Ráday Salon

Ráday Salon on Funzine

Our October 30, 2008 Salon evening, which included a screening of the documentary film Freedom's Fury and a discussion on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, was featured in a story on the website of the Budapest Funzine, one of our favorite sources of English-language information in Budapest.   Click the picture to read the story (with photos!).

Ráday Salon Evening -- Screening of "Freedom's Fury" -- Thurs., Oct. 30

In 2006, in the context of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, we held a special event at the Salon, focusing on personal stories of this momentous political and historical event. This year, in keeping with our interest in seeking out the "human" side of such events, we would like to mark the 1956 anniversary with the screening of a film that tells the story from an unexpected perspective.

Freedom's Fury is a US-made documentary film released in 2006 (audio in English, Hungarian, and Russian, with English subtitles). It follows the unfolding story of the '56 Revolution with a parallel focus on the Hungarian men's water polo team as they prepared to take part in that year's Olympics games in Melbourne, Australia – where, as fate would have it, they would meet their country's political nemesis, the Soviet Union, on a different field of battle, the water polo pool, in the Olympic semi-final match. The match that resulted still stands as probably the most famous water polo match in history, known for the "blood in the water" that resulted from the rough play between the teams, and especially the famous injury to one player that brought the game to an end. To tell their story, the makers of Freedom's Fury gathered together many of the players from both the Hungarian and Soviet sides of the match, and their interviews make the film a compelling look at the dramatic events of 1956.

We will be joined by journalist and human rights activist Balázs Nagy Navarro, who will offer a brief presentation and moderate our discussion. Balázs is a radio, TV, and newspaper journalist with extensive experience in international affairs, and spent ten years covering Asia and Europe for Hungarian public television. As an activist, Balázs has many years of experience working with many different organizations, including Amnesty International, and is a former Chair and current member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International Hungary. He also brought and won an important discrimination lawsuit against Hungarian public radio on the issue of equal pay for equal work. Balázs can currently be heard as host of Mindenki joga (Everybody's rights), a weekly talk show on human rights issues on Civil Radio 98FM, airing every Monday from 10am to 12pm.

For more background on Thursday's salon, we invite you to explore the following links:

• Visit the official website of Freedom's Fury
• Read Wikipedia's page on the "Blood in the Water" match
• Visit Civil Radio on the web at http://www.civilradio.hu
• View the program webpage for Mindenki joga (in Hungarian)
• Read about our 2006 event on the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution
• Listen to the audio of our 2006 event – highly recommended!

1956 Hungarian Revolution Salon -- audio

Dear friends,

We know it's been a long time since you've heard from us, but, as often happens, holiday plans and long-distance travel have intervened to keep the Salon on hold.  But fear not!  We expect to be coming back with our next event in a few weeks.

In the meantime, we do have something new to offer you.  Thanks again to our wonderful friend JD, we now have audio available of our last Salon, in which our friend Gaston Vadász shared his recollections of witnessing and experiencing the 1956 Hungarian Revolution first-hand as a youngster in Budapest.  The feedback we have received about this Salon has been overwhelming -- Gaston thoroughly captivated the crowd with his vivid and moving retelling of the events he lived through, starting with the first spontaneous gatherings on the streets, and leading up to his furtive escape with his mother over the border to Austria across an open field in the middle of the night.

We have two versions of the audio available:  the short version (approx. 30 mins) contains only the main part of Gaston's presentation; whereas the long verson (approx. 1 hr 30 mins) contains Gaston's presentation plus all the discussion that followed, which includes comments and recollections of the events from others as well.  (Also, the story of the midnight border crossing is in this longer version, as it comes up in the discussion section.)

To download the audio, right click on the desired link and select "Save Target As...."  From there you may select the location where you would like to save the file.  To listen online right now, simply (left-)click on the link.

Short version (presentation only) [mp3, 13 MB]
Long version (presentation with discussion)  [mp3, 46 MB]

1956 Hungarian Revolution Salon -- photos

Our thanks to all who made our last Salon evening such a success! It was so nice for us to have a very full house after such a long hiatus.  And we are greatly indebted to Gaston for his captivating re-telling of his experiences in 1956.  It was an evening none of us will soon forget!

We hope to see you all again before long - either for another Salon or just informally.  In the meantime, we invite you to visit our photo album for the Nov. 2 Salon. Enjoy!

Ráday Salon evening -- Thurs., Nov. 2

[As we were traveling in the week leading up to the last salon, with no internet access, we were unable to post our latest Salon invitation ahead of time.  However, in keeping with our tradition of including this info on the website, we're posting it anyway after the fact...]

After a long absence – much too long – the Ráday Salon is back once again for a new season! Next Thursday, November 2, we are very excited to be able to bring you a very special evening on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution.

With all the official commemorations going on, we know there’s been many opportunities around the city to get a sense of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution on a grand, historical scale. We decided we wanted to try to do something a little different, by looking at things from more human scale – which is why we are very pleased to be able to bring you an evening of conversation with a speaker (or possibly two) who experienced the 56 Revolution first-hand.

Joining us will be Gaston Vadász, who experienced the revolution as a young teenager in Budapest . By December 1956, Gaston and his mother had left Budapest for the US , where he lived until 1994. In 1994, Gaston returned to Hungary with his wife Linda, and they have been living and working here since. By profession a marketing and media executive, Gaston is, in real life, many things: a committed adherent to non-violence in conflict resolution (who has frequently lectured on the topic), as well as a furniture maker, sculptor, theatre devotee, falcon trainer, wine enthusiast, bon vivant, and all-around renaissance man. Above all, Gaston is an engaging storyteller, and we are sure to have a fascinating evening.

(Gaston is our confirmed speaker for the evening, though we may additionally have one more speaker, depending on his availability – we are hoping to also be joined by a friend of Linda’s family who took part in the events of 1956, and also left Hungary shortly thereafter, settling in the United States. )

As you all know, we always encourage folks to bring a friend and otherwise spread the word. This time around we are especially encouraging you all to extend the invitation – as this is the first event of a new season many on our invitation list have, sadly (for us, anyway) left our fair city on the Danube and moved on to distant shores. Please do let your friends, colleagues, students, classmates know that  they will be welcomed with open arms, tasty food, and engaging conversation and discussion. In addition, we would be glad to have others join the discussion – whether they lived through the revolution or grew up learning about it later – to share their impressions of events.

We look forward to seeing you all.