The true face of communism – In the shadow of Suez

In the two months following the outbreak of the revolution, Hungary's name appeared on the front page of The New York Times nearly twenty times – more than before and since then. This also means that the public's perception of Hungary abroad has been shaped by the actions of our heroes in 1956 more than by anything else in recent history. The 1948 secession of Tito's Yugoslav socialism from the Soviet Union, the 1953 East German uprising, and the 1956 'Polish October' did not offer the world as much hope for the end of communism as the awakening of the Hungarians. However, the West, after Stalin's death, had hoped in vain that the Soviet Union might take a more democratic direction, the brutal crushing of the Hungarian revolution dashed those hopes.

As The New York Times aptly wrote at the time, "Communism showed its true face in Budapest".

But the Western world's attention was then more occupied by the crisis in Suez that erupted on 29 October. The British conservative daily The Daily Telegraph said that if the British prime minister had not landed in Egypt, "world public opinion would have forced the Soviet Union to withdraw from Hungary". Western media interests wanted the Hungarian revolution to be successful, as this could have led to the Soviet Union's influence being reduced. The intervention of the British and French in Suez, however, was not a good thing, because on the one hand, it let the Hungarian revolutionaries down for a war that was more important to them, and on the other hand it gave the Soviet power a reference point for an armed presence in Hungary. The German newspaper Münchener Merkur wrote: "There is a huge difference between Hungary and Suez. This conflict in the Middle East is a mixture of fanaticism, conflict of interest and power politics, with neither party being morally superior to the other. In Hungary, however, there was a case of child murder."

And the French conservative Le Figaro lamented, "It is intolerable that the West stands idly by and watches Hungary being drowned in blood."

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Photo: Fortepan/Spaarnestad Photo

Distorted news but spreading the Hungarian spirit

At the time of the revolution, there were around 150 foreign journalists in Hungary, although many arrived after the revolution had broken out, as obtaining visas and entry permits was difficult. Reporting was difficult to get through to the foreign press, with many journalists telephoning from embassies because of the unreliability of the Hungarian telegraph network. The Washington Post reported that "almost all information comes through Vienna". The journalists were competing to gather news, but the field and their inability to speak Hungarian made their job difficult. When many of them were redirected to Egypt because of the Suez crisis, the number of reports on the Hungarian situation dropped. Fake news also spread: when the Stalin statue was pulled down, the authorities did not open fire on the protesters, or hang them from lampposts or throw them from balconies, as the Italian Il Tempo and The Washington Post reported. The death toll in the revolution was not in the tens of thousands, as The New York Times reported since 2 500 people died in the weeks of the uprising and 229 were sentenced to death during the reprisals.

Budapest was not bombed by Soviet planes, nor was Ferenc Puskás killed in the fighting, as Paris Match reported.

Despite their less-than-accurate information, foreign correspondents played a key role in spreading the word of the Hungarian Revolution. Without the international press, mass demonstrations and sympathy rallies would hardly have been organized worldwide, as this was the only way to ensure that the brutal repression imposed by the Soviet Union's leaders would cause a huge shock in foreign public opinion. The '56 revolution had an impact on the entire global political scene during the Cold War, making the Hungarian stand a symbol of the desire for freedom and the struggle against oppression. Foreign press workers, even at the risk of their own safety, maintained the truth in their reports that the revolution was a swift, spontaneous action organized from below. Jean-Pierre Pedrazzini, a journalist for Paris Match, gave his life for Budapest: he was shot 14 times in Republic Square and died of his wounds. Others survived the street fighting with head wounds. Later, they also dealt with the Hungarian refugee issue: the number of Hungarians who fled to other countries exceeded 200,000, and 37,000 Hungarians arrived in the United States.

The communist countries of Eastern Europe followed Moscow's propaganda in their reports: according to Pravda, the events were a "vile, Western-backed fascist coup attempt ".

From New York to Seoul, everyone was watching us

The German Spiegel said, "The revolution was obviously spontaneous" and went on to say, "If there is an uprising that simply springs from the heart and the most instinctive passions, then the Hungarian October Revolution is one." The New York Times described János Kádár as "a Communist politician who knew every trick of politics" and wrote of the revolution on 27 October: "The Hungarian people have won the admiration of the free citizens of the world: they have stood this hard test. [...] The heroes of Budapest are fighting not only for their own freedom, but also for the freedom of New York, Paris, Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Bandung and Tokyo." The Times argued for "a reduction in Soviet military and economic influence, a higher standard of living, higher wages and pensions, decent housing and not least wider political freedoms" for our country.

Le Figaro reported on the 25 October massacre: "Everything here is just so horrible, young people and children with blood-soaked bandages on their arms and foreheads fighting against the tanks and artillery, with their machine guns and grenades dating back to Noah's flood." Il Tempo also drew attention to the losses suffered by the Soviets: "Never in war have I seen such devastation in tanks as the Soviet tanks here. One of them, which I saw on the boulevard, standing on the scorched lawn of a flowerbed pavement, had its turret regularly blown off by an artillery hit, the punctured frame opening like a milk carton."

In a special 100-page (!) issue devoted to the events in Hungary, LIFE magazine pointed out that "it is difficult to describe in words how this remote little country, the size of the state of Indiana, with a population the size of New York City, found the death-defying courage to take up the gauntlet against the Soviet Union".

The official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party, l'Unità, on the other hand, described the revolutionaries as vandals, provocateurs, and even fascists, acting out of what it saw as nostalgia for the Horthy regime, and interpreted the demonstration as a counter-revolution, and considered the Soviets' entry as justified. In 1956, former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano condemned the Hungarians as communists, however, in 2006, in a not insignificant turn of events, he was the guest of honour at the invitation of President László Sólyom in Hungary at our 1956 commemorations. 
There were also interesting reactions from Asia. India pursued a policy of balance and neutrality on the Hungarian question and did not support intervention from any direction. South Korean President Li Sin Man, on the other hand, hoped that the wave of bold action by the Hungarians would even reach North Korea, where it could wash away Kim Ir Sen's regime. "Hungarian people, you are phoenix birds that never die! Glory be upon you!" – enthused the Seoul newspaper Chosun Ilbo, but ultimately it was not Kim Ir Sen's regime but that of Li Sin Man that was swept away by the Korean student uprising in 1960.

What did the spotlight bring out?

After the defeat of the War of Independence, the editorial staff of several Western newspapers thought that the fighting was not over. The New York Herald Tribune expected that "János Kádár and the Soviet tanks cannot hope to revive Hungarian economic life. Under present conditions, it seems certain that the country will soon have two hundred thousand unemployed. Unemployment could easily lead to another violent outbreak of revolution." Henry Kissinger, on the failure of American intervention, said: "What scared the United States away from intervention was not the threat of our defeat, but our unwillingness to pay the price of victory."

"The Hungarian Revolution had already been defeated for Washington before it had even broken out."

What is it that made 1956 so significant in the eyes of the world – in comparison to earlier and later events of equal importance to us? The 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence were part of an extensive process on the continent, as revolutions were raging throughout Europe, so we were not the focal point in Europe, let alone in the whole world. And the 1989 transition gave the spotlight to the Polish Solidarity movement and Lech Walesa, plus the West's greatest recognition, the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1956, however, Hungary – along with Suez – was the focus of the world's attention, and international public opinion still sees our fight for freedom as the spark that ignited the fire that later burned communism to the ground. The New York Times summarized the events before the Soviet troops withdrew, "The brave Hungarian students, workers, and farmers have been mocking our fears and our little faith this past week. [...] The heroism and courage of the past few days have not been in vain. This courage is a credit to those whose ancestors once fought alongside Lajos Kossuth."
 

When we set up the interview, you mentioned that you had just started university. Where are you studying?

I am a first-year student at the University of Pécs Medical School. I didn't always know that I wanted to go to medical school. I originally applied to a college abroad to study chemistry and was even accepted, but I changed my mind almost at the last minute, stayed at home, and chose to study medicine. 

Why did you decide to do so?

In my family, everyone has been a doctor for generations, and from an early age, I have seen the pros and cons of the profession. I spent a lot of time in the hospital with my parents.

Between two shifts, my mum would hand me over to my dad, or vice versa. I was fascinated by the atmosphere. I think it's a very beautiful profession with a lot of potential. 

Research is why I was going to become a chemist, but I don't have to let it go completely, as I can do research as a physician-scientist. At the moment I think this is what I want to be.

Which area of medicine interests you most? 

Radiology because of my father. When I was at high school I took part in the National Conference of Scientific Students' Societies competition. This April, there was the Carpathian Basin final, where I won the grand prize in my section with a radiology research. For about 2 years, I spent a lot of afternoons after high school in the clinic doing research, analyzing data, and even having the opportunity to talk to patients. 

Now let's talk about the International Chemistry Tournament, from which your team recently came home with a gold medal, and thanks to your team, Hungary became the most successful country in the history of the competition. What do you see as the strength of the team? 

This is a team event, but there is an individual aspect to it. Individual scores are recorded, but the team score always comes first. There are three roles in the competition: reporter, opponent, and reviewer. Considering them separately, all three categories were won by Hungarian students. In the end, the gold medal goes to the team with the highest overall score.

Much of our strength lies in our instructors. 

I do not know of any other country where former participants return to help the new team, either as instructors, judges, or moderators. 

The International Chemistry Tournament community in Hungary is a community worth belonging to, and no one wants to leave it. Dénes Buzafalvi, Bence Botlik, and Barbara Ambrus, who accompanied us this year, were also former competitors.

