My grandmother never had an aquarium. Then she didn’t need one after the radiant satellite broadcaster for Hungarians worldwide, Duna Television, appeared and my uncle bought her a used color TV set. Because on Duna Television, for a long time after broadcasting hours, they showed an aquarium – live.
Just think about it: all over the world, Hungarians everywhere were watching the same aquarium with the same fish. I don’t know if there was any underlying agenda back then, but nowadays I’m reminded of this aquarium more and more often.
I was born in the Socialist Republic of Romania and I lived the first 14 years of my life under Ceausescu’s dictatorship. The existence of my homeland, Szeklerland, is still denied by official Romanian politics to this day. Following the December revolution of 1989, in the heart of Romania, in Székelyudvarhely, as a teenager, freedom thus began to become tangible for me in the early nineties of the last century: Hungarian broadcasting on color TV. The world didn’t just open up – Hungarian words brought it to life in color.
By then, I was already at boarding school, living in a dorm room with twenty other teenagers. The main hall took the name of the Szekler-Hungarian prince of writers, Áron Tamási. In such a dormitory, Tamási’s worn-out but still insightful thought gets an interesting acoustic: “We are in the world to feel at home somewhere in it”.
I studied in the prestigious educational institution bearing the name of the great storyteller, Elek Benedek, where they quoted the motto of everyone’s Uncle Elek all day long: “…only he is a somewhat whole person, for whom the pen is easy, and the scythe is light”. There was something absurd about the fact that this was quoted to six hundred girls, and to those twenty boys, most of whom had applied to the teacher training college precisely because they wanted to escape the scythe.
Two thesis statements that made the adults’ eyes mist over. They felt free just by being able to say them. We, barely-men, didn’t really understand the soul-mist blurring the eyes, just as we didn’t understand exactly what the Szeklers had to do with the Danube. Because what we had to do with it in the Romanian communist regime, we didn’t like. The Szeklers understand the Danube through the Olt. And by the time the nation’s television was born, the rosy fog of the brave new world had already passed. On the ides of our first free March after the Romanian revolution, the majority nation made it quite clear to us that if “the Danube and the Olt have one voice”, then that voice will continue to speak only in Romanian.
We swam as Szekler goldfish in the Romanian aquarium – but the goldfish’s memory is short. As Géza Szőcs writes in his masterpiece *Limpopo*: “…these fish remember what they see for only eighteen seconds in total, and […] that’s exactly why they can feel so good in aquariums, because by the time they make a round, they have already forgotten their entire previous journey and thus everything they see affects them again and again with the excitement of the most attractive novelty.”
That’s why I’m reminded of that aquarium more and more often these days. Because making noise inside today’s tavern, it’s as if we’re forgetting what happened 35 years ago, or 104, or even 175 years ago.
Writing is the antidote to forgetting – or perhaps the tool of it, at least according to Plato. I won’t decide, but around the time when Sándor Csoóri raised the idea of Duna Television at the 3rd World Meeting of Hungarians, I started writing this homeland dictionary. I’ve been writing it in Hungarian for at least three decades, and for a few years now I’ve been saying it too, sending snippets as message-in-a-bottle entries, hoping they reach my blood relatives. Because according to one of my favorite political thesis statements: alone, a person cannot be free – only lonely. Freedom requires at least two people. Hungarian freedom requires at least two Hungarians.
Notes:
Historical context:
Socialist Republic of Romania: Romania under communist rule (1947-1989).
Ceausescu’s dictatorship: Nicolae Ceaușescu ruled Romania from 1965 to 1989.
December revolution of 1989: The overthrow of Ceaușescu’s regime.
Geographical and cultural references:
Szeklerland (Székelyföld): A region in Transylvania with a significant Hungarian population.
Székelyudvarhely: A town in Szeklerland, known as a cultural center for Hungarian Szeklers.
Literary figures:
Áron Tamási: A prominent Szekler-Hungarian writer (1897-1966).
Elek Benedek: A famous Hungarian writer and storyteller (1859-1929).
Géza Szőcs: A Hungarian poet and politician from Transylvania (1953-2020).
Sándor Csoóri: A Hungarian poet, essayist, and politician (1930-2016).
Quotes and concepts:
“We are in the world to feel at home somewhere in it”: A famous quote by Áron Tamási.
“…only he is a somewhat whole person, for whom the pen is easy, and the scythe is light”: A quote by Elek Benedek, emphasizing the importance of both intellectual and physical work.
“the Danube and Olt have one voice” (“Dunának, Oltnak egy a hangja”): This is a quote from the poem “Magyar jakobinus dala” (Song of the Hungarian Jacobin) by Endre Ady, a significant Hungarian poet (1877-1919). In this poem, Ady uses the Danube and the Olt as symbols of Hungarian-Romanian reconciliation. The poem carries a deeper, more complex message about shared destiny and solidarity between peoples. As Ady writes: “Why don’t a thousand numbed desires / Finally become one strong will? / For Hungarian, Wallachian, Slavic sorrow / Will forever remain one sorrow.”
These lines highlight Ady’s vision of a Central Europe where different peoples recognize their common fate and struggle together for a better future. In the context of the essay, this reference points to the complexity of Hungarian identity and the challenge of minority existence in Romania, while reminding us of the importance of dialogue and understanding between peoples.
Political and social context:
The text reflects on the experiences of ethnic Hungarians in Romania, particularly during and after the communist era.
It touches on issues of identity, language rights, and cultural preservation for minority communities.
Literary references:
The mention of Plato refers to his critique of writing in “Phaedrus,” suggesting that writing might lead to forgetfulness.
Homeland Dictionary 