There isn't. Do not be! he bellows with bulging veins. It started with not having a world exhibition. Do they remember? It didn't happen. Don't have the Olympics. It didn't happen either.
And every initiative was rejected one after the other. World hunting exhibition. Became. World Championships in swimming and then in athletics. Do not be! But it was. There should be no traffic on the Chain Bridge. It didn't happen. Pedestrians are just as anxious on the sidewalk, while of course taxis glide pleasantly under the cover of cyclists. There should be no traffic on the wharf. Let the abundance of asphalt remain, but the citizen should walk there at fifty degrees. Will not. There should be no public transport on the Danube, to hell with small boats. It didn't happen. At least he hasn't been here to Rome for a long time.
No, don't be! Let the ruins and mutilated torsos remain in the Castle. Let the "walkways" remain - understand: the cooled place of the destroyed buildings. What for us? Who are we? A king didn't even live in the royal palace, he notes thoughtfully. Well! Mária Terézia did not even comb her hair here, and Ferenc József did not shave here. The comrades did well to demolish the remaining Horthysta buildings in the 1960s. The Honvéd High Command, the Ministry of Finance, the Habsburg Archduke's Palace. And earlier - even in the coalition times - the garrison church, the archive tower. This is so beautiful. That there isn't and shouldn't be! Restore? For what. What?
Only the palace couldn't be completely obliterated, and do you know why? Because Kádár didn't want it. I should have! After all, it's ugly, it doesn't match the castle hill! My comrades! Even its main entrance is in the wrong place. And he's looking at a precipice!
And what an abomination that national theater was on Blaha Lujza square. Terrible. It's decorative, as if there were any kind of nation here. No, don't be. You don't even need a theater. But "national" by no means. How beautiful is that empty space. You can walk. And then the Free People's headquarters was still there. Wow! The Corvin department store was destroyed with what a modern feat! Oh, that tin screen! It covered the hideous curtains, nauseating columns, railings, ornate windows. Who invented that? Laci or Gyurka? Restore?! For what? There is Domus and Sugár. Functionality! Modernity! The castle was not even modern when it was built! Not to mention the Parliament! Horrible horthyst rants. Reinforced concrete is nowhere to be found. No no! Oh, the Intranszmas headquarters! And on Fő utca is Industrialexport! It fit so well with the building stock! And now the "Palaház". Wow! And the OTP house in Krisztinaváros! Fourteen floors. Opposite, in the Horváth garden, cricket music is playing.
No, don't be! Don't be a factory! Especially not a battery factory. No way. Not even a car factory, especially a sugar factory! Preferably nothing. But leave the land alone! They come with the weed! Who's bothering you? It binds the soil. No mowing!
There should be no animal breeding - what barbarism! Eat the animal? No farming. They destroy the soil. Long live ticks, mosquitoes and all kinds of insects! (But if not, at least let's eat them.) Long live marauding wolves, stray dogs, rabid foxes, and wild boars. The wild boars are nice anyway, they killed the feudal prince Imre and the oligarch. That Zrínyi. They opened the way for bourgeois-democratic-socialist development. Long live the wild boars and come. Or let them go.
No, no fireworks. Became. But never again. No no no.
It would be best if there were no history. Only the present. You don't need a future. And let the present be ours. We tell you what is beautiful, what is proportionate, and even what is ethical!
Let us praise Pest, as if it had transformed from a single-story, one-story town into a European-level metropolis at the exact moment when the buildings of the Buda Castle, now under restoration, rose from the ground. Let's divide it into two: burgundy scenery-Buda, European citizen-Pest.
What bullshit! And so it goes from morning to night. Only one trace of Petőfi's Pest remained - what luck! – the National Museum. Not the old town hall, not the old Pilvax, not that famous printing house. They act like they are angry for us. But we know that the publicists who systematically denigrated Hungary at the beginning of the last century wrote exactly what they write today about the reviving castle. That Budapest is just a scenery. In other words, Hungary, and even Hungarianness itself, is only an artificial product of a feudal oppressive clique. It's not a pity. You can give your territory and Hungarian people to wonderful, organic "cities" with a real past like Prague, or to strong, dynamic future-worthy allies like Bucharest or Belgrade. That's ethical. Don't they know this? Or, worse, do they know very well?
No, don't be! Don't be Hungarian! Let it be your beautiful house. Let it be your hundred awards. (The "profession" is donated to each other, by the end it adds up to a few kilos.) Let it be your money, your business. Be proud of your father, grandfather, husband, children, grandchildren. But it shouldn't be Hungary!
Let the Buda Castle remain a pile of ruins, a construction site, a barren "walk". Toothache, closed hotel, firewall, public building. That's good. It's good that our hearts sink and our stomachs churn at the reminders of destruction.
Don't you know that the largest buildings of the Prague Castle were built at the same time as the palaces in Buda, which are now being restored? Fortunately for them, a lot of things from before really remained there, because neither the Turks, nor the Germans, nor the Soviets, nor their own communists destroyed it. And not even their own architects... The two high towers and the new nave of the St. Vitus Church were built at the same time that Alajos Hauszmann started the development in Buda. Just when the present face of Paris was formed, and Notre-Dame itself was also restored. Because they knew it was important. Just as it is being renovated now, because it burned down. There are also brainless activists, embittered university people and clueless matrons who oppose it. For what? This is not modern. It can only indicate some kind of power, economic or cultural superiority. And even a church?!
I don't know how the fate of the now restored buildings in the castle will turn out in the end. In Paris, they were at the renovation of Notre-Dame, who urged a contemporary architectural gesture. It's bad to even think about what it would be like.
I also wish there was life up there. Even in my youth, I felt unbearable the ruins, the neglect, the weeds, the memories of destruction. It smelled of defeat and suffering. We want to move beyond this. With defiance. A toothless person is not a square, a sidewalk lined with ruins is not a walkway. A building that is not suitable for its function, or that has outlived its function, can at best symbolize the passing away and mistakes. It has its place, but it is not the heart of the country. It is difficult for me to assume good faith about those critics who would like to return the terrible torso of the Honvéd High Command even today. Or the shabby atmosphere of the village fairs on the corner of Dísz tér. Or the former state of Szent György tér, which was already unpleasant from Kőbánya-kulső.
The critics are right that culture should be saved as much as possible. And it must be saved for us. In other words, it should be restored as well.
They may not have noticed that it slipped out of our hands. Restoration also offers a chance for this. Because ministries also attract life. These are not some alien, dead buildings. The officials we commissioned work there, and they live in the castle. As do tourists. This may be repulsive to some, but it is better to accept it. The palace should be a museum and gallery, more beautiful and attractive than it is today. The library should remain, new attractions should be created on Szent György tér. Find the best features of buildings. Also that of the riding school, and that of the former Ministry of the Interior. You don't have to move towards the scenery, but towards life. Radically.
The reborn castle is only concrete, brick, tile, i.e. material, but it is also something else. An expression of who we are.
Let the restless try to free themselves from the shackles of Power. Reconstruction only means that we are not following the path of destruction and resignation. We have a goal, and it is not a small one: to preserve and even recreate the precious every day. The messages of the past encourage us to soar, and this makes it easier to resist those who would like to see us fall.
Featured image: MTI/Márton Mónus
