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Edvard Kocbek je bil rojen 27. septembra 1904 v Svetem Juriju ob Ščavnici, vasici blizu Maribora, pokrajina Štajerska v Republiki Sloveniji. Bil je slovenski pesnik, esejist, pisatelj in prevajalec, ki se je kot krščanski socialist med drugo svetovno vojno priključil Osvobodilni fronti in slovenskim partizanom, ki so jih vodili komunisti. Gimnazijsko izobrazbo je pridobil v Mariboru, potem pa je dve leti preživel v semenišču, kjer je študiral teologijo. Po zapustitvi semenišča je vpisal študij francoskega jezika in književnosti na ljubljanski univerzi. V času študija je obiskoval tudi univerzo Humboldt v Berlinu, kjer je poslušal predavanja nemškega teologa in filozofa Romana Guardinija. Po končanem študiju, v 30. letih, je nekaj časa bival v Franciji, kjer je prijateljeval z Emanuelom Mounierom in krožkom, zbranim okoli revije L' Esprit. Leta 1936 se je vrnil v Slovenijo in začel poučevati kot profesor francoskega jezika.

Celoten čas študija se je skladno s svojim političnim habitusom imel za člana krščanske levice in se je leta 1937 opredelil za republikansko stran ter pisal zoper podpori slovenskih katolikov generalu Francu. Njegovo dejanje je vneslo določeno politično zdraho v slovensko katoliško gibanje, zaradi česar je njegova stališča o španski državljanski vojni obsodil tudi sam ljubljanski škof Gregorij Rožman. Pred drugo svetovno vojno Kocbek, čeprav kot krščanski socialist po profilaciji sicer obsoja komunizem, s komunisti le navezuje stik. To se še zlasti kaže v času vojne, ko s komunisti sodeluje v okviru Osvobodilne fronte. Po vojni sodeluje tudi pri mnogih vladah v novem komunističnem režimu v Sloveniji in v Jugoslaviji, vendar brez občutnejšega vpliva oz. kakršne koli dejanske moči v le-teh. V prvi vladi Tito − Šubašić je bil celo imenovan na pozicijo ministra za Slovenijo.

V konflikt z režimom je prišel že leta 1951, po objavi zbirke kratkih novel z naslovom Strah in pogum, v kateri se je kritično izražal o moralnem vedenju slovenskih in jugoslovanskih partizanov v času vojne. Zaradi tega je bil deležen izolacije ter nadzora tajne službe UDBE, ob tem pa mu je bilo prepovedano tudi javno nastopanje in pisanje. Od tedaj se je preživljal predvsem s prevajanjem del iz francoske in nemške književnosti. V časih, ko mu je bil nasilno prepovedan dostop do javnega življenja, je posebno pozornost posvečal pisanju poezije. Njegova poezija mu je dala osebno zadoščenje, saj je požel tudi visoke ocene kritikov, ker so jo ocenili kot največji doseg slovenske modernistične poezije. Čeprav v tem času ni bil aretiran, so ga s strani tajne policije večkrat zasliševali in tudi ozvočili njegovo stanovanje z mikrofoni za prisluškovanje. Nekaj let pred njegovo smrtjo sta leta 1975 slovenska pisatelja Boris Pahor in Alojz Rebula objavila Kocbekov intervju v tržaški reviji Zaliv, z naslovom Edvard Kocbek  − pričevalec našega časa. Za komunistične oblasti je bila v tem intervjuju še posebej sporna Kocbekova obsodba povojnih pobojev 12.000 slovenskih domobrancev s strani partizanov, kar je bila dejansko prva javna omemba teh dogodkov po koncu vojne. Ob tem je Kocbek v tem pričevanju poudaril tudi to, da je že od samega začetka vojne čutil kontinuirani teror komunistov zoper nekomunistične skupine v sklopu Osvobodilne fronte. Sledila je ostra kampanja režimskih medijev zoper Kocbeka, vendar na koncu le ni prišlo do njegovega sodnega pregona, in sicer predvsem zaradi mednarodnega pritiska, saj je Kocbek v tujini užival velik ugled kot pesnik in pisatelj. 

Kaczmarek was an initiator of the Poznan Anarchist Library. For several years he collected items, organised the archive and acted as a librarian. An electrician by profession, he made a living working in Poznan’s housing associations, while voluntarily co-running the library in Rozbrat. While co-creating the library, Kaczmarek started library studies, which enables him to create a professional archive documentanig the anarchist movement – gathered in folders and organised in catalogues by subject and time.   