Six students represented Hungary at the 7th International Chemistry Tournament (IChTo) held in Guadalajara, Mexico, between 25-30 August. Hanna Járay from the Nagy Lajos Grammar School of the Cistercian Order of Pécs, Viktória Éger from the Apáczai Csere János High School and College, and Kata Erdélyi from the Fazekas Mihály Primary and Secondary Grammar School of Budapest, Fruzsina Káldy is a student of Bolyai János Practice Primary and Secondary Grammar School in Szombathely, Anna Koharek is a student of Török Ignác High School in Gödöllő, and Márton Hegedűs is a student of Reformed College Grammar School in Kecskemét. Four of them started their university studies in September. Two of them (Viktóra Éger, and Hanna Járay) are studying to become doctors, Márton Hegedűs is studying chemistry at ELTE, while Anna Koharek is studying biochemistry at Cambridge. Next year's competition will be held in Bucharest, Romania.

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The Hungarian participants of the 7th International Chemistry Tournament in Mexico, from left to right: Kata Erdélyi, Hanna Járay, Viktória Éger, Anna Koharek, Márton Hegedűs, Fruzsina Káldy –  Photo: Hanna Járay

You come from different, geographically distant high schools, how did you get to know each other?

There is a national selection round at the ELTE Faculty of Science to select the best candidates for the competition. We met there, and then we started preparing. The tasks for IChTo were published in June, and in July we prepared for it in a camp and then at weekends at ELTE, in Budapest. It is a special characteristic of the tournament that we receive the tasks two months in advance, work on them, and then present them on the spot. 

Non-conventional, open-type chemistry problems have to be solved and presented in English, according to the competition notice. What does this mean? 

Theoretically, there may be an infinite number of solutions to a problem, but it is also possible that one of them is impossible to solve. 

As these tasks are usually research-based, it is not only lexical knowledge that you need but also the ability to use it to solve broader problems. These are not necessarily mathematical-chemical calculation problems, but open theoretical questions. There are purely theoretical problems, which we solve using computer chemistry applications and our lexical knowledge, but also problems that we have to produce or experiment with.

Can you give an example of the latter? I ask this because it's only H2O and covalent bonds that many of us remember from our chemistry lessons.

In high school calculations, it is a common assumption that if you dissolve salt in water, the volume of the solution is unchanged, but this assumption has limitations. Some salts, such as ammonium nitrate, increase the original volume, while aluminium sulphate shrinks the overall volume of the final solution. So 50 millilitres of solution plus the salt gives less than 50 ml of solution. The task was to explain the physical limitations of this shrinkage, design a salt that provides a maximal shrinking effect on water, and support our solutions with calculations.

Sometimes a team could achieve 3-4 millimetres of extra volume contraction, other teams up to 10 or 20. This solution then needs to be defended and debated. 

What does this debate look like?

After the reporter's eight-minute presentation, the opponent questions the chemical, mathematical, and physical basis of the solution, asking for evidence as to whether the solution is scientifically sound. 

He/She presents the questions that arise in five minutes. This is followed by a debate, also lasting five minutes, where the reporter and the opponent discuss the solution, and then there are questions from the jury. 

Who are your biggest rivals?

vious years, it was Thailand and Singapore. We lost the final to the latter in Budapest in 2022. Last year, we won in Tbilisi, Georgia. An international tournament usually attracts teams from all over the world - Hungary, Singapore, Thailand, Romania, Serbia, Vietnam, Mexico, Poland, etc. There is a rule that a country can send a maximum of two teams, but the host country can send three. This year, due to the distant location, many countries, including Hungary, were only able to send one team.

Now, surprisingly, one of the Mexican teams is our biggest opponent. Finally, before the results were announced, we were able to calculate that we had won based on the scores we had already received before the last final debate. It was a huge goal for us to defend our title this year. Especially as last year in Georgia, we set a record for final scores in the history of the tournament. We knew it would be difficult to achieve such a result again. The standard of the tournament is rising every year, and the teams and the performances are becoming more and more professional.

Nevertheless, this year we succeeded in beating our record from last year in the final. It was a euphoric experience. 

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Photo: Hanna Járay

What is the role of a team captain in a scientific tournament like this? 

During the rounds, I officially represent our team's position, for example, I announce the number of the task we are challenging from another team. There are twelve tasks, and our team does not decide what we present, but we decide what the other team presents, which we oppose. So strategy is important in the tournament. It also depends on who we are up against. 

Feedback from many countries to the international committee was that the tasks were too difficult for the standard of high school education. This is true, they are far beyond the high school level, so often we had to consult with experts to come up with a solution. For example, we had to consult experts from various international universities. 

In one of my personal experiences, the task I was given at a selection round was about food chemistry in a broader sense, so I turned to the experts at the National Food Chain Safety Office for help. 

The International Chemistry Tournament prepares you for real scientific life. In addition to professional development, improving your presentation skills is also a huge part of the program. I now know that this is a pillar of scientific communication. The ability to debate, search the literature effectively, and interpret publications correctly also play a key role in the tournament. We have also made new national and international contacts and friendships that would have been impossible to experience elsewhere. The whole tournament has given me a lot during high school. 

Besides the professional part, what experiences did you have in Mexico?

For me, it was an indescribable experience! I had never been to another continent. Mexico is a world unlike anything I have ever experienced. The culture, the food, and the programs were all new to us as Europeans. They took us on sightseeing tours of downtown Guadalajara; we went to museums, and exhibitions. The tropical climate there was unusual, something I had only seen in movies before. But, more surprisingly, we also found many similarities. For example, we had to identify Hungarian or Mexican embroidery patterns. It surprised us, but they are extremely similar.
 

You are a visual storyteller, a documentary photographer: you capture situations and people as they are. What do you need for that?

First and foremost, openness. It's not an easy task, because from the moment you enter a situation, your presence shapes what happens. Just by who you choose as the subject of your photo, what you show of their story, or where you point the camera, you make an impact. You're telling a story with pictures, a bit like if you were a writer.

How do you pick your themes, your story?

Often it's not me looking for the theme, it comes up and finds me. It won’t get out of my mind, almost moves into it. When this happens, I feel a sense of mission: to understand and show why someone goes to work in the Congo for thirty years or asks to be a postman in a slum. I can tell an important story from a half-sentence.

What was the first defining experience that set you on your path, and gave you your calling?

I had quite a tough entrance: when I was 25 or 26 years old, I presented the story of families taking out short-term loans from a financial institution offering small loans. 

It was a success, a cover story, I got a scholarship for it, but I also fell flat on my face, because the people I photographed with good intentions were all arrested... 

To pay off their loans, they cut down trees and became poachers. Although I blurred their faces, the police identified them and collected them. It was a success and a nightmare at the same time, because it made me realise what an impact I have on people's lives.

Have you never wanted to capture the sunny side of life? Have you always wanted to dive into the deep stuff?

As a photojournalist, I've done a lot of things, including the Olympics in Beijing and cultural festivals. But these have never satisfied me, I always felt there were so many unfair or even shocking things I could deal with. Even at a competition, it's the important stuff that stands out, the stuff that has weight: not the rainbow pony, but the vulture. In Gaza, in Ukraine, tens of thousands of people are dying, while the Olympics are being magnificently captured by thousands of other photographers. That's why I'm interested in the stories that you can't just walk past, the ones that override everything.

Is this what took you – first in 2015 and then three more times – to Congo?

A colleague of mine found an article about the African doctor, but he ended up only travelling there for a few days to meet him. I was more interested than just listening to him tell the story of his life in a café – I wanted to capture the story where it was actually happening. It took time and money, but the doctor finally offered that if I could get to him, he would take care of me during my six-week stay.

How did you cope with the extreme conditions?

A situation like this is full of uncertainty, but until you experience it, it's just a story to you. I've been there four times, which adds up to about six months in the Congo. I've had to get used to the fact that I don't have to do anything there to be exhausted by the end of the day, there's so much stimulation. It's exhausting just to intentionally ignore sounds, smells and influences that are unusual to me.
 

How much does your presence disrupt the lives of the locals?

On the one hand, they get used to me, on the other hand, they never get used to me. Inner Congo is far away from everything, and my presence disrupts the rhythmic repetition of everyday life. The same thing goes on there every single day, and a child of a few years might never have seen a white person, let alone with a camera, a different language, or a different behaviour. 

It's like being the attraction at a zoo, with about a hundred kids flocking around me to watch the " miracle ". A hundred of them stare at me from five meters away, and if I suddenly step to the right, they get so alarmed they fall to the ground. 

They don't know what to expect from me: if I move my hand, will I hit them, or just swat away a fly... After days, the interest dies down, but they still sit around me in my hut, finding it interesting even if I just brush my teeth. They giggle when I change my T-shirt, or when I look at my pictures on the screen, and there are always so many curious faces I can't breathe. If I just walk to the toilet and stumble, they laugh.

How do you communicate with the locals?

Often in a funny way. Lingala is a language of 800-900 words, which is very few. There are more than 900 words in Hungarian that have 5 letters, and we have 56 synonyms for the word 'man'. The people in the rainforest don't necessarily understand what I'm asking – if you ask them to tell you about their childhood, they'll say something like "I was little". I've tried interpreters, asking if they've moved, how many houses they've lived in, what a day looks like, if they visit relatives, but mostly it's been yes-no answers. The stories unfold differently there, it is very difficult to get to know them in a complex way. It's almost impossible to do an interview like the one we're doing now...

What did you learn about the Congolese girl, Mbedji, about whom you did the hit cover story for National Geographic, and who you returned to revisit after nine years?

I found out that her parents had died and she had stopped going to school, but she didn't know what they had died of. Illness, she said, but whether it was monkeypox, malaria, or snake bite, I never found out. Her age also remained a mystery. Finally, I wrote down where she lived and the names of some of her relatives, and after nine years I asked Dr Hardi to find her. One of his nurses told her that a white photographer would come to see her. I think they must have thought I was going to marry her... A few months later I arrived and hoped she would be there. Of course, she was there. Where else would she have been unless something had happened to her?

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National Geographic cover photo by András D. Hajdú

How much did you share with her the exact reason for your visit?

