W 126 M

Introduction

Most of the people is curious what happened on the first day of their life - above that they were born. Did happen something very significant on that day?

In my paper I would like to present the day when I began to live by the articles of a newspaper. Probably the reader would ask why I had chosen this topic, as my tutor, Mr. József Horváth, gave me several topics to choose from. The answer is simple: I knew little details about that day and it was a very determining one for me, so I wanted to learn more about it.

Let’s start searching, what happened on the 23rd November in 1978.

Method

To examine and to value the day I was born (November 23, 1978) I used the best known local newspaper called Dunántúli Napló - the predecessor of Új Dunántúli Napló. This issue was the 323rd copy of the XXXVth volume, and Ervin Mitzki was its chief editor.

The choice: first I used Dunántúli Napló because it gives information about the events of the world. Plus, it gives detailed information about the events of Pécs and its environs.

In the selected issue of that newspaper most of the articles were written about the previous day, so these were not the happenings and events of the day I was born. But, I’ve chosen the 23rd of November 1978 issue, because I found more personal the issue with my birthday date on its front-page than the one with the date after my birth. On the other hand, I found several articles about the 23rd of November.

I read through all the articles of the newspaper except the classified advertisements, and I made notes to easily process their contents.

Results and Discussion

I start with the weather forecast. The 23rd of November in 1978 was a rather cold Thursday, the temperature was 3 degrees centigrade below zero in the night and 2 or 3 degrees centigrade during the day; the sky was cloudy, and there was fog ("Idõjárás" 4).

The main events of that day and the previous one - based on the articles of Dunántúli Napló - were the following: the Political Conferring Corporation of Warsaw Pact countries was to began their session in Moscow. Hungary was to be represented by János Kádár, the party secretary ("Megkezdõdött a Varsói" 1).

Pál Losonczi, the chairman of the Presidential Council, made an official visit to the Csepel Iron and Metal Works ("Losonczi Pál látogatása" 1).

The autumnal planting of trees was to begin that day, but problems cropped up as the chairman of the warden's office made a statement to the journalist of Dunántúli Napló ("Õszi fásítás" 1).

The Hungarian - Czechoslovakian region development conference began on the 22nd of November ("Magyar - Csehszlovák" 2).

Fire prevention of Komló was suitable as the captain of the fire station told the journalist of Dunántúli Napló ("Megfelelõ a tûzvédelem" 2).

The national children's book week was announced. It was to be held from the 4th of December until the 8th of December ("Országos gyermekkönyvhét" 2).

The Mayor of Pécs and Eszék signed a cooperation agreement between the two cities for 10 years (Gejer 2).

"The snow can come!" - the snowploughs were on the alert ("Jöhet a hó!" 2).

Parliament of youth at the building industry - some of the workers made pledges to perform the home building programme (Török 3).

The chairman of the socialist brigades appealed to their members for coordinated work against alcoholism (Kurucz 3).

The 4th page contains the weather forecast, some public phone numbers, the surgery hours of hospitals and opening hours of pharmacies, date of weddings and exhibitions.

The 5th page contains the events of 24 hours ranked by cities ("24 óra" 5):

- Helsinki: conference about establishing a North-European nuclear-free zone leaded by Urho Kaleva Kekkonen;
- Moscow: Andrej Gromiko (member of the Soviet Political Committee) received Malcolm Toon (ambassador of the United States in Moscow);
- Washington: the dragging on of SALT-negotiations, new armament plans;
- Conakry: the name of the Guinean Republic was changed to Guinean Revolutionary People's Republic;
- Tuva: a Scythian golden statuette - presumably from the middle of the Ith millennium before Christ - was found by archaeologists in the South Siberian region, near Tuva;
- San José: the Sandinist National Liberation Movement launched an offensive against the Somoza regime;
- Lisboa: the new Prime Minister of Portugal took the oath;
- Havana: the 35th session of Council for Mutual Economic Aid began. The main subject was the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes;
- Beograd: Ziaur Rahman, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, arrived to the capital to confer with Joszip Broz Tito, the president of the Yugoslavian Republic;
- Oslo: Jimmy Carter, the president of the United States, announced that he would not be able to participate on the Nobel Peace Prize award;
- Bonn: on Tuesday two Dutch fighter aircraft, belonging to the unit of NATO, crashed during the touch down near an English base in West Germany. One of the two aircraftmen died in the accident;
- Berlin: new one and two mark coins were to be put into circulation;
- Teheran: heated debate milled about the program of general Gholam Reza Azhari's military cabinet.

