Interviews

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Teacher of Philosophy, Professor of Aesthetics

He grew up in a Communist family of cadres. His step-father, Endre Kálmán, fulfilled various tasks of high leadership within the Hungarian Communist Party, on the intellectual, ideological branch (he was the president of the Institute of Party History, and the vice-editor of the Társadalmi Szemle, the theoretical newspaper of the communist party). Péter Galicza became a student of the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, where he majored in Mathematics, Psychology and Philosophy. (He abandoned Psychology after two years.) At the University, he was a member of the leadership of the reformist Communist Youth Alliance (KISZ), founded in the autumn of 1968 by János Atkári. In 1972 he was dismissed from the Executive Committee, and then voluntarily decided to leave KISZ as well. After this, he gradually grew apart from communist ideology. He graduated from university in 1973, with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. He had difficulty finding a job, finally he became a contracted researcher at the Pedagogical Research Team of the Hungarian Academy of Science (1973-1975). At the same time he gave lectures in Philosophy, and in the autumn of 1975 he was appointed graduate teaching assistant at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Technology. In the 80’-es he was appointed assistant professor. He was teaching at the University of Technology for more than 25 years, until 2000. Due to his family, peers and fellow teachers at the university he developed a wide social network and got involved with the liberal-opposition circles of the ’70-es. In the autumn of 1979, together with his wife, Gabriella Salamon economic journalist, signed the Charta Petition, which was the first open act of cooperation of the illegal Hungarian democratic opposition. In the ’80-es, he was passive and kept a distance from politics. Apart from teaching Philosophy, due to the invitation of friends, he started to run seminars in various universities about films. In the first part of the ’90-es under the leadership of András Bálint Kovács he took part in the establishment of the Institute of Art Theory and Media within the Eötvös Loránd University. In the end of the ‘90es he became a member of the Media Lab of the University of Technology, which organized the National Audiovisual Archive. In 2000 he was dismissed from the Department of Philosophy of the University of the Technology. He has been an instructor at Institute of Art Theory and Media within the Eötvös Loránd University since.

Frigyes Lamberger (1929-2014)
Foreign trade expert

He was born in Vienna in 1929, from Hungarian parents. His parents, attracted to the socialist cause, met in Vienna, where they had fled from the White Terror following the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. In the beginning of the ’30-ies they moved from Vienna to the Soviet Union. The father, Béla Lamberger became a lecturer of agriculture in several universities in the countryside, and took various jobs as lead agronomist. During the Second World War they lived close to a laboratory by the Volga river. Frigyes Lamberger started to work as an agricultural truck driver, later became an electrician. In the spring of 1956 he and his family moved back to Hungary. He was in Budapest during the Revolution of 1956, and regarded its events from a Soviet point of view. Between October 28 – November 8, together with his wife and children, he sought refuge in the Soviet embassy. He worked as a tour guide and interpreter for Express (1957-62), later for IBUSZ. For a few years he worked in restaurants, then became an electrician (1965-69) and studied to be a technician. In 1969 he became a foreign trade expert for the NIKEX company, selling elevators in the Comecon countries, his main field of expertise remained the Soviet Union. He received a BA in foreign trade. In 1975 he started to work for the METRIMPEX company, and was the head of their office in Sofia between 1978 and 1982. During the ’80-ies he worked for several companies, importing COCOM listed goods. In 1989 he retired, and started to trade independently, primarily with computers. In the ‘90ies he worked as an advisor and Hungarian representative for Lukoil for a few years.

Vladimír Vujovits (1927-2012)
Head of Ministerial Department, interpreter

He grew up in the Soviet Union. His father was Yugoslavian, his mother was a Hungarian communist emigrant. His uncle, Vojislav Vujović, was the Main Secretary of the Youth Comintern for a few years. His father, Radomir Vujović, and two of his uncles – Vojislav and Gregor – died as victims of the purges of Stalin in the Soviet Union at the end of the ‘30ies. Several other family members were imprisoned in forced labour camps of the Gulag, he and his mother were also labelled “enemies of the people”. After finishing high school in Moscow, at the end of 1946 he moved to Hungary with his mother, Erzsébet Vujovits (née Arvale) and grandmother. In Budapest he studied at the University of Economics, and worked as editor of the Russian language program of the Hungarian Radio. At the outbreak of the Revolution, in the afternoon of October 23rd, 1956, he was in the Radio building, where he witnessed the protests, but left the building before its siege. On November 3rd-4th he worked in the temporary studio of the radio set up in the Parliament (called Free Kossuth Radio). On the final day of the revolution, at the dawn of November 4th he translated and read the announcement of Prime Minister Imre Nagy about the attack of the Soviet troops. In March 1957 he was dismissed from the Hungarian Radio. Between 1957 and 1965, he was working for the Ministry of Foreign Trade, being responsible for Comecon cooperation, as well as interpreting for the Hungarian minister of foreign trade. Between 1965 and 1972 he was employed by the Council of Ministers, first on the side of Antal Apró, then Péter Vályi, deputy prime ministers of Comecon cooperation, whom he also interpreted for. He travelled vastly because of his work, and was a member of several hundred high ranking Hungarian delegations. In 1972 he was appointed as Head of the Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. In 1988 he retired. His wife, Inessa Vujovits, of Russian descent, a former teacher of the Miklós Radnóti High School, also took an active part in the interview, this the story of her life also becomes described.