Egon Máté Póka, a Hungarian bass guitarist and composer who won the Péter Máté Prize, died two years ago. on Telex on Thursday , referring to speakers, Egon Póka's alleged or real former crimes are listed at length. The person of Egon Póka has now come to the fore because the idea that a college of pop music and art should be named after Egon Póka was allegedly raised in the Petőfi Music Council.
Several former students and staff of the Kőbánya vocational school reported to Telex that, in their opinion, Egon Póka is unworthy of naming an educational institution after him.
Egon Póka, the popular musician of the former Hobo Blues Band, and one of the founders and managing directors of the Kőbányai Music Studio, then deputy director and artistic director, regularly greeted and kissed the school's typically 18-23-year-old students and several female employees, teachers, and he mostly called women "my little ones" , writes Telex in a long article describing and depicting sexual harassment and abuse in a natural way, as told by those involved who did not give their full names.
According to Póka's accusers, his actions, which amounted to sexual harassment, took place between 2010 and 2017 at the Kőbánya Music Studio he managed.
Demeter Szilárd, the director of the Petőfi Literary Museum, shared his opinion on the Póka case on Mandiner:
"Telex attacked Egon Póka in a long, overwritten and masterfully mean-spirited article. One of the greatest Hungarian rock musicians, to whom we can be grateful not only as music students, but also for hundreds of extremely good musicians, to whom we owe the quality of today's Hungarian music scene.
Spider Egon can't defend himself because he's dead. Attacking a dead person is an easy victory for a medium because he has no way to defend himself. You can't confront those who accuse him, you can't tell him his reading. You don't have to look him in the eye.
Spider Egon sometimes called me my little one too. And I didn't feel "offended" by that, although it was funny to hear it at first, even my wife doesn't call me that - but I was happy about it. I took it as a sign of trust. This is how he indicated that I was important to him, more than a random ministerial commissioner or one of the many Hungarian bass players who respected and respects him as a demigod.
Egon the Spider was a raw, straightforward and honest person. He is human - and not a saint. As a good person, he created a community. Sometimes he argued passionately, because he was driven by passion, he put not only his knowledge, but also his soul into raising the quality of Hungarian music." - wrote Demeter Szilárd.
László Gyimesi , the administrator of the school in Köbánya, also supported Egon Póka in his reply letter to Telex. "It is a cowardly person who, more than two years after Egon Póka's death, claims or asks about events that are suitable for violating Egon Póka's reputation and rights of mercy," he wrote.
Zsolt Bayer responded to the Telex article Bádog blog
"Ten years ago, Telex Póka published a vile, disgusting, vile "article" about Egon, but hey, Telex is for this and that, and its employees are just like that. And of course, the world won't collapse because of this, and Telex and the vile, petty nobodys who work in it will be long forgotten when we still listen to Vadászt - they will."
Source: Mandiner , Hungarian Nation
Cover photo: Póka Egon in 2014 (Photo: MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry)