Different Fridays, Different Dances

I’d never seen a disco in a school lobby before. Nor would I guess that most rational people have seen one either.

But I’ll admit to a certain curiosity, and that’s why I set out a little after nine last Friday evening (the 14th of October).

Locking the door behind me, I heard my name, a rather unusual occurrence here in Heves. Even if they all pronounce it like "Zseremi," it still makes me smile just to hear someone acknowledge that I exist. Several students stood in front of the stately building across the street from my rather drab flat, waving wildly at me. I recognized them as students from the class 10B, one of four groups of sophomores at Heves High. I teach 12 of them German and 13 of them English. They are 15 years old, give or take a year either way, born just months before the fall of socialism in Hungary.

By simply dancing, the class 10B was about to become my tour guides on a trip of understanding who Hungarians are and who Hungarians were.

They eagerly invited me into the building, usually it's an after-school program for kids. I'm not sure of the original purpose, but it's one of the most classical buildings in Heves. Despite the hammer and sickle above the door, there's a giant golden chandelier above the great room on in the inside. For this one night, the yellow relic would host 10B's class party, an alternative of sorts, to the much larger disco in the school lobby. Zoltan brought his whole computer, the hard drive had thousands of songs. He set it up in one corner, right behind the speakers. Coca-Cola and potato chips were in the other corner. In the middle, all the students of 10B, dancing away. Traditional Hungarian folk songs blended into Britney Spears' take on "Satisfaction." We danced merrily to both, although they had to teach me the dances to the former. They took great pleasure in requesting Green Day's "American Idiot" in honor of their English-speaking American teacher. Even if they didn't know all of the words, they understood the chorus and the tenor of the song. I took no insult to any of the lyrics.

As they danced the night away, I joined in when I wasn't lost in thought. There was a lot to think about, you can understand parts of the Hungary of today from just watching these kids. Some kids appreciated the folk songs the most, they danced as feverishly as their grandparents must have generations ago. They looked silly to me, dancing in Nikes and t-shirts. And other kids liked American rap songs the most. I laughed because I knew they could not identify half of the lyrics on a vocabulary test. But whichever genre they preferred, they were fluent in both. They could blend old and new, find a balance between the two. And regardless of whether they enjoyed the music, they danced.

Klaudia, a German student, was tired. They work the kids hard in school here. Good kids, like Klaudia, have high expectations placed on their shoulders and must tackle mounds of homework each day and on the weekends. But at the same time, there seems to be a disheartening lack of encouragement for the unmotivated students. It's not unusual for me to have ten kids in a class not turn in an assignment. I'm left wondering if they didn't understand or simply don't care. Or perhaps they all just did happen to leave it at home, like they claim.

The kids seemed a bit older than their age. Smoking breaks punctuated the dance, and it was relatively acceptable in the Hungarian culture. Thongs, worn any which way except discreetly, screamed of a more overt sexuality here than there. Two young sweethearts were kissing in a corner, surrounded by the peers, and nothing seemed amiss. Some of my students here seem more sheltered than American youth, in an understanding-the-world-around-us manner, but it seems like they are encouraged to begin living at a younger age.

I almost felt bad escaping before the end of the party. They were so happy to be dancing, in that moment, and they were pleased to have shared it with me. I learned from them and smiled. I said goodbye in three languages, before disappearing into the night. I never made it to the other disco that night, I'm sure it would have been boring in comparison.

A week later, one Friday after I had first seen them dance, 10B was dancing again.

Almost a half-century ago -- one year less than fifty years ago in fact -- Hungary was a different place. On October 23rd, 1956, Hungary boiled over. For more than ten years, since the Red Army had swept Hitler and his Hungarian allies out of Budapest, the Soviets had held Hungary under the thumb of internationalist communism. Moscow dictated economic, political and cultural control over Budapest. (Here I must apologize for the brevity and crudeness of this review of Hungarian history.)

Small university riots blossomed into an overthrow of the communist government. Imre Nagy was placed in power to form a less Soviet government, and Russian troops were asked to leave the country. For several days, the Russians backed out as they discussed a course of action. Khrushchev's autobiography states their eventual position well, even if we might find it a bit biased: "It would be inexcusable for us to stay neutral and not help the working class of Hungary in its struggle against the counterrevolution" (417). Moscow went on to send tanks and troops marching through the streets of Budapest, killing 20,000 and forcing the exile of 200,000 more. Khrushchev's pen called it, simply, the "liquidation of mutiny in Hungary" (431).

"Radicals" in Hungary and the West found themselves up in arms. Hungarian nationals scaled the Statue of Liberty under the cover of darkness and hung a Hungarian flag from her torch, as a symbol of solidarity. But like in Berlin, the American strategy of containment left Warsaw Pact internal affairs to the Soviets, and refused formal aid for the freedom fighters. And the West was using any leverage it did have on the Suez Crisis, the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal and resulting disarray, which happened the very same week as the Hungarian turmoil.

Thirty-three years after that first revolution, communism fell for real in Hungary. Instead of celebrating Revolution Day on November 7th as in the past, the new government assigned October 23rd to be the day to commemorate those who fought, struggle, and died for Hungarian freedom. A recurring theme in this part of the world.

School didn't start until 9:00, an hour later than usual, on Friday the 21st. (The 23rd was a Sunday, so the school planned ahead.) All the kids were corralled into the gymnasium and forced to stand. VIPs like me were given a chair in the front. The basketball hoops generally go unused in this part of the world, the nets have long ago fallen off, but on this day they were draped in green and red banners.

On a temporary platform put together for the day, an assortment of students read poetry. I didn't need to speak Hungarian to know most were dreadfully nervous. But afterwards, the kid of 10B came forward. Half were dressed in jeans and a white-collared shirt over a black t-shirt. Zoltan was one of those. The other half, including Klaudia, were dressed in jeans and red t-shirts. It wasn't hard to guess who would play the good guys, and who would be the bad guys.

They stood facing each other, as two different armies of sophomore dancers, until the music began. It reminded me most of 1980s new age electronic music, which is fitting, because the ceremony -- and the holiday itself -- was created from scratch in 1989. The dance began as marching, but was quick to evolve. First the white students advanced, but were pushed back by one red dancer. White advanced again, but was pushed back by three red dancers the second time. They were resilient, and pushed forward again. Five reds pushed them back across the stage again the next time, but again they pushed forward. Finally seven red dancers pushed them back and surrounded them. Strong-willed and resilient, but overwhelmed when faced with brute power. The dancers and Hungary both. They twirled and boxed and swung around. They fought with dance steps. By the end, all the white shirts were on the ground, the red shirts parading merrily above them.

The dance was interesting for its visuals, it tells a rather clear story about the history of the country. And even more significant was the concept of the ceremony itself. Here was a school, most-assuredly an institution of the state, teaching a certain version of the history of a people, a completely different version than 15 years ago. Imagine July 4th, under a different government in America, replaced with a celebration of the Haymarket Riot or some other episode of history, as the quintessential moment in history.