Last year, you were awarded a highly prestigious honour, the Gold Cross of Merit. Tell us a bit about it.
My nomination for the award came from literary circles in early 2024. The first step was to update my professional CV. Finally, in August 2024, I received the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit at the Pesti Vigadó, presented to me by Róbert Zsigó, Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, and Ms Magdolna Závogyán, State Secretary for Culture, in a formal ceremony. I felt a sense of unity at the ceremony. It was a wonderful experience to see the outstanding representatives of the pan-Hungarian culture of the Carpathian Basin.
To be precise, I received this award in recognition of my extensive work in museum education and the promotion of literature as a literary curator at the Mihály Babits Memorial House of the National Museum of Hungary. It is an honour to have been able to champion this cause for many years, something that would be unimaginable without the team at the Babits House. Although I accepted this award personally, it is a collective achievement and asset of our museum. I am grateful to my colleagues at the museum and to my family, who help and support me.
You joined the Balassa Bálint Museum in 2005. What path ultimately led you to Mihály Babits’s former summer residence in Esztergom?
It was thanks to Dr István Horváth, the museum director at the time, that I joined the Balassa Bálint Museum in Esztergom in 2005. I was also interested in teaching, so at the same time I began working as a part-time teacher at the Árpád-házi Szent Erzsébet Grammar School. During those years, a professional and methodological training programme was launched at the Petőfi Literary Museum, which focused on the restoration of literary memorial houses. Part of this involved launching a series of workshops where we were taught literary museology. In this way, the literary memorial houses formed a network, and we became partner institutions both within Hungary and across the border. The organisation’s name is the Association of Hungarian Literary Memorial Houses. MIRE joined forces with the city of Esztergom, resulting in a lasting achievement: in 2008, the Mihály Babits Memorial House in Esztergom was renovated. By May 2009, a new permanent exhibition had opened in the great poet’s former summer residence. István Ágoston was the exhibition designer, and I had the honour of curating the exhibition.
Back in 2000, when I was writing my thesis on the relationship between Babits and Esztergom under Professor Lajos Sipos, I would never have dared to dream that, a few years later, I would be able to bring those written words and thoughts to life in their original setting, in Babits’s summer cottage. This is why the current exhibition already incorporates all the findings to which I owe my thesis. After all, back in 2000 I still had the opportunity to meet and interview people from Esztergom who still remembered the house’s history – initially glorious, then increasingly turbulent. I received immense help from Ferenc Einczinger’s relatives who were still alive at the time – Erzsébet Kovács and István Olajos – through their recollections. Since then, I have maintained good relations with the descendants of the old Esztergom families. My personal interest has also led me to literary scholars and researchers. I learnt a great deal from Tibor Nagyfalusi, Ferenc Bodri, Péter Pifkó and Árpád Szállási. I have included a few items from their book collections in the exhibition at the Babits House, and I also showcase works by contemporary literary historians for visitors to see. Lajos Sipos, János Téglás, Zoltán Kenyeres, Judit Róna, Zoltán János Papp, Ágnes Kelevéz, Ágnes Major, Attila Buda, Zoltán Szénási, Beatrix Visy, Balázs Fűzfa and the publications of the PIM are all regarded as essential works here too.
And this exciting journey is accompanied by Babits and the Danube Bend…
In every respect. We, too, are surrounded by the same atmosphere, with its immense influence, which Babits himself had noticed back then. The poet bought a house in Esztergom after visiting Visegrád, Gizellamajor and Dömös, where he was completely captivated by the spirit of the place.
Visegrád means a great deal to me. I was a small child here; I went to primary school here. I have fond memories of lovely, cosy, communal celebrations at both the Visegrád nursery and school. József Pálmai and Anna Mezei gave me a foundation that has stayed with me to this day. Whether it be my interest in folk culture or my connection to my homeland. But the physical space itself was important too, and still is to this day. My life’s journey has led me back to Visegrád, to the Gerstmayer family. The spirit of the place, the cobbled road, the proximity of the mysterious ruins, the natural beauty, the hillside covered in dogwood blossoms, the scents, the smoky atmosphere of the large, snow-covered plot – all of these were part of my childhood. Today, from my window, I see a stream and alder trees reaching for the sky; when I was eight, I saw the Fellegvár and the Danube. Back then, I wrote a simple, sweet little poem: „The landscape, the landscape. It’s beautiful.” Perhaps even today I couldn’t put it any better.
