M8 The European School

Manifesto (1945)

The European School (Európai Iskola) was one of the most utopian enterprises to emerge on the continent during the immediate post-war era. It was the brainchild of the Hungarian Dadaist brothers Árpád Mezei (1902–98) and Imre Pán (1904–72), who founded this movement of theorists, writers and artists in Budapest in 1945 as a response to growing concerns that Europe would remain permanently divided into West and East in the aftermath of the Second World War. For the next three years the European School organized exhibitions, published pamphlets and staged lectures that promoted its expansive vision of a continent united through a common art and culture.

Perhaps the idea’s most urgent expression is the brief manifesto printed on the back of the books and pamphlets published by the Library of the European School. It is an optimistic and earnest call to ‘create a vital European art’. Although the manifesto promoted no particular artistic style, the group’s output came to be dominated by Surrealism and Abstraction – two styles that best encapsulated the contradictions of the post-war era.

After the communist takeover of Hungary in 1948, and the ensuing decree that henceforth Soviet-style Socialist Realism was the only valid form of art, the European School’s activities went underground. Eventually, in 1957, Imre Pán left Hungary for Paris, where he established a lively artistic scene consisting of fellow Hungarian émigrés and members of the Parisian avant-garde. His brother Árpád Mezei moved to the United States in 1975 and wrote extensively about Surrealism.

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Europe and the old European ideal have been destroyed.

The idea of Europe has, until now, entailed Western Europe. From now on we have to reckon with the concept of a Whole Europe. This new Europe can emerge only as the synthesis of East and West.

Everyone has to decide, in 1945 A.D. if s/he is entitled to be considered a European.

We have to create a living European school that will redefine the relations between life, the individual, and society.

This task delineates the activities of the first European School. Our talks, exhibitions and publications serve this goal.

We seek the philosopher’s stone knowing that it is not a chemical substance but a living idea that comes to life only through the efforts of the individual and the society.