I explained why I had come in front of the whole village, about two hundred people, with the help of an interpreter. 

Everyone sat around, and the leader asked questions ceremoniously, like the chief in Winettou. I told him that I had taken photos during previous surgeries and that I would use her example to show the world that people here were getting their sight back, which was a miracle. 

I wanted to give them a magazine, but unfortunately, my luggage got lost on the way. It's a pity, because they love paper pictures, but it would have been a three-day drive to the city to get it printed.

How does a perfect photo like the one you took of the Congolese girl this year come about?

With perseverance. I don't mind walking for hours somewhere and then not taking a photo. Here, I shot at least 1200 pictures on the riverbank before I found the main topic somewhere else, and even the butterfly was where it was supposed to be. These miracles either happen or they don't. For the National Geographic cover photo, I was in the hospital every day for two weeks, and on the last day, the little girl came...

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The girl in the cover photo in 2024 – Photo: András D. Hajdú

It is also thanks to your work that that hospital could be built...

This is a European-standard, billion-euro eye clinic with all the latest equipment. They can operate perfectly on a cataract, a retina or remove a foreign object at any time. Until it was finished, I tried to make the effort visible, and the Hungarian government finally supported it with a million dollars. I am inspired by determined people like Dr. Richárd Hardi.

He is now raising money to build another hospital and a chapel. How important is religion in the lives of Congolese people?

Very. You can't sleep on Sunday, because from five o'clock in the morning, there's so much singing and dancing going on in almost a hundred churches, and there are services going on. Dr. Hardi is also a member of the Community of the Beatitudes, a Catholic community recognized by the Vatican, he moved to the Congo to help 29 years ago and is stuck there. I respect him, because I'm only up for four weeks, true, I usually stay for six, but the last two are a groaner.

I don't just mean your missions to Africa: have you ever been in (life) danger?

In 2022, I spent two months in Ukraine, and I explained to everyone that I wasn't going to go where there was shooting, bombing, or where the front line was because I wanted to report on the people, not the war. I was working for a Swiss NGO and the Norwegian civil service, I didn't go near close combat. 

This February, half of the Swiss team I had been with died in a drone attack, the others were taken to hospital...

I don't want to compare it to the war, but it must have been equally dangerous to make a report of the wall of Nagybánya (Baia Mare, Romania) – and the people behind it – that separates an infamous gypsy slum from the city...

It was much more intense, much more dangerous. Once I was attacked by a pack of dogs, another time I had bricks thrown at me from a house, and on yet another occasion I was surrounded by teenage bullies who wanted to rob me of my things. I was lucky to have a cameraman and an interpreter with me, who the boys didn't see at first, but as soon as they turned up and there were three of us, the kids disappeared. The worst thing is to work in a place where there is no control over people, where they know you don't stand a chance against them. If I had been hurt in the Congo, the authorities would have caught the guy in no time, but in Nagybánya they would never have found out who had hit me on the head. They didn't even care why I was there, they looked at me as the umpteenth correspondent, and my predecessors had already established public opinion...

Now you are working (besides others) on a less dangerous but more profound project, the story of Szofi.

For many years I photographed topics related to gypsies, but I could only tell bits and pieces of a story, never the whole one. That's where the idea came from: what if I followed someone from the beginning, even from before they were born, if I showed the story through one person, not through the fate of many families. That person became Sophie, born into a disadvantaged family, and is now eight years old, and I am documenting her growing up. After a break of a couple of years, I photographed her again this year on her birthday, but as she is now in foster care, I agreed with them not to publish the material until she was 18. So time will play a big role in this project, as it is always an important factor for me anyway.

You can follow the stories of photographer András D. Hajdú on the following online platforms:
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"Djakuyem peknje! Köszönöm szépen!” (Thank you very much!") – With these four words, the documentary Baska magyarul beszél (‘Baska speaks Hungarian’) begins, which commemorates the tragic story of painter József Baska and his family. These are the words of a young boy who, because he spoke Hungarian at school during break time, received a daily beating from his teacher, which he boldly thanked him for in Hungarian. 

His brave stand was a family trait: his parents refused to identify themselves as Slovaks during the census, so they were sent to the north-western borderland of Sudetenland for a labour camp. 

To avoid forced labour, they decided to flee. The father and his pregnant wife left home early, leaving the young Joseph to outwit the Slovak police and help his brothers escape. After the family reunited, they set off for Hungary in a wagon in the middle of the night, in huge snow. Joseph left behind not only his homeland, but also his childhood.

Escaping into art

"My father became a hero twice: first as a child, and now as an artist, when he told his story through his paintings, pictures and drawings," says the painter's daughter, Barbara Baska, a graphic designer and film director, who welcomes us to their home, where József Baska once worked. 

As a child, his talent as a painter was already apparent: he was impressed by the paintings he saw in Krasznahorka (Krásna Hôrka) Castle and began creating his own works. In the beginning, he drew horses, but the family's escape became so deeply imprinted in him that it became the origin of his art. 

In the years of socialism, it was impossible to talk about deportation, so he turned to abstract art, thus revealing the truth to the world. The wheel motif, the dynamics of the images, and the choice of colours all convey the pain of escape. 

"Black represents the lie, white the truth", Barbara shows a geometric sculpture consisting of black and white shapes that merge, but the latter is incomplete, as if a piece has been cut out. 

As the political situation began to change, he was able to speak openly about the tragedy: in the 90s he wrote about their misery in the columns of Új Magyarország (‘New Hungary’) newspaper. Barbara has recently published his memoirs in book form, which, like the film, is entitled Baska speaks Hungarian.

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József Baska painter in an old photo - Photo: Jácint Jónás

Telling the story of hundreds of thousands

In her search for her father's truth, Barbara herself took to the wagon and one cold winter day set off for Rozsnyó (Rožňava), where parts of the film were shot. "The wonderful thing about documentary filmmaking is that it's like life, you don't know where it's going to end up, what the final conclusion will be. When I started, the only thing I was sure of was that I would have to go down the same path as my father," she explains. Even though there wasn't much snow, it was still a physically demanding journey on the wagon. She was confronted with a disturbing sight when she reached the Hungarian-Slovakian border. "Today the border stone has an M (for Hungary) and an S (for Slovakia) on it, indicating which country is where, but the story is not that simple: settlements have been cut in two and families torn apart. The truth is 'border-less'," she says. 

For the film director, it was striking to be confronted with the fact that Hungarians born in Slovakia are still considered war criminals even today. Although the law is no longer applied, the Beneš decrees have never been revoked.

During the filming, several crew members realized that their own families had been affected by the deportations, and the fragments of stories they had heard before were starting to come together. It was a surprise for Barbara to discover how many people were carrying the same trauma. Since then, she has made it her mission to bring this historical tragedy into the public discourse, as few films and books have been made about the Czechoslovakian deportation, and the people involved do not speak about their pain. 

"Although I am telling the story from my father's point of view, it is not just his story: tens of thousands of people fled, and this affected the lives of their children and grandchildren, so it is really hundreds of thousands of people we are talking about." 

By recalling the stories of their ancestors, their descendants can better understand their behaviour and thinking. 

Pain across generations

The events left a deep impression on all the family members, and they have never been able to get over it. For example, the youngest child, Edit Baska, who her mother carried in her arms at the time, still keeps the 1947 expulsion document written in Slovak, which sealed their fate.

József Baska often recounted his experiences to his children. "I heard the story so many times that it became part of my identity, and it evokes similar painful feelings, as though I had lived it myself," says Barbara. This is why she involves a trauma researcher in the film, too.

József Baska chose painting as his therapy, in which he was followed by Barbara and his brother Balázs, a visual artist. "My father always said that you have to catch the wind in the sail. He did this by turning difficulties into art," she quotes her father. "The key to working through this transgenerational trauma is to understand it, talk about it, and be proud of the courage of our ancestors as they rose from this situation and rebuilt their lives, strictly as Hungarians." 

The film director shared the story of the family's expulsion with her own children. She took her two sons with her to the filming locations and they also appear in the film.

For the family, faith was also a source of strength. When the wagon of the fleeing family got stuck in the snowy forest, the father set out to seek help. They feared he would not find his way back at night in the heavy snow, but soon he appeared pulling two oxen. Then they felt the Lord watching over them. This gratitude to God later infused the painter's art.

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In the picture József Baska and his wife - Photo: Jácint Jónás

Arriving wheels

While we talk to Barbara, Jácint, the photographer of Képmás, asks her whether the material will be positive or negative, which will certainly make many people think. After all, the topic is a sad family story and an underlying historical tragedy in which justice has still not been done for those involved. Even today, the European Court of Human Rights is still hearing cases concerning the deprivation of rights at the time. Barbara wants the film and the book to be a kind of reparation for all the Hungarian people who were humiliated and forced to flee; by sharing their story with others, her soul will find peace.

She believes that over the years her father has also managed to come to terms with the family's expulsion. In his series The Wagon Falling Apart, he depicted the iconic wagon wheels falling apart, expressing that if there is nothing to go forward on, it is arrival itself. He painted this picture after he was made an honorary citizen of Rozsnyó, where he later founded an art colony, fifty years after the family had fled. One of his later paintings was called The Festive Wagon.

"Finally, he did not have to go into hiding, but returned, speaking Hungarian, embracing his nationality and his artistic world, which for him was a celebration." 

The artist has never been separated from his beloved city. "Father believed that it was only the body of a refugee that leaves, but that his soul is in fact constantly wandering between the old and the new homeland."

Looking out of the window, we can see the Budapest Eye's huge wheel shape on Deák Square, which József Baska also loved. The wheel that comes to life keeps turning. 
 

Tell me a bit about the village of Tokodaltáró! What does your district look like? I can see that you drive, even though I imagined you on a bicycle. Are there dangerous roads, stray dogs, or drug dens around here?

