COURAGE

connecting collections

Dušan Mandić graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana in 1981, where he went on to complete postgraduate studies under Professor Janez Bernik. Between 1980 and 1982, he served as artistic director of the ŠKUC Gallery programme. In 1983, he became a member of the Irwin group. In 1984, he joined the wider art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). NSK consisted of the music band Laibach, Sisters Scipion Nasice Theatre (today Cosmokinetic Cabinet Noordung) and the design department New Collectivism.

Source: DUŠAN MANDIĆ 1980-1982 | Galerija ŠKUC, http://www.galerijaskuc.si/about/history/dusan-mandic-1980-1982/ (accessed February 11, 2017).

Mihai Manea (b.  5 April 1955, Bucharest) was educated at a vocational school. In 1982, together with a number of colleagues, he founded a rock band, Barock Group, without the knowledge of the Party Committee in the factory where he was employed at the time, the Machine Tools and Aggregates Plant Bucharest (IMUAB). Initiating and pursuing such musical activities was not forbidden, but  it required the approval in principle of the local Party organization. “The people in the plant, especially those from the Party who gave approval in the factory for artistic activities, found out about us directly from the newspaper. But there was no trouble. On the contrary, they immediately adopted us, they were proud of us. There were all sorts in the Romanian Communist Party.” This may be explained by the fact that all communist plants had to send participants from among their employees to the national Cântarea României  (Song of Romania) festival. Founded in 1976, and conceived as a festival for amateurs and professionals, Cântarea României  in fact destroyed professional standards and promoted shows eulogizing the Romanian Communist Party and its leadership, finally becoming an important vehicle for the personality cult of Nicolae Ceaușescu. At the same time, the local phases were much less ideologized than those at county or national level, so for many young people, taking part in this festival was a welcome break from their regular workplace activity (D. Petrescu 2010, 304–307).

In his employment card, Mihai Manea was categorized at IMUAB as “cutting-tool operator,” denoting a highly skilled worker. It is a trade that he has practised very little, because in fact a large part of his professional activity has been connected with the production of and technical support for numerous concerts. For a short time, he also worked at the Research Institute for Household Articles and Toys in Bucharest. Like many other young people, Mihai Manea had multiple ambitions: he toyed with science fiction writing, frequenting several clubs (and chairing one such writers’ group, which operated within the IMUAB), with a sporting career (he is a former rugby-player), and, for a short time, with cinema (directing short and very short films as a member of cinema clubs in Bucharest).

At the same plant where he was employed until 1990, Mihai Manea was the coordinator, in both the technical and the editorial senses, of the amplification post through which “cultural-artistic programmes” were transmitted for the benefit of the institution. “It’s interesting that they let me deal with it, that they had the trust to leave something like that in my hands – and I say this because I wasn’t a Party member. Only when I was young, I was, for a short time, a member of the Union of Communist Youth, but I was never a full member of the Romanian Communist Party. I kept slipping through the net.” In communist Romania, all young people aged between 14 and 30 were in the Union of Communist Youth (UTC), but of these only some became members of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). In other words, inclusion in the UTC was obligatory and automatic, but PCR membership was conditional. In the 1980s, the selection criteria were lowered so much that only those who did not want to did not become Party members. Most joined out of opportunism, because belonging to the PCR gave access to many privileges, from the allocation of an apartment to approval for going abroad as a tourist.

