Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SPIRIT AND MOOD - On a Roller Coaster-the institution in the 1940s
audience which gathered at these events, people who could appreciate the lectures. Nonetheless, within the next few years, even these programs were cancelled. So instead, the secondary school teachers addressed the wider public with their educational lectures. Maintaining the operation of the dining-hall proved to be almost impossible. There was a severe shortage of heating fuel and renting ovens for baking bread was unfeasible. And due to the lack of electricity, water had to be carried by hand, which raised the costs of manual labor and consequently the total of operational costs. The school could barely keep up with the salary demands of the female workers. The College’s financial difficulties forced it to use outside sources to obtain food but that proved to be expensive. The black market thrived as people became exceptionally unreliable. Once again, the leaders of the school gave thanks to God for the school having kept the lands in Györgytarló and Bálványos, where cultivation had been relaunched and, occasionally, walnuts and apples could be given for lunch in the school. Meat was impossible to come by and eggs, cheese and jam became the substitutes. The school leaders had little choice but to pass the responsibility of securing some of the food supplies onto the students. Detailed lists were made, but students started seriously dealing on the black market and simply sold some of the food which they received from their parents. After the war, the exponentially increasing inflation and lack of heating fuel was the source of the biggest problems. Despite the challenges, the rebuilding took place in an optimistic atmosphere. It is shocking to read through some of the notes and comments of the time and discover how optimistic the school’s leadership was about the future. Numerous plans were made to assist the school to regain or re-establish its former status as a cultural and intellectual centre. We can recall Kálmán Újszászy’s words: even though it was the Rumanian army which marched into Sárospatak in 1945, the event was experienced as a veritable liberation and regaining of freedom from the intellectual shackles which had existed throughout the previous decades. After 1945, for a few short years, there existed a belief in the possibilities of a democratic system unfolding, in parallel with national developments elsewhere. This deep faith was complemented with the formulation of truly ambitious plans whose implementation was started. It is no coincidence that, in 1946, the school’s bulletin gives news of the coming of a new Renaissance (although with the added remark - which later became dramatically true - that it might be a bit premature to announce all this.) As part of a new chapter, the integrated unity of the College and the Training School was restored in organizational, educational and financial matters. The boys’ ‘people’s college’ was also integrated into the College and the same was planned for the girls’ ‘people’s college’. There was an attempt to organize secondary education in agricultural training (grapes, fruits and wine production) within the organizational structure of the College. In correlation with this plan, it was decided to establish a new association called “Guild for Patak Students”. In joining and participating in the activities of this guild, students could acquire - under the leadership of Gyula Palumby - a glimpse into the most important industrial and agricultural jobs in the region and thus remain in close contact with their rural environment. The secondary school’s ethnographic and game 217 The world-renown Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) visited Sárospatak in 1936 and gave a lecture entitled Folk Church, Free Church and Confessing Church. He visited Patak again in 1948