Next year I will have been working here for thirty years. When I came here, I had to apply for the job. The population was completely different then. Tokodaltáró started out as a mining settlement, and the council at the time built 'six-flats' for the families of the settling miners. Each of these houses has six flats, one and a half rooms each. Later, the Esztergom municipality bought most of these flats and the inhabitants of a former Roma slum moved in. Four streets are now made up of those 'six flats', the most difficult part of the village for me. Tokodaltáró is still a peaceful little village close to nature, and although I loved the hustle and bustle of Pest when I was younger, it is now this place where I feel at home. Our only claim to fame used to be the so-called 'Polish Market', which still functions as a local market. There are many factories around us, and everyone who wants a job can find one here. I like the fact that the town is so pleasantly 'in one', with no disconnected, separate parts. This is reflected in the atmosphere, too.

Why did you choose this career? What attracted you to it, what did you see in it? 

I come from a religious family, there were always lots of related children running around in our home, and as a young girl, I could bond with them. I couldn't be a nursery school teacher, because at my time it was a requirement to play some sort of musical instrument to be admitted into the college for nursery school teachers. Our health visitor in my village was my role model and I talked to her a lot, so I chose this profession. Since then, I have had three sons and seven grandchildren, we live close to one another, so I still spend my life with children. My husband and I are always open to our grandchildren, we never say no to having them. Sometimes we go away for 2 or 3 days alone, just the two of us, and then we are a bit unavailable, but when we are at home, we are very busy every day. 

I'm also a volunteer firefighter in our village, but it's also a "family business", where I'm in charge of event organization. 

That's what I feel comfortable with.

How did you gain respect as a health visitor? Did you struggle with this initially, or is it more of a partnership between you and the families you are responsible for?

When I first came here, the good thing was that I was the same age as the pregnant mums at the time. But now the advantage I have is that I have children and grandchildren of my own, and I have a lot of experience both as a mother and as a health visitor. There are rules for official case management in the work of a health visitor, such as how many times I notify someone of a vaccination or when I send a reminder letter. I prefer to discuss these things, to resolve them in a nice way, that's what I am like. In some cases, threats are not the best way to achieve success, and building and maintaining trust is a better tool. Trust then makes it possible to discuss why someone did not come in, or what was holding them back. In the end, I always managed to find a way to get them to come in. If a mother tells me that there are no shoes or bed linen in the house, we work it out together, I have a good relationship with the family support service and the local Red Cross. I never felt I had to fight for respect, I hope my visits are also opportunities.

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Aranka Szabóné Kurucz, the health visitor of Tokodaltáró - Photo: Andrea Csongor

Being a health visitor is a colourful, multi-layered profession, combining health care, child welfare, and social services. How do you balance this? 

There are some families where, unfortunately, the child is in danger of being removed from the home, where my role of monitoring and controlling is more important. This is a difficult role. I reinforce in myself that it is the child who is important, that they are the essential ones. It is not the child's fault if the parent treats them miserably or does not provide them with opportunities. Usually, these parents don't realize that they are doing their child harm. My motto is that I am here to protect the child and I am the one who protects the child's best interests. Fortunately, I am no longer the one to suggest a removal, but I do have a duty to report the circumstances. 

Twenty years after such removal, a now grown-up boy sent me a friend request on Facebook and showed me the kind of life he had been given a chance for. 

Today, he is in a happy relationship, in a good financial situation, has a job, and has good values. I often think of that.

What does a typical day of yours look like? Which part do you like best?

Not all my days are the same, and I'm happy to be the one to manage my time. I have fixed consulting hours, but I am relatively free to move around. Since Covid, we have kept the habit of people coming to me by appointment and I let them know if I go out to visit a family, unless I stop by someone's house unexpectedly for a reason. The health visitor status checks are time-consuming, but it's worth taking the time and not putting the next baby on hold. Of course, what I like best is when I have success. I once helped with an adoption, which was a great joy for everyone. It also gives me pleasure when a screening test leads to a baby getting to early development sessions or receiving timely medical treatment.

What are parents and mothers asking for help with today? What problems are they facing?

Even with all the information available on the internet, there are still a lot of questions, and I'm happy to be asked. We always talk about the birth, what to take to the hospital, and the physiological effects after the birth, and I try to prepare them for what they will have at home. Is it possible to have a normal birth after a C-section? What effect can pregnancy have on different illnesses? When to set off for the hospital, or when to call an ambulance? Do I need to bring a marriage certificate to the hospital? How much bleeding should I expect? When will the paediatrician come to see the baby? There are so many questions that the books don't answer.

The role and methodology of a health visitor have changed during your time in the field. How do you relate baby-lead weaning (BLW), carried babies, or Elimination communication (EC)?

Nowadays, health visitor care is more personalised, we don't visit every family with the same frequency, since not all families need close care. Our methodology has changed as scientific knowledge has changed, for example, about the principles of feeding. There didn't use to be so many food allergies and intolerances, and the know-how of childcare is responding to that. I can be flexible with new trends, and my family keeps me up to date on that. My daughter-in-law is doing BLW with my granddaughter, I did some research and found it to be professionally recommended. I have seen it work in practice. I also like the EC, my granddaughter grew up with that with no problems.  

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Image is an illustration – Source: Freepik

Did you have any requests from your clients in the course of your career, such as a baby club, a safe start nursery or a music club? Have you added such activities to your portfolio?

Yes, because it is important for mums to have a community. We started a mum and baby club at the initiative of the health visitor, and I was very involved in that, and friendships were formed in the club, and it was a real success story. But families have changed a lot since then, they are more afraid of catching something since Covid. 

The expectations have also changed, and recently I have seen mothers scrolling on their phones during the club sessions, thinking that the organizers are looking after their children.

But that’s not what it should be about.

Have you ever thought that baby care could be a school subject? How much do mothers learn from home?

I have even found a name for it, "family life education". For example, recognizing abusive situations, contraception, sex life, and baby care – these are areas where there is a lot of ambiguity, while children know the formula for quadratic equations. I did what I could here, locally, and whenever I had the opportunity. 

How do you reach fathers? Are they target audiences for you, too?

Nowadays, fathers are also attending antenatal consultations, more and more fathers are present at births, and more and more often I have visits where the father tries to attend. I praise them very much, although I think we shouldn't expect the dad who works all day to take the baby to the health care consultation sessions while the mum is at the nail salon. 

The network of health visitors is an incredibly well-organized institution.  What else do you think it could be used for?

I think that we are the ones who get into every household with young children without notice, and that is an important, albeit humbling, privilege. It is a huge opportunity for children, for parents, and for the whole family. When I visit a home, every member of the extended family comes to me with their health and social issues, as I thoroughly know the care system. I also think that the opportunities for community building are very important, and I would like to strengthen that as well.

Established in 2020 by Three Princes, Three Princesses Foundation, and the National Center for Public Health, the Mária Steller Award recognizes dedicated health visitors who have supported families with young children through their outstanding professional work. The award is given to one health visitor from each county and the capital.

The first question is obvious: when did you first get involved in martial arts?

The first steps of my journey were nothing special. Like most people my age, karate was the " great encounter " for me. I started karate in my hometown of Dunaszerdahely, Slovakia, where I was introduced to aikido. Later I learned that there was a martial arts college in Budapest, so after graduation I moved to the capital and studied at The Dharma Gate Buddhist College, specializing in budo-aikido. 

Not a typical higher education career...

Well, no, not really! (laughs) The college was a very interesting place, with lots of excellent people. But I was a little disturbed from the start by how much some people fell in love with a foreign culture. Japanese culture is extremely rich and wonderful, but not ours. It never will be, even if we fancy ourselves more Japanese than the Japanese.

Did you have a big realisation or did this idea gradually grow in you?

ne specific moment. I rarely went home, but one weekend when I did, my friends and I cycled to a small town near Dunaszerdahely, where there was a mounted archery show. 

As I stood there with my friends, I was almost slapped in the face by the feeling that the thousand-year-old Hungarian combat traditions were still alive! 

They are revived, they are available, and you can learn them either well or badly. Until then, I was not particularly interested in the Hungarian tradition, I was comfortable in the "Japanese" environment, but then something changed in me. I found out the name of the gentleman conducting the show, it was Imre Rőth. A few days later I approached him and asked him to teach me. I started with archery and horse riding, and later I took up the whip. I went to aikido training during the weekdays, and on weekends I immersed myself in traditional Hungarian martial techniques.

How does this turn into the founding of a school, dozens of textbooks, and a life dedicated to preserving tradition?

These were just the first kilometres of the journey. I never wanted to start a school, but I started to train more and more, and I started to realize how much there is around me, and how incredibly rich our culture is. It bothered me more and more when Hungarians pretended to be Japanese. In martial arts, the idolization of Japanese culture was given an extra layer: many times Hungarians watched Japanese aikido with such awe that it was almost comical. Around 2005, we went to Tahitótfalu for a solstice celebration, and right at that time, there was a Baranta training camp there. (Baranta is a continuously developing martial art, which has been created by collecting all the movements from Hungarian body culture, fighting, and battling techniques that had been applied during our history - translator's note). We met the school's founder, Ferenc Vukics, and it turned out that they were training in Budapest, so I didn't have to go far. That autumn I started learning Baranta and gradually abandoned Aikido, and the Hungarian martial tradition slowly took over my life.

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Kopecsni Gábor while collecting martial art techniques – Photo: Gábor Kopecsni

I made a quick count, in the last almost two decades you have written fifteen books on the old Hungarian martial arts. Even if someone trains a lot, it does not necessarily mean that they will start writing a series of professional books.

Strangely enough, it is precisely my lack of knowledge that I owe these books to. It made me realize how little I know about Hungarian history, ethnography, folk culture, and Hungarian traditions. 

