COURAGE

connecting collections

The Ellenpontok Ad-hoc Collection stored in the CNSAS Archives comprises, besides the records of the Securitate, the written evidences of the system-criticising activity of the samizdat editors and their struggle against the violation of human rights and ethnic discrimination. In addition to the life courses of Transylvanian Hungarian intellectuals monitored during the 1970s and 1980s, the collection offers insight into the working methods applied by the secret police in compliance with the policies of the Party, which envisaged the surveillance of individuals in opposition even after their emigration.

The Tóth Private Collection in Göteborg comprises the most comprehensive materials related to Ellenpontok (Counterpoints), the Hungarian-language samizdat publication which gained international reputation in the early 1980s due to its resolute fight for human and minority rights in communist Romania. At the same time, the items resulting from the different stages of the Tóth family’s emigrant life (Hungary, Canada, Sweden), such as official documents, manuscripts, sound recordings, photos, private correspondence, and books on minorities, shed light on the cultural efforts undertaken by the collectors in order to improve the situation of those left behind.

This fascinating collection sheds insight on generally unknown moments of everyday life in southwest Bulgaria during state socialism, including: the experience of and resistance against collectivization; experiences reflecting the religious policy of the communist regime (e.g. towards Muslims) and others elements of everyday life. The collection is one of the first created by the Balkan Society for Autobiography and Social Communication - Blagoevgrad (BSASC). It mainly consists of oral histories and photographic documentation, which aim to share ordinary people's experience of socialism.