For more than two and a half decades, Mihai Manea has worked as a technician at the Romanian Youth National Art Centre, an institution under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, and he continues to maintain his passion for music and concerts, including at a professional level. It was basically only after the fall of communism that Mihai Manea’s life-long passion turned from amateurism to profession. “As young rebel I fingered an instrument too… the bass, but satisfaction came only when I began to understand that you can be a creator if you are part of the technical team. And so I moved on to pressing buttons, and gradually had the chance to work in big musical productions. You know, behind the scenes, when you’re inside the show, there’s a lot of adrenaline and sensations that can’t be described in words. Behind the scenes there’s a lot of work and there’s an army of people who always have something to do. There are thousands of metres of cables for sound and electricity, there are scaffolds and cranes, everywhere you find amplifiers, sound processors, and lighting controls. You come across hundreds of boxes, ventilators, smoke generators, pyrotechnics, gas for flames, scenery, and there are people who know about all these things and work with them while taking care for the safety of others. On the stage, on the roof, and under the stage, nothing is placed at random. How could I describe this beautiful madness? There aren’t words enough to express what you feel when you’re there, with people who have to make it all work.” Thus Mihai Manea concludes his confession about what is both his passion and his profession. Like many others who developed various hobbies in their free time by speculating on the freedoms permitted by the regime in the grey zone of tolerance, Mihai Manea represents a model of the post-December 1989 transformation of a personal collecting passion, in this case derived from his passion for music, into a profession.

Vlastimil Marek je český alternativní hudebník, překladatel a publicista. Celoživotně se svými aktivitami zaměřuje především na východní filozofii, je zenový budhista a propagátor hudby New Age. Marek byl v 70. a 80. letech dlouhodobým aktivistou Jazzové sekce a do roku 1984 působil i v Sekci mladé hudby. Publikoval v periodikách obou sekcí články, recenze i překlady. Na přelomu 70. a 80. let absolvoval pobyty v zenových centrech v Polsku a Japonsku. Rozsáhlá byla jeho činnost přednášková, např. cyklus přednášek v knihovně Jazzové sekce v roce 1985. V červenci 1986 vyšel v nové edici Jazzové sekce Dveře (č. 1) úvodní Markův článek o hnutí New Age (Přežije sitár rok 2000?). Stejnojmenný hudební pořad připravoval s Emilem Pospíšilem. Byl členem hudebních skupin Extempore, Elektrobus, Amalgam, MCH Band. Hrál také s Jakubem Nohou (folk), Zdeňkem Hráškem (jazz). Od roku 1968 vydával i své vlastní časopisy pro přátele, a to nákladem pěti kusů, tzv. Markoviny. Samizdatově vydal rovněž desítky textů a překladů s duchovní a filozofickou tematikou, z nichž většina je uložena v knihovně Libri prohibiti. V srpnu 1986 byl vzat StB do vazby pro pořádání mírového gongového koncertu. Souběžně s tím byl obviněn pro údajné „poškozování zájmů republiky v cizině“. Následná žaloba byla vystavěna na základě jeho článku „Dopis z Prahy“ pro časopis Kyoto Journal (prosinec 1984), ve kterém se vyjádřil o omezených možnostech existence nezávislé kultury v tehdejším Československu. Odsouzen byl ke čtyřměsíčnímu trestu odnětí svobody s podmíněným odkladem na jeden rok. Jeho trestní stíhání sledoval Výbor na obranu nespravedlivě stíhaných (VONS), který o něm opakovaně informoval ve svých „sděleních“. Své duchovní postoje, vzpomínky a bibliografii shrnuje Marek např. v knize Český zen a umění naslouchat (1994).

The founder of the Collection of Political Transition, József Marelyin Kiss, historian and sociologist, was born on the 24^th of February, 1953, in Csepel. He spent his childhood in Tököl where he completed primary school. He graduated from the secondary school in Csepel (1967–1971), worked first as a teacher in Szigethalom, and then after the years of (compulsory) military service he was admitted to the Lajos Kossuth University (KLTE) in Debrecen in 1973. He received his (MA-equivalent) degree in history and geography from the university in 1978. He worked as a teaching assistant for the Department of Scientific Socialism (within the Institute of Marxism-Leninism) at KLTE between 1978 and 1980, then lectured on medical sociology at the Institute of Marxism of the Medical University of Debrecen. He was given permission to leave this position on the condition that he attend an intensive two-year course of the Department of Sociology of Loránd Eötvös University of Budapest, which was an accredited postgraduate educational institution in the Buda Castle. This period of education and activities spiked ​his interest in the opposition and began with the revelation of his discovery of samizdat writings, his further studies in sociology, and his acquaintance with some of the distinguished members of the cultural opposition. In the case of his life career as a sociologist and contemporary historian, his cultural opposition was expressed in the topics he scrutinized, their fact-finding characteristics being contrary to the official ideology of the communist regime. Encouraged personally by István Márkus, in 1983 he joined ​the rural village sociological research project led by Márkus and István Fekete in Homokmégy, and then he took over as head of the project. The early 1980s were a remarkable phase of activity, documented in the Collection of Political Transition, resulting in the rise of oppositional attitudes. Several social scientists who were regarded as opposition personalities contributed to these village research projects. Some of the documents of the Collection are linked to the rural sociology research.

