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

By 1932 Tomori had emerged as spokeswoman for Szeged Youth. Her public role was unusual for a woman, but not unprecedented at a time in which women were able to serve in municipal councils and as Parliamentary representatives. She was the only woman to speak at the first meeting of the National Hungarian Student Parliament in March of 1932.

24 She urged the assembled young intellectuals to take up the cause of the Hungarian peasantry: „a vital, culturally and economically valuable reservoir for the renewal for the Hungarian nation."

25 In April she convinced the students at the University in Debrecen to organize „village seminars" and work with the problems of the surrounding settlements and villages.

26 The group had become radicalized during the deepening economic crisis of the Great Depression. The original support which they had received from official circles had been withdrawn, and the movement came under heavy criticism. Government fear of potential peasant unrest led to harassment by the police and gendarmes. The educational lecture series, which emphasized contemporary writers such as Zsigmond Móricz and Áron Tamási, was cancelled on the grounds that they were inciting the peasantry to rebellion.

27 By the summer of 1931 political harassment had effectively blocked all of the group's activities except the women's „story-telling afternoons."

28 At this time the men ceased their regular visits to the tanya, but the women continued their weekly trips to Tape al through their university years. In winter of 1931 several of their Marxist members introduced them to the activities at the Szeged Worker's Home. Under cover of officially sanctioned choral reading groups, they held lectures for the worker youth and contributed to the worker newspaper. As Erzsébet Árvay remembers: „We were all Marxists then." They were influenced by the Marxist ideology of students who had studied in the West, including Judit Kárász who joined the group during summer vacations which she spent in Szeged with her mother. Kárász, who had joined the Communist Party in Germany, proposed a photography series on „the capitalist city - the exploited village," which may have been inspired by her colleague and friend at the Bauhaus, Irén Blüh.

29 Blüh had participated in a similar exhibit with the Sarló youth group in Czechoslovakia.

30 With the assistance of Béla Reitzer and Ferenc Erdei, who accompanied her on trips to the villages, Kárász began preparing the photographs for the sociological study presented in the exhibit in August of 1933. The period of radical activity among the workers was short lived. In the spring of 1932, Buday and two other members were arrested in conjunction with a government roundup of communist suspects. Although they were released soon afterwards, the experience was a sobering one and activities at the Worker's Home stopped. Unemployment Magyar Egyetemi Híradó VI. evf. 5.sz. (April 15, 1932) 4-5. 25 Dr. Viola Tomori, „Youth Works for Rural Communities in Central Europe" I.

S.S. Bulletin (Geneva: May, 1938) 10. 26 Ibid., 7. 27 György Buday, „Az agrársettlement mozgalom útja" Nyugat (1933) 32-36. 28 Letter from György Buday to Béla Jancsó (Szeged. June 19, 1931) Ferenc Móra Múzeum Archives, Szeged. 29 Letter from Béla Reitzer to Ferenc Erdei, (Szeged, August 17, 1932) Erdei Ferenc Correspondence #16, Sociology Department, ELTE, Budapest. 30 „A fotóművészet megjelenés előtti kézirata." Albertini Béla beszélgetése Bluh Irénnel, 1984. 14-15. 56