Preserving images from 1968 and 1990
On June 17th, the UUA’s International Resources Office (IRO) hosted a reception and signing ceremony at their Boston headquarters to celebrate the donation of over six hundred historic images to the Archives of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church (TUC) in Kolozsvár (http://archives.unitarian.ro).
Here's the opening slide from the ceremony:
From the order of service:
We are gathered to
witness, celebrate and give thanks for
the gifts of images created by
Ivan Massar in 1968, and
Gary Smith in 1990
and given by them on this day
to the Transylvanian Unitarian Church
in Kolozsvár / Cluj, Romania
The Ceremony
The ceremony was hosted by the Rev. Eric Cherry, Director of the UUA’s International Resources Office (IRO), and held in the chapel at the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) headquarters at one Beacon Street in Boston.
The speakers (in order of appearance)
Rev. Eric Cherry
Rev. William F. Schulz - former President of the UUA
Linda Lu Burciaga - 1990 trip delegate, UUPCC Board
Ivan Massar - Photographer of the 1968 images
Deborah Youngman - Co-founder Unitarian Transylvanian Archives Project (UTAP),
Chair UTAP steering committee
Rodger Mattlage - Image Project Organizer, UUPCC Board
Rev. Dávid Gyerő* - Legal Counsel to the Bishop of the TUC
* see below for transcript of Dávid's speech
Additional attendees (alphabetically)
Rev. Harold Babcock - current UUA Ambassador to the TUC
Patricia Brinkman - First Parish in Concord
John Burciaga - First Religious Society in Newburyport
Cathy Cordes - Executive Director of the UUPCC
Katie Dunlop - UTAP steering committee
Rev. John Gibbons - prior UUA Ambassador to the TUC
Rev. Beth Graham, - UUA Associate VP for Stewardship and Development,
Senior Advisor to the UUA President
John Hurley - UUA Communications Director
Ivan Kristoffy - First Parish in Concord PCC
Nicole McConvery - IRO Program Associate and the event coordinator
Kay Montgomery - UUA Exec. VP
Winslow Pettingell - Chair First Parish in Concord PCC
Jim Smith - First Parish in Concord, pro bono lawyer for the agreements
Darien Smith - First Parish in Concord
Peter van Demark - UUPCC Networker, Székelykeresztúr District
- About the Images -
In 1968, the first UUA President, Dana McLean Greeley, commissioned writer/reporter China Altman and international photographer Ivan Massar to go behind the Iron Curtain into the Transylvania region of Romania. Their mission: capture in words and images what it might have been like 400 years ago when Dávid Ferenc (Francis David) founded Transylvanian Unitarianism.
Acting as tourists, Ivan and China drove a rented VW Beetle from Vienna, across Hungary, into Transylvania. To protect both themselves and those with whom they talked, they were told to maintain a “cover” of being tourists, not an official delegation, nor on any specific “mission”.
Ivan captured stunning images of life in Transylvania, many indistinguishable from scenes from 1568. A selection of his images were published in China Altman’s article “Journey to 1568” in the Summer 1968 issue of the UUA NOW magazine. http://gallery.me.com/rmattlage#100093
In 1989, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu planned to destroy over 8,000 villages, overtly to enable his industrialization program, but also to “homogenize” the population. Learning of this, UUA President William F. Schulz formed a joint US-Canadian delegation to meet with leaders in Bucharest, and then into Transylvania to support their Hungarian Unitarian brothers and sisters.
Their mission was planned for early January 1990. When Ceauşescu was over-thrown and executed in late December 1989, they decided that it was still essential to go as planned. One of the delegates, Rev. Gary Smith, photographed moving images in battle-worn Bucharest (13 days after the revolution), in Transylvanian towns and villages, and at Unitarian headquarters in Kolozsvár (Cluj).
In 1997, Rodger Mattlage learned of the 1968 article, and started a quest to find it and the photographer. Rodger and Ivan met in 2004 and worked together to preserve the images from his 458 deteriorating 35mm slides. Rodger has digitally scanned and painstakingly restored a fraction of the images. Ivan and Rodger have presented these in New England, and Rodger has presented them in Transylvania.
After seeing one of these presentations Gary Smith asked Rodger to help do the same with some of the 144 slides from 1990. Gary selected 29 of them which Rodger has scanned and put into presentations.
Ivan Massar will keep 80 of his slides, but all of them have been scanned. All of the other slides (422) from 1968 and 1990 are protected in archival sleeves and digital “contact sheets” of them made (30). 21 of Ivan’s and 29 of Gary’s slides have been individually scanned. 10 of the images have also been digitally restored.
Today, the 422 slides, plus digital copies of the 140 digital images and 30 contact sheets are being given to the Transylvanian Unitarian Church. Digital copies of all digital images and contact sheets are being given to their respective photographers.
Much works remains to be done to scan and restore the images, to identify people and places in the images, and to catalog this information and make it available. Now the mission is to fund a program to continue this important work.
* The transcript of Dávid Gyerő’s Speech
In 1988, 20 years after Ivan’s visit and 2 years before the schultzs’ visit, I was 14 years old. I decided I that I will enroll (in) seminary because I thought ministry was the best way to serve our people in our communities.
I went to bishop Erdő János, who was the vice-bishop that year, to ask for advice about how to get ready for the exam. Under the communist years there was only one or two seats for every denomination every year to enter ministry. So the exam was tough. The competition wa s very challenging. I was asking for advice.
Bishop Erdő was coming from the same village where my father was born, so I felt I trusted him, and I was asking for his advice. He gave me, among other things a book, that I forgot about for years. He told me what to study from biblical studies. He told me what subjects to dig into in Hungarian and Romanian language. And then he gave me this magazine and told me that I was to study English if I wanted to be a good Unitarian minister.
English was not available as a foreign language in the schools under communism. I was taught Russian and French. He told me that I should start urgently studying English if I wanted to be a good Unitarian minister.
He gave me this magazine to start my studying English from it. (the audience reacts with surprise as Dávid holds up the copy of the summer 1968 edition of the UUA NOW magazine that Erdő János had given him!) Of course what I did first was to take a look at the pictures. And then my parents paid for an English teacher to teach me English, right after the change in 1990. And I eventually got to the seminary in 1992 when I was 18.
I met these pictures as a teenager under years of oppression where hope was not about present but future. The mission of the church over those decades was to preserve what we had; to keep it for better days. As far as I am concerned, the pictures of both the 1968 trip and the 1990 trip are witnesses with inexpressible worth of that past.
And, thank you Rodger, and thank you Eric, and thank you all who contributed to saving these witnesses of this past, and providing us the opportunity to take them home and show our people, and use them as tools to teach about this past, and to make them available for those who did not get to live under those years.
There is a trend in Romania today, even among the churches, to examine this past, and see what the messages are from this past; see how we can face its realities; and to understand its messages. Some approaches in this examination are very judgemental. Some people are being considered Securitate agents. Some people are being called agents of the communist regime. Other people are being called victims who suffered for their beliefs and convictions.
My personal approach in this examination is that we shall appreciate this past and not judge its realities. In my interpretation and your pictures (looking at Ivan) and Gary’s pictures convince me about this. The past is not either black or white. It’s not either good or bad. And, we today are not in a position to be judgemental about realities that we did not live and we did not experience.
I am taking over these slides today as a precious and valuable witnesses of the past; proofs of the life then; tools for us to learn about this past; and to appreciate its messages.
Thank you very much for all, and thank you very much for making this available for our communities, and through it to help ius learn about our own past, and share this message with you and with the broader international community.
Thankyou. (audience applause)
For more information, please email me at rmattlage@yahoo.com
Rodger
