Just one block from the busy main road of the Múzeum Bld. a space for nature, culture, recreation and playing

The oldest public garden in the inner city of Budapest. A tiny, French-style green park hidden among the tenement blocks like a box of jewels – a peaceful beauty spot for the harrassed city dweller. The noise of the traffic is cancelled out by the laughter of children. Typically there are two kinds of people among the park’s regulars: the students of neighbouring schools playing under the watchful eyes of their teachers or parents and university students from the humanities and law faculty campuses nearby, nibbling at their sandwiches and basking in the sun between two lectures.

A small café placed its tables and chairs right by one of the corners of the garden, attracting passers-by for a little chit-chat.

The garden was declared a public park and landscaped in 1932. It belonged to the Károlyi Palace, hereby its name. The Károly family had come by this territory in 1768 and they remained its owners up till 1932.

The garden is home to the statue of Dániel Irányi, of the 1848 revolution, made by sculptor Ede Kallós. The Károlyi palace is home to the Petőfi Literary Museum, with open-air theatre performances held in its courtyard on summer evenings.

Dániel Irányi (1822 – 1892) was a very active player in the 1848 uprising, as member of various opposition circles and citizens’ committees, MP and government commissioner. In 1886 he was among the founding members of the Association for Noble Morals. He was an undeterred supporter of the freedom of religion and the introduction of secular marriage.

“Liberty and love/These two I must have.”
_{– Sándor Petőfi}

Questions: Where can you find peace?
What are the everyday activities or places, which give you the sense of peace?

Recreation spots: the garden itself!, the café on the corner, Pet?fi Literary Museum, the cafés in Egyetem Square.

Well known & unknown people. An institution of decision making from the distant past, diplomats and posh political gatherings for the cause of world peace.
People from the more recent past: the persecuted and those trying to save them.

House of Representatives – Old Parliament (1866-1902) (now housing the Italian Institute)

The Interparliamentary Union held its assembly here in September 1896. European parliaments, including that of Hungary, delegated 433 representatives. The assembly was opened on 22 September by Kálmán Széll. The Assembly immediately followed the 7th International Peace Congress, which was held at the New City Hall of Budapest. The former assembly was made up of the representatives of national governments, while the latter was a forum for those committed to peace, including the representatives of peace organisations, where they could share their thoughts and initiated cooperation projects.

“Is it possible to love our homeland without hating our neighbours?”
_{– Ferenc Kemény}

Giorgio Perlasca (1910 – 1992)

In the 1920s he was a supporter of Fascism and fought in the Spanish civil war on Franco’s side as a volunteer. However, later events led to his estrangement from Fascist ideology. From October 1942 he worked in Budapest. Following the German occupation he actively participated in the work of those members of the diplomatic corpse who saved people from persecution, working with Raoul Wallenberg, Carl Lutz and Ángel Sanz-Briz. He helped Hungarian Jews obtain Spanish citizenship and documents of protection and also set up protected houses and watched over their inhabitants. Later, posing as a diplomat, he wrote and signed protection documents and got people out of the Jewish houses set up by the Arrow Cross Party. In 1988 in Padova he received the Medal of the Righteous from the State of Israel and in 1989 he was awarded the XXX of the Republic of Hungary from the Hungarian state.

Question: What do you think about the relationship between politics and peace activism?

Recreation spots: the café of the Italian Institute, the cafés along Múzeum Boulevard, National Museum, the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences.

Sports diplomacy and education for peace

There are two memorial plaques on the Physical Education building of the Faculty of Law of Péter Pázmány Catholic University, which was once home to the National Gymnastics Association. One tells the story of the building and the other commemorates the ‘Committee Preparing the Olympic Games’.

The National Gymnastics Association was founded in 1863 by Elek Matolay, Dr Ábris Szontágh and Dr Tivadar Bakody. The association used Hungarian as its official language. Its functioning was crowned in 1870, when its new Gymnastics Hall was completed (built from donations), which made it possible to institutionalise the training of gym teachers. More than 800 teachers were trained under professional supervision within a few years.

It is the third oldest still functioning NGO in Hungary, created in 1895. It was the sixth national Olympic committe (created after the French, Greek, American, German and Australian ones). When the International Olympic Committee was created (23, June, 1894), it had a Hungarian member in the person of Ferenc Kemény, who was also appointed secretary of the Hungarian Olympic Committee. HOC was created in the building of the National Gymnastic Association.