I started reading books on History and Ethnography, to fill in the gaps I had missed. You can only do something well if you know the medium well, in this case, the whole of the tradition behind it. 

It's obviously a lot to take in, but to this day I read a lot, and I try to improve myself. But I wouldn't call what we do old Hungarian martial arts...

What would you call it? Fighting sport?

No, not really! (laughs) Martial arts are primarily about the individuality and the spirituality of a person while fighting sports is about physical performance and competition. There is no sharp boundary, it is impossible to define and separate the two concepts, these are more my own impressions. In both of them, the personality of the person is inevitably present, take saber fencing for example. The more extroverted, more boisterous students are always more aggressive, while the more introverted, more reserved fencers prefer to play the counter.

Many people do not understand the term martial arts. When these techniques were used in real life, in battle, man against man, nobody called what they did martial arts. It is probably best to refer to them as schools - in the East and in our country. There were so-called 'military schools' in Hungary's border forts. The first appearance of martial arts as a concept dates from the mid-19th century's Japanese imperial revival, the Meiji Restoration. The aim was to abolish traditional schools, to break the power of the samurai, and to pacify the development of martial arts schools. The result of this process is that today karate or judo are Olympic sports.

But I'll tell you something else! If we are talking about the dances of the Hungarian people, is it worth talking about "folk dance" before the first ethnographic recording of these dances or before the first appearance of Western influences? I don't think so. At most, we should talk about the dances of the folk. Because nobody called it folk dance at that time, because it was "the" dance. In the same way, it makes no sense to talk about old Hungarian martial arts techniques, because they were once "the" fighting techniques.

I like the term folk combat body culture, it's a bit of a mouthful, but perhaps it captures reality most accurately. 

We practice in a systematic way what they used to practice, that's what we call martial arts today. We don't learn the techniques to go into battle.

In this respect, does it even make sense to talk about Hungarian martial arts philosophy? And the mentality you mentioned before?

I think it is, in fact it is essential. I believe in the unity of body, soul, and spirit, in the power of individuality. Many martial arts schools, both in the East and the West, tend to see their own way as the only true way. If you do this or that technique differently, if you go left instead of right, you are not a member of the community. This is partly an understandable self-defense mechanism, but it is also extremely counterproductive. Since its foundation, the Dalia School of Upper Hungary has placed a strong emphasis on individual freedom, on personal identity. If you believe in our values and act on them, go to training, practice hard, and strive to be a better person, you are on the path of Dalia School.

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Photo: Gábor Kopecsni

Here we are in a yurt, surrounded by dozens of books, a whole series, all with your name on them. So, how did you start collecting?

By car. (laughs) All joking aside, I really set off for the Carpathian Basin. Part of the Baranta training was to do your own collecting. I took the task quite seriously! At home, next door lived a man from Upper Hungary, Bandi Raisz. I knew that he used to do folk dancing, even the one that is a men's dance and they dance it with a stick, and I stopped by his house to ask him to tell me about it. It turned out that as a child in the hills of Gömör, he used to practise stick wrestling. He sent me on to his brother-in-law, a shepherd man living in Ajnácskő, Józsi Molnár, who showed me more techniques and drills.

The feeling gave me goosebumps that it was still possible to meet people like that in the twenties, meaning that this knowledge was still alive. 

It started like this, from here on I was basically handed down from hand to hand by the "old men".Then I had an idea to collect traditional fighting techniques from a specific region, be it wrestling, wrestling with a stick, or even the related folk games. Since then, several regions of Historical Hungary, eg.:  Csallóköz, Mátyusföld, Zoboralja, Upper Ipoly-mente, Gömör, within Gömör the Barkóság, Abaúj-Torna, Upper-Bodrogköz, the Ung-vidék in the Felvidék and the Transylvanian Barcaság have got their own volume in the Small Library series of the Dalia School of Upper Hungary. 

Why is it called the Dalia School of Upper Hungary and not of the Highlands? 

The reason is very simple, we were afraid that the "highland" Dalia School would not be officially registered by the Slovak authorities. The term "Felvidék" (Highlands) came into the public consciousness after the Trianon dictate, and in the ethnographic world, the region was previously referred to as Felföld (Upper-land), even if it was not exactly the same area. But the meaning of the word is practically the same.

What’s the connection between your Dalia School and Baranta?

I myself started by studying for many years and I owe a lot to Baranta. I started to go and visit the "big names" in the 2010s. 

I visited Lajos Kassai in the Valley, I learned stick techniques from Zsolt Pucskó, I got original recordings of the stick dance from folk dance researcher Laci Felföldi, and I visited old old people in Transylvania and Upper Hungary. 

I've been doing it for over fifteen years, I've met hundreds of wonderful people, and collecting has been the defining experience and meaning of my life. The point is that our "baranta" in Upper Hungary has gradually become independent, and I have tried to improve it. Finally, in 2018, we got to the point of going our own way, so I founded the Dalia School of Upper Hungary, based on years of practical experience and research results, which has a unique teaching and examination system and is now working officially.

You've travelled the Carpathian Basin, meeting hundreds of members of the so-called "grand old" generation, perhaps the last representatives of a bygone world. What have you experienced, is there a Hungarian character? And if so, what is it like?

Wow, that's a great question! I've spoken to about 600 data contributors over the years. Two or three things I can point out, such as the mischievousness and the amazingly witty mind. It's in our folk tales, our songs, our dances, and even our martial culture. There was something else that almost everyone had: the typical Hungarian toughness, the philosophy of "I'll do it anyway!" I think this really characterizes our national attitude. If it were not so, we would certainly not have survived here, in the Carpathian Basin.
 

Do you have a defining childhood experience of the circus?

It wasn’t part of my life as a kid, although I did watch movies about it and saw the red-and-white Big Top from a distance, but I didn’t get further than that. When I was little I had a serious heart problem, I had several open-heart surgeries, so my parents were over-protective. Pushing my own limits was an unknown dimension for me, I was happy when the boys let me be a goalkeeper, I Wasn’t fit enough to run. I started playing active, skill-based games when I was in my teens, I was a yoyo player.  

I went to competitions, I was in the top ten of the national yo-yo scene, but what I enjoyed most was sharing my skills with my friends from school. 

My real encounter with the circus happened when I was in my twenties when I went to the Hungarian Jugglers' Meeting gala and met performers who represented the new circus genre. They showed a fresh approach that moved away from the center-ringed, riding-schools, ringmaster story. The jaw dropped.

At that time, the idea was that juggling, tightrope walking, somersaulting, and hanging on a trapeze were only to show the audience what you could do, and earn money from it.

When they hear the words circus, most people think of exotic animals, clowns, equestrians, rings and whips, the heightened atmosphere, the clown's fumbling, or the amazing performance of aerialists. Breathtaking skills and tricks to entertain the audience, there's popcorn – everything to get the gaping-eyed 'inner child' going. The circus is often associated with children, or we go there for the children, to show them how many amazing things there are in the world. Travelling circuses have also been successful because they have brought things to the villages that the people there would otherwise have never had the chance to see. They took the grandeur and immensity of the world, the full unfolding of human potential and skills, to places where life was just about simple possibilities. These were experiences of a lifetime. 

My mother is a fashion designer, I got to meet a lot of artists as a child, and our house is decorated with serious artwork, so I wasn't influenced by the simpler entertainment industry at the time. 

One thing influenced me more than that: my mother often told me to stop making a scene. 

In the end, it turned out that “making a scene” became my profession, we often laugh about it, what power words have...

In fact, you've become convinced that we should let everyone “make a scene”...

What I would like most of all, is for people to see that the circus today is about something other than what is commonly believed. I, too, as an adult, have come to understand that the 21st-century circus has gone beyond the typical circus culture as we know it to an amazing degree. Traditional circus is a very elaborate, sophisticated entertainment art form, but it is often about appearance, its history intertwined with animal acts. Today, this attitude has been overcome.

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Photo: Bendegúz L. Pál

The traditional circus sells skills that only circus performers have. They pass it on through dynasties and keep the tricks and methodology behind the acts secret, as it is their bread and butter.

This year marks the 257th anniversary of the modern circus, which we have been counting since the first time clowns, jugglers and aerialists, in general term acrobats, took to the stage between the equestrian acts to provide entertainment during the preparation time between the two animal acts. The clowns could also ease the tension if there were any mishaps with the misbehaving animals. This format was a huge success, even the name refers back to the tradition of the Roman circus. 

This genre is also special in Hungary because we have had a circus building since the 19th century, this is the Capital Circus of Budapest, and no neighbouring country can claim to have one.

The traditional circus has always been about achievement, form and performance. How did the need to break through this arise?

Circus arts is a creative genre with a strong tradition, I could perhaps compare it to ballet, which is also linked to performance-based standards, form, and execution. It was taught within closed doors, often on a dynastic basis, and circus artists, like magicians, guarded their professional secrets. In the 20th century, a break with the previous form became a regular occurrence, which many linked to the student uprisings of '68 when circus students also rebelled. This led to a drastic change in approach, as young circus performers began to share their knowledge with the public.

Liberation, sharing, a fresh start: were these the internal driving forces?

As a result of the opening, circus skills were also taken up by people who had previously had nothing to do with it, but were interested, such as performers, teachers, or social workers. This has led to an exciting explosion, with a wider and wider range of people seeing circus as an opportunity and a tool. Professional circus knowledge was taken out of the Big Top, circus as a methodology was introduced into the living space of communities, and it was no longer just a goal to get into the circus or to become an artist through a life's work. 

This open-minded approach has had an impact on the circus arts, and over the past 30 years, acts have evolved tremendously, new tools have been created, nontraditional styles have emerged, and even a unified mathematical language has been developed to describe juggling tricks. Circus schools used to work with different methodologies, and had different names for the different juggling tricks, but today I can model the different forms of tricks with a phone app while walking down the street and practice them at will. 

