Csatlós Judit (szerk.): Vízizrí. Munkáskultúra a Duna partján - Életmód és társadalmi mozgalmak a modernitásban 2. (Budapest, 2016)
Az erdei Telep /The “Forest" Colony - A Szalmás-kórus /The Szalmás Choir
The Szalmás Choir The choir led by Piroska Szalmás, formed with about ten members in 1930, continuously expanded until her death in 1941. The choir started going to the TTE colony in the early 1930s and built their first shared house there in 1933. The choir split in 1935, when Szalmás' group left the Colony, giving way to a new choir led by Sándor Vándor. An important objective of the workers’ choirs of the time was to engenderanactivesenseofcommunity by highlighting the collective nature ofspeech and breaking down the barrier between performers and audience. The heyday of the recital choir movement was between 1927 and 1933, when the Ministry of the Interior banned such performances. The workers'singing societies, even though they had been increasingly activeandnumeroussince 1904, reached their zenith in the following period, 1932-1934. The Szalmás choir was distinctively different from bourgeois choirs and even traditional workers' choruses in its structure, musical repertoire and community-building function. Workers’ emancipation was an essential theme of the lyrics of the songs it performed — mainly folk songs, the movement’s own “songs of freedom”, verse set to music and "American Indian and Negro” songs. Although Szalmás was always the central figure in the choir, what held its members together above all were the sharing of a unique pastime-the participation in rehearsals and performances —and the experience of social equality and shared political outlook. Workers’ choruses, at least initially, were typically all-male affairs, but the Szalmás Choir was mixed from the beginning. Although the Federation of Hungarian Workers’ Singing Societies had been pressing for women to take part in choral singing since!912. the numberofwomen participantsonly started to take off in the late 1920s. Women were not, in general, mobilised in political activities, but had a strong presence at the venues of worker’s leisure activities - beaches and outings. The first workers’ celebrations -1 May and Women’s Day-were also built on the active participation of women. Piroska Szál más, who had a middle-class background, was also a prime mover in the early women's movement. She wrote forthefirst Hungarian social democratic women’s magazine Nőmunkás (Woman Worker), launched in March 1905, was secretary of the women’s organization of the Federation of Hungarian Office Clerks, founded the same year, and was the only female conductor in workers' singing societies. In both her writing and choral work, she urged the participation of women in the development of workers' culture. 25
