Location

• București Strada Matei Basarab 55, Romania 030167
  Show on map

Languages

• Hungarian
• Romanian

Provenance and cultural activities

• The Archives of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives in Bucharest house the Ellenpontok Ad-hoc Collection, which comprises both Antal Károly Tóth’s seven-volume file consisting of 1,812 folios and the sixteen-volume file on Géza Szőcs, comprising 6,388 folios. Both file no. I 210560 with the cover-name of “Bastionul” and file no. I 160234 known by the cover of ”Sabău” can be found in the Informative Fond. The logic behind the genesis of the collection is adapted to the methodology of the secret police. First, the future “target person” had to come into the field of vision of the Securitate. In the present cases, the reasons were, respectively, minority community involvement and a scholarship for study abroad received as a result of individual qualities. In April 1978 the Oradea Securitate opened the file with the cover-name “Bastionul” with a view to monitoring the activity of the Endre Ady Literary Circle, as, according to the secret police, the members of this organisation formed a line of opposition which made use of every instrument inherent in the literary field in order to fight the official ideology. Antal Károly Tóth was included in the file only as of 1979, though eventually he became the main character, and from December 1980 until his emigration in July 1984, his person was associated with the cover-name of “Bastionul.” The first information regarding Géza Szőcs date from April 1979, when he applied to the competent authorities in Cluj-Napoca for a passport, so that he could pursue his studies at the University of Vienna as a Herder scholarship student in the academic year 1979–1980. The exponential increase in the materials contained in the files can be linked to the publication in 1982 of the samizdat called Ellenpontok (Counterpoints). The announcement of the existence of this underground magazine by Radio Free Europe in August 1982 led to the increased interest of the Securitate and the investigations extended to several counties over a brief period, enabling the identification of the authors. Although interrogations in November–December 1982 led to the unravelling of the events, those involved had meanwhile gained an international reputation and, consequently, the was authorities were no longer interested in making a case out of Ellenpontok and making martyrs of such public figures. In May 1983 the investigations were officially “concluded.” The increase in the records on file was henceforth determined by the social lifestyle subsequently adopted by those who had benefitted from “forgiveness,” the time they hesitated before choosing emigration (which was eventually everyone’s choice), and the extent of the attention they attracted from the regional unit responsible for their operative observation. Further on, the Securitate followed the destiny of those involved and the contact they maintained with relatives left behind, as part of the operational plan bearing the codename “Oponenții-83” (Opponents-83), coordinated from Bucharest. The Tóth family emigrated in July 1984. However, in the case of Antal Károly Tóth, the surveillance file codenamed “Bastionul” was only closed in May 1986. Nonetheless, not even at that point did this mean the cessation of interest on the part of the secret police, although the seventh volume of Tóth’s file comprises the transcripts of television and radio broadcasts from 1989 mainly relating to Attila Ara-Kovács. Géza Szőcs remained in Romania as he felt he was needed there. Despite permanent monitoring and interrogations, he carried on with his dissident activity. Both in 1984 and in 1985 he submitted petitions to the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, in which he notified the leaders of the Party about the unresolved issue of primarily Hungarian ethnic claims. Among the priorities of the Cluj-Napoca Securitate in charge of his case was the total compromising and moral discreditation of Szőcs. In the course of 1985 they conducted searches on two occasions at his home. The purpose of the second wave of house searches conducted on 30 September and 1 October 1985 in Cluj-Napoca was to unmask Szőcs and his “contacts.” According to the list drawn-up at that time, house searches were conducted also in the homes of Éva Cseke-Gyimesi, Marius Tabacu, Margit Tőkés, Judit Wrabel, Zoltán Wrabel and András Visky. The subsistence difficulties faced by Szőcs were accompanied by regular questionings, written declarations, isolation and humiliation. In the end he opted for emigration and in August 1986 he left the country. Nevertheless, the Securitate followed his life with close attention up until the change of regime, with a special focus on the interviews and speeches relating to Romania that he gave in various forums and radio broadcasts.

Description of content

• The Archives of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives in Bucharest house the Ellenpontok Ad Hoc collection, which comprises both Antal Károly Tóth’s seven-volume file and the file on Géza Szőcs amounting to sixteen volumes, amounting to a combined total of 8,200 folios. The material in the collection created by the Communist authorities can be divided into two categories. The first category includes various types of texts – reports, implementation/action plans, technical instructions, intercepted conversations, accounts of outdoor shadowing and photographs taken in the process, investigation materials, search protocols, etc., which were drawn-up primarily by the Bihor and Cluj counties Securitate branches while working on the case. It is quite revealing that the interception materials covering the period between 1981 and 1989 contained in volumes 11–14 of the files on Géza Szőcs amount to over 2,500 pages. The material of the Oradea secret police features a remarkably large number of photographs resulting from street shadowing. A comparison with the working methods used by the much more elitist staff of Cluj-Napoca also reveals the fact that even in the 1980s those in Oradea preferred handwriting to typing in administration, the issue of reports, assessments, etc. The related materials are further supplemented by records dating from after Szőcs’s emigration, the data collected by the Securitate concerning the foreign activity of “target persons” – including, in addition to informant reports, recordings of Romanian and Hungarian-language broadcasts of Radio Free Europe –, situation analyses, and, especially in the case of Géza Szőcs, the necessary measures aimed at discovering and keeping track of his operations and at compromising, isolating and influencing him.