Simultaneously, Kaczmarek was involved in publishing in the Anarchistyczna Oficyna Wydawnicza Nabat (a publishing house). After two years (1997-1999) Nabat ceased to function and its texts were taken over by another publishing house: Oficyna Wydawnicza Bractwa Trojka. Some books and brochures Kaczmarek published also as a Pubslihing House of Poznan Anarchist Library. Within this initiative he edited the „Bulletin of Poznan Anarchist Library”, to which he also contributed as a main author. After the “Bulletin” had been changed into the “Anarchistic Review” in 2007, Kaczmarek entered its editing board; he also wrote numerous articles on the anarchist movement. He continued the publishing activity within Bractwo Trojka where he elaborated several issues. With time, Kaczmarek withdrew from being an active member of the anarchist movement – both for ideological and personal reasons; since a few years he has not engaged in the library’s and publishing house’s activities.

Mikhail [Moisei] Naumovich Kalik (b. 29 January 1927, Arkhangel’sk, Russia – d. 31 March 2017, Jerusalem, Israel) was a Soviet director and screenwriter of Jewish background, based in Moscow and Chișinău, where he worked at the Moldova Film-Studio. In 1949, Kalik enrolled in Grigorii Aleksandrov’s directing workshop at the Soviet State Film School VGIK. Two years later, he and four fellow students were arrested and accused of of “Jewish bourgeois nationalism” and of “planning anti-Soviet terrorist acts.” Kalik was sentenced to ten years of hard labour according to article 58-17 of the Penal Code of the RSFSR (production and dissemination of counter-revolutionary literature). He was sent to a GULAG concentration camp in the Far North. Rehabilitated in 1954 and readmitted as a third-year student to the VGIK, Kalik was able to continue his studies with Sergei Iutkevich, graduating in 1958. Kalik’s debut was Ataman Kodr (The Forest Outlaw Chieftain, 1958), co-directed with Boris Rytsarev after Ol’ga Ulitskaia had abandoned the project), produced by Moldova-Film Studio. A fast-paced, action-filled historical adventure, it romanticises Moldavian Robin-Hood-like outlaws. At the Moscow Gor’kii Studio for Children’s and Youth Films, Kalik then co-directed Iunost’ nashikh ottsov (The Youth of Our Fathers, 1959, with Rytsarev), a Civil War drama adapted from Aleksandr Fadeev’s pro-Bolshevik novel Razgrom (The Rout, 1927). With the independently directed Kolybel’naia (Lullaby, 1960) Kalik found his own theme and style, focusing on children whose innate goodness and openness to the world defines the film’s ethical perspective. Consisting of several novellas, Lullaby tells the story of a girl who is orphaned in World War II yet ultimately finds her father. Kalik’s best-known film is Chelovek idet za solntsem / Omul merge după soare (Man Follows the Sun, 1961), from a screenplay by Valeriu Gajiu, about a six-year-old boy who in one single day experiences numerous facets of life, from friendliness and help to heartlessness and rejection. “Sandu discovers a world full of natural light, towards which people gravitate as naturally as sunflowers turn their heads to follow the sun” (Josephine Woll). However, one brief erotic episode caused the indignation of Nikita Khrushchev and led to administrative measures against Kalik. At Mosfilm Studio, he directed Do svidaniia, mal’chiki! (Good-bye, Boys!, 1964), a poetic story of three friends in a port town during the 1930s; the film benefits particularly from Levan Paatashvili’s magnificent black-and-white imagery. Liubit’ (To Love, 1968), made at Moldova-Film, consists of four shorts adapted from stories by different writers, exploring the nature of affection and mixing fictional and documentary scenes. The film was censored, released in a limited number of copies, withdrawn from distribution in the summer of 1969, and restored by the director in 1990. Tsena (The Price, 1969, TV, first broadcast in 1989), adapted from an Arthur Miller play about two alienated brothers, was Kalik’s last Soviet film. He emigrated in 1971, after which his name was eliminated from all Soviet publications. In Israel, Kalik made one feature film, Shlosha V’achat (Three and One, 1974), and worked as a teacher. In 1991, Kalik came back to Russia for a short period and directed I vozvrashchaetsia veter… (And the Wind Returns…), a meditation about his turbulent life and artistic accomplishments, including fictionalised episodes and scenes from his earlier films. He died in Jerusalem in March 2017. 

Milena Kalinovská is an art theoretician and former director of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery in Prague (2015-2018). She emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1970, then she studied in the United Kingdom and in Canada. Until 2015, she worked in the United States as a director of collections and curator.

