Rozália Kóka’s interests are directed primarily towards the history, fate, and folk culture of the Bukovina Székelys and the Moldavian and Gyimes Csángós. Her activity extends across several fields: she works as a performing artist of song and spoken word, an ethnographic collector, a cultural organiser, a journalist, and a writer. Her many-branched oeuvre incorporates the diverse experiences and impressions of her life and her collecting journeys (“My memories gradually moved into my writings”). What are these formative experiences? Bukovina Székely origins; flight – homelessness – dispossession; a minority existence lived among Swabians and Hungarians; rebellion against an imposed fate (“I would most gladly have cast off my Székely identity like a shirt”); the gradual awakening to the values of her immediate and wider communities, and finally the urge to reveal these values and pass them on.
An important factor in the shaping of her life was her search for, and discovery of, those mentors from whom she was able to acquire the necessary knowledge about the silenced, denied, and distorted history of the Bukovina Székelys and the Moldavian Csángós, even in times condemned to enforced silence. Among those she regards as such are Bertalan Andrásfalvy, Imre Várkonyi, Pál Péter Domokos, Péter Morvay, and Vilmos Diószegi, all of whom she repeatedly commemorates in her writings.
The Collector
She acquired the methodological foundations of ethnographic fieldwork in the ethnography study circle of the Kaposvár Teacher Training College. There she learned how to collect and record ethnographic texts and, under the guidance of her teacher Imre Várkonyi, took part in the collection of the geographical names of Somogy County. During the first holiday period she was assigned the task of collecting folk songs, folktales, and legends in her own local environment, in Felsőnána. She submitted her material, together with the work of several fellow students from the study circle, to the Imre Várkonyi National Ethnographic Competition, where they were awarded second prize. The award ceremony took place in Budapest, where they became acquainted with the capital, visited the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography, and established contacts with leading ethnographic scholars.
In 1969, at the invitation of Jenő Barabás, she travelled ‘incognito’ to Moldavia as an amateur ethnographic collector in order to gather data on the Moldavian Csángó Hungarians in Arini (Magyarfalu), Lespezi (Lészped), and Săbăoani (Szabófalva) for the Hungarian Ethnographic Atlas. She was prepared for the journey by the renowned Csángó researcher Pál Péter Domokos, who, alongside historical and geographical guidance, also provided her with the necessary ethnographic literature. Before setting out on this major expedition – on the advice of Pál Péter Domokos – she first visited the resettled Csángós of Baranya, collecting songs, ballads, and narratives from them; she likewise recalls this journey as one of her important early collecting experiences. (It was at this time that she first met outstanding personalities among folk performers, such as Simon Ferenc Józsefné of Lespezi and her sister Jakab Istvánné; numerous elements and details of Rozália Kóka’s later performances derive from them.)
Her first journey to Moldavia furnished her with a body of experience of decisive importance. The task entrusted to her was politically sensitive, and she worked in secrecy. She took notes, photographed, and painstakingly gathered answers to the questionnaires’ innumerable, finely detailed points. She spent weeks in each village, gained close familiarity with local conditions, came into contact with many people, and formed friendships that would last a lifetime. Thereafter she returned to Moldavia and Gyimes every year, accumulating an ever-expanding corpus of material and experience.
In 1973 she set out to collect the traditional custom, texts, and songs of the Hadikfalva (Dornești) shepherds’ Christmas ritual known as csobánolás, a practice banned in the 1950s and subsequently fallen into oblivion. From the material gathered through prolonged effort and persistent fieldwork, by 1976 emerged the Hadikfalva Nativity play, one of the most distinctive and highly successful productions of Rozália Kóka and the Bukovina Székely tradition bearers, which has since become part of the Hungarian Intangible Cultural Heritage.
In 1978, for violating the ‘accommodation regulations’, Rozália Kóka was taken in by the Romanian police, while her impoverished host in Lespezi was subjected to a disproportionately heavy fine. The Hungarian authorities likewise began to show heightened interest in her activities. She was placed under surveillance, interrogated, and repeatedly confronted with the same questions: why did she travel so frequently to Transylvania and Moldavia, and with whom was she in contact? These threatening incidents took a severe toll on her and undoubtedly contributed to the serious illness she suffered in 1979, from which she recovered fully only after several years.