  The second category contains materials directly linked to the monitored subjects, memorandums by Antal Károly Tóth and Géza Szőcs addressed to the Romanian Communist authorities, the original seventh and eighth issues of the Ellenpontok, postcards, correspondence, personal notes, handwritten declarations given during interrogations, other records from individuals and Romanian translations collected and processed by the Securitate.

Content

• grey literature (regular archival documents such as brochures, bulletins, leaflets, reports, intelligence files, records, working papers, meeting minutes): 1000-
• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): 10-99
• photos: 10-99
• publications (books, newspapers, articles, press clippings): 0-9

Operator(s)

• CNSAS - National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives

Owner(s)

• CNSAS - National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives
• Ministry of National Defence (Romania)
• Romanian Intelligence Service
• Securitate (Department of State Security)

Geographical scope of recent operation

• national

Topics

• democratic opposition
• human rights movements
• minority movements
• samizdat and tamizdat
• surveillance (various)

Creator(s) of content

• Ara-Kovács, Attila
• Securitate (Department of State Security)
• Szőcs, István Géza
• Tóth, Ilona
• Tóth, Károly Antal

Collector(s)

• Securitate (Department of State Security)

Important events in the history of the collection

• Publication of the Book Egy szamizdat az életünkben: Az Ellenpontok (A Samizdat in Our Lives: the Counterpoints)

Featured items

• Petition from 14 July 1984 Addressed to the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party
• Samizdat issue of Ellenpontok (Counterpoints) No. 7, in Hungarian, September 1982

Access type

• completely open to the public

Publications

• Molnár, János. 1993. Az Egyetlen: Az Ellenpontok és az ellenpontosok története (The only one: Counterpoints and the history of its founders). Szeged: Agapé.

  Szőcs, Géza, and Endre Wellmann Farkas. 2009. Amikor fordul az ezred: Beszélgetőkönyv és dokumentumgyűjtemény (When the millennium turns: Talking book and document collection). Budapest: Ulpius-ház Könyvkiadó.

  Tóth, Károly Antal and Ilona Tóth. 2017. Egy szamizdat az életünkben: Az Ellenpontok. (A samizdat in our lives: Counterpoints). Kolozsvár: Kriterion.

  Tóth, Károly Antal. 2015. Hol vagy, szabadság? Esszék, tanulmányok, vitaírások (Where are you, freedom? Essays, studies, pamphlets). Kolozsvár: Kriterion.

  Tóth, Károly Antal. 2000. Ellenpontok (Counterpoints). Csíkszereda: Pro-Print.

  Tóth, Károly Antal. 1994. Hova-tovább? Az Ellenpontok dokumentumai, esszék, tanulmányok (Where do we go from here? Counterpoints: included documents, essays, studies). Stockholm – Szombathely: Magyar Ökumenikus Önképzőkör – Savaria University Press.

Author(s) of this page

• Jánosi, Csongor

References

Molnár, János. 1993. Az Egyetlen: Az Ellenpontok és az ellenpontosok története (The only one: Counterpoints and the history of its founders). Szeged: Agapé.

Szőcs, Géza, and Endre Wellmann Farkas. 2009. Amikor fordul az ezred: Beszélgetőkönyv és dokumentumgyűjtemény (When the millennium turns: Talking book and document collection). Budapest: Ulpius-ház Könyvkiadó.

Tóth, Károly Antal and Ilona Tóth. 2017. Egy szamizdat az életünkben: Az Ellenpontok. (A samizdat in our lives: Counterpoints). Kolozsvár: Kriterion.

Tóth, Károly Antal. 2015. Hol vagy, szabadság? Esszék, tanulmányok, vitaírások (Where are you, freedom? Essays, studies, pamphlets). Kolozsvár: Kriterion.

Tóth, Károly Antal. 2000. Ellenpontok (Counterpoints). Csíkszereda: Pro-Print.

Tóth, Károly Antal. 1994. Hova-tovább? Az Ellenpontok dokumentumai, esszék, tanulmányok (Where do we go from here? Counterpoints: included documents, essays, studies). Stockholm – Szombathely: Magyar Ökumenikus Önképzőkör – Savaria University Press.

Szőcs, István Géza, interview by Jánosi, Csongor , August 23, 2018. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection

Tóth, Ilona, Tóth, Károly Antal, interview by Jánosi, Csongor , November 25, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection