COURAGE

connecting collections

The collection starts with the foundation of the Smoloskyp human rights publishing house, named after the poet Vasyl Symonenko. It was originally founded in Baltimore, US, in 1967. As one of the biggest publishers of Ukrainian dissident literature, it holds the largest collection of Ukrainian samizdat (Ukr. samvydav) and the material of the Ukrainian resistance movement (Rukh Oporu), 1960-1990. The phenomenon of Smoloskyp, however, goes far beyond the scope of a publishing house. Smoloskyp is associated with the hub of human rights activities of the Ukrainian diaspora. Smoloskyp took an active part in the campaigns for human rights in Ukraine, and (co)founded several human rights organizations: Smoloskyp Organization for the Defence of Human Rights in Ukraine, Washington Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee, and the Committee for the Defence of Ukrainian Political Prisoners in the USSR. Smoloskyp activists took part in follow-up meetings to the Helsinki Final Act (1975), held by the OSCE in Belgrade in 1977–78, Madrid in 1980–83, and Vienna in 1986–89. They participated at the International Sakharov Hearing and spoke at the US Congress. Smoloskyp organized a series of protest campaigns against political repression in Soviet Ukraine, and fought for the independent participation of Ukraine in the Olympic games. It ran information services in the US, Canada, and Argentina, widely disseminating factual information on political repression and the dissident movement in Ukraine. It cooperated with international human rights organizations (such as Amnesty International) and sent humanitarian aid to Ukrainian political prisoners. Its secret communication channels along with its own network of specially trained couriers allowed Smoloskyp to establish a two-way traffic of censored information and clandestine materials across the Iron curtain.

The event was the direct outcome of the anxieties of the political elite. The party and communist youth leaders were worrying about the growing youth interest in popular music. They realized that young people were influenced by rock and roll, the beat movement, and they frequented concerts which rapidly became hit events in socialist Hungary as in the West. The authorities also recognized that these events were more popular, the youth were singing the songs, dancing together, and, thus, these events had bigger emotional effects than political speeches. Accordingly, the political elite expected that youth attitudes could be shaped by the lyrics of popular songs and, therefore, cultural criticism could be avoided. Pol-beat came to Hungary from the West, where young people protested against consumer capitalism, alienation, mass production, and the Vietnam War. The Hungarian term for pol-beat was invented by Tamás Bauer. The protest song from the West (by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez) also became popular in Hungary.

The Vietnam War became the topic of the Hungarian protest songs, as well. This produced strange effects: if Hungarian youth protested against the Vietnam War and, thus, in their songs they reflected upon social problems in the West, they actually could confirm the legitimacy of power and, hence, the Communist Youth Federation supported them. In 1968, at a TV-show “Hello boys, hello girls” [Hallo fiúk, hallo lányok] Imre Antal, the host, called the pol-beat an innovative and useful genre and called on the audience to join the movement.