COURAGE

connecting collections

The Balys Sruoga collection holds various documents, including notes, manuscripts and correspondence with other Lithuanian writers. The documents illustrate well the situation of intellectuals and writers in Soviet Lithuania under Stalin. The manuscript of Sruoga’s novel Dievų miškas (The Forest of the Gods), written in 1945, is especially valuable. The manuscript was very severely criticised by the authorities and heavily censored. It was only published in Soviet Lithuania in 1957. 

The bequest of Imre Baász is proof of the progressiveness of his thinking, the innovativeness of his artwork, and the dynamic cooperation in which he engaged in times of political, cultural, and intellectual oppression. In the 1980s, the progressive, radical creative work was detached from the capital Bucharest, which served as the perpetual center. In this reversed centrum–periphery relationship, the periphery offered more freedom, and it ensured security and the possibility of invisibility. An important example from Transylvania of the micro-groupings which promoted progressive ideas and Western European styles and methods is the MaMű Association of Târgu-Mureș, which actively encouraged the practice of concept art, mail art, action art, and abstract artistic language in general. Imre Baász, though never an official member of the MaMű, shared their artistic view and language, and his work in the town of Sfântu Gheorghe can be considered as the prolongation of the Association’s work.

The bequest of Hungarian folklorist and folk dance researcher György Martin is currently held at the Hungarian Heritage House. The collection offers interesting insights into the private practices of alternative culture during the Kádár era in Hungary. It contains many documents, including letters, documents about the folk dance house movement, and documents about research trips. György Martin’s correspondence in particular reflects the trajectories of a non-conformist intellectual agenda.