This town has witnessed so much over the past centuries…
I think the key phrase here is: to bring to life. When we deal with past events, we must also see how we can build on them. Even as a child, I was able to attend the very first „palace games”. At the time, I didn’t realise that I was being given a real, living example of what my future career would be like. In a different field, using different tools, but still: tradition is a life-giving force, and literature, too, can be brought to life! You know, just take Kosztolányi as an example, how many, many artists were enchanted by Visegrád and the Danube Bend. Áprily spent his later years here (as did General Artúr Görgey), Géza Hegedűs had a house here, and many of our great poets and writers spent time here for varying lengths of time – and I have only highlighted the twentieth century. This is not a reverie of the past, nor a flight from the present. It is something much more. I believe that anyone who spends a considerable amount of time in these parts can sense this. As Babits put it: ‘One must see, one must create…’
If you had to describe the purpose of a literary memorial house, what would you say?
Beyond being a place of remembrance, what else might the Babits House have in store for us?
Literary memorial houses can help shape national identity by nurturing, preserving and passing on literary heritage and cultural memory. These venues for remembrance also serve to showcase the life’s work of the author in question, whilst symbolising local character and its value. This is an ongoing process. Several new commemorative exhibitions are being established, and there are also examples of new memorial houses being founded. Both genres are also suitable for reinterpreting the authors. I hope that we, too, set a good example in this regard. Dezső Keresztury put it this way in relation to the Babits House: „…a memorial site and a workshop…” It is a memorial site, but at the same time it must be an institution that provides a space for various creative communities and academic research groups. We need a Babits Workshop of this kind. Depending on our museum’s capabilities, we organise literary evenings and invite actors and contemporary artists who, whilst evoking the past, also breathe life into the place and its spaces. Even in Babits’s day, serious creative work took place here; perhaps the famous wall of signatures bears the most authentic witness to this.
It has become a tradition for the ‘Babits Picnic’ to take place in August. As part of this event, we usually talk to contemporary authors about their new works, gardens, places and creativity. This is followed by a performance. The Book of Jonah has been performed on several occasions, as it was here, in this house, that Babits completed this work – in fact, his last major work. It is truly fascinating to see how Ádám Kaj and the company of the Mihály Babits Theatre bring the great figures of classical modernism to life, offering us a glimpse into the world of Kosztolányi, Móricz, Gyula Juhász and, of course, the Babits couple’s world in Esztergom. This is a marvellous event!
Of course, the house is both a memorial and a literary pilgrimage site. Throughout the year, we welcome a great many school groups, and in the summer, individual visitors. We offer traditional guided tours and educational activities, always tailored to the needs of the relevant age group.
A few years ago, I began passing on my knowledge of guiding visitors around the exhibition to volunteers, regardless of their age. I recommend specialist literature and show them every interesting detail of the exhibition. Later on, they get the chance to show visitors around the house themselves.
Over the past few months, I have developed an unconventional literature lesson on my era, which I take to secondary schools in Esztergom. I recently had the opportunity to meet interested young people in Szombathely and Gyimesfelsőlok as well. Using photographs from both the past and the present, I bring the museum to the pupils, and in doing so, I invite them to visit the mountain house in Esztergom. When I first started these outreach museum sessions, I never imagined they would be so successful and fruitful. In this year’s advanced-level Hungarian A-level exam, one of the tasks was to analyse a poem by Babits written in Esztergom. Several colleagues and school-leavers sent me messages saying they’d been able to incorporate what they’d learnt at the memorial house and during my talk into their essays. That gave me great pleasure!
How do today’s teenagers receive the works of Mihály Babits, a ‘poeta doctus’ not exactly renowned for his light-hearted tone?
They find it difficult. Babits is a scholarly poet and a philosophical writer. It’s a challenge. I consider it very important that, whilst the young people are in the memorial house, they are given literary texts. I quote and read poems to them. There is so much to see and so many interactive elements in the house that the literary texts and the surroundings together truly bring the world of the 1920s and 1930s to life. My job is easy, as the landscape and surroundings unfold before the visitors’ eyes just like a picture book. We read, and as we do so, we see what Babits saw when he wrote each of these texts.
Walking through the Babits House is like travelling back in time…
This is what the You know my house: Famous residents, places with a story to tell László Gábor, author of the recently published and successful book of the same title. His book thus includes not only a story about Babits, but also another special tale, which recounts Kosztolányi’s holiday in Visegrád. I am grateful to Péter Gróf, the chief curator, who drew my attention to scholarly sources not only regarding Babits’s experiences in the Danube Bend but also Kosztolányi’s time in Visegrád. Perhaps the general public does not realise what important events and pivotal moments in the lives of influential writers took place here, in the Danube Bend. It is a precious moment when we reread a poem in the very place where it was written. It is both an honour and a joy to work at Mihály Babits’s house in Esztergom and to be able to share this special literary experience of Esztergom with all those who visit us.
*****
The Mihály Babits Memorial House in Esztergom can be visited at 11 Babits Mihály út. The house is open to visitors from 1 April to 31 October. It is advisable to book in advance via the museum’s official channels: www.balassamuzeum.hu
Produced by Róbert Fagyas on behalf of the Visegrád and Surrounding Area Tourism and Marketing Association
2025. 06.11.
