COURAGE

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Made as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, which emerged following the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy in 1919, the film offers a complex overview of revolutionary practice and the psychology of terror.

Dezső Magyar and Gábor Bódy, the director and the writer created a multi-layered narrative by using diverse literary sources, actual news footage, and references to current events. The main source of inspiration was Ervin Sinkó’s novel Optimists and the memoirs of József Lengyel and the wife of Tibor Szamuely. Georg Lukacs’s account on the subject was also used for references in some cases, as well as quotations from the writings of Mao and Che Guevara.

The film presents a general model of revolution through talking heads reflecting on their own interpretations and ideas. Though the story is based on actual events, the characters are all fictional. The protagonists, however, in addition to being professional actors, were members of radical intellectual and neoavantgarde circles. They pursued intense theoretical debates on the possibilities of revolutionary action, the dilemma of violence, the criticism of new bureaucracy, and the essence of working class culture.

In part as a consequence of the experiences of the Prague Spring and student movements in the West, the terms of the discussions were changed. The 68er radicals dropped Marxist-Leninist concepts and debated the meaning of leftist politics, the future, and the potentials of revolution and social autonomy. They developed an allegorical reading of the 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic, which provided a pretext for the filmmakers to discuss 1968. Due to its subversive approach, the film was banned for decades.

Produced by BBS (Béla Balázs Studio), MAFILM (Hungarian Film Producing Company) and the Hungarian Film and Theatre Academy in 1969. Published on dvd by Műcsarnok Non-profit Ltd, Hungarian National Film Archive and BBSA in 2006. Available online: https://youtu.be/vH4N_MJ2vvE

János Major started to document tombstones as photo actions towards the end of the 1960s. These works not only served as the basis for Major’s conceptual artworks in the 1970s, but also for his only body art work performed at the Chapel Studio. The action Living Tombstone (the title was given by Galántai) took place in the frameworks of the exhibition organized between June 24 and July 7, 1973 with artworks by Miklós Erdély, György Jovánovics, and János Major. During the action, Major stood on a stone block, which served as a pedestal with an inscription on it: “MAJOR (NEUFELD) JANCSI / 1934-19.. / You lived for art / You became its martyr.” An issue of Pravda, the newspaper of the Soviet party, lay under his feet. The self-ironic action (the artist as the artwork) can be considered a continuation of Major’s ironic etchings and tombstone photos, being broadened to a “self-art” piece.

The event Kaj je alternativa? (What is the alternative?) was organised by the FV group in Šiška Youth Centre in Ljubljana. In May 1983, the FV 112/15 group entirely moved its social activities from Disco Študent, situated in the basement of Building IV in the Rožna dolina student dormitory complex, to the Šiška because the authorities were exerting pressure on them. The poster was designed by Dušan Mandić, later a member of the Irwin group and Neue Slowenische Kunst.

Mandić’s design for the poster, which advertised the event, combined aspects of the aesthetics of the FV group and the band Laibach, with elements appropriated from socialist aesthetics mixed ambiguously with elements of petit-bourgeois romanticism. The poster underscored the FV brand, reproducing in the background a Laibach woodcut, the Metalworker, along with the band’s name (Laibach), which was prohibited at that time because of a crossed-out swastika, and slogans. This poster earned Mandić a visit from the police, which arrived with a search warrant, although Mandić was never prosecuted in court for it. Mandić says that the poster was made because Igor Vidmar, who wore two badges with anti-fascist content but decorated with swastikas on them, was imprisoned for two months. Mandić also included the problematic badges on the poster, and this was the reason why the police questioned him. At the police station, he stated that he was only a contractor, since the League of Socialist Youth of Slovenia and Radio Student has commissioned the poster and, therefore, they should be placed in custody.

Soon cultural theory came to the defence of the subculture for the first time. The poster was even printed in Mladina in a somewhat censored form, but it appeared in full in the first issue of the alternative publication Viks. The event What is the alternative? was organised as a theoretical symposium, featuring some of Slovenia’s most prominent contemporary theorists, artists and cultural figures, such as Slavoj Žižek, Rastko Močnik, Lev Kreft, Pavle Gantar, Iztok Saksida, Dušan Mandić, etc. Some people were disappointed because the debate remained at the theoretical level and did not address some of the real issues that the alternative scene was grappling with, such as battles over space or the legal problems faced by the band Laibach. The event What is the alternative? revealed certain other internal contradictions within the alternative scene.

SOURCE: Grafenauer, Petja, Nikolai Jeffs, Neven A. Korda, and Rawley Grau. FV: alternativa osemdesetih = alternative scene of the eighties. ed. Bred Škrjanec, Ljubljana: Mednarodni grafični likovni center, 2008 and http://www.delo.si/kultura/razstave/predirwinovske-razglednice-d-m.html

 

The Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism was an ideological basis of the Orange Alternative movement. The document was written by Waldemar Fydrych and originally was published in the "A" magazine in 1981. "A" included also essays by Wiesław Cupała and Paweł Jarocki as well as some graphics and pictures. It was sold on the streets to the students, workers, and other passers-by in Wrocław and other Polish cities. The continuation of the "A" magazine" was "Pomarańczowa Alternatywa" ("Orange Alternative") paper which was distributed during the students' strikes in November and December 1981. Both gazettes were issued by the New Culture Movement.

The text of the Fydrych's Manifesto was inspired by the Manifesto of Surrealism by Andre Breton and other his works. But the Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism was also a parody of the state socialist propaganda. It rejected the whole realist aesthetics, both the socialist realism from the 1950s and classic realism represented by Dostoevsky, as a boring rationalization of the creative and joyful life. Fydrych affirmed the "living for adventure", irrationality, spontaneous love, an imagination that "means a world without limits". He juxtaposed the philosophers and the politicians and took side of the latter, who in fact change the world:

"We shall soon get rid of the philosophers. Luckily, even in the moments least propitious for surrealism, it has always found refuge in public toilets of every city. Advisable. I recommend such spiritual wanderings. It was there that Icarus soared. It was difficult for pure rationalism to take control of the toilets. Surrealism has prevailed in toilets thanks to the politicians. For nowhere is there such a close relation between relief and the aesthetic feeling. The philosophers attempted to extend their reach also to these places, but their foul hopes misfired. The politicians have always been great surrealists. They are waiting for affection. Let’s love the politicians. The philosophers are defeated.

At present, it’s high time to expose the foul acts of the philosophers before the Tribunal of Surrealism. Next to them, I propose to build a Great Tribune to extol the great deeds of the politicians from. Let’s all have a whole-hearted laugh. The war between materialism and idealism. From the point of view of a vigorous intellect it is but a primitive entertainment. The functionaries of philosophy, Judases of criticism, experts in constraining imagination and spontaneity, do not count on it".