Introduction
Everyone is interested in what had happened when he or she was born. What was going on in the country, what were the people doing, how were they living. The information can be acquired in different ways: asking parents or grandparents about that day or reading books about that time or searching in libraries for information.
The easiest way to find particulars is to look at a newspaper which deals with the events, happenings, stories that happened on your day of birth. To find the information, next day’s newspaper is need because the paper comes out from the press in the evening or morning, with yesterday’s news. For example, the newspaper which you buy on April 28 is about the news that happened on April 27.
In order to find what happened on my birthday I had look in next day’s newspaper. The newspaper I used was NÉPSZABADSÁG, volume XXXII, issue 98.
This newspaper (NÉPSZABADSÁG) was the central newspaper of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. This newspaper was the government’s paper, so if the government wanted to acquaint the people of Hungary with information, they published it in NÉPSZABADSÁG.
The articles of the newspaper were censored in advance, in order to avoid unnecessary information or not wanted articles.
My aim with this research paper is to find out what happened on the 27th of April 1979. I wish to find out not only what happened. I also would like to know what was going on in Hungary back than. Was the 27th of April an important day? What happened on the 27th of April in Hungary?
Method
I used two methods in this paper. The first was a very simple one. It may sound simple but indeed it is a complex research which has several different parts. These parts are the following, in order of importance:
- reading and understanding the articles of the newspaper. The emphasis is on understanding because the articles were written eighteen years ago. The language differs a little bit from today’s language.
- making short notes from the articles
-drawing a conclusion or conclusions from the text by using the articles and notes together.
All of these units are very simple ones. But only if they are dealt with separately. The difficult part is putting them together into one text. I used the simple, well known way of understanding a text: I made notes while I was reading an article. I chose fifteen articles on which I based my results and discussion. The articles dealt with internal affairs, sport and common affairs of Hungary. I chose only Hungarian-related articles because I only wanted to know what happened in Hungary. The other countries had no importance to me. This is why I excluded the other countries.
I enclose only two examples in this paper. The first one shows one note from the fifteen notes I made while I was reading the newspaper. From these notes and the articles I came to my summation. The second example lists words which are related to the second method I used.
The first method was reading, understanding and taking notes from the texts. With the help of this I produced my conclusion.
The second method was to look at the words in connection with communism. This method was needed because from this I could picture the language usage of communism. These words also helped me to understand what was the year 1979 like in Hungary.
The examples are written in English and Hungarian because the real meanings of the words can be understood only in Hungarian. Some words might not be correct translations because I was not sure about some abbreviations.
Example 1
Diáknapok ------- - Április 28 - Május 2
7000 diák
Kisz KB és Állami Ifjusági Bizottság által meghirdetett
szakmai és politikai tanácskozások
sport és humor
tükrözi a pedagógusok és a KISZ szervezetek munkáját
kultúrában és politikában
Student days ------- - from April 28 to May 2
7000 students
sport and humour
professional and political conferences
shows the cultural and political work of teachers and KISZ organisations
Results and discussion
After reading the fifteen articles I found that Hungary was a real communist country. The words that were used show this. Example two shows the most frequently used communist words.
The titles of the articles also show that Hungary was a communist country.
I also found that nothing important happened on the 27th of April in 1979. I should know it by the age of eighteen. But nothing significant happened.
To be reassured about the fact that the 27th of April was an ordinary day I should not have read the daily journal. Hungary was living its life. Life was going on without any unusual events.
The governing force was still the communist party, known as the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. The country’s foreign affairs were going well.
The first thing that caught my attention was on page three:
” Éljen és virágozzék szeretett hazánk, a Magyar Népköztársaság!”(3)
This sentence clearly states that Hungary was a communist country. It also shows the way of thinking: Hungary will live with communism for ever.
As I was reading an article on page three, namely ” Felelõséggel a környékért”, I could not believe what the author was writing. Here is the quotation from the text:
” A városoknak kulcsszerepük van a lakosság - beleértve a környezõ községeket- minden irányú ellátásában, foglalkoztatásában, letelepedésben”
(Palkó, 3).”
The author said that the cities were playing a big role in the life of the villages that surround the city. This is obvious. The city helps the smaller villages in almost everything. It seems that this was not so clear to those people who governed Hungary in 1979. This article shows that Hungary was not so developed in 1979. The whole section deals with this topic: the cities should take care of the problems of the smaller villages.
Example 2
There are two articles which characterise the 27th of April 1979. One of them states that this day was a boring, usual day and the other states what was before the 27th of April 1979 and what was after it.
For the boring one the title is enough because it says everything:
”Borbély Sándor a Pamutfonóiparnál”(3)
This title summarises the whole day of April 27 in one sentence: nothing happened. With such simplicity that no more information should or even could be added.
The second article has the title ”Baranyai szõttesek” and its first paragraph is the important one:
”Szövetkezetünk életének története egy kicsit tükre az ország gazdasági fejlõdésének... Voltak nehézségeink, kezdetben szegények voltunk ... ma már elmondhatjuk: egy erõs szövetkezet tagjai vagyunk” (Szente, 8 ).
This in English looks like this: Our co-operative’s history is somewhat like our country’s development in economics. We had difficulties, we were poor in the beginning. But now we are part of a strong co-operative. So before the 27th of April 1979, the country was in bad shape, but after it everything turned out fine. I am not saying that the changes occurred because of me , but they did happened on the 27th of April. This is an example to show that on my day of birth good things happened too. these two quotations show that my birthday was contradictory. On one hand it was a boring day but on the other hand it was memorable.
One thing was sure to me. The day I was born was a communist day. This can be seen on the first page of the newspaper:
”Világ proletárjai, egyesüljetek!”(1)
This is the well known call of the communists. In English it looks like this: Proletarians of the World unite! Every communist newspaper had this on the first page.
Conclusion
So what was the 27th of April like? What happened in Hungary? Two easy questions. The 27th of April 1979 was an ordinary, normal day. Nothing important happened in Hungary. Only one important thing happened: I was born. I found out that almost the same life was going on in 1979 as it is going on right now. The newspapers were the same: they contain so little information and so much scrap, that nothing can be taken out as information. The only difference is that those papers were blue-pencilled by the communist and now nobody does that. With this paper I got the information, what I wanted to know.
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