“Wherever fate takes me, I still end up in my homeland,” this is the confession László Cs. Szabó made, whose family took refuge in Budapest after Transylvanian Cluj-Napoca came under Romanian control as a result of the Treaty of Trianon. Afterwards, he was to face even new stages of his exile from Hungary: from 1949 he lived in Italy and then in London. Besides surfacing in his essays on arts, history and literature as well as in his short stories and poems, his dedication to his homeland and to Hungary has always been present in his work as an editor and as a reporter for the Hungarian radio and for BBC Radio. In his farewell speech at László Cs. Szabó’s funeral in the Sárospatak-based protestant cemetery in October 1984, Hungarian writer Sándor Csoóri, referring to Cs. Szabó’s loyalty to Hungary, said the following: “[...] the exile Cs. Szabó experienced was justified by the events of Hungarian history, more precisely by the sins concluding in trumped-up criminal cases and proceedings; yet, he developed firm enough morals to compensate for this and to combat this”. The colourful stages of Cs. Szabó’s enormous lifework are surveyed by the following lecturers of the memorial symposium:  Mária Illyés, Balázs Ablonczy, Márton Falusi, Tamás Gergely Kucsera, Béla Márkus, Endre Papp, Zoltán Pásztor, Béla Petrik, Mátyás Sárközi and Miklós Sulyok.

László Cs. Szabó’s works are recited by actress Anna Kubik. In the scope of the memorial symposium, a portrait film about the writer entitled “Hungarians Forming the 20th Century” (editor in chief: István Szakály) is also screened.

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