Where is the cultural life in Debrecen going? Who can count on the support of the municipality in the cultural sphere? What opportunities does the city exploit from its sister city relations, and where can it still improve? Why are there no giga concerts at the Nagyerdei Stadium? Should cultural institutions be profitable? István Puskás, deputy mayor of Debrecen for culture, answered our questions.
Why can’t we meet you at cultural events in Debrecen-Józsa?
There is a local self-organization for the residents, and I also think that a city the size of Debrecen is culturally diverse, which also makes me happy in the fact that many communities organized on a cultural basis live and work. Community life is organized according to the real needs of citizens. On the one hand, the local government has tasks prescribed by law in the field of culture, and on the other hand, it is the task of serving, or rather helping, these communities and the core needs of society, but all this is only one segment of the cultural life and community of a city. The system of culture has three poles: the municipality participates in it, the combination of economic actors and civil self-organizations produces the cultural life of the city, which is then truly successful, i.e. it best serves the needs of the city’s residents when it cooperates.
I myself am a believer that the culture of a community should work with the involvement of as many actors as possible, and it is a particularly fortunate situation when these actors are connected to each other. I consider it one of my important tasks to create such collaborations between certain actors of culture. Józsa is a small community of the city where the local self-organization and the cooperation between the various actors are particularly strong and work well, as there is also a library maintained by the municipality and a community center. I myself have actually visited Józsá in an official capacity a long time ago, but I am always happy to go when the local community invites me.
Will there be Pallag Days?
I can’t answer this for now, but if there is a real need for this, I will deal with it. At the moment, as far as I know, the event has not yet been planned, although I also know that the residents’ community self-organization already exists here.
How is the cooperation with the university progressing?
My situation is unique, as I spent half of my life at the University of Debrecen as a student and lecturer, so I have those personal relationships with the Faculty of Humanities in the field of culture that continue to this day. Cultural cooperation between the university and the city has been established in many projects, primarily with the Faculty of Music of the Faculty of Humanities or the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Engineering. In addition, we have a common application format, which also helps to connect the cultural life of the university and the city.
Does the university also take part in fostering twin-city relations?
I am making these trips in order to continue to build Debrecen’s role as a regional hub – in accordance with our best historical traditions – thereby also helping the citizens of Debrecen and the communities of the region to be an active point of connection with the wider world, through which the products of knowledge and culture, its values and treasures are distributed. I see my role as a mediator to create positions and opportunities for cooperation between high schools, institutions, and civil organizations, for example. I establish the basis for collaborations and trust that they will be able to live their lives after that. Of course, there are also collaborations between universities, for example, as a result of my visit to Mexico last year, a student from there will come to the summer university to study the Hungarian language and Hungarianology.
Previously, the plan was to have cultural facilities serving foreigners living in Debrecen in one place, but this does not seem to be happening yet. We have the Amerikai Kuckó in the Méliusz Library, there was talk of the British Council also appearing there, and the German Kulturforum together with the Dutch one on Batthyány Street…
The library’s main building is used so intensively that it is no longer possible to separate new units there. The internationality of Méliusz is more diverse than this, as there is a Ukrainian bookshelf next to the American Corner, and a Polish and Bulgarian shelf are also organized in cooperation with the local minority municipalities. Many foreign students come to study there, so Méliusz functions as a real international community space.
Dispersion also has its advantages, besides, of course, the concentration can also be good for cooperation, so foreign cultures are present in different parts of the city, and we can often meet the new impulses generated by them. Instead of concentration, I believe in a network structure, and the municipality plays a network node function in this.
Some of the smaller libraries in Debrecen did not open even after April 12. What will be their fate?
The Goose Garden library had very low utilization, so it no longer works in its old form. We hope that those who went there will find their way to the Újkert library and the Mélius. But the house will not remain closed, we will continue to give it a community life and a cultural function, we are already working on it, and I am very confident that we will soon announce how its fate will develop.
