Miklós Fogarassy

"After I divorced my wife in 1968, Miklós Mészöly and his family gave me lodging. Their flat had a separate room at the back of the building, where I lived for years. Quite a few people lived with the Mészölys both before and after me. It was an ideal lodging: We didn’t impinge on each other’s privacy. However, when Miklós came home in the evening and spotted that my lamp was on, he came up to me and we had long conversations stretching into the small hours. Already back then at the end of 60s and beginning of 70s the Mészölys had an extended circle of the writer intelligentsia around them. I was also involved in the literary journal launching fervour of those days, which peaked at about ’68, if my memory serves me right, under the leadership of Béla Horgas and Júlia Levandel. It was entitled Eszmélet. I personally took an active part in an author/reader meeting in Leányfalu in 69, I guess, which took place at the camp site and the local library, as the members of the Eszmélet circle were so numerous that they couldn’t be squeezed into a single flat any more. It was a weekend event and that was where I met György Petri and Szabolcs Várady. There were a lot of us, György Konrad, Endre Bojtár, Zsolt Csalogh, István Eörsi. I don’t remember the details but I’m convinced that the Interior Ministry did make a report about it. It was during those years that I struck up a friendship with Jancsi Kenedi. Even if not on a daily basis, I rather frequently visited him in Villányi street. There, in his attic, Mihály Kornis and György Spiró held reading events. I found discussions with Kenedi as well as his radical and analytical thinking rather thrilling. One may wonder what character oppositional literature had. Broadly speaking, that was when the prenatal forms of today’s literature and literary journals emerged. In those days, we felt that this was the uncensored, modernist trend. Aesthetically speaking, it was rather versatile. My relationship to Filmkultúra was closely linked to it. In those days it was edited by Yvette Bíró in Népstadion Road. For some time I frequently contributed to this journal with reviews. It was the ideal place with the ideal editor. A very exciting outer circle of writers, critics, sociologists and psychologist, aestheticians such as Mészöly, György Csepeli, Ferenc Mérei, the most exquisite minds of the most diverse areas, was taking shape at that time. When at the turn of the 60s and 70s the political climate started becoming frostier, I took part in oppositional campaigns like collecting signatures. I signed some of the declarations such as the Charta and a couple others, as a supporter. I didn’t belong to the inner circle. I can think of much more active literary men, Csaba Könczöl among them, who took a much bigger share of oppositional campaigns, signature collecting as well as in the so called conspiracy. At the start I contributed to Napló once or twice. The Profil edited by Kenedi published my essay on Mészöly, which had been rejected by the rest of the press. I also translated some pieces for Kenedi’s MáshonnanBeszélő."