Fulbrighters in Pecs

Last weekend a group of Fulbrighters descended on sleepy Pecs, so I finally got the full tourist tour that I had been too lazy to undertake on my own.
Me in front of the Zsolnay fountain. The Zsolnays are a famous Pecs family known for their ceramics. They developed the secret bluish-green glaze you see on the fountain's lion heads, with the recipe known only to trustworthy family members.
Locks of love. Those in love scrawl (or engrave) their initials and a date on a lock and attach it to the gate. Their love, I think, is meant to last as long as the lock does. Much to my chagrin, (since I have a lock there myself from 2004), I learned that older locks are regularly removed to make space for newer ones. In my opinion this is a very skeptical statement about the constancy of love.
My first wine tasting, at the Bock cellar in Villany. We started with the white, but Villany is really known for it's reds. Ended up buying three absurdly expensive (for Hungary) bottles of wine when happily drunk afterwards.
View of the rolling Mecsek from the Pecs Tv tower.

Jump into the action

For those who want a better understanding of the 1956 uprising, check out this absolutely ridiculous "commemorative" action game that lets you participate in the revolution and kick some Soviet ass. "Points by delivering medical supplies, rescuing the wounded, and battling soviet soldiers and the dreaded secret police."

Remembering 1956

If you don't know that October 23 is the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, you're clearly not in Hungary. And you can't count.

I spent September 28-29 in Budapest at a conference dedicated to remembering the uprising, where I had the chance to exchange phone numbers with Hungarian spies for the American government who grew up hating Russians. Unfortunately the purpose of the conference seems to have been more commemorative and symbolic rather than investigative, but that's not terribly surprising given that the event was organized by embassies and NGOs dedicated to promoting democracy. The lack of active international support for the Hungarians in 1956 was tactfully side-stepped for most of the conference and some Western panelists even delineated the reasons why America didn't help Hungary fight off the Soviets. The organizers, moreover, made sure to invite 1956 emigres who expressed an undying gratitude to their new homeland. One obnoxious historian or politician turned the podium into a pulpit and preached that the current political and media situation shows that Hungary is no democracy, and if they don't clean up their act there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I've just surprised myself by sounding sceptical in the above description. I guess it takes a certain latency period to form an opinion rather than an impression. I actually found the conference enjoyable; for me the most valuable aspect was meeting experts and fellow researchers (including a poet, who had applied for a Fulbright but didn't get it; that was awkward). And of course spies. Plus the coffee and pastries were very good. And there were some intense emotional moments. Like the time at the beginning of the conference, just before Hungary's president, Laszlo Solyom, gave his welcoming remarks, when some old man stood up from the audience and called on everybody to sing the national anthem. So everyone in the room stood up and sang the national anthem in unison.

On a note related to the conference only because I heard this information there, I just learned that the director Istvan Szabo was an informer for the Soviets. Doesn't that put his films into perspective?