The Central Committee of Communist Alliance of Youth (KISZ) held a meeting on Wednesday ("Ülést tartott" 5).

Yugoslavian national assembly was to arrive in Nógrád county to visit the county town, Salgótarján and some surrounding villages ("Jugoszláv nemzetgyûlési" 5).

The leadership of the Common Market and of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid held a meeting in Brussels ("KGST - Közös" 5).

The 6th page of Dunántúli Napló was the economical supplement ("Közgazdasági élet" 6), where two articles were about inflation. The first one dealt with the cause of inflation, as it was a new phenomenon at that time. The author of the article tried to describe in an easily intelligible way to the readers why they would have to pay more for the goods. The article said this is not a unique symptom of the Hungarian economy; other countries were also suffering from inflation (Petsching 6).

The second article in this field was about the national price conference held at Pécs ("Országos árkonferencia" 6).

The 7th page of the newspaper was for the classified ads ("Hirdetés" 7).

The last page of Dunántúli Napló is always reserved for sports events. It was the case in that issue, too ("Dunántúli Napló Sport" 8). I list here some of the events but I am not intended to be exhaustive, because some of the short news were programmes for the upcoming weekend.

In the UEFA Cup the Budapest Honvéd team beat the Ajax team. The Hungarian eleven scored 4 goals and got only one (the score of the game at the end of the first half: 0:0) ("UEFA Kupa" 8).

The PMSC team of Pécs played against the team of Szekszárd and won. The score at the end was 3:1 (2:0) ("Labdarúgó NB-s" 8).

In the UEFA qualifying matches the Hungarian team beat the Rumanian team. The visiting side got 3 goals (1:0) ("UEFA selejtezõ" 8).

The Salgótarjáni TC beat the Russian Olympic Representative Team with one goal (1:0) ("Rosszul lõttek" 8).

I compared the events of that day described in Dunántúli Napló with other days' events that I've read and lived in the course of my life and I found among the articles only one, which caught my attention: this was the sports news article on the last page about the success of Bp. Honvéd. The Hungarian team beat the nowadays so successful team, Ajax Amsterdam. Now, people would not believe that a Hungarian team won a game against a world-class football team. Those were the days of the Hungarian national soccer.

The other articles showed me that the day of my birth was quite an ordinary one. No one particularly significant event happened, which could have been published in any history coursebook or anybody would remember it for its great importance.

But, perhaps this is not the verity. Something could have happened which was not written in this newspaper. When this issue was released, it were the late seventies; it was the term of soft socialism in Hungary, when the press had been under the control of the government. Every article was submitted to the censor before being prepared for the press. If the leadership found something not worthy to know for the people, they simply cut it out and that time it was not released. Most of these events, which were tried to be cleared from people’s memory or not even let them become known by the people, were in connection with the dirty affairs of the Soviet government. The leadership could not allow itself that some facts leak out, because this could have undermined their well-established regime and their position.

For instance lots of nuclear weapon tests were kept in secret, because their harm to the human beings (Vajda). Those who suffered serious injuries by these experiments or only witnessed them were isolated from the other members of the society. Those who did dare speak their mind were liquidated or thrown into jail. The inhabitants had been terrorized for so many years that they became passive and they taught their children to behave the same way. These conditions were present in the countries of the Eastern block, directed by the Soviet Union, and in dictatorial regimes.

Conclusion

No matter which theory is the truth, my task was to analyze the day when I was born by the articles of Dunántúli Napló, released on that day. This is why I had to say that the day of my birth was a customary Thursday, nothing specially significant event happened.

To seek after the truth can be the task of another paper, which requires much more research among the works released after the change of regime, and dealing with the events of this day. Then, the author of that paper could answer the open question of my work.