The Hungarian Juggling Association has been introducing anyone to circus science in Hungary for more than 20 years, and that's why we created the Inspiral Circus Centre in Újbuda, in the birth of which I actively participated in 2016. This approach is called New Circus: there are no exotic animals, the focus is on the overall artistry, on human creativity, and we are defined by a community approach. 

We stand on the shoulders of giants, with a circus tradition that goes back more than 250 years, and it's a beautiful mission to carry it on in a sustainable, inclusive way.
 

How did the New Circus encounter social inequalities?

It was an exciting discovery that the circus can be a developer in more than one aspect. First of all, its social environment motivates and excites. A circus troupe is a special community, and its greatest strength is that what it creates is not ordinary, culture- and nation-independent. Creativity and the art of movement are expressed in collaboration, in joy, not competition. The point is to have fun, to have shared experiences, to live our creativity, to laugh a lot. Teachers and special education teachers have noticed that it also has a neuro-developmental effect. Complex movements such as acrobatics or juggling involve constant midline crossing and alternating sides, so they have a strong effect on the nervous system.

Yemeni refugees, immigrants, homeless children, people living with disabilities or in slums, psychiatric patients, prisoners, and drug addicts – the genre has an infinite variety of applications.

I have experience in all these areas. Social circus is the participatory use of circus arts to promote social inclusion. The professionals in this field are jugglers, acrobats, clowns and tightrope walkers, or even teachers who have realised the integrating, developmental and retaining power of the circus world. My favourite definition of circus is "the ring in which anything can appear". There is nothing in the world that you can define as not being a circus.

Here there is no exclusion, rejection or shaming. The circus is a tool for shaping the world.

Where did you find your place in it? 

I work in the Hungarian Juggling Association, I teach at the University of Óbuda and the University of Pannonia, and I run projects. One of them was when we created a joint programme with Roma children from Borsod county. We also hold weekly circus workshops with a small team of social circus trainers in a youth centre in Pesterzsébet, and we have also had drama education circus workshops in Karancslapujtő. These sessions offer the opportunity to connect: it is a living, deeply human and healing experience, and it shows pure, healthy self-love. Social circus performances have an impact on people, changing their perception of the performers. They see that these young people can do things they never thought they could do. We're not training professional acrobats, we're building community, taking circus skills on tour or performing for the village next door. 

Is learning circus tricks a visible sign of the reality of "I can do it" for the participants?

The biggest benefit of juggling, apart from its neurodevelopmental effect, is that it helps us to face learning obstacles. After all, for everyone, there comes a point when I give them a task so difficult that they fail. It is then that I can pass on a healthy attitude to failure, which enables me to maintain my perseverance, my faith in myself and in others, for example, that I will not be laughed at. And in God, that it is worth putting my energy into. There is no perfectionism here, no experience of punishment. 

We start by letting the tool fall and experience that it's not a terrible thing, it's not a failure, we don't get punished for it. 

We experience that gravity is our friend, we have no fear of the physical laws of the world. The circus is for everyone, everyone can use it, it is a spirit worth living in. 

If we create a small community, where we listen to each other, and pay attention to each other, then is it not completely irrelevant whether it's a circus or a stamp collection club or something else?

It is irrelevant because this is love, the highest degree of art. And the circus has the great advantage of being incredibly attention-grabbing, which means it's easy to get people to get involved.
 

Independence is the gateway to our adult lives. Do you remember the time when you started to become independent from your parents when you felt the freedom and power of your own? 

I always saw that the strength was in the family, that I got a lot of things from them: my strength, my sense of humour, the certainty that we would somehow cope with life, that we would not see the difficulties, but would look for the solution. That's what always characterized my life. I started to feel that I was on my own path when I learned to swim and started to move towards competitive sport. At first, I thought that I was born this way, to be a Paralympic champion, and that was how life would make up for it. 

Although I didn't really know why I needed to be compensated, it was just that since society reflected that I was somehow less and couldn't live a normal life, I thought I really needed to be compensated. 

Then my career as an athlete didn't go straight to gold, my life was full of difficulties and challenges. It took a lot of humility and perseverance to even get to the Tokyo Paralympics.

Did you ever rebel as a teenager or adolescent? 

I had a normal teenage life in the sense that there was swimming, so I didn't really go anywhere. I went to maybe two house parties. The conflict came more from the fact that I had a really hard time with boarding school. I was living in Rezi, and I was going to high school in Zalaegerszeg, fifty kilometers away, so I moved to a dorm. Unfortunately, they didn't support me in doing sports there, I had a completely different daily rhythm than the others, I had a hard time following the rules there because I was still in the swimming pool in the evening, and that's why I was always the black sheep. In Zalaegerszeg, I didn't like swimming so much, but my teammates and I loved each other, and they are still my friends. It was hard to come up to Pest because I was alone here, but I'm glad I decided to do so.  

Was this an important step towards your goal? 

Yes, but it took luck and even misfortune to succeed because an injury revealed that I had been competing in the wrong category for twelve years, with others who were more able-bodied than me. But thanks to that, the hundred-meter breasts stroke then looked so smooth. I focused on the task, not on the outcome. I was at the top of the world rankings and I'd won World Championships and European Championships, but I'd also had three failed Paralympics, so by the fourth, I let go of that cramp because I felt I'd done everything. Anyone who becomes a Paralympic champion or medallist, or even makes it to the Paralympics, has already overcome some difficulty and put it in a 'box'.

Those who make it to a competition have usually already won the biggest battle of their lives. 

But you also have to see that if you're an Olympian, everyone carries you around, if you go into a shop, they recognise you, but if you're a Paralympian, they just see that there's something wrong with you, it's usually the disability is the first thing that comes to people's minds about you. 

What does water mean to you as a medium? 

Of course, I breathe with my lungs, but I feel much better in the water. In the water, there are no obstacles, no stairs, no elevator to break down. It's just the water and you and the silence. You are locked in the pool with your thoughts. And it makes a big difference what you think about when you're training.

Isn't the brain dominated only by the rational goal, the pace, the distance, and the execution of movements? 

It is impossible to never think of anything else. Sure, there are some training sessions where you have to be very focused and block everything out, but you're in the pool with your head in the pool. However, swimming always has a beneficial effect on my problems. 

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Photo: László Emmer

You are alone in the pool, but your coach is at the side of the pool. Who, in your case, is sometimes more than that. Your first coach was your father, and then Álmos Szabó, who became your fiancé. 

Yes, there was a time when my dad was standing there, I don't think that was good for our relationship. Sure, we did it, we went forward, but we took the work home. We weren't professionals, just simply a father and daughter. When he was no longer my coach, it was much easier for us to talk about swimming. At the same time, if it hadn't been for those two years, I wouldn't have been so humble and hardworking, he taught me that, even though it had nothing to do with swimming. At first Álmos was just my coach and I came up to Budapest to train with him, giving myself another chance because I wanted to quit after the London Paralympics. I had shoulder surgery and I felt the whole thing was hopeless because I was competing against people I wasn't in the same category with. That kills the sport. There was a glimmer of hope there that they would rethink this category system and then they would re-examine me, I didn't think it would come so much later. In training sessions I was in a group of people who were really para-swimmers, people like me, I enjoyed being the best in training, always pushing.

In the beginning, when Álmos became my partner, we agreed that we mustn't take work home from training and vice versa.

Of course, the latter is the harder one, not bringing your private life into the pool, especially now that we have a child, but we try and I think it works.

You used to feel that when people looked at you, they only saw what you lacked. Becoming a woman, and accepting yourself, is difficult for most young girls. In addition, your life as an athlete has been spent in a triangle of swimming pool, home, and gym, with few opportunities for privacy and perhaps less feedback from the opposite sex. 

I used to feel that as a teenager. As a kid, I always had someone to court - even if I didn't like him - I got love letters, like everyone else. I wasn't looked at by my peers as the legless one, but as Fanni the cool one, the one you could hang out with, skateboard with, whatever. When everyone around me grew up, and I had no one, I took up swimming, and I was like, "Later on, there will be someone who will not look at me and see that I have no legs, but what's inside. But of course, I was sad about it.

Do you remember the first time you felt strong, beautiful, and confident? 

I think when Álmos and I fell in love. That was a big change in my life. Even though people said I was beautiful before, you don't really believe everyone. He was the one who asked me why I wore my prosthetic legs if I didn't like them. And at that time, I started to swim very well.

It's interesting that no matter how much you are loved and supported by your family, you don't believe them when they praise you. It's important to have someone emotionally close to you, yet from outside in a sense, to hold up a mirror to you. 

Yes, Álmos was the one who really made me believe that I could achieve serious results from my work. 

Today, young people very often can't find a partner and try to divert their energies into studying or partying. The online world and the pandemic have also had an impact. 

Yes, unfortunately, it is not easy for young people to find a partner, and even if they do form a relationship, it lasts much shorter than it used to because they are not as persistent and honour is beginning to be eroded from society.

Are they afraid that they cannot trust others with their feelings? 

A lot of people are afraid to be themselves. One of my best friends, who was just as private as I was, I thought at first she was a bit of a boor, maybe a bit of a jerk and pretentious, and that was probably she thought of me at first, but we started talking, and she opened up, and I opened up. A lot of times we just forget to communicate with each other. 

Everything has sped up, and we don't take the time to get to know each other, and not to get to know each other online but in person. This is something that cannot be rushed but must be lived.

I used to think that if I could reach that result, if I achieved that many kilos, then I would be happy. It doesn't work that way. That's why I was able to become a Paralympic champion, because in the last three months I didn't think about the next day, I just thought about the present, e.g.: about how joyful the excursion was I was on at that moment. I didn't overthink, even though I was under a lot of pressure. My little boy has taught me that the present is important.

When you decided to put down the prosthetic legs you had been learning to walk on for so many years since you were little, was that also an act of self-acceptance? 

