COURAGE

savienojot kolekcijas

This item is a typical announcement of a regular work day of the Noor-Tartu (Young-Tartu) movement. Announcements which were usually placed in educational buildings and hostels were an information channel to recruit people for work days. Anyone who saw an announcement was free to join a work day. The Raadi cemetery, which is mentioned in the announcement, especially its one part – Old St John’s cemetery – was one of the main areas of the work of Noor-Tartu.

This announcement itself was simple, and made with the means that were available. However, the announcement is still remarkable due to the big letter K in each corner of the paper. It is a hint at the former name of the movement – Kodulinn (Hometown) – , which was used until the spring of 1981. The movement only changed its name because the Tartu Komsomol organisation deliberately named its new organisation for school students Kodulinn in order to cause confusion.

The date on the announcement is Sunday, 28 November, without mentioning the year. However, we can assume that the work day took place, and that the announcement was written, in 1982. At that time, the activity of Noor-Tartu was not obstructed, but in later years these announcements were removed by the authorities, in order to disrupt the work days.

The announcement belongs to the core group of the former movement. Like the entire collection, this item has not attracted wider attention, which is also the intention of the current operator of the collection. It is possible that it will be used for research after the collection is given to an institution.

The agent who went by the cover name “Tamás Fehér” submitted a report about his meetings and talks with István Malgot, during which he attempted to learn about Malgot’s political views. He wrote about Malgot’s ’minimal and maximal political program in 1976. According to Malgot’s maximal program, ideally technocrat scientists, artists, and officials would govern the socialist state. The role of the family would decrease, and instead of families, communes would be created based on love and work. The commune would be a form of existence not only for the free artist but also for the other workers, and it would constitute a reform to tradition practices of child rearing. The minimal program involved the group’s activity, which consisted not only of artistic work but also of a struggle against manipulation and for democracy. The political police judged István Malgot’s political views as antisocial.

János Gémes (“Dixi”), the poet. Here he is in live speech, constantly provoking situations around him, like it is depicted in the photo, on the terrace of the Kárpátia restaurant, most probably in 1969. Dixi was a well-known, ubiquitous persona of the Budapest nightlife for decades.

He delivered endless monologues, orated in an associative manner, creating connections between the beginning and the end of a sentence with word play, twirling a few times the texture. He was a baffling personality, often grandiose, many times provocative, sometimes aggressive. He saw through people and never cared about the consequences.

The author of the photo is unknown. It is probably cut out from a larger photograph, as the edge is jagged. The most interesting feature of the photograph is that someone pegged out the eye of the protagonist with a needle. According to Zuzu this gesture is feminine.

Gábor Bódy introduced Dixi to Zuzu in 1971. At that time Dixi lived temporarily across the street from Zuzu at a guy’s apartment who was in the business of tailoring blue jeans—a hot, rare commodity at that time. He was a habitué at the Kárpátia, and people favored his company. He usually sat on the terrace, close to the entrance, from where it was possible to look into the restaurant as well as onto the street. He was older than them (they were still in high school, Bódy a university student).

Many students, artists, writers, poets, and musicians were hanging out at Kárpátia in those times, practically forming a regular audience. Zuzu, together with his friend Gomba (Erzsébet Gombás, one of the main characters of the film The Third by Gábor Bódy), went there often after school. This photo has preserved the familiar setting.

The triptych M.K. Čiurlioniui (M.K. Čiurlionis [1875-1911] was a famous Lithuanian artist and composer) was created in December 1962, at exactly the same time that the leader of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev criticised the Second Exhibition of Modern Art in the Manezh Gallery in Moscow. Following this ideological campaign, the artist Antanas Gudaitis (1904-1989) was criticised in Soviet Lithuania. He was blamed for deviating from Socialist Realism. While no actual works by the painter were mentioned during this ideological campaign, Gudaitis himself believed that it was because of his triptych (see Lubytė, E. 1997, Tylusis modernizmas Lietuvoje [Quiet Modernism in Lithuania], Vilnius, p. 88).