43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 34
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Soós János, though he now lives in Budapest, is from the Transylvanian village of Szék, where he worked as a teacher in the Hungarian language elementary school there from 1981–1988. Here is a sample of what it was like to live in 99 % ethnically Hungarian Szék during the time of the Ceasescu dictatorship (a regime not fond of ethnic Hungarians), the hardships imposed upon the citizens, and the nasty traps devised by the secret police (even the wall had ears then) to „catch” the Szék residents in the act of thinking of themselves as Hungarian'. Those caught in such traps were often times fined, sometimes even put in prison. To illustrate, is the story of a group of teachers, parents and students tired of unheated classrooms during the tough winter of 1985, who finally took it upon themselves to get some firewood...