What will happen to the account library in the retirement home?
It will continue to function in some form, for now the redefinition of this space is in progress. But it will certainly remain as a cultural and community space.
As a language teacher, how do you see why so few students in Debrecen learn Polish, Bulgarian, and Greek, since we like to go skiing and vacation in these countries?
It would be really useful to have at least a basic knowledge of these languages, but this would primarily require language teachers – it is unlikely that the market would be saturated with teachers of Bulgarian or Modern Greek. Another component of the matter is that society has not been aware of this yet, even though knowledge of Polish or Greek can indeed be marketable.
There is Finnish education in Csokonai, and French and Spanish language education in several places, but no significant company from these countries is represented in Debrecen…
French and Spanish, and I would also include Italian, are so-called cultural languages, which people do not choose based on economic or practical considerations, but because they love that culture. And the Finnish language is a kind of heritage, it is good to have a base in Debrecen to nurture our few European linguistic ties.
I would also like to give a personal example: when I had to choose a language at my dear alma mater, the Árpád Tóth High School, I wrote Italian last, and they put me in the Italian group. Nothing better could have happened to me. Of course, it would be possible to steer these processes artificially, but for the time being, social needs point in a different direction. If someone chooses a foreign language, practicality is the primary consideration – that’s why English and German lead – while choosing second languages, the cultural aspect is valued. I think that any change in market demand will be followed by a change in the ratio of language choices.
In Debrecen, I would be happy if the local service sector made English common. When I visit the surrounding countries – Slovakia, Romania, Poland – everyone already speaks English. With basic English language skills, we can get by anywhere. In this country, on the other hand, it would be necessary to raise the level of English language education.
When the Nagyerdei Stadium was built, it was said that the facility would host large concerts (Metallica, Guns ‘n’ Roses, etc.) and events. This does not seem to be happening yet.
There are two reasons for this. One is that the aforementioned bands cannot fit in the stadium, only the Puskás Aréna is suitable for this. Of course, there are world stars who could fit into the Nagyerdei Stadium, but these are events operating on a specific market basis, which can be organized by specialized companies. The Főnix Rendezvényszerzégo company should sign a contract with such a company in order to be able to engage in such a large project. The Campus Festival partly satisfies this kind of demand, but it would be commercially risky to undertake stadium-sized concerts there as well.
So were these populist promises?
I wouldn’t call it populist, obviously, everyone is serious about this, but even the city’s solvency has to increase. We had another undertaking, the Stadium Show organized during the flower carnival, which did not operate on a market basis, but was organized by the city. Well, it’s no coincidence that we haven’t organized this since 2019, HUF 300 million now has a better place in the city’s budget, but that doesn’t mean we’ve discarded it for good. We trust that the stadium show will soon return to the cultural offer of the city. Of course, the economic difficulties do not only weigh on us, you must also see that far fewer world stars are coming to Budapest, and the market and the financial possibilities of the organizing companies have both deteriorated in recent years.
Many people miss film screenings from the outdoor stage…
The stage program is compiled by the Csokonai Theatre, this is their sovereign decision. Although the municipality is the maintainer, we do not want to interfere in professional matters. All we do is convey the demands coming from society to them, but I would not take on the role of a teller myself. There is a change of management at the Csokonai Theater this year, and I understand that the new management will also operate the open-air stage with new ambitions. By the way, regular film screenings are still organized in the courtyard of Modem, so the city was not left without a garden cinema experience.
Downtown Outdoor Cinema 2 in Debrecen: The Cinema Strikes Back
Why was the outdoor stage moved from Főnix to Csokonai?
The reason for this was primarily that we tried to rethink and reorganize the system of the city’s cultural institutions on the basis of competence, i.e. our goal during the reorganization two years ago was to transfer the tasks and contents to the most professionally competent organizations. Főnix hosts the city’s major events, but the city has a theater, which is the most competent actor in operating a theater space as well as in compiling artistic content.
