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Archival Practices of Suspicion: Remains in Secret Reports, Self-Documentation and Oral Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2020
Abstract
The paper focuses on the methodological challenges of handling the material remains of banned theatre practices in Cold War Hungary. Focusing on the case of the collective Apartment Theatre (1972–6), it examines the relation of material remains, originally created by or for the socialist authorities in order to prove the danger caused by the collective, and the materials which were created by the group members as a countermovement to preserve their own memories and narratives. Consequently, archival practices of care as well as archival practices of suspicion together contribute to situating the collective in Hungarian and European cultural memory and theatre history.
- Type
- Dossier–Theatrical Vestiges: Material Remains and Theatre Historiography
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2020
Footnotes
Special thanks to Anna Koós for her kind recollection of memories; to Gabriella Schuller and Artpool Research Centre; to Mirella Csiszár, Mariann Sipőcz, Attila Szabó and the Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute; to Balázs Béla Film Studio Archives, and to Katalin Cseh-Varga. The article was finished during my Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
References
NOTES
2 Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL) 3.1.5. O-16268/2, pp. 217–18.
3 Due to official reports, Skanzen Killers, a nonconventional piece of four simultaneous actions on everyday life, was mainly banned because of the integration of a red dragon character, which ate everything at the end of the production, and according to the authorities represented the socialist ideology or the Chinese dragon. As member István Bálint recalled, ‘These accusations were bolder surrealist dreams than the ones we could come up with’. ‘Mask on Reality: Interview with István Bálint’, Színház [Theatre], 24, 10–11 (October–November 1991), pp. 86–93, here p. 90.
4 Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL) 3.1.5. O-16268/1, p. 70.
5 Between 1972 and 1976 the collective has also been referred to as Dohány Street Theatre, Apartment Theatre at Dohány Street, and (Living) Room Theatre. Core members of the group were Anna Koós, Marianne Kollár, Éva Buchmüller, Péter Breznyik, István Bálint and Péter Halász. However, many intellectuals and artists visited their performances, and occasionally also took part in them.
6 For more details see Anna Koós and Éva Buchmüller, Squat Theatre (New York: Artists Space, 1996); Anna Koós, Színházi történetek (Theatrical Stories) (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2009); Gabriella Schuller, ‘Szabadság tér 69–85’ (69–85 Freedom Square), in Zoltán Imre, ed., Alternatív színháztörténetek (Alternative Theatre Histories) (Budapest: Balassi, 2008), pp. 222–41; Zoltán Imre, Az idegen színpadra állításai (Staging the Other) (Budapest: Ráció, 2018), pp. 336–66; Júlia Klaniczay and Edit Sasvári, Törvénytelen avantgárd (Illegal Avant-Garde) (Budapest: Artpool-Balassi, 2003); Aktuális Levél (Actual Letter), 11 (Spring 1985).
7 Roms, Heike, ‘Archiving Legacies: Who Cares for Performance Remains?’, in Borggreen, Gundhild and Gade, Rune, eds., Performing Archives/Archives of Performance (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press/University of Copenhagen, 2013), pp. 35–52Google Scholar.
8 Now many of the materials regarding Kassák House Studio, Apartment Theatre and Squat Theatre are available at the Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute, at Artpool Research Centre in Budapest, at Special Collections of the University of California, Davis, at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center or at the Fales Library and Special Collections of NYU; however, a huge amount still remains in private collections.
9 Besides Diana Taylor (2003), Rebecca Schneider (2011), Amelia Jones (2012) and Marek Tamm (2015), as specifically discussed in Cseh-Varga, Katalin and Czirák, Ádám, eds., Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere (London and New York: Routledge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Péter Apor, Saulius Grybkauskas, Sándor Horváth and Heléna Huhák: ‘Surveillance and Memory: Repositories of Cultural Opposition’, in Balázs Apor, Apor, Péter and Horváth, Sándor, eds., Handbook of Courage (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2018), pp. 351–67Google Scholar.
10 Tamás Szőnyei, Titkos írás (Secret Writing) (Budapest: Noran, 2012), pp. 71–81.
11 Ibid., p. 71.
12 As a direct reference to the family name of member Péter Halász. Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL) 3.1.5. O-16268/1, pp. 32–4.
13 Imre, Az idegen színpadra állításai, p. 350. There were many other examples of such strategies; see, for instance, Emese Kürti, Glissando és húrtépés: Kortárs zene és neoavantgárd művészet az underground magánterekben, 1958–1970 (Glissando and Pulling the Strings: Contemporary Music and Neo-Avant-Garde Art in Private Spaces of the Underground, 1958–1970) (Budapest: L'Harmattan, 2018.)
14 See interviews with former spectators and artists Tamás Ascher, Péter Donáth and El Kazovszkij in the periodical Színház (Theatre) in ibid., pp. 36–57.
15 An eminent example of which is the artist group Inconnu's banned exhibition The Fighting City, commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. The artworks were destroyed by the police after the ban; however, an agent took photographs of them beforehand, which are now the only visual remains.
16 At the end of the report Bódy even suggested that Apartment Theatre should be made public again, since it seemed only important because of the banned status (ÁBTL 3.1.2 M-38710). However, this also initiated some speculation on the real intentions of the agent. Cf. Imre, Az idegen színpadra állításai; Szőnyei, Titkos írás.
17 Interview with Anna Koós, 27 March 2019.
18 Available at the BBS Archive, Budapest.
19 Interview with Anna Koós, 27 March 2019.
20 Szőnyei, Titkos írás, pp. 24–5, Kürti, Glissando és húrtépés, pp. 20–1.
21 Interview with Anna Koós, 27 March 2019.
22 Péter Halász's photographs also dominated the cover. Színház (Theatre), 24, 10–11 (October–November 1991).
23 Gabriella Schuller, ‘A hetvenes évek experimentális színházai’ (Experimental Theatres in the Seventies), public lecture at Stúdió K Theatre, 25 April 2019.