A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historica 2. (Szeged, 1999)

Ifj. LELE József: A tápairéti és a Szeged tanyai fiatalok művelődési és szórakozási alkalmai

JÓZSEF LELE, JR. ENTERTAINMENT AND EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARM YOUTH IN THE TÁPAIRÉT AND SZEGED AREA The life on farms in the Szeged area and its surroundings has primarily been addressed by István Tömörkény and Antal Juhász who have prepared a number of studies and published books on that subject. Their works are basically related to the formation of farms and the everyday life of those living on farms. True as it is, both of them have dealt with the life of the youth but they spoke little of their organized (movement>like) life. When there is still some mention made that is very brief and perhaps just that brief because they intended to prevent professional thinking from getting involved in issues of everyday politics. My present contribution is not based on a political perspective either. Not even if we consider that the Kalot (acronym for the National Council of Catholic Agrarian Young Men) and the Kalász (acronym for the Association of Catholic Women and Young Ladies) were formed and operated in the religious spirit of a kind of decent Hungarian cultural policy. A teacher or a married couple working as teachers in a farm school sometimes educated as many as a hundred and fifty pupils. In addition to materials contained in the curricula, they anticipated secular and religious holidays by preparing colorful programmes in the spirit of the coming event. It was again them who participated in prominent programmes for ecclesiatical holidays held in the consecrated schools that were even prepared to carrying out masses there. This latter demand was best met in the course of the Szeged Alsóváros (Downtown) Monthly Church-ales that were held with the pupils' participation alongside their parents and relatives; however, they hardly ever managed to get to church-ales held farther away. Children of the farms of Tápairét and Szeged had many games in common, often times small children and adolescents playing together. That is how the time came for finding a partner. The Kalot started off on the farms of Szeged. This noble movement raising the peasant youth was started by Jesuit Father Jenő Kerkai in the year 1935. In the same year, the Kalász was launched in Transylvania beginning its work led by Ilona Acsay as a religious youth movement with as many cells created among the farms of Szeged as there were farm centers. These farm centers have by now become villages whose formation was largely facilitated by the Catholic youth. 'Kalotists' as they were called have become excellent fathers and not infrequently farmers with a golden-ear or silver-ear award, while the Kalász girls have grown to become good mothers and faithful wives; and both true Catholic believers giving birth to, and bringing up more or less children in happy families. Pupils of the farm schools of Tápairét have not become members of Catholic youth movements, however, they have become true believers. As a matter of fact, the Kalot and the Kalász operated only in the village (i.e., Tápé), where many of them did not go because of having to cross the Tisza. In their schools, however, they did organize a lot of similar programs that managed to replace — thanks to their teachers — the movement procedures of the Tápé or Szeged youth that they also knew so well and praised so high. My present work is an intention to account for the basically important religious-historical youth movements that appeared decisive between 1935 and 1946 in determining the life of the youth living on the surrounding farms. With only such a short period of time, as the contemporary farm youth only had a decade of rising to a strict and yet joyfully undertaken mission with mottos aiming at a More Christian Man, a More Educated Village, a Vigorous Nation, and a SelfConsious Hungarian.