Itt-Ott, 1987 (20. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

1987 / 4. (106.) szám

A tágabb ismertetés érdekében szintén közöljük Henry Kamm erre vonatkozó összefoglalóját, amit a New York Times, 1987. december 22-i számából vettünk át.

For Artists in Hungary, Wall Street Benefactor

By HENRY KAMM

SiK-cIal lo 1 he Now York Tim«

BUDAPEST, Dec. 19 — Wall Street, not normally a subject of interest for the people of a Communist country without a stock market, has been worrying a surprising number of Hungarians since stocks plunged in October.

They are concerned not about holdings of their own but those of the Quantum Fund, a mutual fund founded and managed by George Soros, an American of Hungarian birth. Ever since word reached here — and it did not take long, despite the absence of market listings In the Hungarian press — that the value of Quantum’s $2.5 billion portfolio had declined $800 million, one question has preoccupied many Hungarians:

Did the collapse on Wall Street ring down the curtairt on the Soros Foundation?

The Soros Foundation has become, In the four years of its existence, an important focus of Hungary’s intellectual and cultural life, "an alternate ministry of culture,’’ a writer called it. It has also, in the view of many cultural figures, liberalized artistic and intellectual life by subsidizing activities with-Foundation is ‘an alternate ministry of culture.’

out regard for the ideological considerations that prevail even in the least restrictive Communist countries.

Soros Assures Premier

At the foundation’s office here, phones keep ringing with calls from anxious Hungarians whose hopes are centered on the foundation’s wellbeing. Mr. Soros flew here last weekend and assured all he met, including Prime Minister Karoly Grosz, that his foundation’s work was continuing.

In fact, said Elizabeth Lorant, program director for the foundation at its headquarters in New York, “next year’s budget is exactly the same as this year’s.’’

In a country in which the central authorities hold power of the purse over artistic and academic ventures, the foundation has become the other patron of the arts, one that does not apply political tests that give preference to Communist Party favorites.

"This is a real innovation,” Mr. Soros Said In an interview.

The foundation has spent $4 million this year to subsidize educational and research projects, musical groups, university publications, amateur theatrics, museums and libraries, among olher endeavors — “from zither players to Monteverdi,” Mr. Soros said.

$4 Million Means a Lot

In Hungary, where convertible currencies, the principal key to sharing In the activities of the outside world, are chronically short, Mr. Soros’s $4 million means a great deal more than a similar sum would in a Western nation.

Encouraged by his Hungarian success, Mr, Soros has also financed a|

foundation in China; another in the] Soviet Union is just getting under way, and a fourth is almost ready to start functioning in Poland.

Mr. Soros said there was no doubt about the continuation of his foundations. He emphasized that the $800 million decline in value was the Quantum Fund’s, not his. In addition, some of that decline in value may well have been earned back since the stock market has climbed back somewhat since the big decline in October.

Mr. Soros, who appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine in September as one of Wall Street’s most successful investors, would not discuss how the Quantum Fund has fared since the decline two months ago except to say the shares are Still worth more than they were at the beginning of 1987. The Quantum Fund, whose net asset value per share has risen astronomically since its founding in 1969, reported a loss in only one yfear, 1961.

Mr. Soros’s foundations are headed by what he called the mother foundation, the Open Society Fund. The phrase "mother foundation” comes from Sir Karl Popper, the British-Austrlan philosopher whose writings, Mr. Sörös said, deeply influenced his social thinking and the practical form it took. "His philosophy helped me to make morfey and also helps me to spend it,” he said.

Openness and Stability

In another sense, he said, the foundation Is "a monument” to his late father, who helped his family and many other Budapest Jews survive under the German occupation by procuring forged identity papers. Mr. Soros emigrated to Britain in 1947 and to the United States in 1956.

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