COURAGE

connecting collections

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.

The Goma Movement Ad-Hoc Collection at CNSAS reflects the activity of an ephemeral collective protest for human rights, which emerged under the influence of Charter 77, gathered rapidly about the same number of supporters, but unlike its model, succumbed only a few months later. It bears the name of the main proponent of this movement because this corresponds not only to its canonisation in post-1989 historical writings, but also to the pre-1989 interpretation of the secret police, which focused on identifying the network linking Goma to the other supporters and collecting complex data about all these individuals.