COURAGE

connecting collections

Gábor Demszky (1952-) lawyer, sociologist, politician, he was a member of the democratic opposition during the 1980s, a key figure in the samizdat publishing, founder member of the Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége (SZDSZ) („The Alliance of Free Democrats”).

Gábor Demszky comes from an economist-family in Budapest, his parents were the members of that reformer economist generation which did not think about economic processes in the Marxist way. This origin influenced his mindset and attitude to the communist system. He graduated from Eötvös Loránt University. In 1972, he was banned from the university because of a demonstration what finally was not held. During this time he was working as a cab driver and a librarian and at this time he wrote his first sociological study. After his graduation, he made interviews, questionnaires in the countryside for some research institute. Thanks to this work he got insight into the life of Hungarian villages. His expulsion made difficult to find a job. He worked for Világosság journal from 1976 to 1981.

The socialist invasion to Czechoslovakia in 1968 was a milestone in forming of his mindset. This aggressive step resulted in his disappointment in the existing socialism but he believed that the system is reformable. The critics of the system were left-sided thinkers, he was interested in the new left movement, the anarchist syndicalism in these years. The 1970s brought a big change, he turned away from Marxism. He explained this with his meeting with the reality of the Hungarian countryside and the real results of the communist redistribution politics. He confessed that not only the realization of the Marxist philosophy but the thinking itself is wrong.

In the 1970s the liberal ideas shaped his activity. Demszky highlighted Adam Michnik’s work titled New Evolutionism in his interview, this essay inspired him and his fellow to establish independent organizations, press, movements. They thought the reform communism was not the proper way, they had to press to the system from outside and gained its change.

He was very active as a key man of the inner circle of oppositional intellectuals. We find his name among the founders of the Szegényeket Támogató Alap (SZETA)/ Fund For The Support Of The Poor, the subscribers of the Charta 77 declaration.

In 1981, he together with Jenő Nagy és László Rajk jr. established the AB Independent Publisher which dealt with political, literature books. Two years later started the journal of Hirmondó („The Messenger”) edited by Demszky. Between 1983 and 1988 26 numbers were published. The aim was to write about the democratic intentions in the Eastern-European countries. Besides this, he participated in the editing of other samizdat journals, too.

The Polish actions had a great impact on him as on his fellows as well. In 1981 he traveled to Poland, get a connection with the oppositional members and learn his samizdat producing techniques.

In his interview, Demszky talked about the fault lines among the different groups of opposition, for example, related to the judgment of the Revolution of 1956. 

During the samizdat publishing activity, the police held house search at Demszky’s flat on more occasion as the other prominent persons’ house as well. In 1983 he was sentenced to 6 months because of violence against an official person but it was suspended for 3 years. In the same year, he was awarded a grant of a Freedom to Publish by the International Accessories of Publishers. In 1988 he was a founder member of Szabad Kezdeményezések Hálózata („Network of Free Initiatives”) and Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége (SZDSZ) („The Alliance of Free Democrats”). He was the senior mayor of Budapest from 1990, he was reelected four times.

Radek Diestler is a Czech music journalist. He studied history and archival science at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He has published articles in the music magazine Report since the beginning of the 1990s and worked as a journalist and editor of the magazine Rock&Pop between 1995 and 2002. He was an editor of a department of culture of news website iDNES.cz until 2008. He is also the author of several columns related to the Pilsen region and texts about its music history. He collaborated on the filming of the documentary TV series Bigbít (1998, Czech Television). He initiated the founding of the museum and archive of pop music (the Popmuseum), where the archive materials were originally stored after they were collected for the filming of the TV series.

Braco Dimitrijević is a Bosnian-Herzegovinian conceptual artist who lives and works in Paris. He was born in Sarajevo in 1948 and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1971. He finished graduate studies at the University of the Arts London at Saint Martin's Art School in London and, as a British Council scholar with a scholarship in London and Paris in 1967 and 1968, he became acquainted with contemporary art trends which he introduced into his work - first through "The Group Pensioner Tihomir Simčić", then through the "Casual Passer-by" cycle, "Transmonuments" and the "Tryptychos Post Historicus".

