The sentinels of Hungarian culture abroad
How do Hungarian Institutes abroad reflect the country’s culture?
MúzeumCafé 25.
Reviewing the work of the 19 Hungarian Cultural Institutes is no easy task, since apart from their maintenance and principles there are few points of comparison between them. Perhaps it’s to be expected that these centres have different kinds of effectiveness given their rather different circumstances and that the picture of Hungary differs in diverse European or even regional countries, not to mention those in another continent. People know different things about Hungary in Bratislava, Berlin and Cairo. You can find in the arts scene of one city a centre playing a first-rate role and others where their funding and function is considered unnecessary even by its participants. It seems that the basic key for success is the suitability and ambition of the institute’s director as reflected in the management of a creative cultural centre just as much as in attaining a position of financial stability. Among the plans of the Balassi Institute’s director, who was appointed in August 2010, there are changes regarding image and conception, though there is no doubt that decisions will not be made in Budapest but on the spot. According to those in the know, the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, which stands behind the Balassi Institute, can have precious little influence on a small office in another metropolis. The stipulated ‘unitary country image’ is interpreted differently by every director. In recent years supervision of the institutes has changed several times. A few years ago the Foreign Hungarian Cultural Institutes Directorate still existed as a department of the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage. Then in 2002, independently of the aforementioned, the Balassi Institute was established with the basic aims of supporting the teaching of Hungarian as a foreign language and the cultural education of Hungarians living outside the country’s borders. In 2007 supervision of the institutes abroad was allocated to the Balassi Institute whose ‘owner’ changed last year and the formation of a national image became part of a project under the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, headed by Tibor Navracsics. The Balassi Institute’s new director, historian Pál Hatos, was appointed by Navracsics and it was likewise he who allocated to the institute Hungarofest, founded in 2000 and well known for its organisation of Hungarian cultural seasons abroad. Undoubtedly the institutes are in need of adopting a unitary image. The reorganised Balassi Institute aims to create a homogenous network from the various bodies operating with different traditions and with varying effectiveness, making no secret of the fact that the conception is born in Budapest but that the institutes themselves would have to deal with their allotted tasks in their own particular locations. At the moment not every institute has a webpage; the central site is www.magyarintezet.hu. As regards exhibitions and arts events, it’s clear from reports in the Hungarian press that some cultural centres abroad are more active than others. A solution for this can be to use another location and a good example of that was the large-scale Lajos Vajda exhibition.