The winners of the ŽIVA AWARD 2022, which have been announced by the Forum of Slavic Cultures since 2014, were announced in the Knight's Hall of the Slovenian Castle of Brežice on Friday evening, November 18. One of the main prizes was also won by the Slovak National Museum (SNM) for the first time in the history of the ŽIVA AWARD, the international jury decided to award the work of the SNM - the Museum of the Slovak National Councils in Myjava in the form of an honorable mention.

According to the decision of the international jury, the City Museum of Virovitica at Pejačević Castle in Croatia became the best Slavic museum. The award for the best Slavic heritage-protected location went to Galéria Cukrarna in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which was built on the land of a former sugar factory and is part of the Ljubljana City Museum.

SNM – Museum of Slovak National Councils, MR Štefánika Museum became the laureate of the prestigious ŽIVA 2022 prize for fulfilling the role of the museum in capturing and presenting the national past in Slovakia and defining the identity and consciousness of the nation. "The jury was attracted by the marriage of the original and new architecture of both museums and the way of preserving the spirit of authentic historical spaces in connection with modern elements of exposition and presentation. Their considerable expectations were also exceeded by the rich set of exhibited exhibits from different parts of the world, left behind by, among others, the traveler and collector Milan Rastislav Štefánik," commented Pavol Trúsik , deputy director of the SNM - Museum of Slovak National Councils, on the jury's decision.

ŽIVA AWARDS 2022 recorded the largest number of nominations in the eight-year history of the award ceremony, 29 museums and galleries from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia were nominated.

" An award like the ŽIVA Award for our specialized museum on Myjava represents a much-needed impetus. Especially the last three years, marked by the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and inflation, represent a great test for the entire culture. It is good when, through a foreign award, people in our country learn that Slovak museums are competitive, offer interesting content, and that when visiting them, people are enriched not only with new knowledge, but also leave with an emotional experience," he added to the importance of awarding the prestigious international award for Slovak National Museum Branislav Panis , general director of the Slovak National Museum and one of the members of the ŽIVA 2022 international jury.

The awarded museums in this year's ŽIVA AWARDS also include another Slovak museum - the Ľubovnian Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje (North Macedonia), the Castle Museum in Pszczyna, Poland, the Sirogojno Open-Air Museum (Serbia), the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw and the Nikola Koku Janković Gallery, which is part of the National Museum in Kragujevac, Serbia.

Source: SNM - SNR Museum, MR Štefánik Museum