"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.
 

For years, your articles in Képmás magazine has been about artificial intelligence and fake news, and this book, written by fourteen different authors, is about the intertwining of these two problems. How did this collection, which you edited together with linguist and communication researcher Dr. Ágnes Veszelszki, come about?  

When ChatGPT was made available for free in February 2023, the age of artificial intelligence came as suddenly as wars broke out overnight. Even before that, there was much talk of a metaverse, but we thought robotization would change our lives by taking over the physical work from humans. So the book was obviously not written when this news came out, it was lying dormant. A year and a half earlier, we had organised a professional conference which had already shown that there was a lot of interest in deepfake, because artificial intelligence generates millions of messages every day, and we cannot tell whether they are real or not.  

This book illustrates that it is useful to approach these new phenomena with a combined, problem-based approach from different scientific disciplines, just as it is high time to move beyond the subject-based framework in education.  

The book tries to approach the phenomenon in a variety of ways, for example with fourteen definitions emphasizing different factors. The authors are not all equally pessimistic or optimistic. 

We aimed to create a professional book in which we can make people aware that this is not a problem for others, but a task for all of us.

It was important that people could also read about this topic in Hungarian.

The essays in the book show, among other things, that while the brain can sometimes instinctively distinguish a false image from the real one, the human mind sometimes overrides intuition and seeks a kind of "comfortable truth" in order to function effectively.  

Lying is nothing new, humans have been lying since they were born, and so have many other creatures. To get along in society, we need this tool a little, for example, we can consider certain forms of politeness to be beneficial lies. 

We believe about half of the lies to be true, saving ourselves from dramatic daily realizations such as: "this person doesn't like me after all". 

What's new in deepfake is the programmer who enters our lies and produces free programs to, for example, paste the picture of my ex I'm angry at into porn content, or put my own compulsive fantasies into the mouth of a rival politician to discredit him. Moreover, the user or programmer cannot be held liable for this, nor can they be exposed.  

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Photo: László Emmer

And can we not believe that this will only affect us if we are important enough in public life?  

No. In fact, the deepfake about ordinary people is less recognisable than the deepfake about public life. We can think of a personal revenge or simply a student prank, for example, when teenagers make a fake video of their teacher or classmate. Deepfake is the use of artificial intelligence to plagiarise a person. I portray someone without their will: I make them speak and act, for my own benefit. There are, of course, precedents for fake reality: some of us may remember the first fake Hungarian documentary attempt, The Oil Gobblers. A whole country was abuzz because, by the rules of the genre, it was so believable. 

At the same time, deepfake emphasises the exploitation of the person, the personality. What makes this theme so important is the ease of access. Free software makes it possible not only for certain people, using techniques available in certain studios, to produce fake content, but also for bank fraudsters or people pretending to be someone's grandchild asking for money from grandparents, for example. But content created out of good intentions can later become harmful since it is impossible to determine the future of what is put online.

There are relatively few prophecies or predictions in the essays. Do you think that if the online space is flooded with unverifiable content from the "holy amateurs" of content production, won't the credibility of professions and individuals be reassessed?  

There is no prediction in the book because, as I said, we could not have predicted that it would so suddenly become such a significant issue, so widely. This is a warning to us to be cautious in our predictions about our processes. Will credibility be appreciated more? It does not have to be appreciated more, because credibility is still the most valuable thing today. 

Credibility is not just about reasonableness, and it does not operate on a purely informational basis. It requires the power of full experience, the weight of reality. 

As you said, we really don't teach cross-curricular problems and skills, and intuition has been taken out of our education for centuries. I think it is also very much missing from our culture, from the interactions that are important to us. And it is our intuition with which we perceive authenticity most of the time.  

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Photo: László Emmer

However, not to have any prejudices based on intuition is in front of us as a stop sign...  

