Polish and Central European public this is but the beginning of an adventure with agricultural poster of the 1950s. For the exhibition is going to be displayed in Szreniawa till October 10, and, according to preliminary agreements with partnering museums, it will be most probably displayed in Prague and Budapest in 2011.