A toy is a lesson for children, therapy for adults

Just finished exhibition Toys u Ethnographic Museum u Belgrade it was extremely popular. After all, as could be expected: a toy is something that is loved and what is important, it is a memory of beauty. She is the good in us.

Apart from that personal experience of the toy, it is also a social and cultural medium. For children it means entertainment, for parents and teachers a means of learning and education, for producers and merchants profit, and science means material evidence of the historical, technological and economic circumstances of the society in which it was created, of its aesthetic, ethical and religious principles.

photo: ethnographic museum

The author of the exhibition, Mirjana Kraguljac Ilić, senior curator and head of the department for the study of ethnographic cultural heritage, chose to tell about the childhood of generations who grew up with wooden horses, rag dolls, terns, marbles and other handmade toys, so that the little ones would discover the magic of playing without screens and batteries, and the adults would remember the memories of carefree days.

Because, he says, "toys are not just beautiful and cute objects to play with, the history of culture is woven into them. They materialize value and aesthetic criteria in a certain time. They represent a didactic tool that helps children to adopt the values ​​of the culture in which they grow up. They complete the game, give it an idea and content".

In Serbia, the toys are kept by the Ethnographic and Pedagogical Museum in Belgrade, and the Museum of the City of Novi Sad. Mirjana Kraguljac Ilić says that "there are more than 1,300 items in the collection of children's toys of the Ethnographic Museum. They bear witness to the childhood of past generations and show us the values ​​placed on children, but they also bear witness to the economic and social conditions of society."

Until the end of the fifties of the last century, toys were mostly made by parents, but also by children. They made them from the materials they had at hand, from their skill, imagination and love (the order does not matter). Birdhouses, for example, are wooden or wicker, large and small, straight and curved, painted or not. They were made by children alone or with the help of their parents in the late fifties of the last century. Rattles, more precisely: súćur rattles, were easy to make: you take a small dry gourd or a poppy pod, shake it, and your child will be delighted by the sound produced by the seeds of its fruit. Among the animals, a snake made of wooden joints, painted, from the middle of the last century stands out. It was probably made by children in a general technical education class. One of the forking branches looked like a horse to a child, so it was promoted as a famous toy. On a lacquered wooden piano, someone must have played their most beautiful etudes. It's a cheerful red felt monkey on wheels from the 1958s, made in Germany, and bought through a catalog (then, as now, toy factories had a precise catalog of their products). The collection includes the classic, indestructible and unsurpassed favorite Meda from XNUMX.

photo: ethnographic museum

There are different types of balls. Among the oldest is the so-called hairy ball, made of beef hair from Loznica. Rags, popular rags, are also numerous. Mirjana Kraguljac Ilić points out the patchwork which was acquired for the museum in 1958. The youngest one is a basketball one, made of cast rubber, produced in Split.

Dolls, however, are the most attractive. When two trees are crossed so that they represent a body and outstretched arms, and a cloth is wrapped around them, a doll on a bataljuška is obtained. Some of the so-called rag dolls, also domestically produced, are very imaginative: on a white cloth wrapped around a twig, a skirt with red tufts is sewn, on the chest there is a big bow, and on the rag head there are eyes, embroidered with black thread and a mouth with red. From the 1950s, there is a plastic Alice doll that also has doll clothes - everything like for adults, only in miniature: nice little buttons, a tiny zipper on the pants, a coat with straps, boots. The collection includes Barbie and Ken, bought in the mid-eighties on commission, original Mattel, and at that time they already had a place in the museum.

The author of the exhibition singles out the "dolls that the curator Nikola Zega acquired in the field in 1902, and the doll that was donated to the museum by Gorjana Zekić from Belgrade. She inherited the doll from her mother, who received it as a gift from her parents. They bought it in the department store 'Mitić', which was located in Knez Mihailova Street in Belgrade. Also a toy that belongs to the means of transport, which was a favorite among boys. It is an example of an industrial rocket, created In the seventies of the 20th century, the object was purchased from the owner from Novi Sad.

It is interesting, he says, that "from the middle of the 19th century, some craftsmen made toys to order. It is known that children's toys were made to order in carpentry workshops until the sixties of the 20th century, when industrial products became dominant on the market. The only registered workshop for the production and sale of toys in our country was the 'Homa' workshop in Zrenjanin. At the end of the 19th century, stores were opened in Belgrade that had a wide range of luxury goods, and among them were dolls. The toys were mostly bought at the end of the year, and since they often broke down, some clever traders employed workers who were skilled in toy repair. One of them was the Doll Clinic, which was located in Poinkare's street, in the shop "Kod Piroćanc". in the city, they had and smaller seasonal shops in spa resorts or seaside resorts. Since the second half of the 15th century, toys have become cheap and accessible goods that are bought every day, not only for holidays and important dates".

It could be said that there are as many stories about the exhibits from this collection as there are exhibits. And they are all beautiful, educational for children, and therapeutic for adults.