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Our principal, after the school was nationalized, was a true Bolshevik. She said to me, ‘You will go to Lenin University.’ I said I wasn’t going there, and that I wanted to become an art historian. She said, she would guarantee me the Rakosi scholarship. In those days, when my mother’s salary was 500 forints, that would mean 2,000 forints a month. Obstinately, I still said ‘No!’
Instead, I went and took an entrance examination for art history. The head of the admission committee saw that I was intelligent, he could ask anything: special literature, the latest things, I knew everything. Then he said that an art historian had to know languages.
I said, ‘Latin, German, English, French, Russian; would five languages be enough?’ He gave me texts in all these languages to translate. I suppose that the Latin was the best, because he said he would admit me to the Latin faculty. I said that I wouldn’t go there.
I received a paper saying that I had been admitted to the English faculty. Then I met a very intelligent man who said I’d better go to the English faculty, and so I came off well with that. In art history in Hungary, everybody’s territory is so divided among historians that at most I could have become a clerk in a pawnshop. Whereas, if I graduated in English, the world would be my oyster; I’d have opportunities in any field. I could later become an art historian. I listened to that advice.
The English faculty consisted of a big hall, which was a library, and another room. Classes were held in the library. The English faculty was made up of four teachers, and there were eight or nine students. The first class came, we talked, and it came to light that none of us wanted to choose English as a major.
They were students of history, of religion and everything. It was doubtful whether the English course would start, so you couldn’t be a candidate. This was the first year that nobody took their final exam in high school in English.
Instead, I went and took an entrance examination for art history. The head of the admission committee saw that I was intelligent, he could ask anything: special literature, the latest things, I knew everything. Then he said that an art historian had to know languages.
I said, ‘Latin, German, English, French, Russian; would five languages be enough?’ He gave me texts in all these languages to translate. I suppose that the Latin was the best, because he said he would admit me to the Latin faculty. I said that I wouldn’t go there.
I received a paper saying that I had been admitted to the English faculty. Then I met a very intelligent man who said I’d better go to the English faculty, and so I came off well with that. In art history in Hungary, everybody’s territory is so divided among historians that at most I could have become a clerk in a pawnshop. Whereas, if I graduated in English, the world would be my oyster; I’d have opportunities in any field. I could later become an art historian. I listened to that advice.
The English faculty consisted of a big hall, which was a library, and another room. Classes were held in the library. The English faculty was made up of four teachers, and there were eight or nine students. The first class came, we talked, and it came to light that none of us wanted to choose English as a major.
They were students of history, of religion and everything. It was doubtful whether the English course would start, so you couldn’t be a candidate. This was the first year that nobody took their final exam in high school in English.
Period
Location
Hungary
Interview
Judit Kinszki
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