2024 brings about the 80th anniversary of the deportation and mass murder of Hungarian Jewry (spring and summer of 1944). The CEU Democracy Institute’s “Democracy in History” workgroup in cooperation with the Donald and Blinken Open Society Archives and 2B Galéria therefore started this year with a co-organized book launch and vernissage related to Hungarian Jewish history and artistic commemoration respectively.
On January 10, a volume of studies by Victor Karady historian and sociologist and the late sociologist Istvan Kemeny, Zsidóság a magyar nemzetépítésben a numerus clausus előtt és azután [Jewry in Hungarian nation building before and after the numerus clausus] was launched by a roundtable discussion between historians Erika Szivos, Miklos Konrad and Victor Karady. The volume contains studies originally published in French in the iconic journal edited by Pierre Bourdieu: Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales in 1978 and 1980. They were first published in Hungarian in late 2023. The event was marked by high interest, CEU’s Budapest Auditorium was full. After the discussion, there was opportunity to buy the book and ask Victor Karady to sign.
On the same evening, Andras Borocz’s kinetic sculpture the Noisemaker (Zajkelto vagon) was presented in CEU’s Budapest Aula by art historian András Renyi in the presence of the artist. FreeSZFE students and professors (including the writer Gabor Nemeth), musicians Marton Kovacs and Adam Moser performed too and Szilvia Szenasi, representing UCCU Foundation, gave a talk. This Gesamtkunstwerk-inspired event was moderated by radio reporter Julia Varadi in front of a very sizable audience. The sculpture will be exhibited for most of 2024 at CEU’s Budapest site, but from here it will make several trips to keep memory alive: the remembrance of the horrors of the Holocaust, the Porajmos, and the humiliation of all minorities.
Photos by Maria Belen Soriano Zamora.
