Calvin Synod Herald, 1998 (98. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1998-05-01 / 3. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD- 7 -AMERIKAI MAGYAR REFORMÁTÜSOK LAPJA BUDAPEST JOURNAL: Hungary’s Favorite Clan: No, It’s Not the Gabors, It’s the Szabo’s Reprinted from THE NEW YORK TIMES International - January 24, 1998 BUDAPEST - In 1959, before television came to Hungary and as the Communist Government was reasserting itself after a failed popular uprising, a warm but rather realistic weekly radio drama went on the air. “The Szabó Family”, a collection of hard-working but not perfect people, entertained and distracted Hungarians with their divorces, pregnancies and household disputes until Communism collapsed in 1989. But without missing a beat, the show went on. Thirty-nine years and more than 2,000 episodes since the beginning, with some family members dead and new ones born, the Szabos, now an extended clan of 24, still thrive. Their original writer, Denes Liska, now 70, put the finishing touches to his latest script recently as some of Hungary’s leading actors took their positions before microphones in a sound studio for the weekly recording. Hungary has plenty of home-grown television soaps, and imported ones, too. But instead of dying as a quaint period piece, “The Szabó Family" prevailed on radio and remains one of the most popular non-news programs because the family joined the country in the rough ride to a market economy. Mr. Liska, a bouncy man with a ready laugh, now has rich and poor Szabos, a drug dealer, an unsavory real estate magnate, a detective and, in a sharp deviation from what was allowed in the Communist era, characters abroad. On Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m., as women are in the kitchen preparing evening meals and factory workers have finished their shifts, “The Szabó Family” blasts across the airwaves of Kossuth Radio, the main Government station. Mr. Liska, who writes at home on a computer, now delivers his script by fax instead of submitting it to the censor, as he did under Communism. He seems to soak up the Hungarian character instinctively and play it back to his audience in 30-minute mini-dramas. ““The Szabó Family” is very much like the nation itself”, Imola Gáspár, an actress who plays a babysitter-cumlover, said as she waited in the corridor to be called for her turn at the microphone. “People listen not because of its artistic level, but because of its dramatic level.” In the first episode, in June 1959, Janos Szabó, the patriarch of the family (born in 1899, died in 1981), was about to retire from a textile factory when thieves stole rolls of fabric. At the time it was considered fairly daring to mention crime, since officially the Government pretended that in the well-run Marxist society there were no criminals. But if crime was allowed in the show, emigration was not. More than 200,000 Hungarians fled after the 1956 uprising, leaving many people who stayed behind envious of relatives abroad. The emigrants were considered enemies of the Government, and even when they started coming back for visits in the 1980’s, Mr. Liska ignored the issue until the Communists fell. A central character in the current series is the patriarch’s grandson, Peter, 48. Listeners have heard him go from being the owner of a small restaurant in the 1980’s- when the Communists allowed some businesses - to being a real estate developer. Peter Szabó is now involved in one of the more profitable ventures in Hungary today: buying land in areas where highways are planned. He has divorced his first wife and refused to give her alimony. And he has married the divorced wife of a friend. There was an uproar in Parliament as critics asserted that the national icon “The Szabó Family”, had been manipulated by the Government. Mr. Liska said he had just stuck by his guiding principle: “I think it is right that we join NATO, and my principle is if you can’t write about something in a truthful way, don’t write about it.” UUU Roots of The Hungarian Character Do you know a stubborn Hungarian? That strength of character was probably inherited from the early magyar tribes who had to defend their chosen homeland in the Carpathian Basin. For 950 years, Hungary was a buffer nation wedged between the Northern and Southern Slavs, between the Empires of the East and the West, between the followers of Jesus and Mohammed, between the Orient and the Occident. Perhaps as the result of the numerous invasions from these unfriendly neighbors, the magyar character is diverse in religious, political and social conformity. They inherited their organizing talent from the Turks, their emotional heroism and mercurial instability from Balto-Finnish ancestors, their artistic talents for literature, art, music and chess from their Caucasian heritage. These were the forces arising from their strategic location at the crossroads of history that molded the Hungarian nature into a dynamic, durable artist of survival. They were good soldiers when defending their homeland, but not inspired by aggressive campaigns beyond their borders. To them Honor is an obligation overriding all other considerations. Their love of freedom and independence often hardens into rugged individualism which rejects guidance or discipline. When resistance to authoritarian rule is not possible, it takes the form of political satire. Hence, the great respect their citizenry holds for its poets who speak for them of their resistance to their unacceptable conditions of survival. Elizabeth Davis Kondorossy (Based on The Timeless Nation by Zoltán Bodolai and Transylvania by Louis C. Cornish)
