Cím: | TÉNY/SOROS - Summary |
Szerző: | Nové Béla |
Sorozatcím: | |
A kiadás helye: | Budapest |
A kiadás éve: | 1999 |
Kiadó: | Balassi Kiadó |
Terjedelem: | |
Nyelv: | magyar |
Tárgyszavak: | Soros Alapítvány |
Állomány: | |
Megjegyzés: |  |
Annotáció: | |
ISBN: | 963 506 265 6 |
ISSN: | |
Raktári jelzet: | E |
Béla Nóvé
FACT/SOROS
The First Decade oft he Hungarian Soros Foundation
(1984-1994)
This book is a thoroughly documented monograph about the first ten years of the Hungarian Soros Foundation, a continuing private institution with a strong and unique influence on public life, arts, literature, culture, education, health and re-search in Hungary.
In the gloomy year of 1984 it seemed almost a foolishly risky idea from a New York stockmarket investor to try and set up a private fund in a small Soviet satellite country with a mission of promoting an „open society” - i.e. all possible independent civil initiatives—versus the state-controlled „socialist system”. It was in fact a daring challenge to the negative Orwellian vision of 1984—whether it could be turned, some-how, into a positive one with new horizons over both „Oceania” and „Eurasia”.
The Budapest foundation, founded in May 1984, was George Soros's first pilot enterprise in the one-time Communist bloc, years before he would open the similar Beijing, Moscow and Warsaw offices in the late eighties, or establish his huge founda-tion network in the early nineties throughout Central and Eastern Europe. At that „pre-Gorbachevian” time it was the only authorised „foundation” as such, even in Hungary, with a more or less protocol-like, official partnership with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, this „strange marriage” forced by political control, could not at all prevent the foundation's inventive curators and a small but animated operative team from going on with the daring „expedition”, and breaking more and more taboos of the late Kádárist regime by offering hundreds of grants, stipends or other efficient means of support for artists, writers, scholars, students, etc. each year. Divorced from the Academy of Sciences from 1990 onwards, the Budapest Soros Foundation has continued to work all independently on a steadily growing yearly budget received from New York, and to face all the new challenges of supporting a civil society.
The author of the book, when presenting this dynamic but in many ways ambivalent decade - that of the commonly-called „change of system”—mostly relies on his extensive research work. He thoroughly examined the internal documents of the foundation (e.g. the minutes of board meetings, the papers of some 20,000 applicants, etc.), as well as the stacks of press clippings and the, even today, only limitedly accessible public archives (containing unpublished documents of the one-time communist party, the secreet police and the Academy of Sciences) so that he could properly reconstruct all the important episodes, conflicts and public debates. However, the written sources often proved to be insufficient in showing the whole process of decision-making or the many different motives of those personally involved, so he conducted back-ground interviews with almost forty key figures of the past and present affairs.
In a historical assessment, as the author argues, five main aspects of the foundation are worth emphasising from among the many-sided activities.
1. First of all the foundation was in itself a real prototype of civil society, of the way such a society should work and cooperate autonomously for the sake of the common good. The foundation, from the very beginning has been eagerly looked for its creative and independent-minded civil partners in all sectors of arts and literature, education and research, social work and health services. It did not only enter contractual partnerships with thousands of individual grantees, but also with a good number of cultural, educational or health institutions, with special chambers, associations, etc. Later on from 1989, when a new legislation and the radical political changes made it possible, it gave vital support to many hundreds of newly-established, democratic organisations: clubs, human rights, minority or environmental protection movements, church reform initiatives, newly-established trade unions, independent newspapers, publishers, etc. It still continues to play a significant role in supporting and coordinating Hungarian NGOs, e.g. by running a separate information and training center as a free service for the non-profit sector.
2. One should also take into account the steady efforts by which the Budapest office contributed to the intellectual and technical innovation of the country. Starting with a one million dollar base for the first year within a decade's time the foundation has gifted or transmitted financial and technical help in the value of some 50 million dollars - and during the past five years since 1994 this sum has grown to roughly 150 million. No doubt, this is an odd „national record” in Hungary's history, at least there are no references to any similar amount donated by a private person for public purposes in the written chronicles of the past ten centuries. Most of this foundation money was used for innovative purposes, either in an intellectual or a technical sense. This can be shown on a wide range of examples, from regular support of new artistic, research or pedagogic experiments to the enormous scale of the supply of badly lacking Western technology: computers, copy machines, laser and ultrasound equipments, computer tomographs, etc. to Hungarian libraries, schools, museums and hospitals. As a result of the foundation's various grantgiving programs thousands of young researchers and talented students were given the chance to teach, study or undertake research at Western universities, to publish their work or to attend international conferences - in a difficult period when the yearly Hungarian state budget for Western grants or the whole volume of official exchange programs were often smaller than those of the Soros Foundation Budapest.
