Erzsébet Tajti:

Shades of blue. Career overview of Miklós Kovács, academic master blue-dyer

"Believe me,

that only that is a somewhat whole person,

for whom the pen is light and the scythe not heavy."

Elek Benedek [journalist, writer, 1859-1929]

Fundamentals

Concepts

Kékfestés (blue-dyeing) is part of our national heritage. Its tradition is continued by the blue-dyers.

The word kékfestés or blue-dye, is used to depict several concepts. One is the master who dyes the fabric blue, the other is the fabric that is dyed blue, often just called a dyer. (In some regions, dyers' workshops are also called blue-dyers.)

We do not consider all blue-dyed fabrics as "kékfestő", only those dyed with a resist dying (or reserve) technique, using a resist block decorated with traditional patterns (sometimes plain), immersed in natural or synthetic indigo (indatrine) dye bath.

Academic Miklós Kovács is a master blue-dyer in the above sense.

National heritage

Our ambition to collect, preserve and promote our national treasures is multi-faceted and long-standing. At the beginning of this millennium, a new movement, backed by legislation, was launched to raise awareness of and preserve our traditional values.

The blue-dyeing activity and the life's work of Miklós Kovács were included in the Bács-Kiskun County Collections of Values in 2014, and in 2015 in the Collection of Hungarian Values, the list of outstanding national values, within this framework.

World Heritage

The Convention concerning the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity was adopted by the General Assembly of UNESCO in 2003. Hungary acceded to the Convention in 2006.

The tradition of blue-dyeing has been presented to the relevant UNESCO committee by the cultural leaders of five countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany and Slovakia. In November 2018, the international committee inscribed the nomination "Blaudruck/Modrotisk/Kékfestés/Modrotlač, resist block printing and indigo dying in Europe" on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Thus, the work of master blue-dyer Miklós Kovács and other blue-dyers, was declared part of the world heritage.

Craft and art

The history of blue-dying in Hungary

The movement of sailors and merchants, masters fleeing religion and war, and itinerant craftsmen helped mix the knowledge of people from all over the world. Blue-dyed fabrics came to Europe from India and its surroundings and spread in the 16th and 17th centuries.They were initially regarded primarily as art, as a form of church decoration in Hungary.As clothing and furnishing textiles, they were the privilege of the aristocracy and later spread to the common people.

The history of Central Europe has been different from that of Western Europe. In the countries liberated from more than 150 years of Turkish rule and threats, including Hungary, the 18th and 19th centuries saw the revival of the guild industry, which had been in decline in the West. Guilds strictly regulated the activities of their members. The right to create fabrics with a white pattern on a blue background was only clarified, after a struggle, towards the end of the 18th century. From then on, hundreds of blue-dyeing workshops, manufactories and then factories were established in Hungary.By the middle of the 19th century, there were already numerous blue dyeing factories throughout the country. In Óbuda there were two. Free competition, however, destroyed some of the smaller workshops. Others survived.

In Hungary, even in the 19th century, the peasantry was still large and, in many respects, self-sufficient, and it could still use the products of small blue-painting workshops. Craftsmen and merchants were also keen to wear the blue-dye, which played a similar role in dressing as blue jeans do today.

Thus, a branch of industry was created which retained the quality and craftsmanship of the medieval guilds and, like folk art, was traditional. Blue-dyer craftsmanship became an integral part of Hungarian culture.

Materials and patterns

Blue-dyers used to use natural indigo, a dye obtained from the leaves of some plants of the Indigofera genus (Indigofera tinctoria), which was imported from the Far East. This is used to obtain a dark shade of blue, and the fabric bleeds colour.

By the end of the 19th century, European, mainly German, chemists had produced synthetic indigo followed by an improved version, indanthrene, which allows lighter colours to be achieved, and the fabric does not bleed colour.

Blue-dyers mostly dyed natural, plant-based fabrics only. They used to dye linen fabrics too, but nowadays almost only cotton.

Like folk weavers’ and embroiderers’, their designs are traditional, but they vary slightly in space and time. The designs represent a world taste, but with variations from country to country and nation to nation. Dyers compile their set of patterns according to their own tastes and the needs of their customers.

In Tiszakécske and its surroundings, as in the Hungarian-inhabited landscapes in general, the lighter blue with medium size white patterns was favoured. There was also a demand for "blue on blue" and red patterned ones.

The patterned blocks used to be sold by itinerant patternmakers, but blue-dyeing masters could also improve them and sometimes they would make some themselves.

Workflow

Preparation

Creating a blue fabric "dotted" with white from raw linen is a lengthy process that requires a lot of knowledge and work.

