The Confrontation ‘68

Miklós Jancsó’s film The Confrontation (Fényes szelek, 1969) began shooting in Veszprém 50 years ago, in the summer of 1968. In one scene of the film, which partly rewrites the story of the Nékosz (National Association of People’s Colleges), the Hungary of the late 1940s, in the clothes and prosthetic vestments of 1968, a folk-dance group and a zither orchestra arrive at the scene of the conflict between the Nékosz and the church schoolchildren in front of the Archbishop’s Palace in Veszprém. The young people dance together, regardless of their ideology and social status, and even the police are part of the community that is instantly formed. József Mélyi’s lecture, based on this scene from the Jancsó film, explores the twentieth-century Hungarian history of faith in the community-building role of folk dance and folk music, from its roots in the music of Béla Bartók, through the folk-dance groups of the 1940s, to the dance-hall movement of the 1970s.

with László Hevesi (zither, singing), graduate student of the University of Theatre and Film Arts

The program is in Hungarian.

The video recording of this event (1, 2) is available on Blinken OSA’s YouTube Channel.