On the other hand, the theater does not usually extend the managers’ contracts.
I don’t see this as a problem either, and in fact, I fundamentally believe that if leadership cycles alternate, continuous new impulses are good for the culture. If cultural institutions were to change on a regular basis, such as the managers of a theater, after a while their work would naturally become too routine and boring, the impetus would run out, and the institution itself as a system would also “get tired”, which not only affects the institution itself, but the audience would also suffer.
How many visitors can visit Csokonai now?
Currently, only the Csokonai Fórum is operating, and it brings in very good viewership numbers. Of course, performances liked by the wider community (comedies, musical plays) attract more viewers than more artistic plays. But this trend can be observed worldwide.
Yet you don’t hear from the press about such popular performances that the theater would play more than ten or twenty times…
Indeed, this is an absolutely valid criticism of the theater. The main reason for this was that the theater had to offer a variety of content on fewer playgrounds and under temporary conditions. I trust that from next season when the renovated Csokonai Sznház opens its doors, these constraints will cease, and our theater will operate again in the old variety and serving the needs of the audience to the maximum. The theater is new. its manager, Szabolcs Mátyássy, and his team are aware of social needs. In September, for the new season, things will hopefully be in place, and the Csokonai Theater will be able to play plays that attract a large audience, and the Csokonai Forum will be able to play plays that are of interest, or I should say, experimental.
Will there be an opera in Debrecen?
At present, we are not living in such times that a completely independent musical theater or opera house could be supported by the city’s audience. This is the most expensive theater genre, and the city cannot bear its financial burden for the time being. However, there will be opera performances, the Csokonai Theater will strengthen this line, and one of director Mátyássy’s commitments is to start rebuilding the opera department that once existed, just as he wants to build the musical theater profile in general.
Why did the renovation works of the Csokonai Forum and the Csokonai Theater take so long?
It was a terribly complex process. It is a state investment with many sub-processes. It takes 3-4 years from a decision to the completion of the investment, and extremely long preparatory processes have to be gone through. In addition, in the case of the Csokonai Forum, the situation was further complicated by the fact that the development was realized in the framework of a joint Hungarian-Romanian tender, i.e. the authorities of two countries had to implement the project within the framework of a complex European Union tender system. But now we can finally be happy about the successful work, we can be happy that the Csokonai Forum is ready and works great!
The smaller voluntary groups, e.g. to what extent can Rocksuli or the Association of Alternative Communities count on the support of the city administration?
We are in dialogue with the civil organizations that count on the city’s partnership, and we try to find the possibilities along which we can help them. Rocksuli is an excellent example of this, the city supports its activities with several million forints every year, and the municipality also supported Made in Debrecen, which they organized. I wouldn’t go into how much the Association of Alternative Communities has become politicized, but I can say that they can operate freely, the city administration does not limit them in anything. I believe in a plural community life, on Baross Street, in MalTer, this community can also live its life freely.
The gay community in Debrecen has been organizing Pride programs for years. Would you give a lecture on the influence of the Italian Renaissance on homoerotic depiction?
In Debrecen, everyone has the freedom to live the most diverse community life, and to live their own identity. As a university lecturer, in connection with the Renaissance culture, I covered this aspect as well, if it was relevant. It was a socio-cultural milieu very different from ours, which is important to get to know, it can give many lessons, but it should not be confused with our present time. In general, although it may be, history is indeed the best teacher of life, this does not mean that we should wash the past with the present without making any distinctions. I am not at all in favor of the instrumentalization of cultural history and history. This is why I consider, for example, what is happening in the West in relation to the culture of memory to be very harmful since violent attempts to rewrite the past do not represent a solution to the problems of the present, and in fact, only make it more difficult. If, for example, Victorian England is populated by African aristocrats, it will not nullify English colonialism, but it will make it impossible to know and judge that era. In fact, it rather serves to cover up the mistakes, shortcomings, and sins of the time, i.e. it achieves the exact opposite effect than what was intended. So, let’s keep everything in its place, let’s talk about Renaissance (homo)erotic poetry within the framework of Renaissance literature, using the well-established, tried and trusted tools of scientific discourse.