First, the fabric and chemicals need to be bought in bulk if available, then transported to the workshop and stored safely. Even the purchase itself requires a great deal of expertise, because only the right raw materials can produce high-quality dyed goods.

Before weaving, weavers would size the yarn, i.e. strengthen it with a chemical liquid. Before dyeing, blue-dyers would "de-size" the raw canvas, i.e. boil it in alkaline water for hours. This is how they remove the impurities. The lye would be then thoroughly rinsed out. The dried fabric is smoothed to make it suitable for applying the patter.

Patterning or printing

The white pattern used to be and still is the novelty and ornament of the blue-dye fabric. (To a lesser extent, other colours are also used.) The creation of this is called printing or patterning.

Dyers "cook" a printing paste from chemicals and let the mixture sit for a while. As the first of the printing process, they mark the place of the pattern on the fabric. The chemical paste is applied to the patterned block (or mold), then pressed onto the fabric like a stamp. This can be done by hand or by a machine. After drying, the paste covers the place of the pattern, providing chemical protection to it with its acidity, so that it remains white during the dying process.

Sizing, dyeing, acidification, rinsing, drying

The dyeing is done in indigo or indanthrene dye baths using a cold or hot process (during sizing, alkaline chemicals render the otherwise insoluble dye soluble so that it can be absorbed by the fibre).

When using a cold dye bath, the fabric must be submerged more often and for longer periods of time. It must be allowed plenty of time to be exposed to air before submerging again. When exposed to air, the indigo dye oxidises, and the fabric turns blue. The more the fabric is submerged and aired the deeper its colour will be.

The dye vat is called a ‘kipa’ or ‘küpa’, while the tool from which the cloth is suspended and dipped into the dye is called a ‘ráf’ [frame]. In the case of the hot dye bath, it is sufficient to dip the cloth once and for a short time into the warm indigo dye. Indanthrene can used at 85°C and indigo at 60°C.

The covering paste is then washed out of the fabric in an acidic bath, and the white pattern emerges. Afterwards, the acid must also be thoroughly rinsed out of the fabric.

Finishing touches: stiffening, drying, smoothing, folding

In some regions, a lightly stiffened and smoothed blue-dye is preferred, in others an unstiffened or lightly stiffened one.

The smoothing used to be done cold, with a horse-drawn mangle machine. The weight of the stones loaded in the mangle smoothed out the cloth. Ironing was done by a calender machine. It is more efficient because it also heats the fabric.

Finally, the finished product is folded into bolts of 30 metres.

Certification

In the days of the guilds, it was the "guild inspector" who decided whether a product was a "masterpiece" or not. Later, it was the trade bodies that guaranteed quality. More recently, the quality of the artifacts made by folk artist and craftsmen are assessed by committees or 'juries'. This is also a way of protecting copyright.

Distribution

Until the end of the 1960s, the sale of blue-dye fabrics took place mainly at markets and fairs throughout the country. The craftsmen or their family members also took part in the distribution of their wares. They would set off to the market at night, and by dawn they would have a tent set up and their wares on display. They also helped their customers choose from their wares by providing sample books.

When Miklós Kovács was still a child, his mother used to go to the markets around Újkécske with the help of a coachman. His father went with them to the larger fairs, and their child was taken along to see and experience these fairs. As an adult, he used a motorbike, and later a car, to take the goods to the market. Sometimes his wife stood in for him.

Today they prefer to sell at their workshop, at folk art fairs and in their shop in Szentendre.

Secrets of the blue-dyers

While the blue-dyers fought for their right to exist, they kept the technology and formula of their dye and paste secret. After factories produced synthetic indigo and other dyes, formula books were published. Since then, a series of studies and textbooks have published the procedures. But despite appearances, the masters of the craft still had their secrets. In all this diversity, everyone has a 'best' formula, a secret ingredient that can make their products unique, even if only by a shade.

A rich life

The place of birth

Miklós Kovács, master of blue-dye, was born on 13 April 1928 in Újkécske. The Calvinist (Reformed) Ókécske and the Catholic Újkécske were united in 1950 under the name Tiszakécske. Tiszakécske is a settlement of 11 000 inhabitants situated in the centre of Hungary, in the north-eastern corner of Bács-Kiskun County, on the right bank of the Tisza. It was declared a town in 1986.

Ancestors and descendants

In Miklós Kovács’ family, the craft and the name Miklós were both passed down from generation to generation.

According to family memories, his great-grandfather lived in Kecskemét in the second half of the 1800s and had a blue-dye and cloth-dye factory, a distillery and a starch factory. Four of his sons became blue-dyers. The family is spread out from Nagyvárad (Oradea, Romania) and Újvidék (Novi Sad, Serbia), to Zombor (Sombor, Serbia) and Óbuda (Budapest).

