COURAGE

connecting collections

In early 1979, at the initiative of János Kenedi, a voluntary editorial team of intellectuals was formed to prepare a tribute anthology on the occasion of István Bibó’s 70^th birthday. However, as Bibó died in May 1979, the book became something of a post mortem homage, as it was published a year later in a samizdat edition. This imposing anthology, which consisted of contributions by 76 authors in three thick volumes of more than 1,200 typewritten pages, was no doubt the first important venture with a significant influence in the history of the Hungarian samizdat movement. Furthermore, as an example of united political strivings on the part of all democratic opposition forces in Hungary, it also seemed to set a promising precedent, and it was perceived by the onetime communist party leaders as a real challenge. This is why they tried to prevent any further escalation of a resistance movement organized partly by the former ’56 tradition and partly according to the Polish patterns of self-organized Solidarity.

Between 7 December 1980 and 6 January 1981, an exhibition was organized which was based on the objects in the folk religious collection in Esztergom. It was placed in the Esztergom Basilica, more precisely around the Holy Cross altar.

After the call issued on 6 January 1980, many objects were donated to the collection, so the exhibition could draw on 6,000 objects given by 240 donors. Icons, carvings, primers, chaplets, statues, embroideries, and religious manuscripts were put on exhibit as testimony to vibrant spiritual life. The purpose of the exhibition was dual: the organizers wanted to demonstrate the importance of religious objects, which were extraordinary in the communist period, and they also wanted to answer a question of raised by the churchgoing public: “What shall we send?” Zsuzsanna Erdélyi and László Lékai emphasized that they were open to every object which had something in connection with the subjective, the local, the folk, and official religious life.

The exhibition was a well-organized event which drew masses of visitors and also included showings by actors, actresses, and opera singers (Katalin Gombos, Anikó Rohonyi, Imre Sinkovits, Gábor Németh, András Vitai) and an organist (István Baróti). After their performance, excerpts of holy legends were read, and the event came to a close with meditation.

The exhibition was successful because many other objects were offered. On the other hand, the organizers faced the problem of how to deal with the names of the givers, how they could present the religious objects, and how they could help collect the artifacts.

Thanks to the exhibition, the collection grew continuously, and by 1985, it had doubled in size.

In this three-hour-long action (based on an idea of György Galántai’s), György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay posed as Vera Mukhina’s iconic “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” statue, but the hammer and sickle of the original composition were replaced by an open book on which a reproduction of the original statue could be seen. Meanwhile, Italian artist Cavellini was writing the great names of art history on their clothes. The chosen space of the action represented the venue for the celebration of contemporary political power throughout the ages. In the action, which was documented in detail by György Hegedüs, who took photographs of the event, Cavellini is symbolic of the Italian artists who brought European Culture to Hungary. The living statue created as part of the action became an actor in other events in later years (1980–1984).