Yes. I've always felt more comfortable without my prosthetic legs. When I went home or went back to the dorm, I took them off. We have to have the courage to be ourselves, with the bad or bad memories and the good ones. It's always balanced somehow. I have a visible physical flaw, and I also have a lot of other flaws, as do others. That's me, all things considered. Even though social media pushes us to only show the good side of ourselves and only talk about what's positive in our lives, it makes a lot of people anxious.

And everything is traceable, open to misinterpretation and even manipulation. Is it too risky to expose your soul? 

It is, but you don't have to. Family is all that matters. It doesn't matter if they're rude to you on the bus or in the store or you get fined by the police because you go home and what matters is what's there. They know who you are at home, with all your traumas and everything. But for that, you have to create a home where you can really put your soul out to those who deserve it. 

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Photo: László Emmer

Were you afraid of being a mum before your son, Mór arrived? 

Yes, very much so, because it was not possible to rehearse for this in advance. Before that, I learned how I could do what I had to do in other ways: sit on the toilet on my own, bathe in the bathtub, as a child, I even learned how to climb trees or skateboard without legs. With lots and lots of practice. Some things worked the first time, some things didn't. But in case of a child, there is no practice. That's why I was afraid. Then one day I saw a mom online who had no arms. I realized I had a much easier job. However, when I announced that I was pregnant, I received a lot of negative comments on social media.

And the most hurtful wasn't even when they wrote that I was crippled and unfit, but when they targeted my baby, asking me what kind of life I was giving him, and saying that I wouldn't be able to run after him, and that was life-threatening. 

That I am making his life miserable by being like this. It's a very sensitive time anyway, pregnancy and motherhood with a baby, but I also had these stupid questions. I do read comments, even from people I don't know, because I feel they make me grow. I dare to face them and myself. It wasn't easy, but I felt strengthened by the fact that I didn't have to answer just for myself. I'm not a conflict avoider, I accept negative criticism, but then the commenter should face my response, too.

But at the same time, do they take you away from the environment that matters, from the present, from the family? 

It's much better if I learn to deal with that if I understand how people see me. And it has a much more of a positive effect on me now than it did a few years ago.

It's amazing how much you can do on your own. Many of us struggle to accept help from others. How do you feel about that? It's probably no secret that when it turned out that they were fixing the lift at today's photo shoot, Álmos carried you up to the second floor in his arms. 

For me, this is one of the most difficult. I have struggled all my life to never for a moment need help because I have a disability. Álmos has helped me a lot to think differently. He does what's a man's job, not because I don't have legs, but because he is the man.

In raising your son, do you see the benefit of having fought hard for everything? 

Mór is one and a half years old. He started doing everything very early, he was very intelligent from the start, which was nice to see, especially after so many people wrote him off during my pregnancy saying he'd be disabled and a freak. But I want to teach him that you have to fight for things. I want to teach him humility, diligence, and respect for others. I'm not as soft-hearted as his daddy, I wait until he manages something on his own and then he can be so happy! I don't want to make him feel "you are a little kid and you can't do anything". He obviously feels that I'm there and if he can't do it by the fifteenth time, I'll help him. My parents raised me the same way.

At six months pregnant, you were still training and then you went back to the pool while breastfeeding. That's tough... 

It was hard to go back to swimming, but it's what I do for a living, if I go on maternity leave for two years, my swimming career is over. I also didn't want Mór to grow up with the idea that I quit because of him. In hindsight, I feel it was too soon to go back, but I'm over it now. I'm glad he's attached to my mum, that we're not the only ones for him, I can see how kids who are always with their mum are a bit more anxious. 

He is very open to the world, bold enough to go up to everyone and smile. Of course, when it comes to giving a high five or accepting something, there's a reticence in him, thankfully. 

I often wondered in the beginning what I was doing in a swimming pool when I had a son at home. I knew what I was committing to, it's just different to know and different to feel and experience. And I've broken a lot of rules that I thought as a top athlete, for example, that we would sleep in separate rooms... 

Then you are not so tough as a mother.

As soon as he was born, I felt I couldn't do it. And I'm away from him a lot, so I didn't want to be away from him at night, too. And it was good for him. He slept through the night from the age of four months... when he wasn't teething. But otherwise, we take him everywhere with us, even to training camps with mum. We've been carrying him everywhere from the very beginning. He likes the pool, too because he likes to be where we are.

If I ask you again the question that is important to all of us, why did God create you, what is your answer? 

Well, to be Mór's mum. To tell him: it's not the difficulty you have to look at, but the opportunity. We have only one life, and I don't live it sitting at home in front of the TV and moping because I am a disabled person who, according to a part of society, is supposed to mourn for what she lost. My parents never let me think that way either. 
 

A yellow wagtail runs ahead of us, then flies up the nearest fence post when we get too close. A redshank goes into emergency mode when it sees us, shouting "teu-tu-tu" loudly standing on a stake protecting its chicks. A reed warbler sings in the reeds.

"Oh, wow! A garganey!" - suddenly bursts from my companion. When I look over to where Attila Pellinger, head of the Conservation Department of the Fertő-Hanság National Park Directorate, is pointing, the laying duck is "pretending" to be injured, offering us the chance to catch it, while its chicks swim to a safe distance. It flies up and down over the water, flapping its wings, trying to make us think it is injured, but when it notices that the chicks have hidden in the reeds, it swims peacefully away. The expert says he hasn't seen one nesting here for years.

We are in the middle of the nesting season, thousands of birds are crowding the reeds. Squacco herons are passing overhead, not very common around here, they don't spend much time here, just passing guests. We spot a flock of young bearded reedlings, so curious that they follow us for a while, flitting from branch to branch.

We pass a flock of black-winged stilts protecting their young, breaking out in a fierce squawk, trying to divert us from their young. 

According to Attila Pellinger, this year a record number of breeding has been observed, with fifty pairs of black-winged stilt breeding in Hungary and over 300 in Austria. 

This is a big deal because, he says, he has been working in the national park for more than three decades and there have been times when no pairs have nested in the area for ten years.

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Attila Pellinger, nature conservation expert of the Fertő-Hanság National Park - Photo: Tamás Velkei

Every intervention generates change

The abundance of birds in the Fertő-Hanság National Park is not a coincidence, but the result of decades of systematic conservation work. The Fertő lake we know today was formed after drainage. Over the centuries before that, when the vast basin filled up, the Fertő and the Hanság became completely confluent. Water moved back and forth between the two areas. When the Hanság was drained, the Fertő would have been drained too, but at the end of the 19th century the bed dried up naturally and it was found that the soil was not suitable for farming.

The prevailing winds are now south-westerly, but it used to be north-westerly, so the wind often pushed the water into the southern basin of the lake, causing water levels to fluctuate by up to a meter. This is how the (fishing) village of Sarród came to be located where the Kócsagvár, the national park's new center, is now. "To prevent the water level from swaying, they raised the dam we are now passing," says Attila Pellinger, showing how the man-made landmark divides the area into two parts, the Fertő riverbed and the salt marsh. 

In the early 1990s, a habitat rehabilitation program included the construction of a sluice on the dam, which allowed water to flow back towards the drained riverbed. As a result, there are many more birds there now than before the re-flooding.

The success of the project is even more valuable in the light of the fact that in more than thirty years, Europe's bird populations have declined by almost thirty percent. 

One reason for this is intensive agriculture, the use of chemicals, soil cultivation and, for example, chemical mosquito control. Mosquito control is also particularly worrying because it kills not only the disease-carrying insect but also many other insects that many vertebrates feed on. Every human intervention in nature triggers changes in wildlife, and the outcome is up to us. The other reason is the wintering grounds of migratory species: the population explosion in Mediterranean and tropical areas and the impact of the people living there on nature.

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Photo: Tamás Velkei

The heron is the hardware, the behaviour is the software

The work in the Fertő-Hanság National Park can be considered as an etalon, with birds from hundreds of different species arriving each year. Here we need to stop for a word to clarify what exactly bird migration means. "Bird migration is not about birds moving south in winter, in fact it is the other way round. What we call bird migration has its origins in the end of the ice age: as the ice layer moved northwards, birds were able to occupy more and more land. As there is not enough food in central Europe in winter, birds migrate (back) to where they can find food. In other words, they fly further south to stay alive. This is what we know as bird migration," explains my guide. 

Proof of this is that some birds still "bypass" obstacles that no longer exist because genetically they have a fixed route. The flight route is passed down from generation to generation.

There are countless patterns in migration, no two are the same, they are completely different in time and space. In species that live long, learning also plays a role. This group includes storks, herons, wild geese, swans, and birds of prey that can live up to 30 years or more. The Wisdom albatross, which breeds on an island in the Pacific, is about 70 years old and still nesting. The person who put a ring on it 50 years ago is no longer alive. 

We can distinguish three main stages in the migration process: the spring migration to the nesting site, the autumn migration to the wintering area, and the so-called vagrancy period in between. The spring migration is very fast, because the birds need to get from the wintering site to the nesting site as soon as possible to ensure their reproduction. Autumn is a slower process, only the weather can hurry the birds along. The intermediate period is the "vagrancy" period, a time of learning. 

The migratory behaviour of birds differs in many other ways. For example, the egret, which can be familiar from the protected area signs, no longer migrates south, but west, as far as Portugal. This may be because the ones that flew in the other direction did not survive the journey, while those that flew west did, and passed this 'route' on to their offspring. In other words, biological characteristics, and evolutionary mechanisms, can change even in the short term. 

The easiest way to think of behaviour is as a computer software. 

The hardware is the egret that runs the programs. The one that is successful is preserved and passed on, the ones that is not, kills the animal and then it can no longer pass that code on to its offspring.

Trying to survive in constant danger

For several species, the Danube is the dividing line for bird migration in Hungary. But there's a reason for everything. Take the cranes, for example: they arrived from the Baltic region to the Tisza area in Hungary. While cold winters were raging in Hungary, they gathered around Kardoskút,  in the Southern Great Plain region of south-east Hungary. As the climate started to warm up and industrial farming methods became more widespread, the feeding area increased (thanks especially to maize) , so that the grain left in the fields after the harvest turned the area into a real Canaan for the birds. 

"They don't gather on the Hortobágy because it would be so particularly good for them there, but because they need somewhere to spend the night to feel safe from furry predators, and the shallow waters of the fish lake systems are excellent for this," says Attila Pellinger. 

We can also distinguish between short- and long-distance migratory birds, the latter including those that fly across the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert. Once they reach the narrow coastal strip in the north of Africa, they gather strength before flying over the Sahara. "Unfortunately, I have to mention a growing problem here: as coastal countries see tourism as the future, they are constantly building in and paving over this narrow coastal strip where birds can feed before flying across the desert." 

"All this seriously undermines the survival chances of long-term migrants. They'd need to store fat before the longer journey to keep up their strength. But they can no longer find food in harbours or hotels," says Attila Pellinger, outlining the sad reality. 

In other words, the number of birds that nest in the Hungarian national park is not only dependent on the work of the park's staff.

The expert adds that birds that do make it to Central Africa can often fall prey to the growing, developing but extremely poor population there - hundreds of kilometres of nets trap the birds. In the Arab world, birds of prey are captured because they are status symbols; elsewhere, beautiful, colourful species are sold to pet shops. Many birds are killed during capture. For all these reasons, the numbers of long-distance migratory birds are steadily declining, some dramatically. 

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Black-winged stilts flying in the Fertő-Hanság National Park – Photo: tamás Velkei

A tiny backpack may be placed on the bird

Experts draw their knowledge from bird markings. Yet just 150 years ago, most people had no idea where the birds disappeared to in winter. Towards the end of the 19th century, a Danish secondary school teacher had the idea of ringing the animals. 

Back then, anyone who found a ringed bird would place an ad in the newspaper. 

Of course, the system is now much more sophisticated. 

Nowadays, rings are not only placed on the legs of birds, in the case of some waterfowl species lightweight, brightly coloured leg or neck rings are used. Today, even trackers can be fitted on the animals, with integrated power collection panels, SIM cards and antennas. The device resembles a small backpack the size of a matchbox. These devices are relatively expensive, although they can help you gather hundreds of pieces of feedback information on a bird. 

Bird ringing is also necessary because professionals need to have knowledge of what they are trying to protect. Individual marking can reveal many things, such as how "loyal" pairs are to each other; for example, a greylag goose, when it loses its mate, does not look for a new one, but helps the community. 

The greylag geese form a colony anyways, in which the young are cared for together. This is also known from marking: sometimes individual birds that have never been seen before appear in the grazing group. 

It's also been observed that there are pairs that tend to 'drop off' their young, while at the same time there are pairs that take in those young. 

While we walk talking, sometimes we can barely hear each other's words, as the birds grazing not far away from us chirp and honk. Attila Pellinger and I climb up to a high bird watch stand, from where we admire black-winged stilts, geese, and grey herons. Nearby, reed warblers sing that nest in the border zone between reeds and grassland. 

More than 400 species of birds have been recorded in Hungary in recent decades (not all migratory, of course), and the number of species recorded in the Fertő-Hanság National Park is close to this number. There are also success stories: in the 1980s, it was still a rarity to see egrets in the area – but today, we pass not one group of them searching for food in the reeds.
 

It's a small village, but it has a unified, clean style, it seems to represent tradition and simple values.

There are about thirty of us living here, the whole village consists of twenty or thirty houses and a row of wine cellars. The style has become more and more uniform over the years. It used to be a somewhat patchwork settlement (apologies to the residents of the time), now when they renovate a house they pay attention to the traditional style. All the owners feel this desire, it is not something we have collectively agreed on. An archaeologist and a graphic artist also live in the village, the homes have a good atmosphere.

I have noticed that a common element is the embossed year on the facades and the crowstepped gable. When I walk around, I feel that there is a kind of spirit to the place.

The plaster decoration is usually the year of construction, here the houses are built on simple rectangular foundations with delicate decoration. We don't have the adjacent porches, mansards, balconies, or elaborate roofs. In the old days, if someone wanted to stand out, they would put a bit more plaster decoration on the facade, or put a taller crowstepped gable, so that the house would look bigger from the outside than its actual area. I hope that the local Schönstatt movement also adds to the creativity of the spirituality. 

You're not from this place originally, but rather a kind of "newcomer ". Did you have to struggle for the status?

My wife was three when she moved here with her parents - who were warmly welcomed by the village - and she grew up here, so I had a connection to the land through her from the beginning. 

What kind of life were you preparing for before you met Anna?

Since I was 16, I wanted to live in a village, even though I am originally from Pest. My life with Anna was not the classic story of being tired of the city or wanting new challenges, so we moved to the countryside. 

I studied Hungarian and comparative literature, and so did my wife, and even before university, we were looking for the possibility of a life in the countryside. 

When we graduated – which was a long time coming – we made our vision a reality.

Two young intellectuals studying in Pest, who had not even begun their lives in the capital... How did you manage to establish the country life you wanted?

Anna and I got married before even starting our university studies, and then we started to have children and had to earn money. We didn't start our family in the classical order, but first we had children, then we earned money, then we bought a house, and then we went to university. The idea was that after graduation I would teach while farming. I had an arranged job in the nearby town of Ajka, where I would have started teaching in September, so in the summer of 2006 we moved to Óbudavár, but in August the school told me that they had found another way and did not need me.

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Photo: Andrea Csongor

On one of the T-shirts in the guest house there is a quote: 'Faith in Providence requires a constant death leap'. The trust you had in the presence of the other shore was there, even as fog shrouded the other side. How did you move on?

We took several gap-years during our studies at the university and went out to Vienna to work, thus creating the financial basis. Anna worked in a tobacconist's and I was a bicycle messenger. When we bought the house, there was still a lot of work to be done, because in the eighties the house, which was originally a historical building, had been demolished to the ground and rebuilt in a not-very-nice way. In the meantime, our children were born in a row: Jakab, Sámuel, Jónás, and here in Óbudavár Izsák, Magdaléna (Lenka) and Támár. 

We moved here with three children, just in time for the eldest to start school.

You were going to teach in Ajka, but this opportunity did not materialize. It must have been a difficult moment.

It didn't feel good... But in Monostorapáti, there was a Swiss foundation that ran a programme for difficult children, the idea being to break them out of the dysfunctional cycle they had been in. In this beautiful Hungarian village, they found themselves in a completely different environment, helping around the animals in a farm. I got a job there, worked with the children, talked to them, took care of the animals together, and here they got a chance to sort their lives out. It was a difficult genre, but it was there that I met a farmer who kept sheep and got some useful ideas for farming from him. I had no previous experience of this, but I read books, asked questions and got answers to my questions.

An intellectual family with three children, and you've suddenly decided you'd rather be farming...

When I came up with the idea at home, I had to promise never to bring manure into our home (let's not ask if I've kept my promise). I started small, with three goats. It wasn't a firm decision, more like a lot of little emergencies and choices, for example, if there was a month or two of no money because there was no work at the children's centre, I was prepared to make the switch. I loved working there, but there were periods of uncertainty. When the foundation closed down, I used my father-in-law's land, and later we had ten goats, but there was a point when we had seventy. 

When the goats didn't give milk for some reason, even though my customers were counting on me, and I didn't have anything to serve them with, I had a cow. 

Step by step, you have made the dream a reality. 

People who come to the countryside expecting a stress-free rural life are usually disappointed, but there are different ways to react to disappointment. They are disappointed because life here is highly exposed to the weather and countless variables, with a lot of work and vulnerability. Those who arrive in the spring are surprised to find that they can spend weeks in the mud in the autumn. 

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Photo: Andrea Csongor

There is also a retreat center and a shrine in the village.

The Apostolic Movement of Schoenstatt is a Catholic movement that started in Germany, which began to gain ground in Hungary in the 1980s, and has its centre here. It strives for holiness in everyday life, a covenant of love with Mary and a practical faith in providence. From small, everyday events to historic turning points, we are constantly searching for the answer to what Providence is telling us. From a structural point of view, the uniqueness of the movement is that it is made up of individual small communities, and it seeks to address each community in its own uniqueness and according to its phase in life. In our community, the family movement is the strongest, we are bound to the movement as a couple, as a family. In Óbudavár we created the Marriage Path, a fifteen-station walking trail, the stations representing the different stages and difficulties of marriage. The stations encourage people to stop and talk.

What inspired this community to create a movement within a Catholic framework? Is there a need for a more practical relationship with God behind it?

Why are there monastic orders? When movements within the Catholic Church have been created, they have always been in response to a particular issue of the time. The Benedictine Order was a response to the harmony between work and religion, to the question of leaving the world: this was an important response at the time, and the Benedictines became the bearers of the culture of the time. The age of St. Francis called for another answer, a stronger experience of dependence on God through poverty, a more direct relationship with nature. The Jesuits live a radical way of obedience. Through the ages, God is always trying to gift the Church and, through her, the world. Schoenstatt is one such gift.

What question was this movement the answer to?

The theoretical and practical breakdown of families. 

Today, we see that many families are falling apart because they simply fail to stick together, but there is also a theoretical attack on families. 

Anna's parents started the movement back in 1983. Later, more and more families joined and slowly the centre was built on the outskirts of the village. Living with the village was not always without conflict, but today we have a peaceful relationship. Today, families come to us for retreats throughout the summer and almost every weekend and more than a hundred families support the work here. This is what I was called to do today and here, Anna and I have become the managers of the Centre.