The grandfather settled in Kiskunfélegyháza around 1900. His two sons became blue-dyers. They were apprentice dyers at the textile factory in Budapest (Óbuda) when they were young. One of them became a blue-dyer in Szentes, the other, Miklós, after his marriage, settled in Újkécske in 1927 and worked here until his death in 1975.

His son, Miklós, the academic, has lived in Újkécske, or Tiszakécske, since his birth, and his workshop is here. One of his daughters lives in Tiszakécske, the other is in Budapest and Szentendre. They have also learnt blue-dying to a high standard, and even the grandchildren.

The years of preparation (1928 - 1956)

In the 1930s and 1940s Újkécske was a large agricultural village with extensive farmland. Nearly 300 craftsmen and tradesmen lived in its centre, who were organised by the Craftsmen’ Corporation, which was both an industrial authority and an association.It hired and examined apprentices and issued trade licences. It expected its members to be altruistic members of the community. Miklós Kovács's father was vice-president of the Újkécske Craftsmen’ Corporation.

Families of craftsmen and merchants mostly educated their children in middle schools or grammar schools and made them learn a trade. Although a Calvinist (Reformed) himself, Miklós Kovács attended the Catholic elementary school in Újkécske, where he became a scout and later a scout leader.He completed grades 1-4 of grammar school at the grammar school of the Reformed church in Nagykőrös and Kecskemét, then went on to Szolnok to attend a vocational school for metalworkers, where he acquired his knowledge of mechanical engineering. He then became an apprentice blue-dyer at his father's workshop in Újkécske and an apprentice textile merchant at his mother's fabric shop. He was released as a blue-dyeing assistant in 1947 and as a textile merchant's assistant in 1948.

After the compulsory military service, he worked in Újkécske and Kiskunfélegyháza in the metal industry, then in Óbuda, in the stronghold of the textile industry, in the cotton manufacturing factory (the former Spitzer Gerzson factory) he became a maintenance worker.In 1956 he returned to his father's workshop with versatile knowledge.

1956

In the days following the outbreak of the 1956 revolution, people across the country held rallies to call for change. In many places, including Tiszakécske, the communist authorities suppressed this with a volley of shots.

Miklós Kovács also took part in the rally in Tiszakécske on 27 October 1956, but he was not injured in the shooting. His anti-communist convictions were strengthened though.

The father's workshop

Miklós Kovács frequented Kiskunfélegyháza for a while to use the mangle machine after his father moved to Újkécske. After his grandfather's death, in the early 1930s, he bought the family's horse-drawn mangler, which he set up in the yard of his workshop and home in Sugár Street in Újkécske. (The tool was traditionally called a mangler or mangling machine; the action was called mangling.) His family had a horse, which drove the mangler and took the goods to markets and fairs. Of course, they had to look after the horse too.

Indanthrene hot dyeing spread across Hungary in the early 1930s. With the help of his friends, Ferenc Sztaricskay from Békéscsaba and Gyula Gál from Monor, the father learned this technique, but for a long time he preferred indigo cold dyeing. He could do it with less equipment and even alone or with little help.

In his workshop they only applied patterns manually until the late 1940s. In 1947, he bought a Perrotine machine made in 1896 from the fellow blue-dyer Gyula Kardos from Szigetvár, who had got the equipment from the Felmayer factory. The Perrotine lifts the flat pattern wood up and down in stages, thus pressing the covering mass to the fabric. It's much more productive than hand-coating.

Father and son (1956 - 1975)

Miklós Kovács often helped with dyeing at his parents’ house until 1956. In the early 1950s he bought a motorcycle. He tried to work Saturdays [Saturday used to be a workday in Hungary from 1945 until 1981] during the week, and if he could, he hurried home to the workshop. In 1956, he joined his father’s workshop as an assistant blue-dyer. In 1962, he passed his master's examination. His father ran the workshop until his death.

In 1959, they bought a smoothing machine, a three-cylinder calender built in the early 1900s, which had also belonged to István Felmayer and his sons' blue-dyeing factory in Székesfehérvár originally. It was bought from them by the master blue-dyer Ferenc Montskó, and later by the Kovács family from his son.

The Kovács family had new washing and dye vats made from the wooden parts of their old mangle machine and increasingly used hot dyeing. In the 1960s, the wooden dye vats were replaced by acid-resistant metal ones. In 1959, they bought a car with a trailer, which made it easier to buy and sell. They sold from Vác to Csépa, from Gödöllő to Kunszentmárton.

