Figure 1.--Many boys in this 1969 depiction of a Hungarian classroom wear their blue school smocks unbuttoned.
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Figure 1.--Many boys in this 1969 depiction of a Hungarian classroom wear their blue school smocks unbuttoned. |
Hungarian boys did not wear school uniforms. Some uniform-type garments do seem to have been widely worn, both school caps and smocks. Some schools appeared to have required smocks in the 1960s. As a Communist Government was in power, this may have been a nationally mandated style, but HBC has only limited information at this time on school smocks.
HBC has very limited information on Hungarian school trends and schoolwear. Uniforms never seem to have been required. We do not, however, have information on Hungarian schools before World war II (1939-45). Major changes were made in Hungarian schools after the Communist takeover in 1945. We note that merit was not always what determined if secondary school graduates went to university under the communist regime. Children whose fathers were aristocrats or businessmen before the communist take over were labeled as a "class alien" and thus excluded from university. [Grove] Short pants were commom through the 1950s. They declined in popularity during the 1960s, but some boys still wore them. Some boys in the 1960s were wearing smocks, byt HBC is not sure how common this was.
Hungarian boys did not wear school uniforms, but some information is available on schoolwear. At least sme elementary level boys appear to have work smocks.
Hungarian boys in the early 20th century appear to have worn a kind of military-styled peaked cap. This appears to have been a style for secondary schools. I'm not sure what elementay-level boys wore.
Boys in the 1960s were wearing a wide variety of collared and casual shirts, such as "T" shirts under their school smocks.
Figure 2.--The entire class in this 1969 Hungarian film wore the same blue school smocks. HBC is not sure at this time how common this was in Hunagry. The boys are standing up respectfully as the teacher enters the room. |
A 1969 film shows Hungarian boys wearing blue front-buttoning school smocks. HBC is unsure how common this was. In the film. the smock was required as all the boys were wearing them. Hungary at the time had a Communist Government with a very centralized school system. School regulations such as weraing smocks might have been set by the central Government rather than each individual school, but few details are currently available. Given the fact that the boys tended to unbutton them after school, they do not seem to have been very popular.
Hungarian boys through the first half of the 20th century appear to have worn kneepants and short pants to school. A film set in that period shows most of the boys wearing shorts. Yonger boys wore suspender shorts, but I do not lnow how commonly they were worn to school. Older boys may have worn knickers as was common in many European countries in the inter-War period. By the 1960s long pants had become more common, but some boys still wore shorts. In the class pictured in the 1969 film almost all the boys wear long pants, mostly black pants. They do not appear to be jeans. Only a few boys wear shorts.
Most boys appear to have worn lace-up shoes, but a few boys in the 1960s also wore closed-toe standals that looked rather like English school sandals. HBC is unsure if sandals were more common in earlier years.
Boys at school wearing shortpants in the early 20th century commonly wore dark colored three-quarter length socks or kneesocks. Keen socks became more common in the inter-war period. The declining number of boys wearing shorts by the 1960s commonly wore them with kneesocks, both white and colored kneespcks. There appear to have been no school rule about the socks worn. Some boys also wore ankle socks.
Figure 3.--Note the school book bag the boy in the red short has. Another boy wears his front buttoning school smock opem. |
Boys in the 1960s often had portfolio-style bookbags. Nany boys seem to have had similar book bags. I do not think that the styles were required by the schools, but may have reflected the limited availability of comsumer products in Eastern European Communist countries.
Some of the few Hungarian movies known to HBC include many school scenes providing some information on schoolwear. HBC believes that Hungarian films with contemporary settings often had the children sear their regular clothes rather than costume them.
Hungary was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918. We know that some Hungarian boys attended military school. We do not, however, know if there were military schools actually located in Hungary and conducted in the Hungarian language or if Hungarian cadets attended Austrian schools and studied in German. At this time HBC has little information on the military and educational system of Austro-Hungary. As a result of the revolution of 1848, the Empire was made a dual monary with the Emperor holding both the Hungarian and Austrian crowns.
We are unsure, however, to what extent the reforms were really window dresing as opposed to fundamental reforms.
Intel Chairman Andrew S. Grove was born in Hungary. As a Jew he narrowly missed the NAZI roundups and shipment to the death camps in 1944. He was a young teenager at the time at looked on evading the NAZIs as a great adventure, not fully comprending what was at stake. His father had prepared the family for what was to come. After surviving the NAZIs, Grove experiences with the Communists that replaced them. He was a good student and earned excellent gades in secondary school during the 1940s. He was, however, denied access to university because the Communist authorities labeled him a "class alien". This was because his father jhad been a businessman. He writes, "It's hard to describe the feelings of an 18-year old as he grasps the nature of a social stigma directed at him." [Grove] Such actions like this, limiting the prospects of its talented youth is one of the many reasons that communist regimes reported such poor economic results. Contrast this to what Grove managed to achieve with Intel in his adopted country, America.
Grove, Andrew S. "Stigmatizing Business," The Washington Post, July 17, 2002, p.23.
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