Everywhere she carried out fieldwork where Bukovina Székelys had once lived: at the sites of earlier settlements in Transylvania, such as Hunedoara (Vajdahunyad), Deva (Déva), and Cristur (Csernakeresztúr); in the settlements of the Lower Danube Székelys, including Vojlovica (Hertelendyfalva), Skorenovac (Székelykeve), and Ivanovo (Sándoregyháza); and in Canada, where she sought out the descendants of those who had emigrated in the early twentieth century.
The body of material she collected is vast, and a substantial part of it still awaits processing.
The Performer
In 1973, at the Szóljatok, játszók, regölők (lit. Sing Out, Players and Chanters) competition, Rozália Kóka achieved an outstanding result with the script of her monodrama Csíki Véró élete (The Life of Véró Csíki): from among several hundred entrants she was awarded first prize at national level. When she presented her prize-winning piece, it also became evident that she possessed a natural talent for the stage. From 1976 onwards she has worked as a professional performing artist, creating and presenting solo evenings of her own, which she compiles herself from Bukovina Székely, Moldavian and Gyimes Csángó, as well as Transylvanian folktales, legends, songs, and life stories, drawing largely on her own field collections. Approximately half of her performances are intended for children – she attaches particular importance to the genre of the folktale.
Rozália Kóka creates an intimate bond with her audience. As the ethnographer Ildikó Kríza notes, she performs each piece as if the events were unfolding in the present, and as if they had happened to her personally or within her immediate surroundings. She edits her texts herself (often drawing on several different sources), shaping and rounding out the narratives, omitting from, adding to, and supplementing the originally spoken sentences. The re-created texts ultimately achieve such authenticity that they sound indistinguishable from genuine folk speech.
The defining features of her performing style are a clearly structured delivery, a measured and easily followable tempo, and precise articulation. She predominantly employs Székely or Csángó dialectal speech, yet her use of vernacular turns of phrase never comes at the expense of intelligibility. Like traditional folk performers, she makes no use of theatrical devices: she does not ‘play’ individual characters, does not gesture, and avoids extreme dynamic contrasts. The atmosphere and distinctive flavour of her performances arise instead from characteristic intonation, patterns of phrasing, and the expressive richness of her pronunciation – those ‘musical’ qualities that have largely disappeared from contemporary big-city spoken language.
Since 1973, the number of performances she has given is beyond calculation. As a performing artist, she has appeared throughout Hungarian-inhabited regions of Transylvania, Upper Hungary (Slovakia), Transcarpathia, Vojvodina, and Burgenland, as well as in the United States, Canada, Finland, and Estonia.
Works in Print
In 1979, Rozália Kóka worked as a cultural organiser at the Érd Cultural Centre, where she curated an exhibition of works by members of the Lőrincz family: the wood carvings of Imre Lőrincz, the enamel works of his son Vitus, and the woven textiles of his daughter-in-law Vilma. It was at this time that it emerged that Imre Lőrincz had left behind a biographical manuscript. Rozália Kóka read the text, supplemented it where necessary with tape-recorded conversations, and typed the entire material. The first section of the 1,200-page typescript, covering the period up to 1945, was published in 1987 by Magvető Kiadó (Magvető Publishing House), edited for publication by her and accompanied by her foreword and glossaries. This was the first book in whose publication she was directly involved. (The Lőrincz family continues to appear in her later books: from Imre Lőrincz’s mother, Lőrincz Antalné, Zoltán Kodály collected material during his visit to Bukovina in 1914. The well-known photograph of their meeting in 1952, on the occasion of Kodály’s seventieth birthday, appears on the cover of Magyarország szélin… [lit. On the Edge of Hungary…]. Vilma Lőrincz, who collected, preserved, and published the complete repertoire of woven textile patterns of the Bukovina Székelys, is one of the protagonists of the second series of Napsugárkisasszonyok [lit. Sunbeam Maidens].)