Miklós Kovács got married in 1960. His wife, Margit Szabó is a pharmacist, who became a good companion for her husband in blue-dyeing. Their daughters were born in 1961 and 1962.

Miklós Kovács is good with metals and electricity. He also built an electric textile stiffening machine.

In 1966, the family started building a new house on their present site at 9 Kőrösi Street. The young couple moved in in 1967, their parents in 1969. The workshop was built in 1970-72. It has two concrete dye vats sunk into the ground with a grid for cold dyeing and a spacious area for hot dyeing, washing, drying and the ever-increasing number of machines.

The age of professional fulfilment (1975-1990 and onwards)

The post-1945 kulak [wealthy peasant] persecution and the 1959-60 nationwide, violent and general forced collectivization fundamentally changed the life of villages, including Tiszakécske. Young people fled to the factory industry. The development of big industry also pushed back small industry. The two main groups of customers for the blue-dyers, the peasantry and the small industry, also became more vulnerable. This process was almost complete by the 1970s and 1980s, except for a few smaller regions.

Some of the older women of the village, his old clientele, bought the blue-dye for as a dress even. The younger generation bought it to wear it as an apron, but in a smaller number. However, the narrow section of the intelligentsia who were conscious of preserving traditions began to buy. With the development of tourism, foreigners visiting our country were also looking for the blue-dye, so the Kovács family started to make small souvenirs: calendars, small scarves, dolls. The blue-dye was also popular with restaurants, which sought a Hungarian, folkloric image, and to this day they still buy their tablecloths and curtains from him. For decades, Miklós Kovács has been supplying goods to nearby Lajosmizse, Bugac and Ópusztaszer, but he also has customers from the western border.

By the 1960s, folk music and folk dancing had been pushed out of the natural life of villagers in most Hungarian villages and onto the stage (As a counter-effect, the dance house movement (Táncház) was brought to life in the big cities). Folk dance groups, folk choirs and zither ensembles often used blue-dye fabric to make up for the missing folk costumes when they appeared on stage. This was also the case in Tiszakécske.

Cultural centres throughout the country organised exhibitions, where the blue-dye fabric was transformed from a beautiful everyday object into an artifact to be observed, i.e. its artistic character was once again brought to the fore. It became a folk-art handicraft, and a jury decided which works were worthy of this status.

Miklós Kovács also started having his products juried. In the 1970s, a handicraft piece classified in category A or B and bearing a jury number was considered a good quality folk art. After three years of continuous jurying and a varying amount of category A and B numbers per craft, the creator could apply for the title of Folk Applied Artis, which Miklós Kovács won in 1976, his wife in 1982, their daughter Gabriella in 1984 and Mária in 1989. (This qualification is now called Folk Object-making Applied Artist.) Miklós Kovács was awarded the State Award for Excellence in Folk Art in 1985 by the Minister of Culture.

The master brought more hot-dyed, lighter-coloured goods to the market, and ready-made, dyed tablecloths and curtains. His daughters also made clothes. This was already in demand by the customers.

In 1982, the predecessor of the Dabube–Tisza Interfluve Folk Applied Arts Association was founded in Kecskemét by Dr. Pál Bánszky. Miklós Kovács was also a founding member and delegate to the national board of the predecessor of the Association for Hungarian Folk Art Societies (NESZ). Pál Bánszky was also the president of the national association. Miklós Kovács and Pál Bánszky were good friends and helped each other to organise exhibitions and craft camps.

In the 1990s, the Skanzen Hungarian Open Air Musem (in Szentendre) invited Miklós Kovács as an expert for the relocation of the closed blue-dye workshop in Nagykőrös to the Skanzen.

Since 1987, NESZ has been organising the Festival of Falk Arts in honour of our national holiday, 20^th of August, at Buda Royal Palace. The Kovács family has participated in this event from the very beginning, as exhibitors, vendors and sometimes as organisers. In 1995 Miklós Kovács was awarded the Master of the Year (in other words: Master of the Festival of Folk Arts).

Around 1989-90, the Hungarian economy and society underwent another major regime change. Even the textile industry, which had previously seemed strong, collapsed and the machines were sold. During the liquidation, Miklós Kovács, through his contacts, managed to buy four "cabinets" of a washing machine from the former Goldberger factory in Óbuda and fit them into his own production line.

The workshop was extended in the early 1990s with a dryer and a folding machine of similar origin.

A second Perrotin machine was also added to the workshop, which was used for a while by his daughter, Mária. The fleet of sawing machines was also renewed and expanded. Currently, five sewing machines are used to support dyeing. Some of them are over a hundred years old.

