Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1978. július-december (32. évfolyam, 27-50. szám)

1978-11-02 / 42. szám

Thursday, Noy. 2. 1978 AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO ’ - ’-vf V~i S' ' ~ ' WHEN A HUNGARIAN HAD A CHANCE TO BECOME THE POPE John Paul II. The election of Cardinal Vojtila of Poland to the throne of St. Peter, creates a number of precedents in the long history of the Papacy. Cardinal Vojtila, who chose the name John Paul II, is the first non- Italian in 455 years to become Pope. He is the first Pole to reach this high office and the first Cardinal from a Socialist country to be so honored. Prior to the election of Cardinal Vojtila, Pope Adrian VL was the last non-Italian to head the Ca­tholic Church. He reigned from 1522-23. The span of 455 years has a deep significance for Hungarians. It was during that period that a Hungarian Cardinal, Tamas Bakocz, yearned to become the Pope. Ba­kocz was the only Hungarian who, during the previ­ous one thousand years, was even considered to have had a chance to be elected. According to his­torians, Bakocz spent a tremendous amount of mo­ney in his desperate efforts to be elected. (In those years “electioneering” for the Papacy was fraught with corruption.) Despite his lavish spending, Car­dinal Bakocz was not chosen. An Italian, Giovanni de Medici, was elected in 1513, and ruled as Pope Leo X. To appease his unsuccessful rival, Leo X. authorized Bakocz to organize and lead a crusade against the Turks. Bakocz, a vain man, did so even though the king of Hungary had just agreed on a three-year pact of peace and friendship with the Sultan. Bakocz armed the peasants of Hungary. However, hurting from centuries of intense and brutal exploitation, the peasants turned their wea­pons not against the Turks but the rich Hungarian landowners. For several months the country was inflamed with revolution. Then it was supressed. The Hungarian nobility took brutal revenge on the rebels. Thousands were massacred. The conflagra­tion so weakened the country that in the following decade the Turks were able to subdue the peoples’ resistance and rule over them for the next century and a half. AMAZING CHANGES IN HÜNGABY IN THE LAST 22 TEARS Joseph Held, a refugee when he fled Hungary one November night 22 years ago, returned to his native land this past summer as a welcome and respected guest of the Hungarian government. The first visit to his country of birth by the for - mer factory worker turned Rutgers University pro­fessor since he was 26 years old, was in sharp cont­rast to his sudden departure in 1956. When escaping into Austria from Hungary that night, Held, his wife Margaret and their small son, were captured by border guards, who released the young family only because there were too many refugees to detain, according to Held. Before his return in July at the invitation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Franklin Township /Somerset County / resident had his visa presented to him personally by the Hungarian con­sul general in New York. Chairman of the New Brunswick history depart­ment at the University College, the evening, degree­granting unit of the State University, and director of Rutgers’ Program in Soviet and East European Studies, Held returned to Hungary by the same route he left - through Austria. “The barbed wire stretches into the infinite dis­tance”, he recalle'd, describing the 1978 border. “The tall border guards with machine guns on their chests still leave an ominous feeling in the visi­tor.” “But that impression is soon dissolved by the countryside”, he added quickly. ’’Along the roads, huge areas are planted with various crops, the hills are covered with vineyards. They provide an unusu­ally bucolic scene which we truly appreciated.” Noting that any place would change in 22 years, he nonetheless expressed amazement at the drastic transformation he saw. “It is incredible to see the changes; it’s an entire­ly different society. Hungary, which had no techno­logy to speak of in the 1950’s, has become a mo­dernized society,” he pointed out. Remarking on the many cars and television an­tennas in the rural villages, Held said: “Finally the peasants are making the kind of living they long, long deserved. There is a desire on their part to make up for centuries of deprivation.” 7 “Having had great experience dealing with diffe­rent political situations, they are not easily swayed by propaganda,” he continued. “They are very in­ward looking. They just tend to their own lives.” As is usually the case, the elite of the country lives extremely well, enjoying material luxuries and special privileges, he added. The segment of the population with which he had the least contact was the very group he be­longed to before leaving Hungary-the urban wor­king class. It was only after he reached America that Held decided to pursue an advanced education. His first task after arriving at New Jersey’s Camp Kilmer was to learn English, which he did while working first as a ditch digger for Public Service Electric and Gas Co, and later as a delivery man for Rutgers’ Alexan­der Library. Quickly adapting to his new language and envi­ronment, Held enrolled in University College, which awarded him a bachelor’s degree in 1962. He re­ceived a master’s degree from the university the fol­lowing year, and then while working for University College as an assistant professor of history and Hun­garian studies, he went on to earn a doctorate from Rutgers in 1968. Now collaborating on a book about Hungary’s changing countryside, he was a welcome guest at Keszthely, where he spoke to the Summer Institute of the Hungarian Historical Society about the trai­ning of American historians, and at Budapest, where he discussed his research with the Historical Insti­tute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. “There was true courtesy and friendship exten­ded to us wherever we went,” he recalled. “Our colleagues went out of their way to show us respect and there was no professional jealousy. It was very pleasant.” He was so well received, in fact, that György Ran ki, vice president of the Hungarian National Committee and assistant director of the Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, invited him back to participate in a November conference in Budapest. Dr. Joseph Hdd A REVIEW OF ART, LITERATURE AND HISTORY-A SUPPLEMENT OF THE MAGYAR SZO

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