He had his first exhibition in 1958, at the age of 10, and the next one was held at the Student Centre Gallery in Zagreb in 1969. Dimitrijević is also an internationally established artist, his first solo exhibition abroad was held in Munich in November 1970, and he participated in the 7^th Paris Biennale in 1971. Since the early 1970s, his career experiencing an ascent on an international scale, which is reflected in the fact that he participates in group exhibitions abroad almost every year, and also presents his work through solo exhibitions. In his theoretical work Tractatus Post Hystoricus, published in 1976, he presented his views on the relativity of history and art history, at the same time criticizing the evolutionary aspects of art history, proposing to approach it as a living body rather than a static mass.

Since 1998, he has been a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was awarded with the Order of Danica Hrvatska with the portrait of Marko Marulić in 2007. He is the recipient of many Croatian and international awards.

Apart from his artistic work, which can be characterized as a subversive activity against the socialist regime, Dimitrijević did not actively participate in cultural-opposition activities. He describes his artistic activity as a kind of youthful rebellion against the cult of personality.

Vildane Dinç (Alieva) was born in 1978 in Ardino town, Kardzhali province, Bulgaria. In July 1989, at the age of 11 she moved with her family from Bulgaria to Turkey. Vildane obtained her secondary education in Turkey. Vildane narrates: “In socialist Bulgaria, my family lived like ordinary people, they were not politically active, but at the same time my family did not accept voluntarily the forced Bulgarization process during the 1980s. I remember how our Turkish names were changed to Bulgarian. The implementation of namecide (commonly known as “forcibly name change”) happened in December 1984. After the implementation of namecide my family members did not use Bulgarian names when communicating within family circles. However, they used Bulgarian names when dealing with officials.

My family was not politically active. We do not have any official documents stating the reason for our expulsion from Bulgaria. My family thought that we were expelled from Bulgaria especially because of my grandfather’s behavior. In socialist Bulgaria, my grandfather was speaking in public how ‘he doesn’t want to live in Bulgaria because of repressions and how he wants to go to Turkey.' I think this behavior of my grandfather was not deeply political but more motivated by everyday concerns. Of course, on the other hand, all daily endavours at this particular time have had political connotations and contexts.

My family was expelled from the country during ethnic cleansing of the summer of 1989, which the discourse of the Communist Party called “Revival Process” and “Big Excursion.” However, on 11 January 2012, the Bulgarian Parliament referred to this process as ethnic cleansing. I remember my grandfather said 'I want my grandchildren to speak freely in Turkish in streets and schools'.

I was personally motivated to start the collection. My basic motives for a collection of this kind are the following. First of all, collections regarding Eastern European socialist regimes generally do not include experiences of minorities, especially the Turkish experience of socialism. This, in my belief, is a shortage in understanding our socialist past. To understand the recent socialist past more comprehensively, one needs to include further and different experiences. Secondly, such collections can perhaps contribute to an abolition of discriminative acts committed in the socialist era, which are still continuing, for example, some effects and the process of the namecide implementation.
I am not a member of any organization, I only hold a position of a lecturer at the Uludağ University, Faculty of Arts & Science, Department of Sociology.”

Dinç, Vildane (Alieva, Vildane) explains her attitudes toward "cultural opposition" in the following way: “Cultural opposition means opposition which depends on values conflicting with the dominant cultural values of the relevant social system. The cultural opposition can be conscious and unconscious. One could say that the main subject of cultural opposition is a person, a man or a woman, of the everyday life. Cultural dissidents deliberately or unintentionally oppose with their beings and behavior. For example: speaking in their mother language, in some cases just knowing and respecting their mother language without speaking has a symbolic meaning, or wearing particular clothes, using particular phrases, or just thinking and having emotions against the dominant social-political system etc.

The Bulgarian communist regime, like other East European socialist regimes, was implemented from the top. Socialist power was, at first, inclusive. However, the restrictive and repressive implementations of the regime were gradually increasing after the first period. In socialist Bulgaria, the opposition and dissidents came from different ideological backgrounds (for example liberalism, different understandings of socialism, etc.) and different ethnic and religious groups (for example Turks, Gypsies, Pomaks, Jews, etc.) My family was not directly and effectively part of the cultural opposition. However, they have not voluntarily accepted the repressions during the 1980s. I can say that my family was rather a victim of the repression of namecide and ethnic cleansing, than a part of the direct opposition.”