COURAGE

Свързване на колекции

The photo archive of the periodical Beszélő was transferred to the Collection of Political Transition. It contains tens of thousands of photos from the first year of the publishing of Beszélő as a samizdat newspaper (1981), but there is also substantial material from the period when it was published legally after the political transition.

In the issue of the 11th of March 1981, Klub Közlöny informed the readers about the program of the Meeting of Students from Universities and Colleges in Budapest (Budapesti Egyetemisták és Főiskolások Találkozója – BEFŐT). The aim of the event of the 19^th–22^nd of March, initiated by Gyula Jobbágy, was to organize an independent forum for students of universities. We have information about the Polvax political debate club programs, and the different discussions of issues the students were interested in (colleges, scholarships, cultural activities at universities, etc.). The party leadership misinterpreted this project as an opportunity for opposition students to cooperate together and thus considered this process to be dangerous. In response to BEFŐT, the organizers were regulated, the comments were strictly limited, and the unfolding of the free debate became impossible. Because of this intervention the essence of BEFŐT was lost.

The report provides information about the criticism of the Vilnius University almanac Kūryba at the the end of the 1950s. Members of the Department of Lithuanian Literature at Vilnius University, which at that time came under strong ideological criticism from the Party and the government, were associated with the almanac. It was criticised by Glavlit, and after the editors did not agree with the comments of the censors, an audit of the Department of Lithuanian Literature was carried out. After this audit, several lecturers were blamed for distorting Marxist-Leninist ideology, and were forced out of their jobs (Irena Kostkevičiūtė, Meilė Lukšienė, Aurelija Rabačiauskaitė and Vanda Zaborskaitė). After these events, the university refused to publish the Kūryba almanac. 

In the manuscript Smoke in his Eye, the oldest Lakota Sioux chief, tells the story of the Native American games played in the forests of Bakony, Hungary, started by four boys in the early 1960s and involving hundreds of participants today. The reader can learn the goals of the game (gaining appreciation, revealing courage, and learning skilfulness and endurance) and the methods (playing a war-game based on commonly accepted rules). Over the course of the years, women and children also started to take part in the activities, which originally were exclusively for men.

The participants, who from the outset strove for authenticity, camp with self-made accessories and props. They divide themselves into tribes for two weeks each year at their usual location in a valley in the Bakony region and the nearby plateau. The weapons used for the war-game had blunt edges, and the ways in which they can be used are governed by strict, self-imposed rules. If one is wounded, one must take a forced resting period. If one is killed, one loses one’s former name and identity. War makes their game peculiar, as this is the only war-game among the many Native American roleplay camps worldwide.

Initially, the State Security services automatically connected the games to the scout movement, which was forbidden, so they considered them “counter-revolutionary” in spirit. A trial was launched in 1963 against another circle engaging in Native American roleplay. They were accused of having taken part in “preparations in conspiracy against the state,” but ultimately the case was dropped due to the general amnesty issued that year.