“Be the leaders of your students on the way to find the true and the good.”
_{– Ferenc Kemény}

Ferenc Kemény (1860-1944), educator, sports diplomat and the greatest figure of the Hungarian civic peace movement in the 19th century. He was a real ’eminence gris’, a leading figure of the peace movement and peace education in Hungary as well as abroad. He made initiatives for and organised peace conferences and peace organisations. A close friend of Baron Coubertin, he worked with him on the realisation of the Olympic ideal in modern times. He was a member of the then created national and international Olympic committees. He led the Hungarian delegation at the first Olympic games and was one of the five members of the team that decided in disputed issues during the games. His work written in 1906 entitled ‘World Academy – a potential solution for the problem of peace; The philosophy of war’ earned him a Nobel Prize nomination. After the extreme right Arrow Cross movement’s takeover in Hungary in 1944, Ferenc Kemény, 84 years old at the time is assumed to have committed suicide – rather than going to live in the ghetto.

Questions: How in your opinion is it worthwhile to educate for peace?
What does the idea of peace education mean to you?

Recreation spot: the cafés of Mikszáth Kálmán square

Past and present: press/freedom, civic activism, meeting point

An atmospheric square situated in the Palace District of Budapest, especially popular with young people. It was named after Kálmán Mikszáth in 1911. From springtime to autumn the square is filled with the tables and chairs of open air cafés and restaurants, just as attractive as the multicultural shops of neighbouring Krúdy Gyula Street.

This is where Tilos az Á Club was situated and functioned from 1989 to 1995. It was the liberal underground meeting point of the period of the regime change created by Vladimir ‘Vova’ Németh, who by doing so, put Mikszáth Kálmán Square on the map of universal 20th century culture and provided the first legal public space for the young people of Hungary preparing for political change. This is where they celebrated (with Frank Zappa) the Red Army’s quitting the country, this is where Tilos Rádió started its functioning as a pirate station and where Jean-Michel Verret, invited by Péter Halász, painted a New York cityscape on the back wall of the ground floor room using slide projectors. Numerous now-renowned performers started their career here, including Kispál és a Borz, Korai Öröm, DJ Palotai, Quimby, Soma, Tereskova, TÁP Theatre, Vilmos Vajdai and Győző Szabó. All this, of course, was upsetting for the mainstream residents of the neighbourhood, the club was subject to attacks and police raids and was finally forced to close down in 1995. Yet the performers who started their careers here and we, the citizens of Hungary are made richer by the fact that there was a place and there was a person who dared think freely in this place.

The location today is home to a bar called Caffe Zappa, and the New York cityscape can still be seen on the wall.

“Thoughts are cheeky , they refuse to be told ‘Go away'”
_{– K. Mikszáth}

Mikszáth Kálmán (1847-1910) was likewise a free thinker; his statue adorns the square today (sculptor A. Kocsis, 1960).

Mikszáth was a lawyer, writer and member of parliament. In 1896 he got elected president of the Association of Budapest Journalists, the main aim of which was to protect the freedom of the press and create a legal environment that helps the work of journalists. He was among the founders of Országos Hírlap (National Journal) and published his impressions as MP under the title Sketches from Parliament. He was an acute observer of public life and the social anomalies of his time. His rich writer’s oeuvre includes brilliant portraits of his contemporaries and humorous sketches of society. His reports were written with the aim of supporting democracy and the transparency of public life.

Question: Where in your opinion can we find the free thinking public personages of our time?

Recreation spots: the cafés and restaurants of the square.

One NGO, 500 documentaries, 300 square meters. DocuArt works to raise awareness of cultural and social diversity and support the acceptance of these values as well as the peaceful coexistence of social groups.

A Neorenaissance building built by the plans of Miklós Ybl, originally a horse cart depot and winter residence to barons and counts – and some of today’s residents claim that the cellar was once used as a political prison in Franz Joseph’s era – but now it serves the purposes of a cinematography centre on 300 square meters.

It is here that Palantír Film Visual Anthropology Foundation set up DocuArt as a non-profit service, the First Hungarian Documentary Film Collection and Cinema. The founders wish to make accessible to the general public the greater part of the documentary, experimental and short films created in Hungary. By doing so, DocuArt performs a unique cultural mission.

“Since 1998 we have collected here almost 500 films.”
_{– Zoltán Füredi, founder}

It is a hub for film makers, their audience and students in film-related fields where they can all feel at home. Here, they can not only watch films but also make them and voice their opinion about them! And it’s open to all!

DocuArt’s guidelines:

1. Viewers have a right to see the films created using their tax.
2. All Hungarian films must get an opportunity to find their way to the audience.
3. Documentaries must be distributed using the same channels and tried and true methods of distribution as fiction films.
4. The ‘place’ of the documentary is not exclusively on the program of television.

DocuArt cooperates with other NGOs that also work in the field of interculturality and inclusion.