Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MARGINALIZATION- BEFORE AND AFTER WORLD WAR II. - “Patak became my destiny” - Kálmán Újszászy
conferences, and reading nights) in Patak and friendly, but demanding and strict teachers. During his final year, he was elected to the office of senior, which also served as a symbolic fact that “this student from Pest" was fully accepted here. He considered the election to office of senior to be a great honor but also a wonderful opportunity because it meant that he could also go on a peregrination of up to three years. He had studied abroad before coming to Patak, having studied German in Graz for two months. But the veritable period of maturing came in 1926 when he was able to spend one year each in Glasgow, Basel and Athens. He studied the work of the Scottish Mission, the theology of Karl Barth and in Athens he immersed himself in the Christian missionary work of the Oberlin University (Ohio) in the Middle East. Although he received other job opportunities, it was never a question whether he would continue his life in Patak or not. During his initial years, he was a teacher of religious studies at the Teacher Training School. He received a doctoral degree in 1931, which meant that he was appointed - although only temporarily - to be the successor to Lajos Rácz, teacher of philosophy and theology. He reached the peak of his academic career in 1939, when he was granted, without an oral examination, certification for being a Private University Teacher in Szeged, thus he could take his rightful place among the ordinary teachers in the College. It was because of his village seminary work that he was honored thus. He later taught a course on the subject at the University of Szeged. He was middle-aged when the College experienced great expectations and weaved plans that appeared to be startlingly realistic for one or two years. He made it repeatedly clear in his memoirs that he and the majority of his contemporaries experienced the end of World War II as a true liberation. The intellectual tyranny of the Nazi times was replaced by an illusion of a much freer atmosphere and a sense of real democracy, something which would quickly evaporate. During these few years, a paradigm shift had taken place in Patak (to be described below) which was linked to the College’s four hundred years of tradition and to the Hungarian Calvinist values. The College-town and its surrounding College- region were now considered as one integrated cultural centre. Every element of the already significant rural category of college education, village research, talent nurturing, public education activities and youth movements was closely tied to Kálmán Újszászy’s lifework and legacy. But the hope of a brighter future quickly disappeared. Radical hostility against churches and religious institutions quickly became the lifeblood of the Communist penetration and the spreading regime. Neither the secondary school nor the College survived these years. In the town, it was only the Teacher Training program which was not shut down, but of course, like the other institutions, it could only continue operating under total state control. Újszászy, like his colleagues, found himself in a vacuum. At the age of forty-nine, this nationally renown and respected professional was forced to cease doing everything for which he had lived: education and educating people. His greatness shines through in his not becoming a tragic hero. The Communist dictatorship decided to leave the former College library and archives in the hands of the church, so Újszászy started took responsibility for them. As director, building on data which had accumu195 Kálmán Újszászy and his family at Christmas of 1954