This is how the small factory was created, which operates in a similar way to a factory 100-130 years ago. Its machines produce but servicing them requires hard physical labour. However, it does allow the master to check the quality of the work after each phase.

Miklós Kovács is characterised by extraordinary vitality and capacity for action. He has the strength and time for everything. He has exhibited in numerous places. He has honoured his invitations by never turning down any of them. He has exhibited his products in the smallest village as well as in the most exclusive places. This is still the case today.

For decades, his workshop has been visited by many people: groups of children and adults, people from Tiszakécske and from far away. In 2002, he hosted the Department of Industrial History and Heritage Preservation of the Hungarian Society of Textile Technology and Science (TMTE) in his workshop. Together with his family, they regularly take part in meetings organised by other blue-dyers, such as the National Festival of Blue-dyers in Nagynyárád.

Public activity (1989-2006)

Even during the years of socialism, the family of a blue-dyer lived a more independent life than most people. They worked in their own workshops, which gave them a certain level of independence. Although Miklós Kovács's father was the local president of National Association of Small-scale Artisans, KIOSZ [Kisiparosok Országos Szövetsége], the successor to the Craftmen’s Corporation, they had little impact on public affairs. Miklós Kovács was an elder of the Reformed Church for a few years in the late 1970s, but the church was also sidelined.

In 1989, this also changed. Miklós Kovács became a member of the council, then vice-president of the social council until autumn 1990. He was then a very active member of the local council for 16 years from the 1990 local elections.

From 1991 he became a founding member of the Foundation for Hungarian–Polish Friendship, the Tiszakécske Heritage Circle Association, from 1992 the Tiszakécske Memorial Foundation, president of the local branch of the Independent Smallholders’ Party and the Tiszaalpár Wine District Council, member of the Tiszakécske Farmers’ Association and the Óbög Farmers’ Association.

He continued blue-dying with family members and helpers. The machine-equipped crafts workshop was in its heyday.

Rich harvest (2006 -)

Miklós Kovács was awarded the Tiszakécske City Art Award in 2000 and the Folk Art Award of Bács-Kiskun County in 2001. He received most of his awards after the age of 78: in 2009 the Tiszakécske City Service Award, the Kodály Zoltán Award for Public Culture of the Pro Renovanda Cultura Hungariae Foundation, in 2011: the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, in 2012: Honorary Citizenship of Tiszakécske, in 2014-15: the County and National Values Award, in 2016: Non-Academic Public Body Membership of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, 2018-19: inclusion on the World Heritage List, 2019: Kossuth Prize, 2020-21: Artist of the Nation Award, 2023: Full Membership of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.

The awards and distinctions honour Miklós Kovács for his public activities, his preservation of tradition and the artistic and community-building character of his high-quality work as a blue-dyer. Two awards are particularly forward-looking. The UNESCO award refers to encouraging the continuation of good practice, while the MMA's certificate "by virtue of its academic obligation" binds the honoured to the service of the future.

Summary

Miklós Kovács, an academic, carries in his person the knowledge of centuries of textile dyers, especially blue-dyers, which is versatile and integrated. He knows the types of fabrics, their properties, dyeability and wearability. He has a knowledge of physics, mechanics, mechanical engineering, electricity, chemicals and chemical processes. His profession covers the whole process of blue-dyeing. He can apply the manual process of dyeing in a dye vat with cold indigo dye, but he is also good with machines. He can organise work and manage a community. He knows the sales potential and the secret of the customer's soul, because he can enjoy his products himself.

His workshop and small factory are a historical industrial curiosity, but

its value is enhanced by the fact that it is operational and even functioning. The machines developed by big industry over the last hundred years are more productive and, because they are automated, easier to work with. But because of many economic and social coefficients, poor mass-produced goods swamp the market. Small craft workshops, on the other hand, can produce a wide range of products in small batches with their large stock of print samples. Their products are not entirely unique, but they give the customer a sense of uniqueness and their quality is guaranteed. This is also the case in the Tiszakécske workshop. Miklós Kovács is the guardian of a vast knowledge that bears beauty.

Cultural values are inherited differently from wealth. The are only inherited by those who love them, learn them and live with them.

The great question of the present is whether and for how long there will be a successor in Miklós Kovács' family (or outside it) who will make blue-dyeing their profession and learn it, and whether there will be a buyer, at least a narrow but certain group of people who will demand this beautiful fabric. For the moment, the signs are encouraging.

Although blue-dyeing is a craft that requires both hard physical work and demanding mental activity, it is mainly an art of creating beauty. And beauty, a divine quality, leaves an indelible mark on the immortal soul.

[2024]

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