Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
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people as a whole that gave us strength, that pulled us through these tremendous difficulties; this was the motive force that directed us too in our purposes. ... Pesti levéltár [ Archives of the City of Budapest], Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyvek [ Minutes of the General Assembly], November 28th, 1945. XXIX Excerpts from the speech at the Municipal General Assembly made by Géza Rubletzky, of the Smallholders’ Party, on the secularization of church schools June 23rd, 1948 Honourable General Assembly! Chairman Szakasits has referred to the intellectual conquest of the country achieved by the Hungarian Parliament last week in the nationalization of the schools. I believe it is also our duty here to mention this measure, this act of Parliament which is as important as the land reform and the nationalization of industry. It is all the more important to mention it because our predecessors here, aldermen of the City of Pest, passed such a decree as early as 1868. This was at the time of the Eötvös School Act of 1868. Simor, then Prince- Primate of Hungary, resisted the proposed state control of the schools. Yet the Hungarian Parliament nevertheless passed this law, and left the denominational schools their full independence. The municipality of Pest then proceeded unanimously to pass a motion by which the Catholic schools of Pest would thenceforward come under municipal control. Our predecessors, who certainly could not be termed people’s democrats at that time, nonetheless accepted the motion, and the church made no protest but simply accepted the fact that in the future there would be no denominational schools, but only municipal schools, in Pest—and later state schools. Since the church made no protest at that time, we are justified in asking whether the church considers Francis Joseph of Hapsburg to be more of a Hungarian than the Hungarian people of today? ... Why does the church now protest against this bill, when the schools are to be handed over to the Hungarian people, and why did it not protest at the time a Hapsburg king ruled over Hungary? This bill is the completion of our new intellectual conquest of the country. The process of becoming a nation will be completed by this act. For up to the present the ruling classes appropriated the concept of a nation for themselves, the ruling stratum to them was the nation, and everyone else was outside it. Today, when the people’s democracy has crashed through the barriers of the “noblemen’s nation”, when the entire Hungarian people have become a nation, this new intellectual conquest must be welcomed as we welcomed the land reform, the nationalization of the banks, mines and big industrial enterprises. Following the means of production, the intellectual weapons as well are now in the possession of the Hungarian people. Thus the hotbed of denominational strife, the backwardness of denominational schools, will cease to exist in the future. We are not yet rich enough to be able to afford the luxury 122
