COURAGE

Підключення Колекцій

The private collection of Tamás Csapody (1960–) includes documents related to movements for the reform of the compulsory military service and the introduction of alternative civilian service. Refusal to perform military service was an illegal act in the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Csapody’s collection, as the only collection focusing this specific topic, contributes to remembering the stories of people who were penalized by the laws of the Kádár regime because of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

The Archive of Opposition is one of the oldest activities of the KARTA Centre. It was established in 1991 as “The Archive of the Polish People’s Republic” and gathered all the materials concerning political life in Poland since 1956 to 1989, especially in connection to the events of 1956, 1968, 1970, 1980. In 1998 the archive changed its name to “The Archive of Opposition”, which reflects greater awareness of the specificity of the opposition in the Polish People’s Republic: its diversity extending beyond merely political actions. In the Archive researchers and journalists can find a very rich, written and visual material on the newest Polish political and social history.

The documents of the Cultural Forum and Counter-Forum of Budapest in late 1985 reflected on the major changes which had just begun at the time in East-West relations, politics, and diplomacy, together with the challenging concept of cultural freedom as a basic part of human rights. For the official Forum, some 850 participants were accredited to Budapest, thus the city was home for six weeks to a legion of diplomats and experts. However, instead of the protocol-like program of the official Forum, the real novelty which caught the attention of the world, the samizdat press, the Western public, and dissidents from the East (not to mention the Hungarian secret police, who were busier than ever) was an open dispute among writers and intellectuals from both East and West that was held at a poet’s flat and then at a film director’s apartment, and which lasted three days. The rich and versatile sub-collection contains many exciting documents which are of potential interest both to Hungarian and international visitors.