Zoltán Kallós (Răscruci, Cluj county, 26 March 1926 - 14 February 2018) was a Hungarian ethnographer from Romania, a folk music collector, who was also a honorary member of the Hungarian Cultural Society in Transylvania, a member of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society, and a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Kallós completed his four years of elementary school in his native village of Răscruci and went on to study at the Reformed Gymnasium of Cluj. He continued his secondary-school studies in Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy and Cluj, and earned a diploma as a primary-school teacher in 1946. He hailed from a well-to-do family. In 1933 his parents bought the hunting lodge in Răscruci previously owned by the Bánffy counts. In 1950, however, this was confiscated by the communist authorities, along with the five-hectare family property, under the pretext that Kallós’s father, listed as a kulak, had sown more than the amount stipulated in the sowing plan. He was punished with six months of prison and seizure of all assets. The case had an impact on Kallós’s career as well. Between 1946 and 1950 he worked as a primary-school teacher in Viștea, Cluj county before being admitted to the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca. His social background led to his disqualification for the first time as a second-year student. On that occasion he was able to re-enroll thanks to the intervention of Ilona Nyilas, deputy from Vișteain the Grand National Assembly. However, in the fourth academic year, in 1954 he was disqualified again due to his social background and was never able to complete his academic studies.

He carried out his military service in Moldavia, and the experience gained there motivated him to extend his folklore collecting activity from the ethnically mixed (Hungarians, Romanians, and Roma) area of the Transylvanian Plain to the Moldavian Csángós as well. Between 1954 and 1956 he worked as a primary-school teacher in Lespezi, Bacău county. Then, as the school in Lespezi was closed down as a consequence of the changes in the party’s policy on minorities subsequent to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, he moved to Târgu Mureș, where, for a brief period, he worked as a “teacher of folk literature” at the Heritage House. In 1957 he chose the Csángó Land of Ghimeș as his field of research and until 1959 he worked as a teacher in the village of Lunca de Sus, which belonged then to the Hungarian Autonomous Region.

His collecting efforts attracted the attention of the authorities. The closer surveillance he was subjected to is also explained by the fact that he primarily worked and published together with specialists from Hungary, exposing his collecting of Hungarian ethnographic materials to the charge of nationalism. However, the secret police chose to handle Kallós’ case as a common-law offence. In 1959 and again in 1967 the People’s Tribunal of Miercurea Ciuc sentenced him to one year three months and two years respectively of correctional imprisonment (ACNSAS P051484, 2–46). Between the two trials, from 1960 to 1966 he continued his collection work as an employee at the timber company in Lunca de Sus. After he had served his second sentence, in 1968 he moved to Cluj-Napoca and in 1970 he published, in the proper professional environment his Balladák Könyve (Book of ballads), a volume that caused a sensation and earned him professional recognition. In 1973, with the cooperation of Attila T. Szabó and János Jagamas, another volume entitled Balladák könyve: Élő erdélyi és moldvai magyar népballadák (Book of ballads: Living Hungarian folk ballads from Transylvania and Moldavia) was published in Budapest and soon became a great editorial success.

Professional acknowledgment brought him once again into the centre of attention. In 1974 the Cluj-Napoca law court sentenced Kallós to two and a half years of deprivation of liberty on charges of committing a common-law offence. His arrest alarmed the Hungarian intellectual elite in Cluj-Napoca, the members of which – especially the poet Sándor Kányádi and the writer Andor Bajor – interpreted the trial aimed at discrediting the ethnographer as an act directed against them and, implicitly, the entire Hungarian community in Romania. The trials of 14 September to 28 September 1974 were attended by several personalities – apart from Kányádi and Bajor, the writers Tibor Bálint, GyörgyBeke, IstvánSzilágyi, and others were present – as a sign of protest against Kallós’ prosecution. They also voiced their intention to protest against the court sentence both at the Cluj-Napoca branch of the Writers’ Society and at other public forums. At the open sessions of the group trial involving ten persons – with Corneliu Brudașcu, a Cluj-Napoca-based painter also among the defendants – Kallós withdrew all of his previous declarations given under physical and moral coercion. His case was presented in detail in the Western press of the time and on Radio Free Europe (ACNSAS I203447/5, 390–395v, 397–398).

