A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historiae Literarum et Artium, 1. (Szeged, 1997)

Cornelius, Deborah S.: Women in the Interwar Populist Movement: The Szeged Youth

The two women soon became part of the small core group who carried out systematic analyses of conditions in the countryside. The members divided up the homestead world among themselves, each choosing a village or group of homesteads which they visited weekly. The women adopted the settlement of Tape with a population of over four thousand, the majority landless laborers or dwarf-holders who eked out an existence by weaving bulrushes. Despite the ridicule of their classmates, they hiked the six kilometers from Szeged to Tape every Sunday, sometimes trudging through mud so deep that it came in over the tops of their boots. While some of their male colleagues experienced difficulties in making contact with the peasantry who were suspicious of all outsiders, Tomori and Árvay were quickly able to establish good relations. Tomori explained how their „womanly methods" enabled them to become close to the peasant women and through them to the whole village: We collected remnants of material from shops, or bought cheap yard goods, and sewed clothes for the Tape children, or joined the Tape women on their mending afternoon. Meanwhile we read them, or, when a few of the men gathered in the back of the room we explained political affairs. There were minor and major affairs to be taken care of which we voluntarily assumed.

21 Later they were often called on to advise the men with official matters or explain legal affairs. Their gender worked to their advantage enabling them to gain the villagers trust. The two young women derived real personal satisfaction from their work. Like their male colleagues they believed it was their mission as privileged young intellectuals to raise the economic and cultural level of the „people." Yet the kinds of activities to which they devoted themselves suggests a difference in attitude. Whereas the men excelled at organization, the women became involved in the lives of the people, the male members, Buday, Ferenc Erdei, Gyula Ortutay, organized educational programs, carried out sociological research, collected folk art ad ballads for their own professional work, the women devoted themselves to performing needed social services, they found affirmation of their own worth as human beings in helping individuals. As Tomori explained later: „One can find oneself most easily when one is helping others. We turned to the peasantry because they needed our help."

22 Géza Féja, the populist writer who was assisted by the Szeged Youth in collecting material for his work „Viharsarok" attested to the respect accorded to Tomori by her villagers: I am going [to Tápé] with Viola Tomory and the other members of the 'Agrarian Settlement' (There aren't many of them!) Viola, above all, is beloved here. She holds all the secrets of the village. They break out in joy when she comes: 'The Almighty God has brought our little lady.' The peasant women run to her, kiss her on the hand, and then the cheek.

23 21 „Mint pattogó labda... - Váróné Tomori Viola szabálytalan emlékiratai" Szeged megyei városi tanács közlönyének várospolitikai melléklete (1989,5). 22 Interview with Viola Tomori. Debrecen. 5/30/88. 23 Féja Géza, „Nincs Szegeden boszorkány" Magyarország (March 10, 1934) quoted in András Lengyel, Féja Géza és a Szegedi Fiatalok (Szeged, 1989) 413. 55