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Mbledhje koleksionesh

Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog, a satire on the Soviet New Man, was written in 1925 in the Soviet Union, and it was immediately confiscated and banned until as late as 1987. From the 1960s it was circulated in the country in Western editions, but in Hungary very few people had the chance to read the novel. It was not known even among people who had access to sources of clandestine literature under the Kádár regime.

The situation changed a little when the Slovak journal Svetová Literatúra published the novel in Slovak translation in 1978. The Hungarian writer György Spiró thus could read the novel - strangely enough, upon the recommendation of the notorious hard liner cultural journalist, columnist of the party daily, and editor of the journal Szovjet Irodalom [Soviet Literature], Pál E. Fehér. Spiró started to work at the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár as a dramaturge in late 1981 (officially from early 1982), and he encouraged the director to adapt it for stage. By then, the professor of Russian Zsuzsa Hetényi had already prepared the translation based on the 1969 Paris edition of the book, which Spiró had lent to her. The initiative nevertheless failed, and the Hungarian translation was put on file in the archive of the Institute of Theatre in Budapest. There was a second attempt to stage it in 1986, but the authorities intervened. The Hungarian translation, however, was published in the same year by one of the smaller samizdat publishers, Katalizátor Iroda.

The publication of the book caused some tensions within dissident circles. The book was brought to Katalizátor Iroda by Ádám Modor, who had until that point been involved in the printing of the samizat journal Beszélő since 1983. The editors of the journal had a rule: no other publication was allowed to be printed on the stencil machine of Beszélő located in the suburban workshop of painter Kitty Márczi. Modor, however, decided to print Heart of a Dog anyway that was noticed by the editors. In March 1986, the editorial team parted company with Modor, who brought the book to Katalizátor Iroda and published it under their brand. 

The picture shows Hristo Ognyanov during a Radio Free Europe broadcast. Ognyanov was a long-time contributor to the Bulgarian language program of Radio Free Europe.

One of the programs of Radio Free Europe was called Bulgarian Literature under Communism, which Ognyanov created in 1964 (CSA F. 1264, op. 1, a.e. 289). The featured item contains the program transcripts, totaling about 375 pages. The Ognyanov’s broadcasts provided a broader picture of the development of literature in Bulgaria, while at the same time condemning the restrictions imposed by the government. He specifically presented works from Bulgarian literature and culture that the communist regime had banned in Bulgaria. In the series, Bulgarian Literature under Communism Ognyanov reported on official decisions of the Bulgarian Communist Party and revealed lies in the party’s propaganda.

A samizdat book by György Bulányi entitled Seek the Country of the Lord! /Keressétek az Isten Országát! - KIO/ includes the theological background of the Bokor base movement. The author summarized the ideals which needed to be followed as the New Testament Gospel: the values of poverty, nonviolence, and love. Bokor’s theology focused on Jesus’s love, which can never be replaced by ceremonies. It required social, practical action from people, such as making donations, performing useful services, and maintaining a commitment to nonviolence. 6 volumes of KIO were published legally in 1991.

A so-called philo-clip, based on Agrippa von Nettesheim’s book, made in collaboration with Llurex (Egon Bunne) and Volkmar Hein.

This clip-genre is one of Bódy’s innovations. As he said, if Tisza shoes can be advertised, why not make a publicity clip for human dignity, honour or creativity. Therefore, he created lyrics, mytho- and philo-clips based on a poem by Novalis, the myth of Euryminé and von Nettesheim’s book.

Agrippa von Nettesheim was a famous alchemist and doctor in the Middle Ages. The Three Books Concerning Occult Philosophy, his masterwork, presented the hermetic-magic tradition which concerns the power of numbers, relations between letters, numbers and gods, the magical aspects of Greek, Roman, and Hebrew letters, and the correlation between planets and numbers.

Bódy observed (most probably with the help of Bunne), that the time code—handling frames and sound—allows the artist to use a pre-programmed order to compile image and sound simultaneously, so editing can be done based on a previously determined structure, while the result cannot be visually foreseen.

Bódy’s starting point was a diagram of seven magical squares in the third volume of the book. The Kabbalistic squares, identified as the archetype of knowledge, and superimposed ratio-figures of Dürer and Leonardo, provided the graphic base of the clip. The sequences appearing on the diagram were previously fixed on the time code. Bódy called this method “aleatoric editing”, where the logic of the process is determined by random mechanisms.

A green laser light on a dark background, sometimes disclosed by shadowy figures, and diagrams from the book with blue contour appear in the clip in an order determined by the sequence. They are placed on top of the fabric of electronically generated music.