What could be wrong with Imre Kertész, and especially with the government, which invested an institution's worth of money and resources in the writer, a few years after his death? - asks journalist László Kovács Vésey.
With the government - for the left-wing observer - obviously everything is like that in general; whether there is an Imre Kertész Institute or not, whether the institute has a cap or not, it is bad. Well, there could be a problem with our Nobel Prize-winning writer, too: for example, the fact that he firmly rejected both fascism and communism.
The same cannot be said of Miklós Vámos, who had objections to the fact that the state took upon itself the maintenance and dissemination of Kertész's intellectual heritage. The balance of the case is actually already positive, since Vámos gave a taste of the slips of the communist transformation artists, and he also reflexively denounced the well-known SZDSZ propaganda.
Libri case
Fortunately, this private criticism of Imre Kertész's legacy coincides with the post-communist-liberal horror presented in the Libri case. In the latter, what happened was that a governmental research and educational institute changed its previous minority ownership in a book publisher and distributor to majority ownership. Scandal! They didn't hurt, didn't annihilate, didn't oppress anyone, yet the screeching skyrocketed, the left-wing commentators started passive-aggressively putting pressure on the writers belonging to the left-wing camp to leave the Libri publishing house, and of course the good humor started in some places, but mostly only little or no funny left-wing humor about oppression and dictatorship.
All of this is interesting on the same page as Miklós Vámos's criticism, because the two parallel phenomena make it clear what we already knew: the post-communist-globalists really only have one problem with the national government - that it exists.
On the one hand, from this point of view, it is worth considering any attempt at cooperation or reconciliation in their direction, since with this attitude typical of the Bolsheviks and Nazis, which hates the mere existence of others, nothing can really be done. On the other hand, it is worth taking them seriously if they are in trouble. Like Miklós Vámos, for example.
"No organization has ever stood behind me"
– this is how Miklós Vámos announced in the Magyar Hang podcast, even before the Gardener topic, what a difficult path he had to walk throughout his life. Actually, on closer inspection, maybe even a victim. What does one do when someone hears such a story of suffering from Gerendáspeter? First of all, he begins to suspect that the truth has not been told, so he checks if there is any trace of the person in the Network. And so there is.
A difficult life in the palm of the Party
Miklós Vámos, a self-confessed outsider and lonely fighter who "never belonged to any camp", appears in a completely different light in Gábor Mező's exploration of the past:
already at a young age he belonged to the far-left group, which consisted largely of Budapest students and university students living in comfort and prosperity, very often with cadre parents.
Vámos's father was the secretary of László Rajk, so he was close to the circles from which it was possible to gain influence during the decades of the dictatorship. Already when he was a high school student, the Communist regime showered Vámos's movement propaganda band, Guerilla, with awards, press support and numerous performances. There were those who neither at that age nor later could get above the level of assistant worker, because they were classified as enemies of the system, and there were even those who were hanged by the Kádárs at that age;
On the other hand, Miklós Vámos (originally Tibor Vámos), who never had anyone behind him, already had centrally fired stardom around his neck.
In the shower of awards that fell on them at the 1967 pol-beat festival, there was also the special prize of István Jó Ember Tömpe, who took a key role in the bloody revenge after '56, but at that time was already the president of TV and radio, and their singles were released immediately. Just for comparison: the most popular rock band of the '70s, P. Mobil, had to knock for five years for a single miserable single, and could not release a LP until Hálózat, carrying the lone warrior Miklós Vámos on the palm of his hand, broke up the band's original line-up.
It was a tough time, huh!
Magvető published the stories of Vámos, who lived a difficult life as a cadre child, from the age of 22. Magvető, which he praised in the Magyar Hang program, and where his writing career took off under the protective hand of György Kardos, a former katpolist and ÁVH terrorist. In addition, Vámos's name also appears in the state security documents in the Maoist "new left" circle, which includes a good number of cadre children - we also owe Gábor Demszky to this group.
This Miklós Vámos, who found a great symbiosis with communist state influence, is suddenly very much against the role of the state in the literary and cultural space. What a turn!
The big deal
The Magyar Hang program discussed Imre Kertész and the Imre Kertész Institute, which is dedicated to maintaining his life's work and intellectual heritage. According to Vámos, this has nothing to do with the recognition of the writer, but only financial considerations, they want to make money from our only literary Nobel laureate.
The contours of a rather ambitious business plan emerge here, where the state spends quite a lot of money to create an institute for complex tasks, but its only purpose is to get hold of the giant tobacco. If that's the case, then someone is a very big business spieler up there. Compared to this, according to Vámos, the state is not capable of operating such an institute, they just won over the rights to the works of Imre Kertész, and either they are not published at all, or the store is doing badly. As long as it was published by Magvető! I don't know how much the sales volume of the Gardening books fell, but Miklós Vámos must have the numbers before and after, if he declares himself so confidently.
The Imre Kertész Institute publishes the Nobel Prize-winning author's books, operates a website containing almost all information about him, built and takes care of his grave, erected a memorial plaque at his former residence, organized a painting exhibition that travels around the country to present Imre Kertész, organizes educational programs, unusual literature classes, conducts art tenders related to the writer.
Of course, it could certainly be done better, but when the care of Kertész's intellectual heritage consisted of the publishing of his books by Magvető, it was much better!
Forever loyal to the (post)communist Network
Because then people bought Kertész's books, but now they supposedly don't.
"It's like in socialism: if the state had a screw factory, it never worked. If someone stole it or privatized it - these are related solutions - it went well from then on. Because the state cannot operate anything"
- said Vámos. Because socialism, as it was then, can only happen that way. The state is not a good farmer - the SZDSZ has been shouting forever, and then the state assets were stolen and transferred into foreign hands.
Pay attention to the subtle slips, because these are the basic tricks of the Network, which has transformed from a communist to a globalist democrat!
Real transformative artists have always played in this team: from police officers, ÁVH officers, interrogation officers, the bloodthirsty pribs of the dictatorship, they became company managers, book publishers, writers, comedians, journalists, cultural leaders, and the cadre children born with the silver spoon in their mouths became opinion leaders and TV personalities loved by the whole country. On party-controlled public television.
And then, in 2023, such a propaganda musician who started out as a cadre child, then a writer, is advocating the Magvető publishing house, established by ÁVH's György Kardos, which is an integral part of the communist system, but at the same time diligently teaches the lesson that the state is a bad employer.
He describes privatization as theft - of course not naming the post-communist perpetrators who are on the same side as him - but in his opinion it is even better than state property, because at least it will be functional after it is stolen.
"You can't appoint a writer, you can't appoint a publisher either. These things are formed, or rather born"
adds Vámos. Let's just say that the communist dictatorship that elevated him did both. He also appointed writers and publishers, and silenced, disabled, and destroyed others who were even more talented than the beneficiaries, but did not write kindly to the system. And now things are smeared afterwards, the embellishment of the past, in which Vámos exposed himself this time.
Such figures, disguised as harmless and gentle, have been continuously poisoning public life and the public mood since 1990. If they create an entire institution to publish the legacy of one of our Nobel Prize-winning writers, it's not good for them either.
Nothing was good for them except when they had the power in their hands - they were very good at that.
And the one who took them out of this power is hated very much. Every step you take, even when you take a breath. And let's be honest: they don't really like Imré Kertész either. Because he committed the sin of being disgusted by the Nazi dictatorship as well as the communist dictatorship, and he tried to stay away from it as well. Because he recognized that they belong to each other - they are both equally disgusting.
