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Széll, Jenő (1912-1994) |
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Born in Budapest into an impoverished family of petty nobility and public officials, he studied Hungarian, French and art history at Pázmány Péter University in Budapest, where came into contact with the illegal communist party in 1931. He joined its youth organization, KIMSZ, in 1932, was arrested in the following year and sentenced to a year and a half's imprisonment for attempting to overthrow the state. On his release, he emigrated to Paris and Vienna, where he learnt textile chemistry. He took a job in Budapest in 1939 and at the Pápa Textile Mill in 1941, and became involved in the Social Democratic movement. He survived the Second World War in Budapest, joining the Hungarian Communist Party while the siege was still on, early in 1945. He soon joined the staff at the party centre and held various posts. He served as Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest in 1948-50 and was then appointed deputy head of his party's Agitation and Propaganda Department. He was instructed to found the Institute of Folk Art in 1951. In 1954, during the first premiership of Imre Nagy, Széll turned against the Rákosi leadership and became an active member of the party opposition around Nagy after the latter's dismissal. Nagy moved his office into the Parliament building during the 1956 Revolution, where Széll and József Szilágyi organized a prime ministerial secretariat. On November 1, he became government commissioner of Free Kossuth Radio, reviving, for instance, the broadcast of the midday church bells. He joined in the intellectual resistance after November 4 and was dismissed from the Institute of Folk Art after refusing to join the Kádárite Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. He worked at the National Széchényi Library from 1957 until his arrest in February 1959. He was sentenced on April 1, 1959 to five years' imprisonment, but released in July 1962, after which he worked as a translator and publisher's reader. He wrote several articles on folk art and folk music, and translated numerous books and articles before his retirement. In 1988, he became a founder of the Historical Justice Committee, and helped to organize the reburial of Imre Nagy and his associates on June 16, 1989. |
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Széll, Jenő: 'I've never been much driven by political ambition'
Career choices (Hungarian)