Péter Kuczka ( b. 1923)
Born in Székesfehérvár, Kuczka completed secondary school in 1941 and gained a qualification as a specialist teacher of commerce in 1945. He worked for various firms as a clerk and a bookkeeper in 1941-8. Kuczka' s first book of verse appeared in 1949. He held various union and communist-party posts from 1945 to 1956, including secretary of the Writers' Union for a time. He was on the staff of the Writers' Union paper, the Irodalmi Újság (Literary Gazette). When Imre Nagy was putting together his government programme of reform in the summer of 1953, Kuczka was among the writers sent to the provinces to gather material on the situation there and the consequences of the Rákosi dictatorship. Out of this came a poem, 'Nyírségi napló' (Journal of the Nyírség District), in which Kuczka paints a staggering picture of the impoverishment and exploitation of the peasantry. The poem was criticized officially for its pessimism. Nonetheless, Kuczka was awarded the Kossuth Prize in 1954. He belonged to a group of writers and friends known as the Roundheads, on the moderate wing of the communist reform opposition. In the spring of 1955, he campaigned for the foundation of a new literary periodical, but the appearance of the first issue of Életképek (Conversation Pieces) was prevented by the outbreak of the 1956 Revolution. On September 17, 1956, he was elected to the new board of the Writers' Union, along with several other members of the party and non-party opposition, in the first secret ballot held by the organization since 1948. Kuczka spoke at the Petőfi Circle debates on the press and on economic policy. On October 23, he went to Parliament, where he joined a Writers' Union deputation calling on the government to authorize the afternoon demonstration. He became a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Hungarian Intelligentsia (MÉFB) formed on October 28. Representing the MÉFB, he proposed the formation of a national committee, which took the name Nationwide National Committee a few days later. The plan was to build up a network of national committees <revolutionary councils and committees> after the pattern of those that formed after 1945. He was an initiator of the National Rescue organization, condemned by the HSWP as hostile propaganda on November 21. Kuczka also took part in the formation of the MÉFB's successor organization, the Revolutionary Council of the Hungarian Intelligentsia, on November 21. On December 30, the state Newspaper Publishing Enterprise (Hírlapkiadó Vállalat) suspended the authorization for Életképek to be published and dismissed Kuczka and several of his colleagues. Although he avoided arrest, Kuczka was never able to return to literature. In 1958, he went to work at the Picture Gallery Enterprise (Képcsarnok Vállalat), moving to the National Tourist Council in 1968. In 1976, he became an editor at the children's publishing enterprise Móra. From the early 1970s onwards, he was one of the apostles of science fantasy in Hungary.
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