| Géza Ekecs and János
Kund *
Bye-bye “SZER”...
The first Hungarian program of Radio Free Europe (RFE)**,
i. e. Szabad Európa Rádió (SZER), was broadcast
from a small makeshift studio in a Munich apartment house on October
6, 1951. The Radio moved to the English Garden building half a year
later when its construction was completed.
The daily program of about 19 to 20 hours was written and put together
by a relatively small team of emigre journalists recruited from several
European countries. Our first director was Gyula Dessewffy, a descendent
of an ancient noble family which had fought for Hungarian freedom and
independence for centuries. One of our first colleagues was Sándor
Márai, one of the most outstanding writers of the twentieth century,
whose SUNDAY LETTERS catered to gourmets of literature throughout the
years. Imre Györi-Mikes ("Gallicus"), his pen dipped
in vitriol, was castigating the communist regime in his program series
REFLECTOR. Sándor Körösi-Krizsán criticized
communism with an insider's expertise: being one of Lenin's supporters
back in 1919 he had hoped for a new social order but later, when disillusioned
by Stalinism, he turned a determined foe of the Bolsheviks. Another
one of our Founding Fathers was playwright Ottó Indig, -- his
light pieces touched many hearts. The populist literati of our country
were represented by Zoltán Szabó. Idiomatic Hungarian,
rustic pronunciation, and sharp wit characterized Bálint Czupy
("Farmer Bálint") when he spoke to millions of listeners.
Julián Borsányi ("Colonel Bell"), a former high-ranking
officer of the Hungarian Army, informed the audience about topics of
science, technology, and military strategy. Communist attempts to falsify
Hungary's past were refuted by historian Prof. Tamás Bogyay in
his weekly program series HUNGARIAN HISTORY. The studio producer of
high-quality radio plays and literary shows was Aladár Kovách,
a former stage director of the Hungarian National Theater. -- These
are just a few of a great many names found in the memory-chest of the
42 years of the history of the Hungarian Services of Radio Free Europe.
--
Our news editors were providing ten-minute newscasts
on the top of the hour, every hour from dawn to midnight. (At that time,
the domestic radio carried only three to four newscasts per day.) Our
press reviews were concise mirrors of the world's newspapers. Our actors
and announcers spoke a beautiful and intact Hungarian; they were guardians
of the purity of the mother tongue, with a keen sense to offset the
negative impact of the political phraseology that was spreading and
corrupting the language in the homeland.
Hundreds of thousands of people left their homeland
in the wake of the Soviet invasion that crushed the Hungarian Revolution
of October 1956. We created a bridge between separated families by broadcasting
the messages of refugees to their beloved ones who stayed behind.
From the early 1960s on the Hungarian Broadcasting
Department broadened its programming, airing a rich variety of topics
and formats and improving its technical standards; we grew to a professional
radio station. Using the latest formulas of modern radio, we introduced
early morning live shows and informative noon blocks as well as evening
and late night live programs on current affairs. It always took a few
years for the domestic media to follow suit and copy the example. This
was valid also in the case of our rock and pop music programs –
like the TEENAGER PARTY -- for the young generations: Radio Budapest
copied our show five years later. There are more examples to this, but
we also had formats which the communist media could not "domesticate"
at all; e. g., international press reviews or our colorful panorama-type
programs of a light and non-political tone.
At the time of the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo -- as
we later learnt -- the domestic media used our programs as source for
reporting on the Olympic events. Our method here in Munich was simple:
we asked the RFE Central News Department to have the AP, UPI, and Reuter
news wires installed in our live studio. The wires kept on ticking away
in the background, we tore off the items immediately as they came in
and reported the very latest sports results.
It was a sensational coincidence that the news agencies "flashed"
Khrushchev's ouster right during our Olympic live coverage, giving us
once again a considerable edge over Radio Budapest.
In those exciting first years of Space Age we aired frequent live programs
adapting special coverages from US radio and TV networks; one of the
highlights was the historical landing of the first man on the moon on
that unforgettable early morning in June 1969. At times of great crises
and global developments -- like the Middle East wars, the invasion of
Czechoslovakia, or the Solidarity Movement in Poland -- we went beyond
reach in competition with the communist press and radio. This was true
years later again when samizdat authors pressed a relatively liberal
Kádár regime to make new and new concessions: we were
broadcasting those samizdat publications which helped cutting away roots
and branches of the Party's monopoly of power. Indeed, in the process
of the great historical transformation the Hungarian programs of Radio
Free Europe were driving quite a number of nails into the coffin of
the communist regime.
This brief retrospect is just a nostalgic glance at
some of the highlights of the past.
It is, however, a moral duty for us to make efforts to achieve that
detailed and deep-going reviews and books be written on the work and
history of the Hungarian Broadcasting Department of Radio Free Europe,
including merits and faults, between its first day on October 6, 1951
and its last day of programming on October 31, 1993.
*Géza Ekecs , RFE-employee 1951 - 1992
*János Kund , RFE-employee 1957 - 1994
____________________________________________________________
** From 1950 till 1995 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL), private radio stations funded by US Congress, were broadcasting
from Munich around the clock in dozens of languages. In 1995 the Radios
moved to Prague and continue their mission from the Czech capital.
For more details on the history and mission of RFE/RL
please visit the website: www.rferl.org
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