Biography
Stjepan Hajduk was born in 1939 in Jalševac by Varaždinske Toplice; he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, history major.
For nine years he worked as a history teacher, and spent the rest of his career in the Varaždinske Toplice Local History Museum, founded in 1937 by the well-known pharmacist Josip Čabrian, as the private collection of the then Chapter-owned Spa. The museum was later expanded with the opening of an ethnological collection, and since 1980 has borne its present museum.
The conservation treatment of the Roman period baths (Aqua lasae), which at the time of the Roman Empire were an important health, recreational, ritual and economic centre, was carried out by the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb.
In this museum Stjepan Hajduk worked as a curator and director and for long was the only professional employee.
During his work, Hajduk carried out a thorough reduction and modernisation of the display, along with renovation of the premises and inventory, and the introduction of central heating. As well as archaeological, ethnographic and cultural history material, the museum has an interesting balneological collection of items from the Middle Ages which, accompanied by valuable documentation,
Stjepan Hajduk studied and presented in the light of new scholarly understanding connected with thermal waters. He authored many exhibitions: the Social Life of Varaždinske Toplice; Parish Church of the BVM of the Holy Rosary in Remetinec by Novi Marof; Selection from the Art Holdings of the Varaždinske Toplice Local History Museum; Textile Handicrafts of Varaždinske Toplice; Varaždinske Toplice on Maps and Plans from 1639-1995. He has written numbers of catalogues and publications: 40 Years of Varaždinske Toplice Museums, Anniversaries of Pharmacy in Varaždinske Toplice, and in collaboration with Ante Luetic wrote a small monograph on the History of the Settlement and Development of Balneological and Medical Activity in Varaždinske Toplice.
NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on March 17, 2004.
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