Dear Gyuszi, our Antecessor,
While I write this, we are preparing for a grand show to welcome the new year here in Pest, and according to the strict rules of Szekler burial, I haven’t the slightest chance to attend your final journey.
It was a disheartening blow to all of us, the first Transylvanian generation of the Táncház, to hear of your passing. We rail and wrestle within ourselves, asking why it had to be this way. Saying had you only moved here, then maybe; had you only given up the stressful life you led, then maybe; had you considered your service done, and rested, then maybe. But “then God said: pish-posh”. And we stood stunned at the news of your passing; we are trying to see where we went wrong; why now, of all times; why, of all people, You; why, why.
Yours was a miraculous destiny. You were among us at the dawn of the Táncház movement; you had also been touched by the culture of the village, then still in its last bloom; you’d taken it into your heart and never let it go. You struggled alongside us so it would never-ever end, to make it live on and continue to bloom, even when this resolve was being battered by winds of the global West or, at times, the Securitate. From then on, each of your steps had been taken within the magic circle of this culture, wherever fate or the Socialist placement system, the “make do” situation in Romania, might have thrown you. You stood your ground in Bacău, at the Securitate, but in Târgu Secuiesc and Sfântu Gheorghe as well, where you found fulfilment, and now, it is finished.
Would that you could still share with those gathered here to grieve you all the experiences you’d accumulated from this forsworn culture, and in your modest way, helped pass on to oh so many people! The festivals at Sfântu Gheorghe, the excellent performances with Háromszék! Behind each stood your nurturing, beneficent will, which had made the Háromszék Dance Ensemble into possibly an ensemble of the highest standard, at least for me, and established Sfântu Gheorghe as a bastion of the continuation of traditional peasant culture.
To me, the loss is still unfathomable. While I attempt to span the many hundreds of kilometres separating us, it is also evident to me that, in acquiescence of God’s will, we must now let you go.
Continue, then, on your allotted path, my dear Friend! I wish for you to lay eyes on God’s merciful visage! Te Deum will ring out here in Budapest on Friday, according to my wishes, for You as well.
Kelemen László