Attila Vidnyánszky can now recast the future of the Hungarian dramatic arts

Unfortunately, due to the vast number of problems plaguing Hungary under the Orbán regime, it is inevitable that I fail to cover adequately some potentially important political developments.

Among recent issues that should have been discussed was the reorganization of some of the country’s universities. Until very recently, almost all Hungarian universities were state institutions. Sometime after the 2018 national election, however, a new concept emerged, most likely at the initiative of László Palkovics, minister of innovation and technology. In February 2019, the government announced that, beginning in July of that year, it would place Corvinus University under the newly created Maecenas Universitatis Corvini Foundation. The change was heralded as a step toward the true independence of the university. Soon enough, Palkovics revealed a plan that would expand the project to include the eventual transformation of six state universities into independent institutions financed by private foundations.

What kinds of political considerations are behind this somewhat mysterious decision? Because, let’s face it, all of Viktor Orbán’s decisions serve political purposes, even if their aims are temporarily hidden from view. Palkovics’s argument that the new structure will improve quality is absurd. As for the foundation model furthering academic independence, this is also nonsense. Ever since 2010 the Orbán government has been constantly interfering with the autonomy of the universities. On more than one occasion, for instance, the ministry of human resources overruled the decision of the university senate and appointed its own candidate to the position of rector.

I suspect that the new format is intended to cement Fidesz’s oversight of the most important universities even after the party is no longer in power. The current board members are Fidesz loyalists, and, through them, Fidesz will be able perpetuate its influence on academe for many years to come. Board member positions and academic governance will not be threatened by a change of government because both the foundations and the universities are officially politically independent. The so-called independent universities will continue to be governed by Fidesz-led foundations. It’s a brilliant, even if dirty, political move.

The reorganization of a university also comes in handy if a Fidesz favorite wants to achieve something that is out of reach under the present educational structure. That rationale prompted the government’s plan, submitted to parliament on May 26 by Zsolt Semjén, deputy prime minister, to restructure the University of Theater and Film Arts (SZFE), originally established in 1865, into a foundation-funded university. As it turned out, Attila Vidnyánszky, the director of the Budapest National Theater, has for years been vying to take over SZFE because he deeply disapproves of the kind of teaching that is taking place there.

Since gaining a foothold in SZFE proved impossible, Vidnyánszky settled for the country’s new but quite successful academy at the University of Kaposvár. Here, in 2013, he became deputy rector and, without the necessary qualifications, was appointed professor of theater arts. Soon after his arrival, he fired the staff who had earned high marks for their excellent work and unusually high-level theater performances. Although the theater and the school have received large amounts of government money since Vidnyánszky became an important player in Kaposvár, the quality of the institution is in ruins.

I have written several times about Attila Vidnyánszky, who spent his childhood and most of adult life in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. After attending the University of Uzhgorod, he taught for a couple of years in the village of Muzhoyeve/Nagymuzsaly (population 2,086), after which he was admitted to the State I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theater, Cinema and Television University in Kiev. At the age of 28, he established a Hungarian-language theater in Berehove/Beregszász, with a Hungarian population of about 12,000. In 2006 he moved to Hungary, where he became director of the Csokonai Theater in Debrecen, waiting breathlessly for the opportunity to take over the post of director of the Budapest National Theater. Fidesz’s electoral victory in 2010 made it possible for him to achieve his dream in 2012.

A group photo that says a lot. In obviously warm weather Vidnyánszky expresses his political commitment by wearing a “bocskai.”

The reason I have gone into some detail about Vidnyánszky’s background is that I believe his difficulties as the director of the Budapest National Theater stem largely from his restricted experiences during the first 40 years of his life, away from the theatrical traditions that developed in Hungary over the last 70 years. Being a member of a tiny ethnic minority was a defining experience that left an indelible mark on his views of the theater.

During his predecessor’s tenure, the National Theater’s program was international, with only a smattering of Hungarian plays, but when Vidnyánszky arrived on the scene, all of Róbert Alföldi’s productions were thrown out and an entirely new, mostly Hungarian repertoire was introduced. The sophisticated Budapest audience wasn’t thrilled. After Vidnyánszky’s takeover of the theater, fewer and fewer people were interested in its productions. Yet, despite the falloff in attendance, the National Theater continues to receive the greatest amount of government subsidies. Professional success is immaterial in Orbán’s Hungary. After serving five years at the National Theater, Vidnyánszky was reappointed for another five years. Yet, that most likely undeserved high position was not enough for him. His real goal is to transform the dramatic arts to fit the ideas he picked up during his Kiev university years together with a large dose of overwrought nationalism.

Now he is in a position to achieve that goal. As the new president of the board of SZFE’s foundation, which provides financial support to the university, he will be able to hire and fire as he sees fit. His appointment has already resulted in two professors leaving the university. SZFE’s student association (HÖK), which in other universities often sides with the establishment, protested Vidnyánszky’s appointment. Both the faculty and HÖK object to the fact that not one member of the faculty was named to the board. Instead, its members, in addition to Vidnyánszky, are two businessmen, one from a Hungarian and other from a Slovak refining company, a cameraman who is currently a member of the National Cultural Fund, and an actor who happens to be a member of Vidnyánszky’s National Theater. Not all is well at home, meaning the National Theater, either. Ildikó Bánsági, a Kossuth Prize winner and one of the ten “artists of the nation” in the theater category, quit her job. Of course, these individual acts of defiance lead nowhere, but members of the profession are fed up with the ideological pressure on them by agents of the government, like Vidnyánszky.

August 3, 2020