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I only really attended university for a year because I got married and became pregnant. The marriage came about when I was fifteen and a classmate of mine met a boy at a dance school and we bumped into each other at the swimming pool. At the dancing school,84 boys were properly taught how to approach girls. I was fifteen years old, Sanyi Virág seventeen, but he greeted me with respect and we were on formal terms with each other. For at least three weeks. It was love at first sight. He played water polo for Vasas.
We had been going out for a year when he graduated and became a medical doctor. He approached me in mid-September saying he had been offered a Soviet scholarship. He asked if I would wait for him. Because by then we had already decided to get married. I said sure. But my answer was motivated in part by a young communist activist's sense of honor. As soon as he decided to go to the Soviet Union, he was moved to a college called Oleg Kosevoy.85 He lived there for three months and studied Russian. They went out in December and started the first semester at the beginning of the second semester. They were told that the real good comrades would come home as soon as possible to build socialism, so whoever agreed could stay there for the summer, finish the second semester and continue with the sophomores in the fall. He took the opportunity, so he came home for the first time in almost twenty months. I had already graduated in the meantime. When he first came home, he was a bit of a stranger, but I didn't think much of it at the time. Of course, we corresponded during the twenty months, but a letter took at least two weeks to arrive, so if one of us asked a question, the answer came in a month. He was home for a month, then he went back and we continued to correspond. He came home again at the end of the third year, by which time I had completed my first year. I was supposed to go abroad on a scholarship as well, but then I wasn't allowed. They said that the current state of class struggle did not allow intellectuals to go to the Soviet Union.
When he was home for the second time, he suddenly asked me, what reason is there not to get married right away? Really, why not, I asked with innocent eyes. Though I had no room, my bed was the old sofa bed, which kept collapsing. My income was as low as my wages from having three private pupils. The mother of one of them could not pay, but she was a seamstress and made clothes from my outgrown rags, sometimes two old rags into one dress. That was our quality of life. We got married. His parents were very happy, my mother was happy. My mother had wanted to be a doctor, and then she wanted me to be a doctor, and I didn't want to hear about it, so now there would be a doctor in the family after all. And she loved Sanyi. She did have some concerns about whether it was a bit premature. We didn't want the baby right away; it was an accident. I went through the pregnancy alone; he was in Leningrad, no money. My mother and I rented out a room in the flat because we couldn't afford the overhead costs. And the staff room was occupied for a long time, until 1956, by a couple who had moved in at some point to clean. My mother used to say that if you had a decent flat, you shouldn't give it up, because it would come in handy one day. Besides, she was terribly attached to her furniture.
We had been going out for a year when he graduated and became a medical doctor. He approached me in mid-September saying he had been offered a Soviet scholarship. He asked if I would wait for him. Because by then we had already decided to get married. I said sure. But my answer was motivated in part by a young communist activist's sense of honor. As soon as he decided to go to the Soviet Union, he was moved to a college called Oleg Kosevoy.85 He lived there for three months and studied Russian. They went out in December and started the first semester at the beginning of the second semester. They were told that the real good comrades would come home as soon as possible to build socialism, so whoever agreed could stay there for the summer, finish the second semester and continue with the sophomores in the fall. He took the opportunity, so he came home for the first time in almost twenty months. I had already graduated in the meantime. When he first came home, he was a bit of a stranger, but I didn't think much of it at the time. Of course, we corresponded during the twenty months, but a letter took at least two weeks to arrive, so if one of us asked a question, the answer came in a month. He was home for a month, then he went back and we continued to correspond. He came home again at the end of the third year, by which time I had completed my first year. I was supposed to go abroad on a scholarship as well, but then I wasn't allowed. They said that the current state of class struggle did not allow intellectuals to go to the Soviet Union.
When he was home for the second time, he suddenly asked me, what reason is there not to get married right away? Really, why not, I asked with innocent eyes. Though I had no room, my bed was the old sofa bed, which kept collapsing. My income was as low as my wages from having three private pupils. The mother of one of them could not pay, but she was a seamstress and made clothes from my outgrown rags, sometimes two old rags into one dress. That was our quality of life. We got married. His parents were very happy, my mother was happy. My mother had wanted to be a doctor, and then she wanted me to be a doctor, and I didn't want to hear about it, so now there would be a doctor in the family after all. And she loved Sanyi. She did have some concerns about whether it was a bit premature. We didn't want the baby right away; it was an accident. I went through the pregnancy alone; he was in Leningrad, no money. My mother and I rented out a room in the flat because we couldn't afford the overhead costs. And the staff room was occupied for a long time, until 1956, by a couple who had moved in at some point to clean. My mother used to say that if you had a decent flat, you shouldn't give it up, because it would come in handy one day. Besides, she was terribly attached to her furniture.
Period
Location
Hungary
Interview
Vera Szekeres-Varsa