Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives
Press Room
FAREWELL TO SPRING
Revolutionary Youth Magazines 1968. Nr. 2
June 21 – September 16, 2018
Opening: June 21, 2018, 6:00 p.m.
Opening remarks by József Mélyi
The year 1968 started with great hopes in some Central and Eastern European countries: for a brief moment it seemed that strict ideology was being replaced by political pragmatism. Elements of consumer culture, and even a private sector appeared; cultural censorship was loosened – or lifted. The whirlwind of the Western protest movements reached the region, while counter culture also left its mark on
Artists
ALTORJAY Gábor, Jerzy BEREŚ, Eugen BRIKCIUS, Stano FILKO, Tomislav GOTOVAC, GULYÁS Gyula, Matjaž HANŽEK, Tadeusz KANTOR, KEMÉNY György, Milan KNÍŽÁK, KONKOLY Gyula, Július KOLLER, Marko POGAČNIK, Red Peristyle, SZENTJÓBY Tamás, Želimir ŽILNIK, et.al.
Curated by SZÉKELY Katalin
Concept by MÉLYI József, SZÉKELY Katalin
Assistant curator SZÖRÉNYI Péter
Exhibition design by KRISTÓF Krisztián
“Live” coverage of the 1968 Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Starting on August 20, 2018, Blinken OSA covers the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia “live” with close to 4,000 news items issued by the Central News Room of Radio Free Europe (RFE), between August 20 and September 10, 1968. The documents are published online exactly 50 years after their initial release to RFE’s national broadcast desks for dissemination. The public will be able to follow the unfolding of the invasion as the Central News Room issued incoming information sometimes by the minute.
Blinken OSA’s new website dedicated to the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968 also features a compilation of photographs documenting the operation of the Central News Room, a collection of photographs on the occupying forces entering the town of Košice, as well as a rare set of original leaflets protesting against the Soviet-led invasion from across Czechoslovakia.
The attached three documents are samples of the close to 4,000 documents to be published online starting August 20, 2018.
Discussion and film screening with English subtitles on September 11, 2018, 6 p.m.
The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives – Night of the Museums, June 23, 2018
Exhibition in Galeria Centralis
Farewell to the Spring - 1968 behind the Iron Curtain
1968 began in a very promising way for a few Eastern-European countries as political pragmatism seemed to replace rigid ideology. The effect of protest movements in the West had reached the region, and counter culture had begun to affect Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary. The exhibition presents this tumultuous time of student protests, happenings and hippy events that all came to an abrupt end with the intervention in Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries.
5:00 p.m. –7:00 p.m. Guided tour of the exhibition by the curator
4:00 p.m. – 12:00 p.m. Symbols and Slogans from 1968 – Interactive program until midnight
Protest and type! Visitors can type flyers on Cold War era type-writers and print symbols of ’68 with the help of Blinken OSA staff.
4:00 p.m. – 12:00 p.m. Tours of the building: Exhibition hall and archive in a historic building. The Goldberger House, an industrial monument, is open to the public once a year. Its basement holds records of the fieldwork that underpinned Radio Free Europe's broadcasts during the Cold War, as well as collections of human rights documents.
The tours start every two hours; in English on demand
11:00 p.m. Film screening.
Techniques, Tactics, Topics, and Teams in the Hungarian Samizdat
March 13 – April 29, 2018
On the occasion of the 170th anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) presents the exhibition FIRST DEMAND: PRESS FREEDOM.
FILM SCREENING: "OUR SCHOOL"(Şcoala noastră) by Mona Nicoară
DATE: 26/04/2018
Time: 18:00
PLACE: OSA, Arany János u. 32, 1051 Budapest
Please join us for Roma Weeks’s film screening "Our School"(Şcoala noastră), at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA).
The film "Our School", directed by Mona Nicoară, follows three Roma children from a small Transylvanian town in Romania who are among the first participants in an initiative to integrate the ethnically segregated Romanian schools.
In 2006, Alin, Benjamin, and Dana set out from their dead-end segregated school for the city, optimistic for education and new friendships with Romanians. The children’s hopes and innocent optimism quickly soured as they met with low expectations and further isolation.
Shot over four years, this tender vérité portrait fosters an intimacy in the children's profound reality and admiration for their indomitable spirit, which is punctuated by shocking instances of prejudice and ignorance. Their story touches on issues ranging from institutionalized racism, public education, and the intractability of poverty, culminating in an outrageous finale that cements the Roma children's struggle in the annals of egregious human rights violations.
"Our School" is an absorbing, infuriating, and ultimately bittersweet story of tradition and progress.
The film screening will be followed by a roundtable discussion.
The event is hosted by the Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives.
After the transition of the Southern European countries in the 1970s and of the Central European countries at the end of the 1980s from totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to democratic systems, and the democratic consolidation moving on to the enlargement of the European Union, threatening phenomena have appeared on stage: instead of further consolidation of democracy, illiberal, popular and extreme political tendencies have gained ground. Citizens seem to have forgotten about the morals of the past totalitarian regimes and are indifferent towards political and civil society activities.
This project examines the civic participation and democratic ownership in 5 European countries: Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the last decade of the totalitarian regimes, focusing on specific fields in each
country and making video interviews with senior activists:
1. fight for free speech, samizdat in Hungary,
2. trade unions – Solidarity in Poland,
3. democratic movements helped by the Catholic and Lutheran Church – in Slovakia and Germany,
4. strikes and mass demonstrations at universities – in Greece.
A national and a transnational civil dialogue is aimed to be fostered refering to the past and the fight for democracy
under totalitarian regimes and about the present – threats to democratic achievements, civic rights, counterbalances.