But prejudice remains in technology just the same, it's just someone programming their values, their truths into it. We have very much underestimated our soft skills, we explain man in two dimensions as rational or emotional. But there is a third dimension in each of us: the moral-transcendental. The device can pretend to be emotional, the voice-based artificial intelligence can talk to you in Hungarian in a kindly, polite way. You might even feel that it is your friend. We now know that you can fall in love with a voice assistant. There are even examples of people who have married their voice assistant. But as human-faced as AI is, it doesn't have a vision of God. It lacks something human, that certain third dimension that is necessary to know and understand the whole world. 

Do you feel anxiety about the world shaped by artificial intelligence?  

At first, I felt a resistance, a kind of detachment that told me: this is just for fun. Then I realized that I had to be involved in this because communication is my specialty. But I am not afraid. I think I am free to decide what to do with this opportunity. I can see that there is caution and suspicion in people in the workplace. Most of all, we fear that we ourselves will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Most parents are also worried about their children when they use new technologies. 

So we blame technology, but we live with its potential, but also in its bondage. And there are good aspects of technology, including AI, for example in education, when it brings history to life, or when it simulates a chemical experiment.

How vulnerable are we?  

At a societal level, there is the potential for a repressive ideology to take hold through deepfake content because it is worth investing money in. Today, states are spending a lot of money on how they can influence wars with artificial intelligence. I think vulnerability develops when you don't ask, don't seek, don't talk, don't make changes. There is no need for an eight-month-old child to spend one, two or three hours a day in front of a screen, many parents have actually managed to keep their preschoolers away from that. We need to talk about how we can be influenced by the new media as a medium, we need to admit our own addictions. 

And it's worth asking, for example, your teenage child if they know of any free artificial intelligence software, and if so, why they use it. If we don't think we are omniscient, but ask our child for advice, we can learn from each other. We can ask them, "Hey, that text or picture you put together is exciting, funny, but have you thought about whether it's yours or the algorithm's, or the company's that programmed it?" Their responses can bring us closer to becoming aware, ourselves as well as them, of what technology can do to us, through us. 

At what points should moral and ethical considerations and legal regulation regulate and prevent the creation of deepfake content?  

This should be a simultaneous process. The state cannot afford not to regulate, and Europe is trying to do so, just think of the important rules on data protection. 

The law can give us guidance, but we have to save ourselves. 

I can choose to entertain myself by watching porn with actresses' faces. If I do, no one is protected by the law. What the AI does, I do, or another person does. This needs to be talked about, not with a constant sense of threat, but with an intention to change or improve. Of course, technology saves us time, only to take it away at the same time. In any case, it cannot bring the end of the world without us. So it is up to us what we allow it to do.  
 

Palace for a gift 

Summer of 1866... Sissi, Empress of Austria, is forced to flee with her children to Pest-Buda in Hungary to escape the Prussian armies approaching Vienna. Her husband, Franz Joseph, tries to save the empire on his own, unaware that this time, despite his best efforts, the saviour will not be the army or the diplomatic corps, but the Empress, who disregards court etiquette.  

Sissi spends almost all her free time with a charming Hungarian count, Gyula Andrássy, in Buda, who is feverishly trying to convince the beautiful Empress that the Emperor must come to an agreement with the Hungarians, who were defeated in the 1848/49 War of Independence, or the whole empire will fall apart. 

On a hot August day, Count Andrássy and Sissi – accompanied by the always present lady-in-waiting Ida Ferenczy – visit the Gödöllő castle, where a military hospital is currently operating in the riding stables. Even in its deteriorating state, the castle wins Sissi's favour. The Empress does not yet suspect that, after their solemn coronation, she will receive it as a wedding gift from the Hungarian Parliament, at Andrássy's intercession. 

This is the beginning of Sisi's happiest time. In Gödöllő, she is finally free, close to her beloved Hungarians and far from the intrigues of the Viennese court. And close to Count Andrássy...  

