Text by János Győri L. PhD

literary historian

The term Protestantism refers to the rich tapestry of spiritual and cultural tradition that emerged in the wake of the 16th century Reformation and has been a dominant way of thinking in our country for almost half a millennium. In his statements, György Csete never boasted of his denominational affiliations, but he did not hide the fact that although he was born into a Lutheran family in Szentes, his schooling may have brought him closer to the traditions of Calvinism. The two main strands of Protestantism he was therefore intimately acquainted with the two main branches of Protestantism.

As the child of parents from a different class, he was educated at the only Protestant school in Hungary at the time, the renowned Reformed College of Debrecen, where he graduated in 1956. During the four years he spent there, he realised that anyone who wanted to succeed in the socialist world as a class idol, no matter how talented he was, would have to show twice as much talent as his competitors. He was influenced by the practice of grassroots self-government in the historic Reformed colleges, the practice of going beyond the monotony of the classroom to the development of talent the tradition of self-education for the development of talent, and the qualities of being a minority. These Protestant values of Hungarian educational history were reinforced in the Debrecen school by the historical constraints of the 1950s. Social ostracism thus became a life-long inspiring experience for György Csete’s generation of students in Debrecen.

This study focuses primarily on the lessons of the student years in Debrecen, but how the impact of all this has been passed on in György Csete’s architecture is a subject for further in-depth professional analysis.