Today, the magazine Mozgó Világ (Moving World) is often only a cautiously observed intellectual phenomenon of the past system and the past century, a footnote in cultural history, but also a source of the young thinking of today’s 60s and 70s. It takes its name from the title of a 1965 poem by Gyula Illyés.
What started out as the designated organ of the young generation became increasingly irritating for the cultural policy of the era, which had set itself up as a special interest group. “We have no paper for such a magazine,” was the final verdict of János Kádár in 1983, and the editor-in-chief of Mozgó Világ (Moving World) was suspended. The entire editorial staff responded to the dismissal by resigning, the paper’s readers by collecting signatures, and the authors by boycotting the publication.
In September 1983, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Ferenc Kulin, was dismissed, which led to the resignation of the entire editorial staff, and an unprecedented protest action, which was at the same time a solidarity action in support of the magazine. The Bibó issue, which was deemed to be “essentially counter-revolutionary”, could no longer be published in December 1983, but in order to maintain the semblance of continuity – without the knowledge and without the participation of the editorial staff – a new editor-in-chief and editorial office were appointed.
But that was the “new” Mozgó. The exhibition at the Ferenczy Museum in Szentendre presents the “old” Mozgó Világ (Moving World).
The exhibition is a kind of tableau of the major initiatives presented in the magazine in the fields of visual arts, music, film, literature and sociology. The innovative, visually strong content of the magazine is reflected in the presentation of reproduced art objects and photographs, the diversity of the columns is reflected in the evocation of published writings and authors, and the interviews conducted for the exhibition also provide a subjective memory of micro-history, exploiting the authenticity of eyewitnesses and evoking the intellectual milieu of the time.
The extraordinary popularity of the magazine was also felt in person at the Mozgó Világ clubs, evenings and travelling presentations of the period. The chronology of names, dates and years is a giant collage of the history of the ‘old’ Mozgó Világ (Moving World).