Masters come and go, the staff stays

Mór Bán's historical epic is a chronicle of a hundred years of the royal palace in Gödöllő, which is also an unusual family novel. The heroes of the Palace series are the owners and the staff of the palace. Some of the actual protagonists – the respective lords of the castle – change from age to age: Governor Kossuth, a Belgian bank, Sisi, the beloved Queen of the Hungarians, her husband Franz Joseph, Charles IV, the last Hungarian king, Béla Kun's warlike Red Army soldiers, generals of the occupying Romanian army, Miklós Horthy and his family, officers of the Wehrmacht and later the Soviet army. Kings, dukes, counts, foreign invaders, generals, communists and Nazis - the palace has embodied every turn in Hungarian history for a hundred years. 

But the staff are almost the same, or at least very similar, for a hundred years – fathers give their places to their sons, mothers to their daughters – the maids, butlers, gardeners, and stewards always remain, while the lords of the palace change through the storms of history. The pages of this series tell the realistic and poignant story of the masters and staff of Gödöllő.

The first volume of the Palace series, Palace for a Gift, was published by Hitel Publishing at the end of May 2024, and the second volume, The Only One, will be published next year. The cover of the book, which has around 300 pages, features Tímea Dutka, the castle's guide in costume. A short novel, Red Storm, was published at the same time as the first volume, and was available in a limited edition, bound together with the Palace for a gift.  

The protagonist of the series is not Queen Elizabeth, but a fictional character, Dénes Monostory, a footman who later becomes butler and then butler-in-chief, is born in 1848 and lives for about a hundred years. He has seen and experienced many things. His life, his loves and his struggles, spanning a century, are brought to life on the pages of the book. 
"As a baby, he sees Kossuth, Görgey, Windisch-Grätze, the invading Austrian and Tsarist Russian troops in his mother's arms. As a young man, he joins the staff of the palace when, at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the Hungarian nation presents the Gödöllő palace as a coronation gift to Franz Joseph and Sissi. He then lived through the happy times of peace and then the First World War. Charles IV, then Béla Kun's Red Army soldiers, then the generals of the invading Romanian army, and then another long period of peace, when the castle becomes the summer residence of the Horthy family. Then came the Second World War, and German and then Soviet troops settled in the castle. The staff stayed the same all along. (...)  

The Palace depicts Hungarian history on a small scale – Gödöllő, like a revolving stage, displays everything and everyone.  

(...) Only in the meantime, history raced over their heads with the speed of an express train" – says writer Mór Bán in the book's background material.  

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"Are you happy here, Your Majesty?" 

After studying the sources, the author came to the conclusion that Queen Elizabeth always represented the interests of the Hungarians in Vienna with stubbornness and determination, in defiance of her environment. She fully identified herself with the goals of the defeated freedom struggle, so it was no coincidence that the Hungarians were grateful to her for the rest of her life and even long afterwards. 

The first volume of the series, Palace for a Gift, also highlights Sissi's relationship with Count Andrássy. Was it love? Or "just" infatuation? If love, could it have been fulfilled? But anyone who expects the book to reveal this clearly will be disappointed.  

Excerpt from the novel:  
– Are you happy here, Your Majesty?  – The Count asked.  
Sissi looked at him.  
– You know I am. This palace embodies everything I've ever wanted.  
– Everything?  
– I can be free here. Here I can be myself. I love this place, I love the air, I love the silence, I love this building, I love my room... Thank you, Count. I know I owe it all to you.

People have many different images of Sissi, from the 1955 Austro-German film Sissi and its leading actress, the glamorous Romy Schneider, to the Netflix series The Empress, released in 2022, to the myth-busting Corsage by Austrian director Marie Kreutzer.  