Isn’t it a contradiction that in Debrecen, which is embarking on the path of internationalization, conservative leadership is creating a liberal metropolis? A party is creating a melting pot here, which would try to preserve traditions.
I believe that the two are not incompatible at all. As an example, I would mention the urbanization process that took place in the second half of the 19th century – the beginning of the 20th century, when a large number of communities with different cultures moved to Debrecen – the Jewish community arrived, and people from all parts of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy moved here. Debrecen has already gone through a successful integration process once, the city was able to preserve its civic identity, in addition to the fact that the settlers enriched it with their own values. It is enough to mention the Sestinas, the Steinfelds, who were an active part of the city’s cultural life, or the Italian Vidoni family, which operated a salami factory on Domb Street until nationalization. Those who moved in created clubs and foundations, tried to make themselves accepted by doing things for the city, and by embracing the local identity. Indeed, the basis of Debrecen’s identity, Debrecenism, is an attitude that today can be defined as conservative, which, among other things, is particularly interesting and valuable because it respects and preserves tradition in such a way that it opens up to the new and is able to assimilate it – because this was the reformation in Debrecen, the people of Cívis the basis of his education for centuries, which lives on even today.
Now, however, all this is happening in a globalized world, and I know of a Syrian family who moved away from Debrecen because of the atrocities that happened to them.
The politically motivated left-liberal media is taking this very wrong. Without denying that such cases occur in Hungary, Hungarian society is not at all more exclusionary than Western society. For me, an emblematic example is that I recently saw the Jewish community there celebrating in a large German city – protected by riot police, while in our country in December, during Hanukkah, hundreds of us danced together in the main square, without the presence of a single policeman.
What about the cinemas? In Apollo, for example, we now see almost only popular films, hardly any art films.
Covid caused a big break in the cinemas in Debrecen, like everywhere else, and attendance dropped here as well. Movie consumption habits have changed a lot due to the epidemic and the rise of streaming services. The price of a movie ticket rivals a month’s streaming subscription, and these providers also offer art films. It is not easy to compete with them. In defense of the Apolló cinema, it should be said that the cultural mission continues, they play independent films as well as contemporary international films, recently there were Israeli and Spanish film days at the Apolló cinema. In addition to all this, the cinema also needs income, so it is natural that the more popular, higher-grossing films are also shown.
Is the Apollo Cinema profitable now?
The role and mission of the Apollo Cinema are not to support itself on a market basis. The Hungarian Film Harvest, the foreign film days, or the Malter documentary film review, for example, are exactly events that operate on a value basis and not on a market basis.
Can the same be said about the Kodály Choir and the Philharmonics?
Yes. If a person going to a theater or a serious concert had to pay the actual admission cost with the ticket, the performances would be orders of magnitude more expensive. Take, for example, Italy or France, where there is no state support system for the arts at this level, the viewers have to pay many times more than in Hungary. This would exceed the economic capacity of the Hungarian public, but we also have different traditions, and we have different views on the role of the state in culture.
Are you thinking about creating a party district?
The operation of nightclubs must be financed entirely by the market, it is not a good idea to put public money into them. A municipality may be able to create an opportunity for entertainment, but – as everywhere in the world – in this case, the supply must be adapted to the demand. The area around Hal-köz already has a small mini-party district, which roughly fits the needs of Debrecen.
I heard about the idea of creating a street for this purpose in Kerekestelep.
