COURAGE

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László Szabédi (1907–1959) was a Transylvanian Hungarian poet, writer, linguist, and university professor. He graduated in 1925 and until 1927, he studied theology in Strasbourg and then philosophy in Cluj/Kolozsvár. For a while, he worked as an administrator in Arad. He then became a theatrical dramaturg in Cluj/Kolozsvár. He was an inner worker of the “Opposition” (1931–1938). He became a teacher in Báré, and in 1941 he returned to Cluj/Kolozsvár, where he worked at the Universal Library. In 1942, he joined to the Group Helikon. At his initiative, the periodical Yield was born. In 1944, he joined the antifascist opposition. In May 1945, the Alliance of Hungarian Writers of Romania elected him as vice president. In the same year, he joined the Romanian Communist Party. In 1945–1947, he served as the director of the Székely National Museum at Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy. From 1947 until his death, he taught at the Bolyai University in Cluj/Kolozsvár. Between 1952 and 1956, he served as head of the department of history of Hungarian literature. Due to his protest against the merging of the Romanian University and the Hungarian University, which eventually resulted in the Babeș–Bolyai University in 1959, the Securitate continued to harass him. In a final protest against the suppression of the University, he committed suicide.

Philosopher, painter. At the beginning of the 1920s, he participated in the illegal communist movement as a clerk. From 1928 to 1930, until his exclusion, he was a member of the Work Circle of Lajos Kassák. Following this, together with Pál Justus and Pál Partos, he became one of the leaders of the opposition in the illegal workers movement.

In the 1930s, he became a regular attendee of the lectures of the gnostic circle led by Ferenc Kepes (following in the footsteps of Jenő Henrik Schmitt). In 1931–32, he spent a few months in Germany on two separate occasions. He studied in Berlin at Karl Korsch and in Frankfurt at the lnstitut für Sozialforschung.

In 1933, he began to find the theoretical frames of Marxism narrow. Together with Béla Tábor and Zoltán Békefi, he became interested in the ideas of Freud and Jung, including their ideas about art. During a study trip to Vienna, the police accused him being a communist agent, so he went expelled to Paris. Here, he lived together with his friend Lajos Vajda for a year.

After his return, he offered a critique of sociology, Marxism, positivism, and psychoanalysis in a book written together with Béla Tábor (Vádirat a szellem ellen, [Indictment against the Spirit], 1936). The first part of the pamphlet A hit logikája [The Logic of Faith] was published in 1937 (the second part came out only after his death).

He wrote several essays in these years (Megjegyzések a marxizmus kritikájához [Some remarks on the criticism of Marxism], A tudományos szocializmus bírálatához [Some remarks on the criticism of scientific socialism], A mammonizmus természetrajzához [To the natural history of mammonism], Adalékok a halmazelmélet kérdéseihez [Contributions to the problems of set theory], Nietzsche, Biblia és romantika [Bible and romanticism]). They were published in print after his death.

He considered the anti-Semitic laws passed in Hungary a provocation, so he joined the synagogue in 1939. For a few months he served in the forced labor service, but he was demilitarized in 1940 due to pulmonary disease. In the spring of 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz. He was freed in January 1945.

In the autumn of 1945, together with Béla Hamvas and Béla Tábor, he launched the “Thursday conversations” series in the hope of radical spiritual revival. These gatherings were unofficial events held at the apartment of Tábor and his wife, Stefánia Mándy.

Between 1946 and 1948, he held seminars in private apartments for selected youngsters on subjects like the theory and psychology of values, the critique of set theory, language mathesis, and the theory of signs. In 1946, he wrote the essays “Művészet és vallás” [Art and religion] and “Irodalom és rémület” [Literature and horror]. In 1948 he withdrew from the group.

In 1954, he became a calligrapher himself. He considered his calligraphic works an addition to his philosophy. After the fall of the revolution, he emigrated with his wife and some of his followers in 1956 and lived in Brussels and Düsseldorf. He had exhibitions in several cities, including Brussels, Paris, Dusseldorf, and Essen. Many of his drawings he signed with the initials AO, his alias in the movement, which stands for Anti-Organization. This sign later became a visual symbol in his work.