3. Similarily the foundation also played a uniquely active role in preserving and saving cultural values as well - whether these belonged to the intellectual or the material part of the national heritage. Such a voluntary mission can be traced in the many practical methods of support, e.g. financing the restoration programs for medieval codexes, organs, church collections, underwriting dozens of archaeological explorations or ethnographical fieldwork, providing support to many traditional folk bands, dancing and theatre groups, etc. Due to the generous help of the foundation two important contemporary archives were able to be established in Budapest by means of independent initiatives: the „Oral History Archives”, collecting mainly life interviews with the participants of the 1956 revolution, and the „Video Archives of Historical Interviews”, a unique collection of video memoirs with prominent twentieth century Hungarians. As a joint effort with the Bethlen Foundation – another active civil organisation of the late eighties - the Budapest Soros Foundation launched a semi-conspiratory rescue program to support vitally endangered intellectuals and cultural values in some neighbouring countries, especially in Ceaucescu's Romania. Mention must be made also of the valuable financial and technical help offered to ethnic minorities, e.g. the Hungarian German, Roma or Jewish communities in order to help them to preserve their traditional cultures and identities.
4. The most exciting—and the most debated—issue ever since its beginning has been how the foundation influenced public affairs, or political life in the rapid course of radical changes. There are two controversial, but equally common views about this—both stemming from ideological bias as a basis. According to the first one, the Budapest Soros Foundation has ever been but „logistic support” for democratic opposition i.e. the one-time dissidents, or lately: the founders of liberal parties—mean-while, the second view argues that the secret strategy of the foundation is aimed at helping to preserve the late Kádárist elite, thus from the very start it was nothing but a collaborating agency with the Communists. As the author proves repeatedly refer-ring to facts and documents both of these speculations are utterly false, and have rather more to do with the new prejudices and the ardent political fights of the nineties, than reality. Dismissing these extreme, and often paranoid charges what should rather be seen is the public role of the foundation as a step-by-step development in a dynamically changing, interactive context. By doing so no one could deny the foundation's genuinly democratic attitude, as it turned openly to the public offering a real competitive chance for thousands of civil initiatives. The curators, advisers and the executive team during the first five years never ceased to challenge the party-state bureaucracy by inventing newer and newer programs. There were dramatic moments when it seemed the „game would soon be over” - but these conflicts with the „soft” - and ever softening - dictatorship usually ended in an acceptable compromise: for example the debates on the competence and the composition of some juries, treatment of dissident applicants, etc. As a matter of fact the „open society” as a strategic goal of democratisation was publicly proclaimed only in spring 1989, when the founder, George Soros offered an extra two million dollars to hundreds of new democratic organisations in an „open tender” (as referred to above). This was the brightest moment for both the society and the foundation - getting rid of the last chains of party-state control. The doors were fully opened for ambitious applicants, and all the emerging opposition forces received support, which wanted change and met the minimum standards for „being a democrat”. Small wonder, that as a result of the first democratic elections of 1990, the virtual „Soros-fraction” became the most numerous in the Parliament, since almost every third representative - from both the benches of the governing and the opposition parties - had previously had some form of contact with the Soros Foundation either as curators, advisors, program assistants or in most cases: grant recipients. The same applied to prominent public post-holders as well: for half a dozen Government members, the new President of the Republic, the new Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Parliament and of the Constitutional Court. However the early nineties brought regrettable changes in the general acceptance and high political reputation of the Foundation, and as an effect of new ardent conflicts, the Budapest Soros office - similarly to others in the region - soon became one of the main targets of harsh nationalistic campaigns. During these troublesome years of 1990-1994 the Foundation was forced more and more into a public opposi-tion role, which certainly reduced its former efficiency. Yet it never gave up its efforts to strenghten the base for democracy and to further enlarge its widely benefitial programs. The new elections of May 1994—the tenth anniversary of the foundation— have once again brought a great change about. The new social-liberal government treated the Budapest Soros Foundation as a „natural ally” with whom it could cooperate, and on this basis several joint programs were started, backed by the substantially increased yearly budgets of the foundation.
5. Finally, a few words should be added about the special aid for public health and welfare. As a matter of fact the founder did not originally intend to support such „charity” activities. However, the grave social problems and the alarming insufficiency of the public health service in Hungary finally managed to get the foundation involved rather actively in this area ás well. During the first five years - apart from many training programs for doctors, sponsoring attendance at International conferences or helping to acquire some vital medical technologies from the West—the foun-dation mostly offered occasional help e.g.: to the handicapped or blind associations, to a nursery school for autistic children, etc. However, later on, from the early nineties more and more well-organised, large-scale programs were launched, such as hospice training, Help to Help (social workers, and social NGOs support), the Roma Program (cultural, health and school grants for gipsies) or the so-called „Milk for Schools” activity, which in cooperation with the municipalities concerned, aimed to supply all the schoolchildren of Budapest and some countryside towns, such as Miskolc and Nyíregyháza in the poorer districts with breakfast. At the same time more and more donations went to the poor, the shelterless or the refugees of the Balkan war either as a separate or a joint assistance program with other charity organisations such as the Hungarian Maltese Cross. From 1994 a new period again began started, when nationwide „megaprograms” of health and education reforms were launched by the foundation, in close cooperation with the ministries concerned.