COURAGE

connecting collections

Gyula (Julius) Várallyay (1937–) was a second year student at the Technical University of Budapest in autumn 1956. He took an active part as a member of the student revolutionary committee and the National Guard of students. In late November, he left his native land for the West, much like the circa 7,000 students who arrived as refugees in several host-countries. He opted for the United States, where he managed to complete his studies at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the meantime, he served as elected president of the worldwide organization of Hungarian émigré students, the UFHS / MEFESZ, from late 1959 till early 1961, and later he also supported a number of Hungarian-American organizations. He spent eight years working in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America with an international consulting firm, and he worked at the World Bank for over 29 years. He has been a board member of the Hungarian American Coalition, and he continues to do work as an international consultant. He also writes on public issues in Hungary. Since 2002, he has divided his time between Budapest and Washington, D.C.

Visual artist, photoblogger, curator, essayist, videoblogger.  Since its foundation (1983) he is the artistic director of Liget Gallery, where he arranged more than four hundred exhibitions, and initiated numerous shows at other locations as well. As a visual artist he is a regular participant of national and international exhibitions.

He was a founding member of the group Helyettes Szomjazók (Substitute Thirsters), and participated almost all initiatives of the group until 1990, when he left the group. Between 1991 and 1995 he made a series of joint works with Ágnes Eperjesi. In 2001 he initiated the irregular, Hungarian-language, free paper Manamana, what he edited in collaboration with miklós Erhardt until 2004.

Radiologist, composer, mediator, “provacateur.” Born in Budapest in 1931. His parents were doctors from Transylvania. After his years at the church high school, he started to visit the Music Academy, but as the organ department dissolved he left and continued his studies at the medical university.

Upon receiving his diploma in 1956, he started to work as a radiologist. He also played the organ in several churches, and he began to compose music. He was the author of the first local examples of concrete and electronic music compositions. He also composed for stage productions and films.

In the 1960s, he often held lectures on modern and experimental music in private apartments. Parallel to this, he developed his archive, which over the course of the years became an unmatched collection of documents concerning the art of the era.

His nonconformist personality was plain in his dress and his attitudes, and his habits became popular among young intellectuals. In the 1960s he arranged performative events called "soirée" in his tiny room and elswhere. Many artists referrred later to his inspiring, significant role as a mediator. He discontinued his cultural activities in 1970.

Rimantas Vėbra (1931-1999) was a Lithuanian historian and specialist in 19th century history. His research includes the Lithuanian national movement in the second half of the 19th century. He was very active as a historian and researcher. He spent a lot of time in archives in Lithuania and in other archives (such as the History Archives of St Petersburg/Leningrad). He discovered many issues of Lithuanian history in the second half of 19th century. In 1973, in a letter to Henrikas Zabulis, the minister of higher and special secondary education, he argued that he found the file ‘Lietuviškos spaudos draudimo panaikinimo byla’ (File on the lifting of the ban on Lithuanian publications), but publishers refused to publish his article about it.

Vėbra started his career very loyal to the Soviet regime. After secondary school in Utena, he attended a military school in Petrozavodsk and became an army officer. But in 1955, he changed from the army to the Komsomol communist youth organisation. We can assume that Khrushchev’s policy of abolishing national units in the Soviet army and reducing the USSR’s military forces had a big impact on his life. At the peak of his Komsomol career, he reached quite a high position as deputy head of a Central Committee department. At the same time, he started part-time studies in history at Vilnius University. In 1960, he became a full-time student of history, working at the same time in the University as an assistant. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1966, and his first book Lietuvos katalikų dvasininkija ir visuomeninis judėjimas (XIX a. antroji pusė) (The Lithuanian Catholic Clergy and Social Movement in the Second Half of the 19th Century) was published in 1968. 

The situation later became more complicated, when Vėbra made efforts to recover the idea of the United Stream (Vieningoji srovė). During the Stalin era, the United Stream was attacked by Soviet ideologists for its efforts to show the origins of the revolutionary movement not only in socialist (communist) activity but also in the Lithuanian national movement in the 19th century. 

In 1983, Vėbra was not allowed to give a presentation at a conference devoted to the first Lithuanian newspaper Aušra (Dawn, established in 1883). He only made a comment (although quite long, at ten minutes), in which he strongly advocated the legalisation of the United Stream.

While he was not an active participant in the anti-Soviet dissident movement, his professional activity was restricted because of his writings, research works that were perceived by the authorities as unconventional, and his deviation from the ideological norm.