It took more than a year to organise the permits to come and live in Hungary in 1982. The preparations also entailed a visit to the Hungarian Embassy in London where we were given a talk about what we could not take with us when we left: the list included all forms of pornography or a photocopier (strictly banned and not to be found anywhere in the country) – furthermore, we were told that if we brought a typewriter, we would have to provide a sample page of typing from which our machine could, if necessary, be identified.
Communications of every kind were severely curtailed in Hungary at that time. The rarity of telephone ownership and their technical shortcomings were further complicated by the fact that everyone was well aware that calls could be – and were – monitored. Certain topics were never alluded to on the telephone, but only in personal meetings. Letters could be opened – the clearest indication to us that ours were being read was that weeks passed when we did not receive a single communication from home, following which we would find half a dozen envelopes in our post box, bearing postmarks as much as three weeks apart; some letters never arrived. That parcels were always opened was not even secret – wrapping paper was torn, contents arrived damaged or even missing, and a fee was payable for the ‘privilege’.
Meanwhile, the media was, inevitably, strictly censored – not that our Hungarian was halfway to tackling the complexities of a broadsheet in the language – no tabloid press existed. A friend consoled us when we expressed some frustration at our inability to read the papers with the words, “In England people read the press to know what to believe; here we read the papers to know what not to believe!”
Watching television left us none the wiser. There were no broadcasts on Mondays, the official explanation being either that people should use their time for more uplifting pursuits, the more plausible one, that it was an energy-saving measure. The Evening Exercises programme (Esti Torna) was enthusiastically promoted – as were all forms of sport and keep fit – and many people made sufficient space in their overcrowded concrete flats to participate in the gymnastics every evening. Meanwhile, the news was dominated by pictures of combine harvesters bringing in the wheat, and smiling factory workers showing off the products that would more than fulfil targets in the Five Year Plan.
Access to foreign media proved equally limited. Foreign newspapers were occasionally available in dollar shops, though they were expensive and usually out of date. I experimented once with newspaper booths, but was only offered the Daily Star, the organ of the British Communist Party – I had heard of this, but never seen it. The only reliable source was the British Embassy library where we would go when we had time, but where papers were also days old. Hungarians who were not diplomats could not enter dollar shops, and most were wary of entering the embassy since it was an open secret that such visits were monitored by the porter at the entrance to whom you had to show your ID card.
In the obvious absence of the internet, the situation resulted in almost total ignorance of what was, in reality, happening in the world beyond Hungary’s borders. Interestingly, the Hungarian use of the word ‘outside’ (kint) to mean outside the country, in other words, abroad, persists to this day, but then had the added overtone of ‘on the other side.’
We were fortunate enough to be able to locate the BBC World Service on an old Russian radio we found in our first flat. It was somewhat of a surprise that it had not been jammed, but so few Hungarians knew English that possibly it was not deemed a threat. It was over its crackly reception that we heard that Chernobyl had exploded in 1986, while Hungarians went about their daily business in blissful ignorance.
None of our few English compatriots had a telephone, so we were unable to pass the news on to them – a telegram could have been a risky strategy. Thus it was that we sat with our musician friend Laurence that evening, ruminating on the severity of the fallout, the extent to which Hungary could have been affected, and the likelihood of our being subjected to radiation. His solution to the absence of information on the subject from local sources was as practical as it was simple: Let’s put out the lights and see if we glow in the dark! he suggested. Thankfully, we did not.
Communications of every kind were severely curtailed in Hungary at that time. The rarity of telephone ownership and their technical shortcomings were further complicated by the fact that everyone was well aware that calls could be – and were – monitored. Certain topics were never alluded to on the telephone, but only in personal meetings. Letters could be opened – the clearest indication to us that ours were being read was that weeks passed when we did not receive a single communication from home, following which we would find half a dozen envelopes in our post box, bearing postmarks as much as three weeks apart; some letters never arrived. That parcels were always opened was not even secret – wrapping paper was torn, contents arrived damaged or even missing, and a fee was payable for the ‘privilege’.
Meanwhile, the media was, inevitably, strictly censored – not that our Hungarian was halfway to tackling the complexities of a broadsheet in the language – no tabloid press existed. A friend consoled us when we expressed some frustration at our inability to read the papers with the words, “In England people read the press to know what to believe; here we read the papers to know what not to believe!”
Watching television left us none the wiser. There were no broadcasts on Mondays, the official explanation being either that people should use their time for more uplifting pursuits, the more plausible one, that it was an energy-saving measure. The Evening Exercises programme (Esti Torna) was enthusiastically promoted – as were all forms of sport and keep fit – and many people made sufficient space in their overcrowded concrete flats to participate in the gymnastics every evening. Meanwhile, the news was dominated by pictures of combine harvesters bringing in the wheat, and smiling factory workers showing off the products that would more than fulfil targets in the Five Year Plan.
Access to foreign media proved equally limited. Foreign newspapers were occasionally available in dollar shops, though they were expensive and usually out of date. I experimented once with newspaper booths, but was only offered the Daily Star, the organ of the British Communist Party – I had heard of this, but never seen it. The only reliable source was the British Embassy library where we would go when we had time, but where papers were also days old. Hungarians who were not diplomats could not enter dollar shops, and most were wary of entering the embassy since it was an open secret that such visits were monitored by the porter at the entrance to whom you had to show your ID card.
In the obvious absence of the internet, the situation resulted in almost total ignorance of what was, in reality, happening in the world beyond Hungary’s borders. Interestingly, the Hungarian use of the word ‘outside’ (kint) to mean outside the country, in other words, abroad, persists to this day, but then had the added overtone of ‘on the other side.’
We were fortunate enough to be able to locate the BBC World Service on an old Russian radio we found in our first flat. It was somewhat of a surprise that it had not been jammed, but so few Hungarians knew English that possibly it was not deemed a threat. It was over its crackly reception that we heard that Chernobyl had exploded in 1986, while Hungarians went about their daily business in blissful ignorance.
None of our few English compatriots had a telephone, so we were unable to pass the news on to them – a telegram could have been a risky strategy. Thus it was that we sat with our musician friend Laurence that evening, ruminating on the severity of the fallout, the extent to which Hungary could have been affected, and the likelihood of our being subjected to radiation. His solution to the absence of information on the subject from local sources was as practical as it was simple: Let’s put out the lights and see if we glow in the dark! he suggested. Thankfully, we did not.
No comments:
Post a Comment