COURAGE

interconectarea colecțiilor

The year 1971 was a difficult one for the Ukrainian sixtiers movement. in November 1970, Alla Horska-the artist known as the "soul of the sixtiers movement-was found dead, killed by blunt force trauma to the head in her father in law's apartment. She had gone there to retrieve a sewing machine and never returned. 

In a series of letters Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska wrote in 1971 to her friend in Prague-Zina Genyk-Berezovska-we learn more about the circumstances surrounding Horska's death, in particular its impact on her close friends and colleagues, most of whom had been under surveillance for a number of years and/or had been arrested and imprisoned. In a letter from January 13, 1971, Kotsiubynska writes that Horska's death was "so wild, so frightening, so unexpected" that it left their community shaken. She goes on to say that Alla's husband Viktor Zaretsky suspected that something had gone wrong but could not bring himself to enter his father's house alone. He asked Nadia Svitlychna to go to Vasylkiv and find out what happened. Svitlychna did go, together with Yevhen Sverstiuk. Horska was discovered dead in her father-in-law's house, while the latter was found on train tracks near Fastiv, decapitated and also dead. After a quick forensic analysis, the authorities determined that these gruesome deaths were the result of a domestic dispute and closed the case.  

Kotiubynska processes the revelation that Horska had been killed by her father-in-law. Although many people did not believe this version of events, Kotsiubynska writes, with some sadness, that there were no concrete facts pointing to another assailant, adding that even those closest to Alla--Zaretsky and Svitlychna--did not seem to doubt the official version of events. Lamenting her own expulsion from the Institute of Literature, she adds: "By the way, the Ukrainian Artists Union reinstated Alla after her death. Perhaps, I too should die?"

In a letter dated June 28, 1971, Kotsiubynska writes again about Horska, this time indicating that there was a new version of what happened. The consensus had shifted, a reevaluation of the evidence suggesting that both Horska and her father-in-law had been killed by an unknown assailant who had not been identified. Alla Horska's murder remains unsolved and unresolved to this day.

Cardboard box with a large, red, stenciled, symmetrical question mark on the outer top of one side and the inner bottom of the other side. On the outer back side, a series of ten photos arranged in a grid demonstrating the possible combinations of similar boxes in an open and closed state.

On the third photo the box on the left is marked with an arrow pointing to a handwritten caption reading “that is this box.” Under the photo appears the typewritten title of the work and the following sentence: “The aim of the experiment is to examine the sensory and esthetic effects of generally asked questions.” Beside the photos, above the label the typewritten name of the author is visible.

The handwritten commentary suggests that a box can be interpreted alone as well (this concrete example incorporates two differently positioned, painted question marks). Looking at the photos, one can conclude that more—though not necessarily identical—copies exist, which were given away (as this example got to the archive).

Politics did not constitute the primary context of Péter Türk’s oeuvre, but a subtle, sometimes ironic, criticism of the system can be observed in his works produced during the first half of the 1970s. During this period, he created geometric, but more and more conceptually oriented works, pursuing visual, semantic-logical investigations, which formed an implicit statement in the eyes of cultural politics at the time.

The question marks appearing in several series of his works are “visual conundrums,” which come into play via their color, position, material, constellation and, last but not least, their variations. Contemplating the object, the viewer becomes involved in a conceptual-associative process.

During our visit, we first wanted to define what is a generally asked question. According to professor Beke, “how are you?” or rather “what’s up?” is a good example. Hearing (or reading) a question of this type it is worth noting that this still concerns the sensory effect.

The object bears the marks of time and the consequences of its storage conditions. Dedicated wood crates or humidity control could not be provided for an item kept in a private archive, but it did not lose any of its authenticity and conceptual clarity even in its current condition.

MEFESZ Bulletin, 4^th year, 2^nd issue, May 1963

When a new issue of the Hungarian émigré students’ bulletin was published in May 1963, major political changes had taken place both in Hungary and all over the world. By the end of 1962, the “Hungarian question,” which had been a subject of debate for six years, had been taken off the agenda of the UN General Assembly. In early 1963, an amnesty was proclaimed in Hungary for most of the 1956 political prisoners, and the consolidation of Kádár regime began with a number of concessions. It seemed that those in power in both East and West preferred peaceful cooperation to confrontation. This challenging new setting forced the politically active Hungarian émigré circles to rethink their future role and strategy.    

The UFHS/MEFESZ also felt the need to reorganize its activities according to some new preferences. They felt that their three most important tasks were defending democracy and defending human and minority rights (especially the rights of ethnic Hungarians beyond the borders of Hungary). This can be seen in the front cover news and articles. UFHS/MEFESZ would open public debates for its members to discuss recent economic, social, and political changes in Hungary, together with presentations by experts, and it launched a new solidarity campaign with Transylvanian Hungarians suffering from forced assimilation by the Romanian state.

The latter subject is of particular interest, as it was in part a sinister by-product of the massive reprisals following the brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. As is explained in an open letter to UN General Secretary U Thant by the central Geneva office of the UFHS, in Romania, especially in the cities in Transsylvania and Partium (where larger Hungarian-speaking communities lives), there had been massive peaceful solidarity demonstrations during the Hungarian revolution, and in revenge, thousands of students had been arrested and brutally beaten by the Romanian police. Years later, many of them were still kept in jail for nothing, while in Hungary a general amnesty has been announced and most of the revolutionaries had been released. U Thant was just about to pay a visit to Bucharest as a official guest, and he was asked by the UFHS to raise his voice in support of a general amnesty in Romania too. (Political prisoners started to be released from jail in Romania only a year later, in 1964.)

Ujj Zsuzsi presented her first exhibitions and concerts together. In her oeuvre, the visual arts and poetry that is sung are organically fused, as for instance in the case of Fürst Január ICY (Baksa Soós János), fe Lugossy László, and Nah Te (Vető János). Her knowledge of the oeuvre of the Hajas Tibor, who died at a tragically young age in 1980, was decisive in her work.

In her publication issued on the occasion of her first exhibition and concert (First brochure - Liget Gallery, 1987) she presented twenty-nine photographs and twenty-eight lyrics, along with some scores. Later, she created new photographic works (with the technical assistance of István Halas) in response to invitations to exhibit.

In 1991, she gave up photography. She has since written poems, songs and non-public texts. As the singer and author of the band Csókolom, she published musical recordings in 1994, 1995, 2000, and 2006.

Her visual works consist of carefully arranged black and white photographs and moving images. These images document her non-public performances. Interest in her works became more lively in the second half of the first decade of the new millennium, along with increasing interest in issues of gender representation.

The Piarist monk Ödön Lénárd was the Hungarian priest who was in jail for the longest time (for 18 and a half year) under the communist dictatorship. An important part of his collection is his correspondence with his brother, Ernő Lénárd. The copied letters reveal a great deal about the conditions in prisons in socialist Hungary, and they are important sources on church history too. These letters are testimony to Lénárd’s spiritual resistance against the dictatorship. They make clear that imprisonment did not break Ödön Lénárd, who, after his last release in 1977, continued his silent struggle against the communist dictatorship: he became a pastor and a spiritual leader of adult groups and a clandestine community of secret Cistercian nuns.