Rezső Szabó (*10 May 1929 in Klížska Nemá, Hungarian: Kolozsnéma, district Komárno) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician from Slovakia. He attended a secondary school in Komárno and graduated in 1952 at the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. 1951 he started working for the Czechoslovak Hungarian Workers’ Cultural Association (in Hungarian: Csehszlovákiai Magyar Dolgozók Kultúregyesülete, in Slovak: Kultúrny zväz maďarských pracujúcich v Československu, abbreviation: CSEMADOK). In 1954–1969 he was a Secretary of CSEMADOK, and in 1959-1961 the editor-in-chief of the weekly cultural magazine Hét published by CSEMADOK. As a leading representative of the Hungarian minority and a longstanding member of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) he held, along with the important and politically sensible position of the CSEMADOK Secretary, different other offices. He was a member of the Slovak National Council (Slovenská národná rada, SNR) and one of its vice chairmen (from 29 December 1968 to 28 April 1970). In 1968 he is mentioned as a KSS Central Committee member. After the federation was introduced in Czechoslovakia, SNR nominated Szabó for the Czechoslovak parliament (Federální shromáždění – Federal Assembly), and he was a member of its Chamber of the Nations (Sněmovna národů) from 1 January 1969 to 25 November 1971 (he resigned on 7 October 1971). 1971 he was dismissed from both KSS and CSEMADOK. From 1971 to 1974 he was a manual worker, from 1975 to 1990 he worked as a company attorney. In 1990 he got involved in politics again, and he co-founded the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement and the Együttélés-Spolužitie [Coexistence] political movement. Between 1990 and 1992 he was a member of the Slovak National Council for Együttélés-Spolužitie (cf. Fazekas, József and Péter Hunčík, eds. 2008. Maďari na Slovensku (1989–2004). Súhrnná správa. Od zmeny režimu po vstup do Európskej únie. [Hungarians in Slovakia. General report. From the change of regime till the EU accession] Translation of: Magyarok Szlovákiában (1989–2004). Összefoglaló jelentés. A rendszerváltozástól az európai uniós csatlakozásig (2004). Šamorín: Fórum inštitút pre výskum menšín, 63, 113).

The political history of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Slovakia is reflected to a large extent in Rezső Szabó’s life story. After the communist takeover in 1948 it was important for the regime to integrate the Hungarians in Slovakia into the social and political life. CSEMADOK was founded to fulfil this aim, and to “popularize the policies of the Communist Party in the Hungarian minority” (Fazekas and Hunčík, 45). In 1956 CSEMADOK supported the official Czechoslovak standpoint condemning the anticommunist and anti-Soviet revolution in Hungary. The political thaw in the 1960s, however, influenced also the atmosphere in CSEMADOK, and Rezső Szabó became one of the leading figures of this process (and also its chronicler, cf. Szabó, Rezső. 2004. A Csemadok és a Prágai Tavasz. Beszélgetések, cikkek, előadások, dokumentumok [CSEMADOK and Prague Spring. Interviews, articles, lectures, documents]. Bratislava/Pozsony: Kalligram, 2004). His personal collection (inventory accessible: adatbank.sk/egyeni-hagyatekok/szabo-rezso-iratai. Accessed 3 January, 2018) documents the intellectual and legislative activities in 1967 to 1969, which aimed at an qualitative change of the constitutional position of ethnic minorities. These minorities meant, primarily, the Hungarian minority (the working documents from that time use even the term “národnostná samospráva” – “ethnic authonomy”), but also the “constitutional status of the Ukrainian minority” was discussed, involving the uneasy issue of Ruthens/Rusyns living in Czechoslovakia. These activities had to be conducted delicately, so as not to be codemned as particularist deviations from the democratization efforts in both society and the Party (cf. Szakál, Gyula. 1997. Túlélési stratégiák, hatalmi manipulációk a szlovákiai magyarság körében (1957-1990) [Survival strategies and manipulation through political power among the Hungarians living in Slovakia]. Bratislava/Pozsony: Nemzetiségi Dokumentációs Centrum, Budapest and Győr: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Politikai Tudományok Intézete). Through the liberalization of the social climate, also a revival of confrontation between Hungarian and Slovak nationalist standpoints was, unfortunately, also made possible (cf. Popély, Árpád. 2008. 1968 és a csehszlovákiai magyarság [The year 1968 and the Czechoslovak Hungarians]. Šamorín/Somorja: Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet). The policy developments concerning the minorities culminated in 1969, in connection with the introduction of the Czechoslovak federation, which promised more autonomy to Slovaks. The federation remained in force under the “mercy” of the Soviets, although in reduced and emptied form. The reform of the minorities’ status was cancelled, and their protagonists, including Szabó, were persecuted. They returned in 1990 to the political scene, but the positions of Slovak Hungarians have since been determined by younger politicans, such as Miklós Duray.

Lajos Szathmáry (1919–1997) was a poet, journalist, book and art collector, master chef and restaurant owner. Szathmáry was a generous supporter of the émigré scouting movement for many decades. He was born in 1919 to Transylvanian refugee parents in Rákosrendező on the outskirt of Budapest. He was educated at prestigious and traditional Calvinist Reformed Church elementary and secondary schools, first in Budapest then in Sárospatak. During the Second World War, Szathmáry was a journalist and a soldier. He left Hungary in late 1944 and never returned to his native land, though he remained a Hungarian patriot all his life. He lived for a few years as a refugee in Salzburg, Austria, then in 1951 he left for the United States and settled in the city of Chicago. Here Szatmáry opened a Hungarian restaurant in 1963 named The Bakery, which he ran until 1989. Szathmáry was not only a famous chef himself, but also a popular author of cookbooks in both English and Hungarian. He was also knowns as a passionate collector of books, manuscripts, art and maps. He donated the majority of his private collection to U.S. libraries and museums, although he presented his large and precious Hungarian book collection to the College of Sárospatak and the Gáspár Károli Calvinist Reformed Church University in Budapest. Some of his valuable manuscript holdings were recently acquired by the Hungarian National Archives and the Petőfi Literary Museum.