In retrospect, at a distance of forty years, Kallós could no longer remember whether he had served his prison sentences or not. All he could recall were his arrests and the fact that he had experienced life in penitentiaries all across Romania. In this regard he mentions the prisons of Poarta Albă, Codlea, and Aiud. He was released from the last of these thanks to a presidential pardon granted on the intervention of the Hungarian government. His account of these occurrences has not been supported so far by archival data. If true, his pardon granted on the intervention of neighbouring Hungary would constitute an unparalleled case in the history of Romanian–Hungarian bilateral relations during the communist regime. Communist regimes both in Hungary and in Romania looked at ethnographers with suspicion and labelled them as narodniks and nationalists. They were not allowed to select their own topics: the subject-matter was assigned to them. The government exercised pressure on them in an attempt to ensure that the discussed subjects served no other purpose than the consolidation and legitimation of the system. Under the dictatorship, Kallós, as a freelancer, did not benefit from financial support for his research. Nevertheless, his collection activity was closely monitored. This claim is supported by the informative surveillance file on Kallós, comprising two volumes and covering his activity up to the late 1960s (ACNSAS, I375159/1-2). There were occasions when he was subjected to criminal proceedings after purchasing an object, in an unsuccessful effort to prove him guilty of fraud and trafficking. His data providers, folk singers, were continuously harassed. As of the late 1950s, provocations, house searches, street tailings, and observations through agents were a daily phenomenon, and by the time of the change of regime in 1989 Kallós was the victim of continuous pressure from the authorities and the secret police.

In Kallós’ view, the main purpose of the Romanian Communist regime regarding minorities was to suppress, as much as possible, their national character and to eradicate the Hungarian sense of identity. Prior to 1989,Kallós consistently did enough work for several people. He carried out an activity aimed at preserving material and spiritual values which it would be impossible to accomplish nowadays as his data suppliers have passed away in the meantime. “I look around me; everyone in my surroundings has died. I’m left alone in the desert like a solitary tree.” – So Kallós confessed in an interview dated 21 September 2017 in Răscruci. Kallós’s name can be linked to the most extensive folk music collection ever carried out among the Hungarian-speaking communities. Records of selected pieces from the collection were primarily published after the change of regime and Kallós himself edited and published a series of audio materials based on his old recordings. As a singer he published two records himself (1997: Búsulni sohasem tudtam… (Sorrow was never my companion…), 1998: Idegen földre ne siess… (Don’t hurry to a foreign land…). He was the special consultant behind ethnographic documentaries and, as a singer, performed at folk music festivals. In addition to this, as one of the founders of Transylvanian and Hungarian dance-house movements he continued to organise folk-music and folk-dance camps. His influence as an educator is of great significance, considering that for many years he successfully motivated hundreds of young people to become familiar with and love Hungarian folk art. His professional advice and guidance paved the way for many generations, and were of much help in shaping the careers of musicians, dancers, and ethnographers.

Kallós’ most important accomplishment following the change of regime was the establishment of the Zoltán Kallós Foundation. Having in view the preservation and continuity of traditions, he donated all his assets to the Foundation. In 1992 the family property and the manor were returned to him after having been used for forty years by the local agricultural cooperative. Initially he offered the manor to the Reformed Church District of Transylvania, but, as Bishop Kálmán Csiha planned to use it as an old people’s home, he changed his mind, arguing that young people were more endangered than the older generation. Among the first activities of the newly established Foundation was the organisation of various camps. It was within the framework of the Foundation, in 1998, that Kallós’s private collection was officially put on display for the first time. In 1999 the Foundation launched its diaspora education programme, an activity derived from diaspora camps. Kallós’s colleagues visited Hungarian families in about twenty settlements in the Transylvanian Plain only to discover that education in their mother tongue was not accessible in any of those villages. Consequently, they founded a Hungarian kindergarten and a primary school with the possibility of boarding. After a twenty-five year interruption of primary education, the programme was launched with four children, and by 2017, 140 children attended the institution. With the introduction of education for members of the Hungarian community who lived scattered throughout Transylvania, the Foundation’s activity, so far restricted to two summer months, became permanent.

In recognition of his work both before and after 1989, its founder was continuously honoured by the Hungarian government with prestigious prizes and awards. Among other distinctions, Kallós received the Kossuth Prize (1996), the Hungarian Heritage Award (2000), the Hungarian Corvin Chain (2001), the Kölcsey Memorial Plaque (2003), and the Hazám Award (2006). In 2014 he was presented with the Artist of the Nation Award, and in 2017 he also received the Kossuth Grand Prize (ZoltánKallós Foundation 2017). On 5 April 2017 the European Committee and Europa Nostra announced the list of winners of the 2017 EU Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Award, which counts as the most prestigious distinction in the European Union in terms of safeguarding cultural heritage. Zoltán Kallós was presented with the award in the category “Dedicated Service to Heritage.” As a result of the subsequent online voting Kallós received the Public Choice Award as well. At the time of his death in 2018, he was listed among the most decorated Hungarian personalities (Europa Nostra 2017).