COURAGE

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Kustić's columns (about one-fifth of the total number) were released in the form of a book in 2009, covering his writings in Glas Koncila over nearly forty years from the 1960s to the beginning of this century. Kustić dealt with various topics in addition to religion and theology, and he often delved into socio-political themes. Kustić's writing and editing in Glas Koncila under constant surveillance by the Commission for Relations with Religious Communities of the Socialist Republic of Croatia.

For example, the communist authorities had banned Glas Koncila no. 21 of 22 October 1972, in which they singled out among other things Kustić's article under the headline “Seventeen Centuries of Sacred Defiance.” In this article, Kustić took the example of St. Pollio, who preferred death because he did not want to forsake Christianity before the Roman prefect Probus. Kustić pointed out in this context the following: "St. Pollio claimed in particular that there are just laws that Christians are obliged to obey, but that the same authority could issues decrees that are not righteous, laws that a believer cannot accept" (Kustić 1972: 1). The communist authorities suggested, although he did not write it literally, that with these allusions Kustić had, in fact, "invited citizens to disobey and disrespect of the Constitution and laws of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Socialist Republic of Croatia" (Mikić 2016: 445).

The main sections of this novel contain a plethora of autobiographical elements from Kustić's personal life. For instance, it deals specifically with his marriage to an Orthodox woman, Marica Radenković, and also with his transition from Roman Catholicism to the Greek Catholic Church. This book was Kustić's first and only novel he wrote in his life, which in a wider context examined the life of Catholic believers in a socialist and atheistic society. Kustić demonstrated a religious world which managed to survive within a society that had undergone a socialist revolution.

He pointed out the military and educational system as specific places in which believers had to engage in a struggle against atheism, so the stories from this novel particularly refer to the collision between the religious and atheistic worldview in these social institutions of socialist Yugoslavia. Through his characters, he expresses optimism that the socialist project of society without religion had to fail. That is why one of Kustić's characters says: "I have long been convinced that this entire conflict between religion and atheism, Christianity and Marxism on our soil is pure historical confusion. There are fellow educators who do not see it, who even enjoy this conflict, who are ready to torture, as they do. They know, in fact, that the Church is indestructible, remembering all that we have learned de mortibus persecutorum" (Kustić 1973: 138).

The neo-avant-garde duo of Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek was frequently performing in Dziekanka in the 1970s and 1980s. In the space of Dziekanka, KwieKulik made performances, showed their art on exhibitions and presentations, took part in discussions and symposiums. As a good example of their activity in Dziekanka could serve the performance Festiwal Inteligencji i Kraty (Festival of Intelligence and Bars) from March 4, 1985. The attached photography showed the artists making the performance.

The photograph was taken during a concert by the underground band Trabant in Pécs. The band released only one single (Eszkimó asszony fázik [The Eskimo Woman is Freezing, Hungaroton, 1984, SPS 70631). The songs were recorded for János Xantus’s film of the same title. Xantus’s movie is a typical representation of Hungarian film art of the 1980s, the so-called new sensibility, which merged neo-avantgarde style with postmodern irony. These films often showed contemporary new wave bands from Budapest. The songs played in the films were also important because these bands had no opportunities to release their own records. Their other tracks were disseminated as homemade tape recordings. Trabant has made no official production since the single was published. Copyright owner Gábor Lukin, who lives in the USA, refuses to release Trabant’s songs. The photograph shows lead singer Marietta Méhes, keyboardist János Másik, and bassist Gábor Lukin.