"Is it possible to portray this era and the character of Queen Elizabeth in a new way without repeating familiar phrases or – sufficiently departing from clichés – without making Sisi fans shake their heads in disbelief?" – Mór Bán asked at the book launch. Meanwhile, Tamás Ujvári, director of the Royal Palace of Gödöllő, stressed that there has not been many novels, films, musicals, plays or any other light-hearted style of adaptation in which the royal palace of Gödöllő and the Hungarian aspect through it is prominently featured.
„A gödöllői kastély közel háromszáz esztendős történetében szinte végig »csúcsidőszakot« élt meg. Színes, feledhetetlen történetek zajlanak ezen háromszáz év alatt az épületben, történelmi karakterek sokasága bukkan fel itt, néha csak néhány napra, néha évtizedekre” – fogalmazott az igazgató.  

The place has become the main stage not only of Hungarian but also of European and sometimes even world history.  

For example, Antal Grassalkovich, the builder of the palace, is an important historical figure, yet people know almost nothing about him. 

A new Downton Abbey?

"Back in the day, the English comedy series "You rang, M'Lord?" was a big hit in Hungary, starring, as we all know, a London aristocratic family and their staff. The dynamics of the series were primarily the relationships, conflicts, and dialogues between characters of different ranks and status. This line was continued by the also highly successful Downton Abbey, which also included historical events in its plot – but the story itself was basically based on fiction", recalled Gábor Csaba Kárpáti, Managing Director of Hitel Publishing.  

Mór Bán is a fan of Downton Abbey himself, and ten years ago he told a friend how much he loved the British series. This friend told him he had recently read an article about the palace in Gödöllő. It was then that the idea and the main setting for the Palace book series was born. A century of our history can be traced in broad outline - and with some poetic exaggeration - through the history of the palace. According to the publisher, it would even be worth turning it into a television series, like Hunyadi.  
 

Over the Atlantic

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, used their fortune from bicycle manufacturing to experiment with aircraft in 1899. Their first plane took off in 1903, and they attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but without success. The life-threatening adventure attracted pilots like a magnet, but the breakthrough came in 1927, with Charles Lindbergh becoming the first person to fly across the ocean without landing. The downturn in the world of aviation caused by the First World War and the economic depression of 1929 was felt, but Lindbergh's success opened a new chapter in aviation history. Crowd-pleasing air shows and air races became widespread, motivating manufacturers to improve their products. 

Lockheed was the first company to start producing aircraft designed specifically for competition. 

The wooden-framed, radial-engine planes of the past were replaced by metal airplanes, including the Lockheed Vega, in which Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the ocean in 1932. 

Postcards for airplane

Inspired by Lindbergh's achievement, Sándor Magyar (Wilczek), a World War I war pilot who had emigrated to Canada, decided to become the first Hungarian to take on the challenge and chose fighter pilot György Endresz as his partner. The most important requirement was the purchase of a suitable aircraft. They chose the Lockheed Sirius, which Lindbergh had flown: the two-seater, single-engined, monoplane, four hundred and sixty horsepower type was the most suitable for the undertaking, but they did not have the necessary funds. The Hungarian immigrant community in the USA joined forces for a good cause, and the Detroit-based Hungarian American Transatlantic Committee was formed, which published and sold one-dollar postcards promoting Hungarian ocean flight. 

A total of five thousand dollars was raised from the campaign, but it still proved insufficient. That's when Emil Szalay, a butcher-turned-meat plant owner living in America, stepped in and donated all his savings, a total of twenty-five thousand dollars, to the pilots. This was enough not only to buy the plane but also to cover the extra costs. The case was backed by the well-known press magnate of the day, the British Lord Rothermere, who supported the Hungarian revisionist demands and offered ten thousand dollars to the pair who'd complete the flight successfully. 

The lord suggested painting the slogan Justice for Hungary on the side of the plane, reflecting on the decision made in Trianon.

5770 kilometres, 1520 minutes 

Navigator Sándor Magyar and pilot György Endresz took off from Harbour Grace Airport near Newfoundland, Canada, at 17:20 local time on 15 July 1931. The destination was Budapest. Antal Bánhidi, an aviation engineer, helped them to adapt the aircraft to the long journey. Among other things, the cherry-red Lockheed Sirius was given more fuel tanks and the landing gear was modified. But despite the thorough preparations, the flight was not without problems. 

