Fraternity-Testvériség, 1964 (42. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1964-01-01 / 1. szám
6 FRATERNITY ROBERT BOYD: TRAVELERS FIND ALL’S NOT GLUM IN RED ORBIT (Reprinted from "The Miami Herald" — Dec. 26, 1963) Vienna. — The Iron Curtain isn’t what it used to be. Profound changes have taken place in Eastern Europe in the 10 years since Joseph Stalin’s stony heart stopped thumping. An American traveling as I did through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria finds himself struggling to adjust his pre-conceived notions to the new and shifting reality about him. Expecting to find this half-continent where 97 million people live one vast and melancholy prison, I was constantly surprised by such impressions as these: — THE SIGHT of six Romanians sitting around a supper table laughing until their glasses shake. — THE TASTE of a mountain of hot roast pork and sauer kraut in a Czech restaurant. — THE SOUND of Polish students publicly jeering their Communist rulers. — THE SCENT of perfume on an elegantly dressed Hungarian woman in a red-velvet opera box. — THE LAUGHTER of snugly-dressed Bulgarian youngsters skipping into a brand-new school. — THE TEARS in the eyes of an old Romanian woman as she puts a bouquet of flowers in front of a picture of “Tovarasul (Comrade) Kennedy”. “They’ll never believe me at the Rotary Club back in Memphis”, sighed one baffled American businessman on a trip to Bulgaria. Under the icy blasts of the Cold War, the changes in Eastern Europe have been glacier-like — slow but nevertheless real. Evolution, rather than revolution, has been the watchword since the dramatic catastrophes of 1956. On the whole, the developments have been cheering. With some exceptions and setbacks, the trend has been toward greater independence from Moscow and greater liberalization at home. Eighteen years of Communist domination have not sold the populace on Communism or destroyed the powerful magnetism of the West. Russia is almost universally hated or despised. There is a deep and touching affection for the United States. All of this doesn’t mean that Communist Eastern Europe has become a free and happy place to be.