In his courses at the Medical University of Debrecen, he lectured on deviant behavior and poverty and provided research documentation by István Kemény and Zsuzsa Ferge to his students, “asking them not to pass this samizdat stuff to the police who otherwise already were well aware of them.” His career and research activities are related to “cultural opposition” in terms of his work as a sociologist and historian of contemporary Hungarian history. His research that revealed the facts of how Hungarian society functioned in reality under communism were in opposition to the prevailing socialist ideology and the official views of the ruling party.

Alexei Marinat (b. 24 May 1925, Valea Hoțului village, MASSR, currently Dolyn'ske, Odessa region, Ukraine; d. 17 May 2009, Chișinău) was a prominent Moldovan writer active in the Soviet period, best known for his personal diary critical of the Soviet regime and for his novel about life in Siberia, inspired by his experience as an inmate in a labour camp during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He also held consistent pro-Romanian views, which made him suspect in the eyes of Soviet authorities. On 27 May 1947, while a student in Chișinău, Marinat was arrested by the KGB after the discovery of his private diary, Eu și Lumea (I and the World), in which he expressed thoughts critical of the Soviet regime. He was sentenced to ten years’ hard labour in a closed labour camp and was deported to Siberia. He was freed on 5 November 1955, by a decision of the Odessa Military Tribunal, and returned to Moldova. However, he was never legally rehabilitated, not even in the late Soviet period. Although his civil rights were reinstated, he was kept under the surveillance of the secret police and was considered a potentially subversive person. During his trial in 1947, he was accused of having collaborated with the “Romanian-Fascist” authorities during the Second World War. He originated from Transnistria, a territory temporarily occupied by Romanian troops in 1941–1944, which aggravated his predicament, because he had held a minor administrative post under Romanian occupation. The inquiry concerning his case was repeated three times (in 1947–48, 1955, and 1989). On each occasion, his collaboration with the Romanian administration during the Second World War was confirmed on the basis of his official position at that time. He was accused not only of persecuting his fellow villagers who were members or sympathisers of the Communist Party, but also of certain hostile acts against the villagers who belonged to the Jewish community. It is not clear to what extent he was indeed involved in the deportations of Jews, although the papers in his file hint at that possibility. This uncertainty also reflects the USSR’s ambiguous policy towards the Holocaust. After his return to Chișinău in 1955, Marinat remained critical of the regime in his literary works and public pronouncements. He was thus regarded with suspicion by the Soviet authorities, in spite of the fact that he was not directly involved in any oppositional activity after his return from Siberia. These suspicions increased after the publication of his 1966 novel Urme pe prag (Footprints on the Threshold), which drew on his earlier experience as a prisoner in Siberia and, according to Marinat’s own assessment, was barely publishable by Soviet standards. The case of Alexei Marinat is a curious example of a person who defied the rules of the regime and did not fit neatly into the antagonistic “camps” struggling for power within the local writers’ milieu. He remained an independent and somewhat marginal figure because of his refusal to exchange his relative personal autonomy for the privileges bestowed by the state on his more loyal colleagues. However, his opposition never turned into open rebellion. This ambiguity defined Marinat’s personality and career both before and after 1990.