The majority of Rozália Kóka’s further fifteen books and audio publications are based on material drawn from her own fieldwork. Her first book published under her own authorship, Egy asszon két vétkecskéje (1989; lit. One Woman’s Two Little Sins), also available on audio cassette, has proved to be one of her most popular works and has reached its fifth edition. A kind of companion volume to this book is Egy asszon, két asszon (2011; lit. One Woman, Two Women), in which she selected further folk love stories, humorous tales, legends, and life histories from her Bukovina and Moldavian collections. In an interview given on the occasion of the book’s publication, she explains her method of presenting texts: she does not publish a verbatim transcription of the material recorded on tape at the time of collection, but an edited version; her aim is not to offer ethnographic raw material, but a literary reworking. It should be added that this editorial approach does not diminish the ethnographic credibility of Rozália Kóka’s books; it merely means that they are to be regarded not as source editions, but as interpretative adaptations.
The sole exception to this body of work is the volume Bételjesítem Isten akaratját… (2006; lit. I Will Fulfil God’s Will…). Rozália Kóka began in 1969 and concluded in 2004 a seven-part series of recorded conversations with the ‘holy maiden’ Ilona Jánó of Lespezi, during which she questioned her in depth and received detailed accounts of her religious experiences, visions of the afterlife, and the holy figures who appeared to her. These tape-recorded conversations are published in chronological order and in verbatim transcription by L’Harmattan, in the Fontes Ethnologiae Hungaricae series of the Department of Ethnography – Cultural Anthropology of the University of Pécs. The volume also includes several additional conversations related to the subject, a description of the circumstances of the fieldwork, and scholarly studies by Ferenc Pozsony and Éva Pócs.
Even in her early years as a primary school teacher, she told many stories to her pupils, though her closer engagement with children’s literature came only later. She wrote for children’s periodicals, including Kisdobos (lit. Little Pioneer), the official magazine of the Young Pioneer movement in socialist Hungary, and edited children’s columns in Heti Hírhozó (lit. Weekly Messenger) and folkMAGazin (lit. folkMAGazine). As she herself has noted, it was through her work as a journalist that she learned how to write for children with clarity, using short and precise sentences. Almost half of her publications are storybooks. She published her first collection of tales in 2002, Katyika és Matyika (lit. Katyika and Matyika). In A mesemondó gyerekek könyve (2009; lit. The Book of Storytelling Children), she brought together forty short tales of simple structure, written in standard language and intended for young readers.
She is one of the editors of folkMAGazin, where most of her writings were first published. In its children’s column Egyszer volt, hogy is volt (lit. Once There Was – and So It Was), she presents folktales; in other regular columns she publishes portraits of women’s lives (A történelem sodrában – lit. In the Current of History), life-history interviews (Elhivatottak a végeken – lit. The Committed at the Peripheries), love stories (Régiek szerelme – lit. Loves of the Past), humorous tales and short narratives (Keserédes derű – lit. Bittersweet Cheer), as well as writings related to the history of the Bukovina community and recollections of her collecting journeys (Míg egy gyufaszál lángja ellobban… – lit. While the Flame of a Matchstick Burns Out…). Her thematic scope has gradually expanded: in her more recent writings, the protagonists are no longer exclusively Bukovina Székelys or Csángós. In the two volumes of Napsugárkisasszonyok (2010; 2013), she portrays women’s life courses from all strata of society, set against the major historical turning points of twentieth-century Hungarian history. In the folkMAGazin column Elhivatottak a végeken, she explores the outer edges of the Hungarian language area in order to give voice to outstanding representatives of Hungarian culture.
She is also a member of the editorial board of Csángó Tükör (lit. Csángó Mirror), where her Csángó-related materials are published primarily.
The Cultural Organiser
In 1971, from fifteen to twenty Székely women, Rozália Kóka founded the Érdi Bukovinai Székely Népdalkör (lit. Érd Bukovina Székely Folk Song Circle) and, as its group leader, directed it for forty-two years. In the early period she went from house to house in Érd, urging the women to take out the garments they had put away or discarded and come to sing together. The success of the initiative was aided both by the fact that at the time Érd had no public cultural institution other than the library, and by the contemporaneous television broadcast of Röpülj páva (lit. Fly, Peacock), the national folk-song competition. The ensemble was officially founded on 1 December 1971. In shaping the initial repertoire, Rozália Kóka was assisted by Júlia Marosi, György Martin, and Ádám Sebestyén. Their first public performance took place in March 1972 and marked a milestone in Rozália Kóka’s life, from which she also dates the beginning of her own career as a performer.
Over the four decades, several generations succeeded one another within the folk song circle. Membership was not contingent upon Bukovina origin, yet the guiding principle and purpose remained constant throughout: to draw sustenance from the Bukovina Székely folk tradition and to strive to make this rich body of songs and tales part of the shared cultural heritage.
