Ferenc Kőszeg

Kenedi’s stance was that, on the one hand, we are not knowledgeable enough about social sciences to undertake the publishing of a magazine like that, on the other, the opposition has no political program. A magazine like this has to provide an agenda, and in order to have that, you need a political program. Therefore, he said that it was still premature to establish a magazine, let’s found the Association of Social Sciences first and make the necessary preparations… Once we’ll have been operating for a couple of years and have put ourselves on the map, we can launch The Twentieth Century. This was one of the most prevailing opinions. The other was that of György Konrád, who said that maybe it shouldn’t be a magazine but we should disseminate our views on cassettes. The preachings of Ayatollah Khomeini, which eventually toppled the sah, were spread on cassette-players as well. Kenedi retorted that he had difficulties imagining that I, he brought me up as an example, I believe, write a litetary essay which the readers or rather, listeners will listen to on a cassette. My view was that we should come out with a bulletin-like publication, a booklet published on a monthly basis featuring the events that we find of importance, their alerts and reviews, reports on the course of events. A news magazine of sorts including the news that doesn’t make it into the official press. So I was in favour of a publication with these caveats. There was no formal voting, as far as I can remember. It was an informal gathering without any decision making entitlement. Later on Krassó referred to this gathering as evidence that the democratic opposition had always been an antidemocratic organisation, as the majority was against launching the magazine, which got nonetheless launched. However, there was obviously no majority stance as the gathering wasn’t a decision making body. Having said that, it is true that the majority of attendees regarded the journal as non-viable as well as premature. That remarkable conversation is said to have taken place following it: Bálint Nagy and Petri went out to have a beer and Saci might have been with them, too. Petri said, they are douchbags, we should make a magazine, anyway. After this Saci sought out the ones who were in favour, me among them. We’ve talked about it with her recently. Saci knew me rather fleetingly, and he was convinced that I would say no if it comes to actually making the magazine. However, I was rather thrilled that he came up to me and I was in full support of it.