Shortly after take-off, the ground induction compass failed, making navigation much more difficult, and this was exacerbated by adverse weather conditions, thick clouds and fog. The pilots used a telegraph to adjust their position with the help of ships on the route. After thirteen hours and fifty minutes, Magyar and Endresz reached Europe, near the coast of Ireland, and from there they continued their journey to Hungary. Travelling through thunderstorms and into a headwind, the fuel was running out faster than expected and by the time they reached Hungary, it had dropped to an alarming level. Near Bicske, less the 40 km from Budapest, the tank was completely empty and the engine stopped. 

Endresz controlled the emergency landing, and after 5770 kilometers and twenty-five – according to some sources twenty-six – hours and twenty minutes of flight, he landed the plane in a cornfield between Felcsút and Csákvár. Sándor Magyar recalled the landing in his book Álmodni mertünk ('We Dared to Dream'): "Suddenly, a hay cart turns out of the yellow meadow in front of us. Endresz turns left with a great presence of mind. The wheels of the machine are already touching the ground as it turns. With a violent jolt, it jumps up and down, then stops with a jerk at the edge of the cornfield and slowly tips over on its head. 
I jump out of the plane first, then Endresz. We stare at each other, speechless. Then Endresz looks at the machine and says sadly, "We did it, way to go." 

He turns away and wipes his tears with his oily hands. With a mixture of oil and tears, he draws long lines across his face. I smile, he's laughing now."  

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The Lockheed Sirius aircraft damaged during the emergency landing on the cornfield near the two villages– Photo: Fortepan.hu/ The Hungarian Museum of Science Technology and Transport / Archive / Negative Library / Collection of Historical Picture Gallery of the Hungarian National Museum

Triple record 

Although the plane suffered minor damage, with a broken propeller and damaged landing gear, the two pilots got out unhurt. They telephoned from the local post office to the airport in Budapest, where a crowd of tens of thousands awaited their arrival. "It was down to three litres of petrol that the Hungarian Jasons' masterpiece, the ocean flight, did not end with the aesthetic appearance that would have given a worthy frame to this magnificent achievement. There we waited and crowded on the pier of the harbour of Matyásföld, Budapest, the whole of official and unofficial Hungary, band and wreaths and the governor's tribune..." – Frigyes Karinthy writer and journalist reported from the scene for the Pesti Napló magazine. 

Waiting did not dishearten those celebrating, "one of the old, experienced pilots of the Hungarian Air Traffic R.T. [...] took the two ocean pilots and landed with them at exactly nine o'clock at the Mátyás-föld airport, where the ecstatic crowd broke through all barriers and rushed towards the heroic pilots, whom they lifted up on their shoulders and carried in front of the radio microphone" – wrote the Dunántúl newspaper of 17 July 1931.  

Although opinions differ about the fuel running out – some sources claim that the tap broke, others that the pilots switched from one tank to another too early – it is undeniable that the Hungarian pair set three world records at the same time. 

They flew the longest-ever America-Europe distance in the fastest time ever, crossing the Atlantic in thirteen hours and fifty minutes, and covered the entire 5,770 kilometers in the shortest time. 

During the flight, their average speed was 230 kilometers per hour, but over the ocean, they reached up to 250 kilometers per hour.  

The recognition did not fail to come, in addition to Lord Rothermere's reward, the Association of Weekend House Owners of Érd presented each of them with a plot of land, and they even received a job offer from the Hungarian Air Traffic Authority. Sándor Magyar eventually went back to the USA and took a job in the aerospace industry but György Endresz died in 1932, flying to Rome for the International Conference of Oceanic Aviators when his plane crashed. A memorial at the emergency landing site honours the feat of the first Hungarian ocean pilots.