Zsuzsa Gáspár

"My daughter, Anna was born in 1969, and when the Tuesday Circle burst onto the scene, Anna must have been at least 1 year old. That is, it must have been either in the winter of 1970/71 or in the spring of ’71. The Circle, as far as I can remember, was the brainchild of the triad comprising György Bence, János Kis and János Kenedi. The era as well as the university training of the era had the quality of intellectual desolation to them. It wasn’t just that the scope of any research was limited by what literature you had access to or were expected to use. Even the requirements were limited. Basically, they expected us to be intellectually inquisitive only in moderation and our achivements were to be limited in their scope. As far as I can remember, it was György Bence, János Kis and Kenedi who thought that we didn’t necessarily have to put up with this, and that the things we actually want to talk and read about can be explored in a seminar-like format on a voluntary basis. We already knew Kenedi and I reckon it was his idea that we have this six by six metre living room to ourselves, scantily furnished, with a lot of floor space which could seat a lot of people. The three of them contacted us asking a/ whether we’d be interested an b/ whether we would supply the flat for the seminars. And yes, we were and yes, we did. We thought that we didn’t have to put up with a limited intellectual environment. Naturally, the topics had some sort of political connotation to them but that wasn’t manifest. The most explicitly political topic that I remember was trade unions, and Mihály Hamburger was responsible for it. But I guess that one was on when the Tuesday gatherings were already drawing to an end. For two and a half years there were genuine bi-weekly seminars on this very spot. The topics were assigned well in advance, we had presenters and discussants followed by a debate and finished with larded bread and tea. It was more or less the same bunch of people and the number of regulars didn’t exceed twenty. More people couldn’t actually have fitted into our living room. Who were they? Bence, Kis János, Kenedi, Vilmos Sós, Ágnes Erdélyi, Ferenc Kőszeg, Éva Fekete, Mária Ludassy, Mihály Hamburger, Zoltán Endreffy, Mária Pap, I am not quite sure, also Éva Karádi and the Babarczys… Other names don’t occur to me right now, although there were more of us. We had very strict ’conspirative’ rules regarding who can come. You needed two referees as well as the consent of the others. Bence and Kis were the leaders and they had the final word. In the post-presentation debates you could always sense how much what the Bence-Kis couple (they were still rather close back then and went separate ways only later) thought mattered to everyone. Everyone sought their support and appreciation. I have to admit that I primarily benefitted from the Circle’s intellectual and social rather than political aspects. On the one hand, I made a lot of friends in this circle, friends that I might not see on a regular basis today but who I never lose sight of and vica versa, and we always have a rough idea of each other’s life. Moreover, this circle made a massive contribution to my intellectual development. […] We knew perfectly well that this was illegal. But you couldn’t really be conspirative about twenty odd people flocking into a private flat. If somebody had the intention of noticing it, they could. I suspect that many people did notice it. We had conversations about it with Peter, ’cause it was hard to believe that they weren’t snooping on us. We agreed that threre must be snoops among us and also that it’s irrelevant and we musn’t start guessing who they are, as it would have been toxic for us."