Such ideas – or as I call them: castles in the air – are good if they arise because they move the life of culture forward. In this particular case, as far as I know, there is no realistic chance of this happening. In Kerekestelep, the concept of not so much a party district, but rather an entertainment district arose, with an adventure park, a Disneyland-style park and the associated infrastructure, but again, I can only say that we are not living in these times at the moment.
Because the residents in the city center don’t always like noise.
Their complaint is also valid, we need to find a common denominator with them. By the way, this is a worldwide problem.
How successful are the exhibitions in the windows of empty shops?
These are non-ticketed events with unmeasurable visitor numbers, and it is very difficult to measure their success. This is also an educational process since there are very few visual experiences in public spaces in Debrecen. We are trying to encourage the public to notice these works on the street. By the way, I consider street exhibitions to be a very good format, because here the distance between the audience and the art is the smallest.
How strong is the cultural relationship between Debrecen and its sister cities?
After Covid, the threads had to be rebuilt, and these two years had a terrible effect on the already well-functioning relationships. We are currently in the reconstruction phase, and we are trying to establish new types of cooperation, even in the light of economic relations. Debrecen is now developing into a regional center not only in Hungary, but also in the Carpathian basin sense, and we are trying to adapt the cultural contact systems to this. We regularly visit Cluj, Nagyvár, Kasa, Lublin, Krakow, Brno, Bratislava, etc., in order to connect Debrecen to the Central European regional network. In this regard, Debrecen is lagging far behind, we see inspiring examples of how certain big city communities work together. We can learn a lot from Cluj, for example, in terms of building international relations. We are already members of the Culture Next network built by Cluj, in which 23 European cities work together. A similar good example of cooperation is our Bulgarian sister city, Sumen, from which we received an invitation last year to commemorate together the 120th anniversary of the birth of Lajos Kossuth, who played a significant role in the history of both cities. Finally, together with the Hungarian Cultural Center in Sofia, we created an art project as a trio for the Kossuth commemoration year. One of the benefits of this was that Modem in Debrecen was able to present its contemporary exhibition in the Bulgarian Museum of Fine Arts as a result of the cooperation with the Hungarian cultural institution in Sofia. We are already thinking about the next cooperation projects.
If it’s Modem, can an event similar to the highly successful Da Vinci exhibition be expected in the future?
This was a very specific case because Modem originally functions as an exhibition space for contemporary art, and Leonardo’s project has a very different profile. The Da Vinci exhibition was very expensive, and although it ended with a profit, many hundreds of thousands of euros had to be advanced. Modem is working to bring exhibitions of not such a large size (with 180,000 visitors), but still of great interest, such as Impressions in 2018, to Debrecen.
How do you try to present the cultural identity of the internationalizing Debrecen with Magda Szabó to foreigners?
This is a very big task, which is why I travel the world to observe how it is done elsewhere. Debrecen is still at the beginning of its transformation, and culture can indeed be the area that can be the ground for the rapprochement of different cultures. We are consciously building the element of the city’s identity related to literature and books since this is the most visible part of Debrecen’s cultural history from an international perspective. First, we, the people of Debrecen, have to clarify with ourselves what are the most important elements of our cultural identity. If we are aware of ourselves, then the next step is to enter into a dialogue with those of other identities. The biography of Magda Szabó, who is also known abroad and can be identified as a quasi-international brand, is a very good example of this, we can safely say that she is the best-known Debrecen artist worldwide. There are many more possibilities in this than we have used so far. It is not by chance that the Magda Szabó Foundation is revived, it is not by chance that the material of the Magda Szabó House is enriched, and it is not by chance that a painting is made in the courtyard of the Rickl House, which will evoke the old-fashioned story.
I also recommend the exhibition entitled “The World of Cívisek“, which opened on the Night of the Museums and tries to answer exactly the question of what is the origin of Debrecen’s identity. For example, this exhibition will be shown in Hungarian and English, thinking about foreigners who live here and are interested in our culture, as well as tourists.
– Sándor N. Nagy –
Photo: Facebook/István Puskás