In 1991, on the fiftieth anniversary of the resettlement, they organised the first World Meeting of the Bukovina Székelys in Érd. (To their great joy, Prime Minister József Antall appeared at the event unexpectedly.) Since then, the World Meeting has become a tradition, hosted every one or two years by one of the settlements inhabited by Bukovina Székelys.
As the leader of the ensemble, Rozália Kóka has proved inexhaustible in her community-building initiatives. Together with the folk song circle, she made repeated journeys to Bukovina. In each of the five villages they cleared and restored a section of the overgrown cemeteries and erected carved wooden memorial posts (kopjafa) in remembrance of those who had once lived there. In Szeklerland, they visited the villages from which their ancestors had fled in 1764. They also travelled to meet Bukovina Székely communities living in Southern Transylvania and in the Lower Danube region. They organised encounters with writers who had written about them or originated from among them, including Gábor Albert, Tibor Csupor, and Menyhért Tamás. They established and maintained close ties with other ensembles as well, such as the women’s choir operating in Lednica (Lédec), in the Zobor Hills, regularly visiting one another. Over the decades, the ensemble gave more than one thousand performances.
The sustained success of the Hadikfalva Székely Nativity play since 1976 must also be noted. Over the course of this success, a folk custom once consigned to oblivion was recorded on cassette and vinyl, captured on film, broadcast on television, performed in the Hungarian Parliament, and most recently inscribed on the list of the Hungarian Intangible Cultural Heritage.
As a cultural organiser, Rozália Kóka played a significant role in the folk-music revival movement devoted to the transmission of the most valuable traditions of folk art. Her work encompassed the organisation and operation of pávakörök (lit. peacock circles), the development of their evaluation and certification system, and the continuing professional training of ensemble leaders.
Between 1992 and 2000, Rozália Kóka worked as a senior folk music specialist at the Magyar Művelődési Intézet (Hungarian Cultural Institute). In this capacity, she surveyed Hungarian folk-music ensembles across the entire Carpathian Basin and monitored their activities. In order to strengthen cohesion among these groups, in 1995 she founded the Vass Lajos Folk Music Association, of which she remains the founding and perpetual honorary secretary. She identified as the greatest challenge the inadequate professional training of ensemble leaders. To address this, she organised four-day and one-week residential courses under the title Népdalkörvezetők Országos Továbbképző Tanfolyama (lit. National Advanced Training Course for Folk Song Circle Leaders), most frequently held in Szigliget. These courses provided participants with the necessary practical and theoretical knowledge; Rozália Kóka placed particular emphasis on ensuring that ensemble leaders received instruction from the most outstanding specialists. Among the lecturers were figures such as Zsuzsanna Erdélyi, Imre Olsvai, Gábor Barna, Bálint Sárosi, Ernő Barsi, Anikó Bodor from Senta (Zenta), and István Almási from Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár).
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If we take an overall view of Rozália Kóka’s work and its outcomes, her many and varied activities ultimately cohere into an organic whole. The individual strands interweave like plaits in a braid. The material for her performance evenings and storytelling programmes has largely been collected by herself; she then processed this material, shaped it – adapting it for the stage – and refined it further through the process of live performance, subsequently recording it on audio media and finally casting it into written form. In this way, she has created a distinctive and personal mode and style of performance of her own.
The driving force behind her lifelong, tireless activity may be a quest for self-knowledge and a devoted love for her people; she possesses both the talent and the artistic sensibility required to bring the various dramatic, lyrical, and epic genres of folk tradition to the stage, and she shows a particular sensitivity to human lives and destinies.
To date, Rozália Kóka has published sixteen books and fourteen audio releases on cassette, vinyl, and CD, several of them in multiple editions and in large print runs. In recent years, stage productions based on her books and stories have also been created, for example at the Janus University Theatre (the theatre workshop of the University of Pécs), in Berehove (Beregszász), and in the town of Heves. Her activity remains undiminished: she continues to record life-history interviews, regularly publishes her tales and writings, a new book of hers is forthcoming, Hungarian Radio has most recently recorded twenty-five of her tales, and she tours the country with the Virággyöngy Moldavian Csángó Chamber Ensemble and with her solo programmes.
[2016]