For György Galántai

Kristine Stiles

When I think of you, György Galántai, one word comes to mind: “courageous.” Even a brief encounter with your tenacious resolve proves that Goulash Communism was correct: you were, and remain, a “dangerous element.” No wonder the state recorded, restricted, restrained, regulated, controlled, and circumscribed you throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as your intrepid resolve and sheer determination, coupled with a mischievous sense of irony and playfully wicked exuberance, would threaten any who cower before one who represents such unrestrained truth. Today, in 2021, the past is present, revived in Hungarian legislators’ effort to control not only the cultural institutions of the land but the universities, too. Certainly, the State still has its eyes on you.

Research on the alluring name Galántai first turned up the 1933 composition Galántai táncok (“The Dances of Galánta”) by the renowned Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, who composed it as a commission for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. But the word itself is derived from the Slavic, Galánta (or Golęta), a term that, at some point, referred to guardian youths, and dates to proto-Slavic speech from the 2nd millennium BCE. In English, the name Galántai brings to mind the word gallant, a term whose source is late 14th century Middle English from “galaunt,” or Middle French galant. “Gallant” in English suggests the chivalrous, high-minded and self-sacrificing behavior of a man who displays a sense of duty: all actions that I associate with your daring.

So! This elegant, proud, linguistic history is what I later learned your father brought to the family when he changed your original name in 1947 from Grünwald (of German origin) in his heroic - gallant - effort to escape the family’s forced expulsion after World War II to Germany from the small village of Bikács in Tolna county Hungary where you lived at the time. Bikács is a village that in the 18th century proudly claimed its Hungarian-German origins in the hyphenated name Bikács-Wigatsch. Despite this deep history, many families were, indeed, expelled from Hungary to East Germany in 1947-48, but the Galántais/Grünwalds were permitted to remain even as the family home and shop were “nationalized” forcing them to move to the small town of Nagydorog for some years.

Having researched the name Galántai, I acquired the information of the Grünwalds when I queried Júlia Klaniczay as to whether the Galántais were from the Slovakian town of Galánta. She added to her brief email that your “family story,” György Galántai, “is exciting (as most of Hungarian family stories are),” and that you told her “a lot of stories, but unfortunately did not write these down.” As my salute to your birthday, perhaps this short history will be enough for you to begin writing down the important history of your life.

Happy Birthday György Galántai
And
Many More!